Collabs, Hearts, and the Five Year Mission. That's just so Takei!

 It's time for some Mad Collab! These (some kinda poorly shot cell phone cam photos) pieces are the result of my team-up with Moon Stumpp! She brought her mixed media and texture, and I brought my aerosols and stencils, and what you see before you is our result!

This first one is called "Hey! Look Up!" Moon started it with a textured triangle and a line cutting the diagonal, and to tell you the truth, I was completely stuck. Like seriously stuck. Like I sent the photo to a friend and pleaded for help. "What do you see there?" We decided it looked like sky, he suggested I paint a Voyager space probe on there, but I liked the lines of Sputnik and set about making a Sputnik stencil.  This stencil then added to my current reusable stencil collection and I made my own stand-alone Sputnik piece, also further exploring aerosols as a way to show the Milky Way. And...I don't have a picture of it, but Moon does, so I'll post that as soon as I can. In the meantime, let's regard it as a MYSTERY that can only be viewed if you attend the Mad Collab show this Saturday night at the 3040 Indie gallery on Indianapolis's northwest side.  (76th and Michigan St, to be exact).

The second one is called, simply, "Cap." Moon started out with some textured circles and some bubble wrap impressions and I went with my favorite circle design: Captain America's shield.  The usual red and blue coloring was NOT going to work with the jewel tones Moon started it in, so I went with gold and green. I'm liking it. This one came to me super fast; I had it done in a day with little pondering. Hey, I get to win sometimes.

Our last collaboration is "Level 13." This one is a green take on my "Orange Options" acrylic and aerosol, where I made three shades of green similar to a paint sample chip.  Then Moon added the circuitry. And it rocks. It reminds me of some kind of apocalyptic future, all Bladerunner-style. My dad told me a joke once about how the 13th floor of a hospital was where they took the crazies, (or at least at the hospital he was joking about), so I think it kind of works there. The MAD SCIENTIST will GET YOU there! Muwahahahahaha!

 And this last little piece of work has absolutely nothing to do with the Mad Collab show, and everything to do with the upcoming Art With A Heart charity auction! This one is aerosol and acrylic and I got to use two of my liquitex colors! It's a battery giving off red charge and a 'light up' heart on the wall. I figured it was like a second chance at life, like from a heart transplant, so I called it "Life Recharge." And, if you're interested in getting your bid in, you can go to their website and they'll take you through the process. If I understand right, you can even pre-bid online.
It's a good cause, so, you know, do it. Please?

Last little bit I'm going to share is a video. Because the Five Year Mission rules! George Takei, aka Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek, turns 75 today. So the Five Year Mission put together an original song and music video (shot on their laptop's camera of all things!) to celebrate it. I'm proud to say their video has gone viral. As I write this, they're at nearly 50,000 views on Youtube, and they've gained about 5,000 since I last looked an hour ago. It's such a happy song, such a Five Year Mission song, and the video is so them too. I'm very impressed with the work of a laptop cam too! Just the whole concept, execution and sound, and, of course, the response. Mr. Takei was thrilled by it, reposted it, and I'm pretty sure the guys are floored. I'm floored FOR them. I'm proud to say I knew the Five Year Mission before they went viral, and for that honor, I'm donning the Orko costume to see them play at the Freaks and Geeks concert at the Melody Inn, in about...2 hours. Because I'm a Star Trek fan, and Star Trek is cool. So there. Oh yeah, and they'll be at the Art Bank for First Friday on June First. Double so there!



FIVE YEAR MISSION RULES!

WHOA! New Art!

 Been a bit busy. But aren't I always, it seems?

So here's some of the stuff I've churned out lately. I present to you, for your review:

"Bars and Negative Tone"

"Bars and Positive Tone"

 Another take on Bars and Tone. Commonly known as test patterns to non-teevee folk, the indoctrinated among us refer to the strange color test pattern as "bars" and that really annoying sound that accompanies it as "tone."  In this case, we have a television stencil I cut out and managed to use twice without destroying it! (Really, this is rare.) I started out with two canvases, painted the bars pattern on each and used the television stencil to preserve the bars in one, covering up where only the television should be, and on the second, smaller one, covering up all of the bars, until they showed through only where the television should be. On the first one, I loved how the orange paint on the stencil interacted with the stencil, so I glued it on for another layer. I'm liking them! And am showing one more time, just how much teevee has permeated my brain!

"Two Stickers on a Wall"

Next, we have these two fellas: "Two Stickers on a Wall."  The name and concept came from the owner of the Art Bank. Shortly before Christmas, he told me that I had sold two paintings. He puts small happy face stickers on the tags to indicate that they are sold and reported to me that I had "two stickers on the wall--hey! That sounds like a painting name!" I agreed and this is what I came up with. AND it's already sold! Talk about prophetic! This puppy found its forever home before I even had a chance to post its photo! In fact, I had to quickly take its photo before I gave it to its new owner, just so I could document it for posterity and stuff. Not that I'm complaining!

"Orange Options"

After that little victory, I went back to my favorite color: Orange. I just love orange. I like its energy and it makes me happy. It's not mean like red and not flighty like yellow. It's orange. I've presented here three 'options' for orange. The coloring is in acrylic, kind of a play on one of those paint chip things at the hardware store. the black and white are stenciled and spray painted. It also stems from some of the 'Wee Paintings' I created for my feature show, to fill a rack lent to me. I made an orange one, a green one and a blue one, and used ink to scribble/scratch in the dividers and name them. I thought it would be interesting in a larger format. Once again: Pleased.

"Just A Little Acorn"

To finish off my feature month activities, I got to tour the 3040 Indie art gallery on Indianapolis' northwest side. It's owned and operated by aerosol artist Pete Brown and we also had a nice chat on how-to's and such about aerosols and stencils. See, so far, I'd been just kind of figuring this out on my own. I used poster board for stencils (hence the one-pass rule--poster board doesn't really hold up to paint well enough for a second pass). He gave some recommendations on what to use for stencils and how to preserve them and I went home, tested it out, and got creative. (Thanks Pete!) First I went for "Just a Little Acorn" and then I kept a First Friday promise: "Swimming Fishie." At my March First Friday show, a little boy told me I needed to paint a fishie for my wall. He was really convincing. I told him that I would. If he came back on April's First Friday, a fishie would be on my wall. He didn't come back (a little boy's life can be busy at times, I guess) but I kept my word. I made sure a fishie was there. 

"Swimming Fishie"

Both of these were done on my new stencil medium, watercolor paper, and I've now kept them so I can do them over and over. But still, I'm not a copy machine, and no two would ever be just alike. For starters, the outlines are the stencil work, the rest is acrylic brush work. I like how that works out for myself best. Also, even though it's difficult to tell from the photo, the two little swoosh-like shapes on the acorn are actually purple, and are from the Liquitex acrylic spray paint line. It went on sale at Michael's, buy two-get one free, so I got a purple, red and lime green. I've only used the purple so far, and am still excited about the color selection available (although by the time I was able to get to the store, the colors were pretty picked over). I'll write more about my experiences with them as I get more opportunities to test them out. 

I'm also collaborating with fellow Art Bank artist Moon Stumpp in 3040 Indie's Mad Collab show on April 23rd! (AKA Shakespeare's birth/death day for those in the know). We're working up three collaboration pieces, two started by Moon and one started by me, plus showing some of our individual works to show what we each brought to the table. It's a fun concept and an interesting challenge. The first of its type for me. I have one all the way done, but am admittedly stuck on the second one started by Moon. I have a week and better do something quick, huh? I can do it!

My other, more immediate deadline is for the Art With A Heart fundraiser. They'd like me to submit a painting for their auction. I've got an idea gelling around in my head and the base color drying on a canvas... I know it will involve a stencil, one that I'm looking forward to making and one that I will use again for a similar concept... Why am I such a procrastinator?