From the press release:
“Get the inside story on how design was used by the campaign, trace the emergence of ideas and images over the course of the election, and scope out the amazing art created by artists and grassroots supporters. It’s the definitive account of the vision of thousands of people across the United States—all in one volume.”

More information and a digital preview of the entire Designing Obama book can be found here: http://www.designing-obama.com/

my piece. the opposing page has only my name, website, and "oakland, ca" in super small Snell Roundhand type on a solid black page -- so rad.

http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php/opening-photos/2103-a-decade-with-no-name-oakland

http://myloveforyou.typepad.com/my_love_for_you/2010/08/a-decade-with-no-name.html
http://www.hifructose.com/the-blog/859-a-decade-with-no-name.html
http://arrestedmotion.com/2010/08/openings-a-decade-with-no-name-best-of-the-east-bay-party-oakland/
http://www.sourharvest.com/2010/08/15/dabs-myla-partake-in-the-decade-with-no-name-up-in-oakland/
http://dailydujour.com/2010/08/12/shows-a-decade-with-no-name-in-oakland/#more-31162

also, Mike over at Warholian.com made this excellent video of the show:

A Decade With No Name show opening – Oakland, CA – Warholian from Warholian on Vimeo.

Skinner in front of his piece. (If you're in the Bay Area, go check out his show at WhiteWalls right now!)

goofy posing

So that got me thinking about the part of the painting process that doesn’t always go so well. Giving up on a piece always feels like kind of a big deal at the time, it’s an acknowledgment that I just spent a lot of hours on something that will never see the light of day. of course though, it’s hardly the first time I’ve fucked up a painting, and I always emerge with some valuable knowledge about what doesn’t work — and with more motivation to paint something that doesn’t suck. so it’s not time wasted, it just could have been spent a little better. In the last three years or so, I’ve bailed on 3 paintings…which I guess is not so bad. they were all experiments with elements out of my comfort zone; different lighting, composition, environment/bkgd — and they didn’t look horrible, but they didn’t work at all either. I got lucky this last time around (or maybe I’m learning when it’s time to bail),  my last big screw-up took me three months to paint and is one of the biggest canvas’s I’ve ever painted — a much MUCH larger fuckup by comparison.  I’ve been thinking of writing a nice long entry on why that one didn’t work, there’s even elements I like.  but the thought of spending more time on it seems unwise…and depressing. so I’ll leave you with that, hopefully as I get better at painting I’ll have less of these…but I think they’re kind of important too.

PS. since that most recent screw-up lesson, I’ve been working on a piece that I do very much like…so that’s good.

from the Paper Tiger site:

there are only 20, and they came out great. head here if you are interested!

More very soon.

first pass

bkgd + darks glazing

lights glazing + detail work

*these images show only about 1/4 of the whole piece.

"senza pieta", 44" x 36", oil on canvas

Here’s the new piece I had in the show last week at 941 Geary. It’s called “senza pietá” and is an attempt at my version of the classic Pieta by Michelangelo… or rather my version of  Bouguereau‘s version (which I like better). Although it does contain ladies, the composition was very much out of my comfort zone. This is the first painting I’ve done of two full figures, and since I can’t at this point justify painting giant paintings (expensive to build, tiny studio, can’t fit in car, etc etc), the scale of figures was a lot smaller than I’m used to working. This is also the first piece I’ve ever modeled after another, which ended up creating some interesting composition problems with the background and empty space. This painting started out at 48″ square, and I had an entirely different background going initially. It wasn’t until I was about 75% done that the composition and background I had going started to bother me — something just wasn’t working with the space around the figures, and it took a few weeks of staring at it up on the wall to come up with a solution. that solution turned out to be unstretching the 48″ x 48″ canvas, cutting it down to 44″ x 36″, then re-stretching it. the idea of re-stretching a painted canvas seemed super risky (I had never tried it), and I was pretty sure there was a good chance of ruining the painting — but after getting it on a new frame loosely, a generous application of water to the back of the canvas made it nice and tight. [that's the most useful canvas stretching trick ever by the way, I use it all the time -- especially as canvas' tend to get a little loose during shipping]

so that’s the somewhat long-winded story of this painting. I think I will re-visit this type of composition, and possibly even the Pieta, but probably not until I can start working on a much larger scale. a special thank you to aeschleah and brenda for modeling for this one.

Show information below, see you Saturday!

by Coro

941Geary is pleased to present, As They See It, a group exhibition composed of works that are concentrated in realism and figurative representation.  As They See It aims to reflect an evolutionary trend in contemporary art and the growing momentum of conceptually challenging works with increasingly advanced use of media.  This exhibition offers an exceptional collection of works that seek to incorporate a deeper exploration of mediums and technique.

The exhibition features works by Kevin Cyr, Jessica Hess, Isabel Samaras, Shawn Barber, Aaron Nagel, Eric White, Robert Burden, Coro, Dave Schubert, Jonathan Darby, Morgan Slade, Pedro Matos, Akira Beard, Danny Heller, Michael Forbes, Adam Caldwell, Scott Hove, Derek Weisberg, and Fahamu Pecou.

I’ll have more up soon, maybe some in progress shots of what I’m working on these days. check back soon.

in lieu of any new art to post,  here’s my badass cat Ty.