julia and max the nephew, zonked

Sleepers

6" x 9"

Watercolor monotype print

I made this a few weeks ago. I love this watercolor-print process. Now, if I could just find a free etching press so I could do these at home, I'd be all set. Also, If I could find a full-time job so I could buy one, that would be sweet. Put that as my number one wish. Well, number two, but I can't tell you what number one is, though some of you probably already know.

fun with the postal service

click images for a closer look

my new acquaintance alex, who is a friend of my sister-in-law emily, has started up an art project in which the participants trade hand-made postcards. i signed up at the "no dear" poetry reading (where julia read her lovely poem about the science of consumption!), and i received a postcard from alex last week. so this was my reply, front and back. i have digitally altered alex's last name and address, to protect the innocent, of course. i also added the fake postmark, because i am a dork.

david cross redux

David Cross
graphite on paper with digital coloring, 5" x 8"

i finally colored my portrait of david cross! it was actually the first celebrity drawing i ever did (in 2007? i forget), back when i was only going to draw celebs i had seen in person. of course, now that i live in speonk, that happens less often--although the jules and i did see rachel weisz at an art reception in the hamptons a couple of weeks ago. we were (briefly) listening to some crap band that the geezers were calling "punk", when we realized that ms. weisz was standing right behind us. when we went back into the gallery, she sort of followed us around for a while. embarrassing, really.

my life as a potato

click image for a closer look

here's a fairly new one of daniel day-lewis and paul dano, stars of there will be blood. i just saw mr. dano as dwayne in little miss sunshine last night, too. i'd seen it before, but it came on television last night, so i saw it again.

julia and i had been away from home for 12 days until we finally arrived got back yesterday morning. we had intended to get a lot of work done this weekend, but when we got here, we found that we didn't want to do a thing except vegetate on the couch. we ended up watching three movies in all, so i feel like we accomplished something, no?

drop hugs, not bombs

click image for a closer look

"is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of a sister?"
-alice walker

and here we see emily and julia, two of the four brandt sisters, on top of a mountain.

i often wonder if the world would be a better place if all the men in positions of authority would just step down and let women run things for a while. something makes me think that there would be far less bombing and lots more hugs.

ladies: don't invite sarah palin, though. that would defeat the purpose.

where is everybody?

click image for a closer look

here's julia again, on the beach in winter. we love going to the beach in the off season, when no one else is around. not that we don't like you or anything, but we need our space sometimes, you know?

thanks for understanding.

hang on. obama's victory speech is starting...

...aaaand that was the first time that a politician's speech has ever made me cry. what can i say? the man's got skills.

out late, playing darts

click image for a closer look

so here you go. i decided to try coloring in photoshop (see previous post). s'okay. i think i learned a few things, anyhoo.

i don't remember who won

click image for a closer look

also, we took turns. i decided to blend two photos together to make one image, because i liked the variation of the arm positions. julia's mid-air dart is actually visible in the original photo(!), but i had to make up the one that i'm throwing. i'm trying to decide whether i should draw in the bar/background, add color, or just leave it alone.

i've actually been toying with coloring it in photoshop, which could be good or bad. since i'm kind of self-taught in that arena, i don't really know (or maybe remember is the better word) the "proper" way to color in photoshop. i've just sort of experimented my way through the features, for the most part. it might be interesting to see how it would turn out.

i need your vote!

click on them for better detail (it's worth it, i think).

so i made this image via a process called solarplate printing, or solar etching, as it is also known. it is a very nice way to do the look and feel of metal plate etching, without all the acid on your hands and breathing in the aquatint dust and such. check out this guy for more information about it.

by the way, the models here are the lovely julia and emily brandt, wife and sister-in-law of the artist. i'm the artist.

anyhoo, i need your input here! i want to put one of these on my official website, but i cannot decide which one. well, i suppose i could, but i thought it would be an interesting little project to involve all three of you folks who actually stop by here. so what do you say, can you help me?

oh, and if you didn't catch my last post, it's got some nice stuff. click here, and scroll down for the portrait of dr. house!

hallmark is for wussies

these are the cards i made for my dad and mom on their respective days this year.

dad's card, outer:

dad's card, inner:

mom's card, outer:

mom's card, inner:

i was not able to see my mom's reaction to her card, but i'm sure it was just as quizzical a look as the one i saw my dad give his.

dad: "that's, um, really neat there, son..."

total balance

click image for a better view.

this is a zinc plate etching i'm working on right now. i just did a round of aquatint on it, but it didn't seem to take (the areas i wanted black didn't go black - i suspect the acid is too watered down), so i'm going to have to try again. sorry, that last sentence went all over the place. any suggestions?

illustration friday - "help #2"

this is my second installation for this week's IF topic. i thought it fit better than the other one, but i had to get julia to take a picture of it the other day, as it is hanging on the ceiling of her classroom. the drawing is pretty much life-sized; the main figure is about five feet tall.

the bonus picture here is of me and julia, after the evil dead musical, which we attended a few weeks ago. thanks to a friend, we received front-row-center seats entirely free. we were right in the "splatter zone"! i only ended up with a single drop of fake blood on my lapel, which somehow got through my plastic poncho. well, also, my white chucks are sort of pink now. you can't see it here, but julia was fairly well-soaked, as one of the characters in the play jumped out and ripped her poncho open just before the blood started flying. it was a riot, and i recommend that if you are thinking of going to the show, make sure to sit in the splatter zone!

****also, please look at my previous post, if you haven't already. i just finished a big watercolor that i'm particularly proud of, and i've shown some of the steps it took to make it.

that's it for the re-posts

sorry it's been so long, but the monitor broke, so i've been computer-less for a while. here's some stuff i've done since school ended:


the little brown book is what i draw in at work, when i'm stuck in the theater waiting to go out on a bus. *this is the last re-post. everything you read that comes before this post is older stuff that i moved from my myspace blog. everything after this is new material. yay!

more cambodia work

here are the latest cambodia drawings. well, one you've seen before, but i added text. and the khieu samphan one is old, but i never scanned it until today.


we brought everything in today, and tom didn't have anything bad to say, really. he only suggested that perhaps i should paint all of the frames the same color. i'm thinking either a neutral color or white. white's good, because it'll be hung on a white wall, and the frames will sort of fade out and leave the pictures as the focus. any color suggestions? or does anyone think i should leave them as they are?

car thieves and migraines

new drawings abound up in here:

the last one is from an old photo of me and chris when we lived in denver. the second one is from tuesday evening, when i had to go back in for a c.t. scan because i was having headaches again. they said it was just residual swelling from the surgery, and i've been okay since then--except my hair started falling out again today, which is a bummer.

on a better note, julia and i went out to speonk (on the east end of long island) this weekend, and it was a nice break. and she got a new car in riverhead on sunday, so that's a load off of her shoulders (her car was stolen a couple of weeks ago, remember?).

okay, time to get on the thesis train for a while.

other oldness

yeah, here's a couple of old things. the pile of bodies one was recently altered a bit, courtesy of the gimp*:
*the gimp is an excellent picture manipulation program that is very much like photoshop, and it does not cost a dime.. look it up!

older sketchbook items

here are some random pages from my sketchbook from last year:

pushing forth...

julia helped me to realize that i don't have a current website that everyone can see, so i'm getting this thing going to rectify the situation. so if you've seen my myspace blog, you'll have already seen most of this stuff. this is for other folks who don't do the myspace thing. hope you like it.