Media

This is my most recent finished “masterpiece.” I’ve never before made something this impressive in my entire life, and I’m thrilled that I was able to actually paint it! It all started with an idea that one of my friends had, then he asked me if it was something I would be able to do.

It wasn’t just any custom painting, either! Of course he wanted me to paint it on a HUGE canvas that was nearly 4′x5′ , this thing is massive! So here’s what I did… cause I knew I couldn’t afford a canvas so big: I went to home depot and bought a couple pieces of  1″x1″ and cut them at 45 degree angles so I could make the “stretcher bar” for the canvas…

Once the stretcher bar was assembled, I stapled the canvas in place using a cheap staple gun… and guess what, the canvas wasn’t even really canvas, it was a linen curtain my mom had pulled down and was going to throw away, but I salvaged it and look what it became!

One YEAR in the making, this painting was nothing short of a challenge! For many months I would completely ignore the painting, and try to find a way around it, because I never painted people before, much less POP-ICONS that were supposed to be recognizable!

After spending so much time and energy fiddling around, I finally put the effort into this painting that it always needed. Of course it took me a while to get it all completed, and there wasn’t anything telling me “this is when it will be done,” I just let my paintbrush tell me what to do. Add a gentle stroke here, paint over a smudge and a small mistake here, fill in the details here and there… and BAM! The painting came to life!

As I mentioned before, this was unlike any painting I have ever completed in my entire life, and I’m glad to know that this was the first of many larger-than-life portraits, and it even instilled in me a returned interest in the old renaissance paintings that were so angelic and beautiful.

There’s plenty more to say about this painting, but as the saying goes, “a picture’s worth a thousand words” and all the details speak for themselves here.

This painting was originally made for my mom’s birthday one year, however somehow it ended up back in my collection. I’m not sure how that happened, and it doesn’t make me thrilled that she didn’t hold onto it for sentimental value… but oh well.

Many people say the colorful clouds look like spirits in the sky, and the footprints trailing through the sand dunes might resemble the path of an adventure, or one man’s journey through the sands of time.

Originally, I remember writing a poem to accompany this painting, but I have since forgotten and lost it in the clouds of memories and fleeting moments of rapture so abundant since then.

Although the caption above the painting says it was made in 2006, I distinctly remember making that in high-school during my senior year in 2005, so there’s no way it could’ve been then. Goes to show that we all make mistakes once in a while, so I’m not going to “fix” it…

I realize now, more than ever, that there is a fundamental difference between the use of words in thought and the use of images to think. Much of my artwork is created as some sort of abstract expression of the things I encounter in my daily life, and sometimes in my dreams.

Although I would like to do my best to explain all of my artwork through words, that makes my work as the artist twice as hard to be able to articulate myself not only through the use of images and color, line, shapes, and form… but through the use of words, description, details, and explanations.

With that being said, let me leave you with this… As you notice, there are many faces in the painting, and you might even liken the style to or notice my influence by Pablo Picasso. The faces are many colors, blue, green, yellow, purple, and red. There are eyes, some star gazing, some lazy, some angry, and some calm.

There is no method to this madness, and if there were, it is clearly the joy of colors and expression of faces.