Metal Flake Remix - The Shocking True Story.

Well. As I write this it's late Monday night. It's been a pretty mellow day - slept in late, couldn't really get focused on anything, though I did still get a lot done. Yesterday was a hangover day, though more in the spiritual/mental sense than the physical sense.

But Saturday? Ah, Saturday. That was a fine, fine day.

As you obviously know from previous posts, Saturday was the night of my latest show, Metal Flake Remix. We had a great turnout, and I met lots of new people, which is definitely one of the best perks of being an artist. And I sold lots of art, drank some delicious bourbon, and created six new paintings:

After the show, I sat up with a handful of close friends all night talking (okay, and occasionally drinking). By Sunday afternoon it felt like the day after the prom - I was tired and burned out, but very happy. And it felt like I'd taken a huge step in my life.

I definitely want to try live art again. What an amazing experience - I was nervous as hell about trying it, but once I got started I couldn't have stopped if I tried. The music, the momentum, the amazing people watching, all combined to give me one hell of a kick in the ass. I know I have a lot to learn about this, of course - how to draw the audience in more, how to control the pace a little better, how not to blaze through all the work in just 20 minutes. But I'll get there, with practice.

Some of my favourite moments - Kelly winning the painting we drew for, finally meeting some longtime Twitter friends face-to-face, putting the big blue handprint everywhere, tequila shots, having friends from the bad old days in Charlottetown on hand...

Plans are already afoot for upcoming shows, too. The Dino Show is tentatively scheduled for September, and I wouldn't mind incorporating some live art into that as well. Closing Time is still a going concern, too (I'd really like to take my time and think that one through, though). And then there's For a Dancer - those six paintings could conceivably be finished by early August. Not sure yet what will happen there, but it'd be nice to have a one-night mini-exhibit in a restaurant.

I certainly don't want to oversaturate the market, so to speak. Fortunately my agent/marketing manager is passing on a ton of great advice in that regard, and in others as well.

So without further ado, some people I really need to thank: my family, John Watson and Imagemaker Photographic Studio, Kate MacDonald, Alex Stewart, Cosca Restaurant, the Après-midi Teahouse, Bailey Hunter, Lindsay Bayne, Derek Bolen and Karm from VanCity Buzz, Abbey Jackson, Kelle Belle, Dale Deruiter, Karina Halle and Team EiT, Corinna and Adam Carlson, Lola Frost, Lori Kittelberg, George Smeltzer, Samantha K, Matty Sadorf, Ned Tobin, Jonny Warkentin, Scott Graham, Oddball Workshop, Annie Friesen and Dottie's Buttons, Jamie Lee Purgavie, Nicola Proctor, Cynthia Griffiths, John Lee, Ceci Graber, Andrea Waters, Geoff Gauthier, Steve Goodman, Mike Watson, Johnny B, Novo Pizzeria, MCNG Marketing, Felice Lam, Cathy Browne, Anthony Wittrock, David Dreger, Amanda West...

... and of course, in the Without-Whom Department: Tess McCann.

(Photo by Lindsay Bayne. All other photos courtesy of Cynthia Griffiths.)

Metal Flake Remix - a Photo Retrospective.

So my latest show has come and gone. I'll do a more indepth post in the next couple days, but for now I'll just show you a few choice moments.

The day started with mimosas and grilled cheese for the Lovely Assistant and I:

(Go Habs!)

Once we got to the studio, we got all the necessary supplies ready:

Along one wall I showed the evolution of the Metal Flake series.

Of particular interest to many people were the seahorse and "For a Dancer" paintings, but those were already spoken for:

All too soon, we got to the live-art portion of the show:

(As you can see, painting is thirsty work.)

 

The live-painting portion of the show over with, it was time for some social activity:

Photos courtesy of Corinna Carlson, Cynthia Griffiths, Ian A. Martin, Jocelyn Aspa, Lola Frost, Lyndsay Bayne, Scott Graham, Steve Goodman, and the incomparable Tess McCann.

Thank you, everybody.

No Need to Be Koi, Roy.

Greetings and salutations. The big day approaches, all too rapidly. I'm slowly getting things together, but the usual pre-show stress (and accompanying insomnia) have already started.

Fortunately, painting takes the edge off, so it's good I still have new metalflake pieces in the works. Just finished this one today:

I may do a dragon on a blue background next.

I'm aiming for 24 paintings (and 3 prints) for sale, plus another 4 on display.

And before I know it, it'll be Friday and I'll be painting live in front of a crowd. No pressure...

Thoughts on the Remix Show

Two weeks from tonight, as you may already know, I'm putting on a new art show. The title is Metal Flake Remix, and as the title suggests, it'll rework visual elements from the original Metal Flake show last fall.

The key difference is, this show will be mainly about live art. I'll be whipping up a new series of paintings on the spot, in front of an audience. I'm aiming for six paintings of various sizes, done mainly with spraypaint and stencils - stencils based on the white lineart designs I used on the original series. I'm as curious as anybody to see how all that will turn out.

There'll also be several new metalflake paintings available. And I'll have a handful of older pieces for sale, as I'm trying to clear some of the clutter out of my studio and move forward with my art..

Further to that, if you're planning to attend, bring a business card for the fishbowl - we'll be holding a draw to give away one of the paintings.

The show will be in the same venue as January's art sale: Imagemaker Photographic Studio (210-2075 Yukon Street at 4th).

Doors will open at 6:00PM, and the paint will start to fly around 7:00. Hope you can make it.

Metal Flake Remix.

Preeeesenting:

Big Art Weekend.

It's finally summer here in the GVRD*. And what better way to spend a summer weekend than being immersed in art?

Friday night, being a proud, card-carrying member of the Vancouver Art gallery, I attended the Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters opening. I honestly had no idea Matisse was so prolific, much less in so many mediums. His pen-and-ink work in particular really caught my eye - the linework was beautiful, and so fluid.

It was nice to see another Van Gogh and another Renoir, too. I feel a real kinship for Vincent in particular.

Saturday was mostly spent outside in the park, barbecuing and soaking up the sun with friends. That night we moved the festivities back to my buddy Mike's place for drinks and general good times, before closing the night at the Dover Arms. While we were all at Mike's, I whipped up a couple more Sketchbook Diary entries, including this ashtray:

And today (Sunday) I've been working on the playlist for next month's Metalflake Remix show. I haven't sorted all the details yet, but it'll be taking place the night of Saturday, June 16, and I'll be creating live art all night (expect an official announcement very soon).

In other art news, potential new painting concepts seem to be popping into my head on a daily basis now. Here's a couple to tantalize you:

Hope everybody else's summer is off to a great start.

*Greater Vancouver Regional District.

Sketch Diary.

So I bought a new sketchbook recently, and started carrying it everywhere. When I'm in a new place I try to find some small object to sketch - nothing major, just kind of a visual souvenir.

Last weekend I paid a visit to a city I haven't visited in a couple years, Victoria, B.C. Just needed a weekend away from Vancouver, and see some new faces and decompress. While I was there I saw this wooden rhino and had to draw him:

And yesterday I went to a fun little Sunday-brunch outing at one of my favourite restaurants, Cosca. Lots of cool visual details in the place, so I had lots of options to choose from. In the end I drew this lamp that reminded me of the restaurant's symbol (an artichoke):

And after that I spotted this chandelier:

I definitely need to do more of this. Stay tuned.

Bret Taylor
Vancouver, BC
May 21, 2012

Hold On.

Had a very nice walk home through the West End via the quieter side streets last night. Felt like I hit a level of inner peace that I haven't felt in a long, long time.

Now as you may or may not know, the past year has been an incredibly tumultuous one for yours truly. Every couple months has been marked by another sea change - one dramatic shift in tone, content, mood, cast, dialogue, conflict, theme, plot, etc. after another. Bret Taylor circa August of 2011, for example, would be floored by the day-to-day (and especially night-to-night) life of the Bret Taylor from a mere month in the future.

And so it goes.

For a long time I got lost in all this, just struggling to keep my head above water. Maintaining any sense of perspective was an nice idea in the abstract sense, but an impossibility in practical terms. So I did what anyone would do: I tried to keep it on the path, and I adjusted my worldview as I went, based on the current day's data.

And ultimately? I failed.

You heard me. Failed. And miserably, at that - I lost my path altogether. Let some very (very) important people down, couldn't live up to heartfelt promises and blood oaths. I dropped the fucking ball altogether, if you must know. Paid an absurdly high price for that failure, too. And in the process lost more than I even knew I had to lose - more than I could ever handle losing again. But then, nobody said any of this was fair, right? I mean, fairness is great as a utopian ideal. But how many times have you actually seen it play out in front of you? Once? Twice?

Be honest.

So. This brings us to yesterday. The morning started out with disappointing news, albeit not the kind of news that could change a man's life (a cancelled date, if you must know). Yet that news hit me hard, out of all sense of proportion and in a way that left me off-kilter for most of the day. Even my old standby, paint therapy, absolutely could not snap me out of it (of course I publicly blamed paint therapy).

This has never, to my recollection, happened before. A real measure of how far adrift I am right now, you might correctly surmise. I had honestly thought the method to be infallible.

In the end I dragged my much-bruised and abused ego into the kitchen and focused my flagging energies on sustenance instead. Whipped up a mindblowing batch of meaty, chipotle-dominated chili. And when the bulk of that work was done and I was waiting for the mixture to reduce, I turned my attention back to the painting in question.

And goddamn, but everything flowed. Hit exactly the right marks when mixing my glazes - tone, saturation, volume. The highly-reflective silver bits (my trusty Tri-Art Liquid Mirror) drybrushed over the glass bead gel took the phthalo blue and alizarin crimson glazes perfectly. Ditto the more subtle highlights I'd carefully worked in over the past few days.

Then I went out to visit friends. Had a couple drinks, talked some things over, watched some TV. Y'know, everyday stuff.

And made that fateful walk home. And the rest you know. I guess the lesson here is, the therapy won't take when you're not receptive to it. But it'll work when you're ready.

Deep, I know.

Bret Taylor
May 6, 2012.
(Not to be confused with the Bret Taylors of September 2011 or January 2012.)

Soundtrack - "Hold On", by the Alabama Shakes.

Day 810: a Retrospective.

So here's a post that's long overdue. Back on March 25 (day 810 of the 1,000 Days Project), I woke up to find myself inspired. Hell, maybe even driven. I looked around at all the stuff I've been working on, in an attempt to prioritize. And as a means of self-promotion I decided to post in-progress photos online to document the whole day.

Since I'm planning a series of six ballerina paintings, I figured I should start working out the poses I want to use - the final lineart will be drawn from a live model, but I wanted to do my homework this time. So here are the sketches:

With that out of the way, I decided to turn my attention to an Avengers painting commissioned by a friend of mine. Once the masking was done, it struck me just how fortunate I was to have such a perfect venue for painting on a sunny day:

Then I started applying the linework. Instead of the white I always used to use on my metalflake pieces, I went with silver (Tri-Art Liquid Mirror), bronze and copper. It's only recently that I branched out from the white - the silver was also used on the "For a Dancer" painting, and the copper on the seahorse (AKA "Top Seekrit") piece.

Pretty soon all that remained to do was signing the Avengers piece:

And finally, the glorious results:

I have to admit, I'm really happy with how this one turned out, especially the metallics in the lineart.

Once that was finished I was still pretty psyched, so I decided to press on:

I really enjoy these large-format paintings. As I've mentioned more than once, the plan is to do a series of these pinup-girl paintings, if I can ever get the planets back in the same alignment again. Here's where I left off that night, after close to nine hours of painting:

And that was day 810. A whole slew of amazing people offered comments and helped me promote this mini-event, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them all:

Nicole Cruickshank, Andrea Waters, Cosca Restaurant, Ned Tobin, Geoff Gauthier, Trevor Ricketts, Ceci Graber, Wes Thompson, Natalie Jean, Bahaneh Grewal, Ron Cooper, Isabell Kinga Markus, Amanda West, Matty Sadorf, John Lee, Bob Cluness, Heather Prost, George Smeltzer, Candice Roach, Keith Perkins, Kelle Belle, Meghan Low, Lola Frost, Vincent Ng, Irving Lau, Todd Hancock and 99.3 CFOX, Opal, Annie Friesen, Melissa Hartfiel, Lorraine Murphy, Jessi Sensabaugh, Yvonne Milroy, Julie Frisina, Jim Dickson, Tina Power, Cathryn Smith, Margaux Wosk, Erika Wallace, Matt Algren, Kimberley Mulla, Jaime Purgavie, Wendy Pemberton, and Tess McCann.

(Plus Tequila Mockingbird, Nikki B, maryjane_77, the ruggler, Baw-nee and sparklehorss.)

Thank you, one and all. You're the reason I do this.

Dinosaur-a-Day Project, Day 12/29.

At long last, a new dinosaur. This is another one I saw in the Extreme Dinosaurs exhibit, the Carnotaurus:

Still plenty more to come. Maybe another T-Rex?