Schedule update and images.

Hey we've added a show to the tour in my hometown of Chillicothe Ohio tomorrow, tuesday June 16th, at Cardos Pizza 27 W 2nd St! So if you're in the area you should definitely come, It'll be awesome!

It's been awhile since the last update so I've got lots of fun new performance paintings for everyone. There are a few I want to discuss in depth, but I'm writing this at the Cincinnati show so that'll have to wait until later.

Schedule updates and thoughts on performance painting.

The Kansas City show has been canceled but we will likely try to find a place to play in the area anyway. Also, Tulsa might be on the map now, I'll try to post if I find out for certain.

Wow, crazy couple of days, played Mansfield and Chicago and now we're hanging out in Des Moines before the show at Mars Cafe. I've made two paintings since my last post but I haven't had an opportunity to photograph them yet, so no images. The five paintings I've done and seven days I've been on the road has given me plenty to think about. I've noticed I'm pulling heavily upon my pop art influences. As a rule I don't plan any of the paintings out, I'll work on a concept earlier that day and possibly practice drawing some of the elements in it in my sketchbook, no marks on the canvas and no thumbnails. Most of the shows so far have been 30 minutes, I'm becoming more comfortable with paintings under a time limit and I've found it helps to work as dry as I can. I'm constantly running into things that didn't translate from my mind to the canvas the way I expected. Having to live with the mistake or completely change the painting is a decision I'm constantly faced with because of my time constraints, but it's good practice. Practice is really the thing I want the most out of this experience but I'v developed a few paintings too.

I'm also wrestling with weather I will further alter any of these paintings. Part of me feels like having some sort of record of the performace is the point and the paintings should be left as is, but another part of me sees lines, shapes and values that I want to alter. So I guess the question I'm asking is which is more importance: the finished product or the concept?

Performance Paintings

It's been a crazy four days and I have three performance paintings from it. The first is 30 minutes the second is 20 and the third is 30. There's another show tonight and then a much needed day off before Chicago. I'll likely have more to say about process and style and questions I'm working through about performance paintings once I'm rested tomorrow.

Sleepin' in a van.

Road trips are supposed to be fun but this one is going to be work. If you want to watch me performance paint while my friends The La De Les rock out then come to one of these shows!

Jun 4 2009 8:00P	The Whiskey	Grand Rapids, Michigan
Jun 5 2009 9:30P	The Corner Bar	Kalamazoo, Michigan
Jun 6 2009 8:00P	The White Cottage	Berne, Indiana
Jun 7 2009 8:00P	CD Jungle	Mansfield, Ohio
Jun 9 2009 8:00P	TBA	Chicago, Illinois
Jun 10 2009 8:00P	Mars Cafe	Des Moines, Iowa
Jun 11 2009 8:00P	Caffeine Dreams	Omaha, Nebraska
Jun 12 2009 8:00P	Mainstreet Cafe	Kansas City, Missouri
Jun 13 2009 8:00P	Cafe Coco	Nashville, Tennessee
Jun 15 2009 8:00P	Covenant Church	Cincinatti, Ohio
Jun 17 2009 8:00P	Carabar	Columbus, Ohio
Jun 18 2009 8:00P	The Vineyard	Kent, Ohio

I'll be painting strictly in acrylic during the tour, painting is a very different experience when you only have 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the show, to make a finished piece. I'll try to update with images when I can but internet access and time constrains might make that difficult.  The La De Les will also be performing with Sing for Company and Jonathan Hape at all these show. So it's going to be awesome and you should be there. 

Self-portrait and problems with a method

Incomplete

I attempted a self-portrait using Lichtenstein's method with a few of my own stylistic touches. I ran into some problems though. Lichtenstein used magna acrylic to fill in his solid colors and lines then stenciled his dots over top with oil to "give the dots the same weight" as the other shapes. I thought that was brilliant and wanted to attempt it. I ran into a problem though, I didn't have magna acrylic and the only acrylics that I see craft stores carrying are water-based. I decided to attempt the process with water based acrylic anyway as the oil would only be layered over and not under. The oil reacted with the acrylic in an undesirable way making it partially transparent and revealing perviously covered marks. I also think I should have used a stencil with wider spacing, the revealed white space was not enough to tone down the value of the red paint like I'd hoped, leaving my face looking, well, red. So problem solving that media issue and finding a dot stencil somewhere between my really big on and my really small one is now on my list of things to do.

Detail

The grey-ish spot above the eyebrow is what I meant by perviously covered marks showing through :(