A friend of mine asked me to create an image to sell t-shirts to help those affected by Dana and the floods in Valencia. This is my design from the original sketch to the completed version.
As a society, we must work together against the causes and effects of climate change. We must oppose those who want to withhold and control the resources necessary to create a better world.
We must do this with one mind, one heart and one voice...”tots a una veu.”

Una amiga mía me pidió que creara una imagen para vender camisetas para ayudar a los afectados por la Dana y las inundaciones en Valencia. Este es mi diseño desde el boceto original hasta la versión completa.
Como sociedad, debemos trabajar juntos contra las causas y los efectos del cambio climático. Debemos oponernos a los que quieren retener y controlar los recursos necesarios para crear un mundo mejor.
Debemos hacer esto con una sola mente, un solo corazón y una sola voz...”tots a una veu”.
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#valencia #amor #dana #sorolla #tormenta#totsaunaveu #españa #spain #valència #floods#latorre #castellar-oliveral #flood #hornodalcedo#inundación #inundaciones #ayudar #paloma #dove#painting #spain #art

This is my painting of my friends Mike and Franny’s daughter Sunny.
I used the grid method of reproduction (which I taught to over 8,000 students) to correctly and proportionally draw the shapes of my subject onto the canvas. It is a drawing method utilized by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Degas, and countless other artists. The method trains your eyes to see shape and spatial relationships as it also helps to develop the hand-eye coordination necessary to create.
I wish I had developed techniques to apply to my own lifestyle which were as effective as the ones I developed for my art and teaching. Like many other times, I lost the connection I had with my really good friend Mike when he and Franny moved to New York. As I have stated before: I am almost as bad at being a far distance friend, as I am at being a near distance acquaintance.
And almost no babies were eaten during the making of this painting or video.
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#portrait #painting #baby #friend #retrato #cuadro#bebé #amigo

When I draw in museums I am always sitting in a chair in front of the painting. I always sit far enough away so as not to bother the other patrons and also, because I am seated, people can easily see over me if they want to view the work from the center (or take pictures). And I never complain or show displeasure when the other patrons move in front of me; I just pause and drink my water (I also like seeing how other people view artworks and what details or aspects of a work they find interesting). 
But because of this seated position, my lower perspective alters the shapes of the figures I am trying to draw. I was seated on the grass below the Rodin sculpture (which was also on a pedestal) so my perspective was far more distorted than my “chair views” in the museums (and you see this in the video).
I made this video to illustrate how the dimensions of my drawings compare to the images of the paintings (or sculpture) when they are layered over the originals (in their properly aligned viewing angles).
I find it interesting which parts of my figures align and which do not (or how badly I fucked up). Also I think it’s beautiful how the original works morph into my interpretations (and I love this song “Caribbean Blue” by Enya).
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#tate #nationalgallery #london #titian #millais#correggio #drawing #museum #drawings#johnsingersargent #rodin

Music: Edith Piaf "Padam Padam" Wiley Ferguson was my high school cooperative teacher (when I was a student teacher). Mr. Ferguson was one of the most impressive persons I have ever met. He was an extremely talented photographer, incredibly smart, and distinguished to the point of seeming elegant. His minor in college was French and he actually became an interpreter for the French embassy (hence my Edith Piaf music choice). As a student he got to attend a workshop with Ansel Adams and even got to spend two weeks with a group of students in Paris with Pablo Picasso! Wiley told me that when they went to restaurants Picasso would draw on the table cloths so they would frame them on the walls, in lieu of payment for the bill. Pablo would also use an oversized checkbook and he would draw on the checks he wrote so no one would cash them; both clever and cheap. I learned a great deal from Wiley and how to handle yourself in a classroom. I once witnessed him slam a chair to the floor to regain the attention of his students; which showed me that sometimes even a dramatic act is required to maintain order. His portrait has some cubist elements because in his classroom, I was beginning to develop my own lesson plans for teaching cubism to others; as I was striving to contemplate the art form myself. I wish very much that I had kept in touch with Wiley. He sent me a Christmas card the following year but I did not reciprocate. I am as bad at being a long (or even short) distance friend as I am at being a close up acquaintance. And I am trying to change that.

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#painting #portrait #edithpiaf #padampadam

Music: Ludacris "Move B***H" This March, when Chuck Schumer and 9 DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) voted with Republicans to enable Trump’s agenda to proceed; they betrayed every democratic voter in these United States. By working with MAGA, who are in the midst of dismantling and privatizing every aspect of government, Schumer has stripped the Democrats of their only procedural weapon to slow down the Republican’s agenda to eliminate the social safety network, women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, and environmental protections...in order to install a theocratic and corporate/billionaire autocracy. Why did Schumer announce he opposed the bill (which also codified much of the assault by DOGE) and suddenly support it 24 hours later? I wonder who might have called to pressure him to help the Republicans? Was it perhaps his corporate and donor class masters who are salivating at the chance to allow private equity to take a bite out of every tax dollar that passes through Washington? Of course it was. Senator Schumer can spin his betrayal any which way he desires. He voted for a measure written and sponsored by Republicans whom desperately needed it to pass. Schumer voted against the overwhelming majority of House and Senate Democrats to support Republicans. When will the DINO’s realize that you cannot negotiate with fascists? The Democrats must expel these DINO’s from the party and fight, unapologetically and relentlessly, for its base...the way the Republicans fight for their base (no matter how insane the elements of their base might be). Chuck Schumer and the DNC establishment yearn for some mythical time of Tip O’Neal/bipartisanship when the Democrats and Republicans were happily walking hand in hand with their corporate overlords as they whistled past the graveyards of the middle class. For the past 60 years the sole mission of the Republican Party has been to dismantle the rights and protections which Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Johnson worked so hard to establish. And for the past 50 years the Democrat’s solution to fighting this evil has been to slowly step to the right with every election. You want bipartisanship? Ask Neville Chamberlain how well his bipartisan negotiations went in Munich.

. . . #chuckschumer #dnc #democrats #painting #democrats #shutdown #maga

Music: Tori Amos "Girl" When I was a child I copied the works of the masters from old art books my parents had bought. At this point in my teaching career I had decided to return to my original instincts to further my own artistic knowledge and abilities. Johannes Vermeer might have been the greatest painter who ever lived; not because of subject matter, scale, philosophy of art, nor daring. Quite simply Vermeer may have possessed a greater command of the medium of oil paint and a knowledge of colour theory than any other artist who ever painted. He may have used a camera obscura to witness the diffusion and play of light (as quite convincingly expressed by David Hockney); but we all take advantage of the tools afforded us. It is my sincere and upmost belief that walking in the steps of the masters (copying their compositions, poses, and techniques) is the only way to truly understand the nature of their work. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Degas, Van Gogh, and Picasso all copied the works of their artistic influences. For me, recreating their works has led to a breakthrough in my understanding of composition and in the execution of my own creations. I painted this for my father, whose favorite artist is Vermeer. The only alteration I made (besides size) in this painting, was changing the lion head finials of the original to my Dad’s dead dog Buffy. In the video I included the photo I used of Buffy and the gridded photo I used to draw the image on the canvas. My favorite moment in the video is at 13 seconds when the face changes colors as my iPhone begins to incorporate the intense red of hat above her shadowed face.

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#vermeer #painting #cuadros #portrait #arte

Music: The Cranberries "Zombie" This artwork was made in 1994. Now I'm not going to tell you that life was better back than, but it was far simpler. I made this piece with a Polaroid Transfer machine using slides I had taken of photos, real photos. This was before the onslaught of the internet age. We didn't have 100 passwords to keep track of or continuously worried about having our identities stolen or our computers hacked. We didn't carry little electronic devices around so we could be tracked, or traced, or trapped in a state of continuously being reached by someone. There were bullies; but they couldn't wirelessly attack or stalk you. I knew mankind was destroying the environment but I didn't yet know the speed and alacrity by which we were doing it. I was probably happier back then. I had more friends but I was still a loner, or at least felt alone. I suffered from anxiety, depression, and social anxiety disorder (or whatever terms you might like to use). But this was before my first full blown panic attack and before I even knew what anxiety was. The U.S. seemed nobler back then. We were destroying the Middle East and South America with CIA sanctioned assassinations of democratically elected leaders (at the behest of corporate America). But at least back then we were entirely or, at least, less aware of it. Our country was an oligarchy back then; but the middle class still had a fighting chance (this was after the Reagan tax cuts which initiated the demise of the middle class but still before the Bush and Trump cuts which put the final nails into it's coffin). I chose The Cranberries anti-war song "Zombie" for the music. It was one of my favorite songs in 1994. And it seems strangely appropriate right now; what with the U'S.'s complicity in the crimes happening in the Middle East, Trump threatening to invade Panama and Greenland, and Elon Musk giving the Nazi salute behind the Presidential Seal last night at an inauguration rally. I didn't include a present day photo of myself in this video...because no one wants to see that.

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#lion #polaroid #elonmusk #retrato #portrait

Music: David Bowie "Changes" This is my first “corner painting.” The portrait changes expressions and shapes as the viewer moves up and down and around the painting (or sculpture). This was an idea that went back to my time in New Orleans when I was in the military (painting as much as I could manage) and when I first began reading physics books and historical biographies in an attempt to aid in my desire to comprehend reality and the nature of extra or hidden dimensions. The idea originated when I looked at a corner in the ceiling in my apartment and saw a face constructed of cracks and stains. The image of the face was only visible from one particular angle and I began to imagine that the extra dimensions weren’t just extraordinarily small (as proposed by physicists), but hidden from us in plain sight.

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#arte #sculpture #painting #portrait #physics

Music: Radiohead “Creep”
Elon Musk has more money than he, or any of his descendants, could ever spend. He is currently worth $491 billion. He could give you a million dollars a day for 1,000 years and still have $126 billion.
He might be the wealthiest homo sapiens alive. He controls a vast media market, vast sums of private equity and (with Space X's government contracts) is the very definition of "The Deep State" and the "Military Industrial Complex." His current adjacency to the presidency might make him the most influential human on planet Earth. And he's a white supremacist.
Musk is from a wealthy family in South Africa who benefitted from an apartheid state. He regularly talks about how we need to increase the population (the world has 8 billion people and added 70,000,000 more last year). But maybe all those newborns aren't the white babies for Elon (oops...I meant "right" babies).
He regularly criticizes Mackenzie Scott's charitable donations that promote equity and social justice and described her philanthropy as "potentially contributing to the decline of Western civilization" (note his use of "Western" or "white" civilization).

Musk regularly uses his influence to back far-right groups around the world and his first act after buying twitter was to reinstate the banned accounts of prominent neo-nazis Andrew Anglin and Nick Fuentes.
At an AfD rally (essentially Germany's neo-nazi party) Musk told the crowd: “Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents” and that they should “move on" (from the Holocaust). He told them to not lose their cultural heritage "in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”
Elon Musk's nazi salutes have clearly demonstrated his beliefs for all the world to see. And what was Elon's excuse on twitter (now called scary letter "X") to his Sieg Heil salutes? He made nazi jokes.
And has no-one besides myself seen the intentional similarity between "X" and the swastika? Charlie Chaplin (in his portrayal of a fictional Hitler) used "X's" to imitate swastikas in his cinematic masterpiece "The Great Dictator." Lonnie's clever allusions to fascism aren't actually that clever after all.
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#elonmusk #spacex #oligarch #tesla #ai

Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers “Can’t Stop” This is a portrait I made in 2011 of one of my best friend’s two children. I chose Red Hot Chili Peppers for the music because my friend likes them so much. Apparently, lyrics were not available which is just as well, because I have no idea what the singer was saying. It was difficult to get a good photograph of the work because of the glare from the shiny dark background. This was before I became aware of polarized camera filters, which is amazing because I had searched the internet for two decades for tips of how to eliminate glare! The little boy’s drawing is based on an earlier painting of mine called “Not Bullets, Butterflies;” which was about peace. That painting was one I wish I had never sold; and this painting was a gift. So I’m either 1 for 2, 2 for 2, or 0 for 2 for these two paintings…depending on how you look at things.

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#painting #portrait #art #oilpaint #arte #retrato

Music: Elton John “Candle in the Wind” As a child I used to have this reoccurring dream of swimming through dark choppy waters; trying to get to Marilyn Monroe to save her life. In my dream she lived in a house by the sea. But I never got to her. I always awoke when the troubled waters became too fierce for my little body to take.

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#marilynmonroe #normajean #oilpainting #painting #eltonjohn #retrato #pintura

Music: The Bangles “Hazy Shade of Winter” This is my painting of M.C. Escher’s lithograph of hands drawing themselves. For me, it has always evoked my feelings about the concept of infinity. In math and physics infinity usually means there is something wrong with the current set of equations. It is an error in a way. In the context of “real” numbers, infinity is a flawed concept. It doesn’t mean really big or too many to imagine. It means “we don’t know.” It is actually just as accurate for a child to taunt “infinity plus one” as it is for an astrophysicist to say the universe is infinite. But mainly, when I think of infinity, I think of time. A concept either bound to our three-dimensions as in Einstein’s space time or possibly as the only thing that lets us make sense of a universe which might be a singularly giant quantum wave function finitely or infinitely unfolding. I would just like more time to get shit done.

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#time #mcescher #infinity #hands #painting

Music: Los Cinco Latinos “Eres Diferente” This is a painting of a fellow server I worked with at Cantino del Río. I cannot, for the life of me, remember her name but she was a such a nice person and she was so much better at her job than me. I was a perfectly adequate server if I had four tables or less; but anymore and I was “in the weeds.”We weren’t particularly friends (the restaurant closed soon after I began working there), but she was someone I was drawn to. As a figurative artist I have always chosen people to draw or paint that I was around on a daily basis. I cannot describe exactly why I choose them, sometimes it’s because of a particular way they strike me physically or how I feel about them as people. I have rarely portrayed anyone I have knowingly disliked (besides the political works I am sometimes creating). I like nice people. As for myself, I seem to be one of those persons whom people seem to immediately like or dislike. Perhaps everyone has this impression of themselves. Anyway, my eyesight and powers of observation were particularly good then and I am afraid I quite aged my model by emphasizing minute lines and shapes in her face that I should not have. She was far younger, livelier, and prettier (as you can see from the photos I used) than my painting suggests. I think that maybe she looks like that now, thirty years later. But she probably still looks much younger…maybe in another decade or so. I chose the Los Cinco Latinos song “Eres Diferente” (You Are Different) because we met at a Mexican restaurant and not because she was different, but because I was.

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#portrait #retrato #loscincolatinos #painting #arte

Music: Mozart “Symphony #40 Finale: Allegro Assai These are the three works I drew while on a trip with my parents to Vienna during my Christmas break in 2012. I have written about all of these drawings individually when they were first posted. What I have not written about is that my father is now suffering from a disease robbing him of all of his memories. This trip was probably my favorite. I do not recall a bad part of the vacation. I drew less than normal because I was there with both of my parents. It is especially because of this that the trip is so very memorable to me. We saw Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” and had sausage sandwiches in the subway afterwards. We had the best Indian food I have ever had (and the only time I have tried Southern Indian cuisine). And we were there during Christmas so the entire city was decorated. My mother and I went to the Christmas village and had spice mulled wine. The city shut down for three entire days during the holidays and I realized then how much more serious Europeans took Christmas than people in the States. They are far less “religious;” but they value creating time to be with family and friends over shopping and sports events. The older I become the more I am cognizant of the fleeting nature of existence and, at the end, we only have that which we created to leave behind.

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#mozart #vienna #klimt #drawings

This commission was for a surprise Christmas present for the mother. The photo I worked from was provided to me by a portrait photographer (which I compositionally arranged a bit for the painting). I felt that it might have been a more powerful composition with the mother’s face included (sort of a Mary Cassatt feel). But I kept silent; because I was happy to have to paint one person and not two:) And I apologize for using the same audio I created for my previous baby reel. I could not resist and, as we all know, resistance is futile. And almost no babies were eaten during the production of this video.

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#painting #pintura #baby #portrait #retrato

Music: Beyoncé “Freedom” I have no idea what sort of candidate Kamala Harris might have been if she had secured the nomination through a proper primary process. I do know that the Democrats' failure to not allow Biden to run again and the abbreviated campaign Kamala was forced to deal with (including Joe Biden's election team remaining in charge of the campaign) hampered her ability to break free from some of the more disastrous policies of Biden (especially with regards to the massacre in Gaza and the unwillingness to address the financial crisis being caused by under taxation of the billionaire/oligarch class). But I remain proud of my vote for her and I am extremely proud to have been able to vote against such a horrible human as Donald Trump three separate times (even though Bernie was my choice for candidate in 2016 and Elizabeth Warren my choice for 2020). I originally made this work for the 2020 election with acrylic paint and I had always intended on glazing it with oil paint; but I never got around to it until the 2024 election. It was already a highly refined under painting but I’ve used this technique for pieces far more unrealized than this. The end of the video shows the acrylic work I painted for her campaign in 2024.

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#kamalaharris #donaldtrump #painting #election2024 #biden

Music: Enya “Only Time” This was the most emotional painting commission I have ever had. Friends of this woman’s family hired me to make a portrait of this young woman for her parents. Apparently, on her way home from work she had stopped at a fast food restaurant to use the restroom. Once inside a stranger followed her into the bathroom and murdered her. It was one of those random tragic, horrific moments that too often occur within one’s lives. I was so frightened as I painted her that her family may not like the portrait. I also could not shake the image of the tragedy that had befallen her as I worked. The photograph I worked from was small and I wish I had a better picture of the finished piece. It’s so strange but I have no memory of my patrons picking up the painting nor can I remember ever hearing the reaction of her family after they had seen it. But the memory and feelings I had while painting her (where I stood in the room, even the blank part of a wall I would stop and stare at while working) are as fresh as they were the days I painted her.

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#enya #arte #portrait #memory #painting #retrato

Music: Vitamin String Quartet “Hey There Delilah” Besides from some current projects, I have been posting my art and writings chronologically. This video represents, for me, the time in life when I left teaching forever. The 1st four years of my teaching career were the happiest time in my life. The next three years were extremely challenging but also rewarding (I was teaching at 2 different schools and in science labs at the Freshman level...art on a cart). The next 7 years increasingly became the worst of my existence. I have written about what happened to me and you can read about my experiences in my earlier posts on Instagram if you wish. I spent my final year with the school district using the remainder of my sick leave (my therapist wrote my doctor's note for the administration). My therapist (I originally saw a psychiatrist before seeing a psychologist) asked me multiple times if I wished to sue the school district for how I was treated and several of my attorney friends also believed I should sue. But I wanted to leave this period of my life behind and I had no desire to punish the tax payers who would have footed the bill for any damages I might have been awarded. I was just putting my life back together (from alcoholism and suicidal thoughts) and I only wanted to move forward. But no matter how badly I was treated, I wouldn't be where I am now if these events hadn't occurred. I would have simply retired and still been in Ohio. I was then able to make art full time for the first time in my life, even though I was somewhat poor. I even live in Europe now which was a life long dream of mine. The 3 students in these drawings were students of mine my 1st year. They often ate lunch with me and they were 3 of the kindest and sweetest little humans I have ever met. They are 3 of the bright shiny people I have written about. Over the next 13 years, hundreds of my students drew their faces and practiced coloring and shading techniques with the drawing projects I made with them. I used this wonderful string version of Plain White T's "Hey There Delilah" by Vitamin String Quartet because I probably heard this song 500 times or more during my 1st few years in the classroom. I let my students bring in CD's for us to listen to while we worked and I created mixes with songs they liked (clean versions only). I cannot separate this song from the memories of the happiest days of my life. This video is like a little love song to those moments.

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#drawings #portrait #arte #retrato #student #portrait #heytheredelilah

Music: Queen “Who Wants to Live Forever” This is my friend Sarah who worked with me at UNO’s. Sarah was also dating a friend of mine at the time with whom, I unfortunately, did not maintain my friendship with after he moved. But I am very bad at maintaining any relationship once a person is removed from my immediate orbit. Sarah was beautiful, nice, funny, and had a wonderful personality. She seemed like one of those “shiny” people to me and I created several works of her. I always considered this to be a companion piece to my previous “Sun Girl” post and I wish I had never sold either. But this painting, I called “Sarah and the Moon,” was bought by my close friend Jeremy; and that brought me great comfort. He both loved and collected art and I was not his only artist friend. A few years ago, Jeremy had an unbelievably tragic incident occur in his life. I am not going to describe it but Jeremy, who was always confident and upbeat, was brought to the lowest point in his life. Jeremy thought there was no way to save himself and he took his own life. I was driving to Chicago when the events of his disappearance and death unfolded and his brother kept updating me throughout my trip. I was almost to Chicago when Todd told me that the police had found his body. It was the longest and most surreal drive of my life. I still cannot really process that he is gone. I wanted, and tried, to get this painting back because it is now intimately associated with both of my friends; not only Sarah who was the model, but Jeremy who owned it for so very long. He considered it to be his favorite work in his collection. At some point I will remake it and I don’t know if that will bring me some sort of catharsis or resolution or not.

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#painting #portrait #retrato #arte #moon

Music: Stephen Sanchez “Be More” My Mona Lisa painting is composed of 6,912 individual blocks painted with a square brush I created out of a Home Depot floor cleaning sponge and a block of wood. This is the transition from the painting to the guide to the final painting (or print considering on how you look at it). The entire project took between 80 and 100 hours to complete. I can still remember getting lost as I counted along the squares to determine which value to use in each corresponding space on the canvas. I do not like this very large, gridded, and color coded guide more than the finished painting; but I care for it just as deeply. When I am afforded more wall space I will eventually frame and hang the works side by side…13,824 blocks together.

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#monalisa #leonardo #painting #grid #cara #face

Music: Electric Light Orchestra "Evil Woman" Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security (which is control of ICE), is not a good person. You can easily google her ethical violations but her actions as head of Homeland Security has truly defined her true nature and character. Secretary Noem proudly posed in front of the newly deported inmates at the El Salvador Mega-Prison (men who had all been denied their constitutional right to due process and sent to a prison where they will be further tortured and terrorized). Secretary Noem has gleefully continued this process of kidnapping men and woman without any regard to our laws or to common decency and respect. Imagine if it was President Obama who had sent masked Federal agents into our cities and neighborhoods to terrorize families and communities? Many immigrants and citizens have been harmed by these armed masked men and when Renee Nicole Good was murdered by one of these masked agents on January 7th; Noem immediately branded the dead 37 year old citizen a "terrorist," all before actually knowing anything about the situation or actual facts of this dreadful crime. As Governor of South Dakota, Noem funneled campaign donations into her own pocket and used the Governor's office to gain financial advantages for her daughter. Ethically, and morally, she is a corrupt person. She even shot her own dog and wrote about it in a book, as if it was something to brag about. When Kristi Noem was asked, in a Senate hearing, for the definition of habeas corpus, she answered that ”habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country;” she not only displayed a breathtaking ignorance of the knowledge required to perform her duties; she also underpinned the current administration’s attempt to subvert the very nature of the Constitution and this government. By framing her answer to imply that habeas corpus is some right of the President, she has placed his office beyond that of the executive into the realm of imperial. This administration, with Noem's help, has displayed a massive level of ignorance and unwillingness to follow the laws of this country because their desire is to reinterpret the Constitution into a more dictatorial form, and not a "benevolent" one. The administration's legal acts of piracy and the threatening of violence against our allies have demonstrated the very nature of imperialism these criminals are pursuing. The Senate exchange about habeas corpus and due process (between Secretary Noem and Senator Maggie Hassan) was the impetus for me painting this Ben & Jerry's work. For the video, I chose ELO's song "Evil Woman" because, well, I believe you can guess.

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#painting #portrait #kristinoem #ice #reneegood #reneenicolegood #minnesota #homelandsecurity #minneapolis

Music: John Legend “All of Me”
This is my portrait of Mary and her daughter Porsche. Mary was of one of my favorite professors when I was getting my teaching certificate. She had seen my art and commissioned me for this painting. Mary was tall and elegant and her daughter was actually only four years old when I took the photographs for the work; but she seemed tall enough for a seven or eight year old. I’m quite sure they are both taller than me now.
This was one of those easy paintings were everything just went right and the work just flowed. I was half way through when I was already regretting the fact that I would have to give the painting to Mary. I spent the last half of the painting scheming of various devious manners in which I could somehow back out of the commission and keep the painting for myself; for I liked it so very much. But my honesty got in the way:)
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#painting #portrait #mother #daughter #piano

Music: Suzie & Dustybuns singing “Never Ending Story”
This is a portrait of Jessica, one of my favorite students. She was incredibly nice, hardworking, and was in my after school art club. I actually began this painting as an illustration for a story that I barely began writing and will most certainly never complete.
I think truly creative people are often handicapped by the number of ideas they have. I never understood an artist who says “I don’t know what to paint.” I have enough ideas for paintings, sculptures, and writings to last a hundred years. I’m not bragging; these ideas have trapped me in a constant barrage of artistic beginnings with an endless array of unfinished works littered about me. 
I was a very young man when I realized I would never complete all of the works I have had ideas for. And when I began my preparations for my move to Spain; it was like going through a dead person’s things seeing all of the incomplete paintings, sculptures, drawings, and bits of writings that I know will forever lay undone.
This particular work illustrates an angel weaving a star. But I couldn’t explain the full meaning of the story without finishing it first.
I chose this version of “Never Ending Story” because I’m re-binging Stanger Things before the new season begins and because the story I began writing (that this painting is based on) will also never end because it will never be finished.
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#painting #portrait #retrato #arte #strangerthings

Music: The Ronettes “Be My Baby”
This is the stained glass window I designed for my balcony door. It was constructed by my mother. She taught herself the craft and became quite talented with the medium. This video shows some of the various designs I created that lead to the finished composition.
My house was built during the silent film era when Clara Bow was the most famous actress in the United States. She was the original “it” girl and was credited with making the bow shaped lip stick application popular.
Clara Bow’s career survived the transition to “talkies” and she made eleven films with sound before retiring to be a mother and rancher in Nevada.
Her iconic look and talent had always fascinated me and the design itself took more than 80 hours to perfect (having to follow the strict rules of cutting glass). I love this piece, not only because of its nostalgia and romanticism, but also because of he collaboration with my mom (who incidentally taught herself the medium in order to avoid paying what she considered an inordinate amount for a transom above a doorway in her home). In this case her thrift payed off in more ways than one.
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#stainedglass #clarabow #window #itgirl #silentfilmlegend

Music: Enya “Caribbean Blue” This is my version of my favorite work by Ingres. I saw it in person for the first time at the Frick in New York years ago. Ingres began his portrait of Vicomtesse Louise-Albertine d’Haussonville in 1842 and finished his painting three years later. I worked on this painting for fourteen months, intermittently stopping to work on two other paintings and to finish a third. After drawing out the composition in pencil, it was painted in the Grisaille manner employed by Ingres, with a fully fleshed black and white underpainting. This was done first in acrylic and then in multiple layers of oil until I was satisfied with the shapes, values, and forms. Then thin layers of color were glazed on top of the monochromatic image to build up a structure of color. It is far easier to model forms with two colors, like black and white, as opposed to modeling with three or even five or six colors that might be involved in the subtleties of flesh tones or other objects. This method is both labor and time extensive but yields a result that is solid and rich and also deep in tone, color, and substance. In all I probably spent close to twelve hundred hours on this work from start to finish. I learned so much about the painting process and about my own technical capabilities during this painting’s creation. My own style is very graphic or linear and it is a struggle for me to adhere to the fully realized three dimensional forms constructed by this 19th century master. At this point in my life, I had only been painting full time for a little over 4 1/2 years and I am only now beginning to appreciate the levels of comprehension and mastery achieved by a lifetime of a single minded pursuit of a craft by a painter such as Ingres. The model for my painting is the incomparable and unstoppable Bianca Rose. She was a former student of mine who is now a very successful hair designer and Disney enthusiast. Her beauty and countenance, combined with Disney’s now ownership of Star Wars, made her the perfect choice for me to portray her as an elegant French Princess in a Star Wars themed painting. But, unlike the good princesses of Disney, her figure actually represents the evil Empire in my Star Wars universe (no offense Bianca). The Vicomtesse (French noblewoman) calmly engages the viewer in her immaculate attire while the smug image of the Emperor graces the decoration of the vase to her right. Darth Vader, pictured on her hair clasp in the reflection in the mirror, is shown corrupting the heart and soul of the virtuous Princess Amidala. But behind the back of this gorgeous facade of a shiny well oiled military machine, a rag tag group of rebels are escaping from the bureau upon which the Empire leans. The figures of Luke, Leia and the droids were painted from my own Hot Toys figures which now stand atop my piano (nerd alert). The chairs in the bottom of the work are my own while a little green ceramic box I made finishes the edge of the composition. Like all of my variations, it is both an homage to an artistic inspiration and a reference to myself and my nature. I have since changed the portrait from Bianca to the model used by Ingres. I was unhappy with the painting so I assumed that it was not having the original face from his painting that I had fallen in love with. This was entirely incorrect. After I repainted the head I realized that it was my ineptitude in mimicking the flesh tones of Ingres that had bothered me so. I cannot paint flesh like Ingres. I deeply regret this fuckup caused by my perfectionistic instincts.

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#painting #ingres #starwars #portrait #grisaille

Music: Stealers Wheel “Stuck in the Middle with You” Is this the best we can do as a nation? These are our choices?!? Let’s face it; both of these geriatric white guys are too old to be running for the highest office in the land. We need age and term limits for public office. And we need to rid ourselves of the absurdity of lifetime appointments; whether that is for judges, tenured professors at public universities, or (with the dominance of the two party system) politicians. This is what dividing the power of our nation into only two opposing parties has brought us to. Abraham Lincoln said “a house divided cannot stand.” With their archaic primary systems and monopolies on our government; the Republicans and Democrats have turned us into two camps of “us against them.” When in reality, it is the haves versus the have nots. I named this “Old and Crazy” as a play on “Good and Plenty.” That candy (which I love) is licorice flavored while this candy is oligarchy flavored. Both our political parties are beholden to the rich and the special interests groups. Both parties are bought and paid for by the Military Industrial Complex (which Eisenhower warned our nation against), AIPAC, and the Pharmaceutical and Energy Industries. Our politicians become wealthy as they live on the public dole under the guise of “public servants.” I’m not a democrat, but I always vote with them. But that is only because I care about women’s rights, civil rights, and the environment. But besides these “social” issues, the parties are identical and will continue to bleed our country dry as they fund foreign wars and world military domination, refuse to update our healthcare, transportation and energy systems, and allow unlimited dollars from the rich to pour into their pockets and campaigns. Is this it? A candidate who tried to overthrow our government to replace it with something more limited and even more dominated by the rich? Or a candidate who should be shopping for retirement homes and, by staying in the race, is demonstrating that his judgement is just as flawed and dangerous as his opponent’s? Do we deserve better? Or has our complacency given us exactly what we deserve? (I created this work after the 1st debate in 2024 and before “Old” dropped out. Spoiler alert: “Crazy” won)

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#painting #portrait #trump2024 #biden #capitalism

Music: Nena "99 Luftballoons" These are drawings I made in Berlin at the Berggruen, the Altes Museum, and the Gemäldegalerie. I love drawing in museums. It is as close to performance art as I will ever come. At the Berggruen it was immensely satisfying abstracting a Picasso pastel, in my own style, while sitting in front of his work. It was less satisfying listening to some jerk behind me bragging to his two friends about his personal art collection and how much everything he owned was worth. Also at the Berggruen, I drew from a photograph of Meret Oppenheim (a wildly creative artist in her own right) by Man Ray. I used Prismacolor colored pencils even though I find the medium tedious and frustrating. At the Altes Museum (Old Museum) I had the privilege to draw this sculpture of a Hellenistic Ruler from 150 BCE that was found in Miletus (Turkey) in 1903. It was incredible to draw from a marble bust carved 2,200 years ago. The drawing from Peter Paul Rubens' "Bildnis Einer Frau" or "Portrait of a Woman" was from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, as was the rest of the works in my video. This was my favorite museum to visit in Berlin for it contained the Old Master Paintings I so dearly love (and the food in their cafeteria was amazing). And how often can you draw in front of a Rubens painting while Italian students on a field trip take your picture? I love Berlin: the parks, the museums, and the architecture. But I was there in February and the weather?...not so much. I got a sinus infection 4 days into my trip.

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#drawings #berlin #gemäldegalerie #altes #berggruen

Music: Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” The pose for this painting was inspired by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s “La Grande Baigneuse.” It was never my intention to paint in the master’s style but is only an homage and recognition of his talent and influence. Ingres might be my favorite painter. There might be painters of equal talent, ability, and mastership of craft (such as Vermeer); but none are his superior. And his influence on Degas and then Picasso, Braque and the cubists cannot be underestimated. Ingres would break the boundaries and constraints of human anatomy and proportion to suit his own aesthetic compositional needs. Ingres might have been the arch enemy of some modern artists who immediately followed in his footsteps; but his daring in composition paved the way for their more modern approaches to function and form. On a more personal level, the woman who posed for this work was someone I met at work. We began a relationship and I was quite smitten with her. One night she invited me to a friend’s birthday at a bar. It was only once I arrived that I discovered this “friend” was actually her boyfriend and that I was the person she was cheating with. I still love this painting even though the person portrayed turned out to be less honorable than I had originally perceived.

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#figure #portrait #retrato #painting #ladygaga

This is my Harry Potter Pot. His portrait is based, not upon the movies which I love, but on the U.S. book covers. The lid represents the Horcrux Voldemort inadvertently created when attempting to kill Harry as a child. When I read the books I keep the lid on until I reach the moment in the 7th novel when it becomes appropriate to remove it. As I am currently not reading the books, the lid sits besides. At the end of the video is my portrait vase of Severus Snape from Harry Potter. I love the tragedy, pathos, courage, and ultimate redemption and nobility of this character. And I love Alan Rickman. Now I don’t picture him when I read the books; but I could not imagine any other taking on this role. But I made a mistake when I glazed him. I wanted to hint at the jealousy he harbored against James Potter who, in Severus’s mind, stole his beloved Lily. I added just a few drops of dark green glaze to the white I used for his face and it fired to a perfect mint color. I still love my Severus Pot; but as a perfectionist, I cannot shake that memory of when I first lifted the lid of the kiln. Snape’s redemption lay in his sacrifice for the memory and life of Lily. My own redemption lays somewhere else.

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#harrypotter #severussnape #ceramics #alanrickman #clay

Music: Nat King Cole “Mona Lisa” It is the one art work that Leonardo kept with him his entire life and quite possibly hung in the room in which he died. Francesco del Giocondo commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of his wife Lisa Gherardini. The painting is sometimes referred to as La Gioconda in that respect. I somewhat suspect that the commission delivered to the Giocondo family is in truth the Mona Lisa of Isleworth and it is this portrait spoken of in the documentation regarding the painting and not the masterpiece that hangs in Paris. Raphael once drew a copy of Leonardo’s painting from memory and his drawing more resembles the Isleworth Mona Lisa both in likeness and background then it does the work hanging in the Louvre. I believe that Leonardo did not finish the Isleworth painting before delivery and that some other artist subsequently finished background elements and parts of the figure. The Mona Lisa that Leonardo kept with him and perhaps continuously retouched may actually be a self portrait or at least a portrait of the idealized woman in Leonardo’s mind. It is the genius of his modeling and shading that breathes life into the world’s most famous painting. She truly is a person “made” from paint. It would be unsurprising to me if she suddenly moved and walked out of the frame of the picture. It is the first truly plastic art work for it’s ability to seem as real as anything else in our reality. She is a real as any of us, and in fame and longevity, more real. My version has her seated in front of the riverfront in Cincinnati. I referenced the background from daguerreotypes of the city taken in 1856.

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#painting #monalisa #leonardo #lagioconda #pintura

I first saw Star Wars in the theater when I was eight years old. Being a little kid I loved the movie, of course, but it was especially Carrie Fisher who had the strongest impact on me. There were strong feminine role models all around me; in real life, in books, in music and in film. But for a child there seemed to be an absence of strong women role models in popular culture. I was too young to appreciate what Mary Tyler Moore represented portraying a single working woman on television and far too young to read and appreciate strong female characters in classic literature. Linda Carter was playing the super hero Wonder Woman on television but her costume made the production seem more about sexuality than about character. And then boom, here comes Princess Leia. Yeah, they named her princess but she was brash, brave, fierce, and funny. She was ballsy (and I don’t mean in the testicular way). As an eight year old she was the first fictionalized woman I had ever seen that I could truly relate to and admire. Carrie Fisher’s character was someone I could identify with and represented someone I would want as my friend or ally. And it wasn’t because she was cute or sexy. It was because of her strength and intelligence and humor and the nature of her character that attracted me and ultimately influenced the very way I regarded women. This fictional bad ass rebel helped to create a new paradigm for the representation of what a woman could be in my imagination, in my mind, and more importantly in my life. My favorite characters in print, film and in life are mainly strong women, whether it is Hermione Granger, Lisbeth Salander, Elizabeth Warren or Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It may sound strange but a space princess from 1977 made me a feminist.

You can read my full thoughts of this work in the painting section of this website.

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#painting #carriefisher #princessleia #portrait #starwars