The names just come to me while I'm working.
Lucius, mixed media on masonite, 2007
Luigi, mixed media on MDF, 2007
These fish were created using collaged paper, acrylic, and ink.
Piscatorial: Buster, Frances, Hal
Piscatorial: of or pertaining to pictures of fish.Thanks to BibliOdyssey for providing the source material for these and many other works.
Buster, mixed media on found wood, 2007.
Frances, mixed media on MDF, 2007
Hal, mixed media on MDF, 2007
These fish were made with materials including canvas, paper, wallpaper, acrylic, and ink.
Normal, OK: Signs
Philli I. Acrylic on found plywood, 2007
Oklahomans, myself included, spend a lot of time on the road. Route 66 is an integral part of our heritage. Arterial interstates whisk us from state to state. Along the road, an archaeology of advertisement emerges: billboards with missing panels, hand-painted text, and panels rearranged so the ads become illegible. Advertising is supposed to be shiny and bright; signs that are old, awkward, or broken are uniquely endearing.
Los Tres. Mixed media sketch, 2007.
Using copious reference photos taken along Interstate 40, I create mixed-media paintings, allowing the forms and typography to become increasingly abstract. Objects like gas meters, dilapidated sheds, silos, water towers, and corrugated steel warehouses punctuate the sharp horizon. Institutional greens and rusty whitewash clash with the blue expanse of sky. These lonely inhabitants of the landscape creep into my abstract compositions, taking on their own identities. Character follows form follows function.
Normal, OK: Edmond "Mundy" Tulsa
Mundy Tulsa, Present Day. Acrylic and collage on found panel, 2007
Edmond Tulsa was born to a man who was hoping for a boy. Everyone calls her Mundy. She is a prodigious baker, and wins many bake-offs and Opteemah County Fair ribbons. Her family's money went down with Penn State Bank when the bottom dropped out. But Grampa Dewright Tulsa had placed gold and silver coins inside sections of pipe and buried them in the backyard. One day Mundy undertakes to dig a vegetable garden and discovers the coins. This becomes the startup capital for Miz Mundy Cookies, and later Mundy Buns. Mundy Buns grows so successful that Mundy gets a buyout offer from Nabisco. She declines for reasons of personal integrity. Soon after, she strikes a deal with Dobbin Wynn to be the exclusive concessions distributor for the Dobbin & Dixie Family Film Fest. The Mundy Buns plant remains the economic heart of Normal. In 1998, Mundy hires Katie Hennepin to help her branch out into organic baked goods.
Mundy was created using the acrylic gel transfer process detailed here and here. I applied the image transfer to a former cabinet door that I found at Habitat For Humanity's OKC thrift store, Renovation Station. That shiny knob in the lower right corner is the door handle.
This is the original drawing:
Kid Drawings
Picasso famously said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." The last time I drew purely out of my head, I was four years old. My creativity was completely unfettered then. Where did it go?
For more drawings from my childhood, visit my Flickr page.