Cobble's Knot

This is my Cobble's Knot. The Cobble's Knot is from a novel entitled Maniac Magee.  


"Maniac Magee is a novel written by American author Jerry Spinelli and published in 1990. Exploring themes of racism and homelessness, it follows the story of an orphaned boy looking for a home in the fictional Pennsylvania town of Two Mills. He becomes a local legend for feats of athleticism and fearlessness, and his ignorance of sharp racial boundaries in the town."

"His final effort to gain acceptance is by untying the famous Cobble’s Knot (a huge, grimy ball of string with a year's supply of pizza waiting for its vanquisher.) After finishing the task he is praised by everyone as confetti is thrown into the air."

I often feel there is a Cobble's Knot in my head. So it was good to get it out on canvas.

Hello... I Ain't Lion

This is my newest painting. It is one of the biggest I've done. It stands 6 feet tall. It was a lot of work to get the level of detail I get in my smaller pieces in a piece this big. All and all, I'm happy with the out come and excited to show it this weekend at the Ohio Made Arts Festival. I'm setting up a booth there with all my paintings. Hopefully we'll see you there!

Tigerhorn Bluenote

This is the live abstract I started at Hal and Als Bar. It has had quite the transformation. But I've finally finished it! Hope you like it.

Hello My Name is... Tusko

This is Tusko. I was drawn to the elephant skull because of the tusks and giant cyclops hole in the forehead. This was a cool painting that had some happy accidents. I unintentionally formed four separate trunks.

Tusko is a popular name given to elephants in captivity. Three notable elephants with this moniker were the meanest elephant, the elephant that died on LSD and one that has resided at the Portand Zoo.

Hope you enjoy!

Hello My Name is... Pliny

This is Pliny. Squid turned out to be a challenge to pull off in my style of abstraction. Mostly because of my line techniques. I abandoned the rules of how someone should paint a squid and decided to just try to capture the essence of a squid rather than keep up with how many tentacles he had and what order they were in. I recently saw the Melvins live, I'd say I painted a squid like Buzz plays guitar chords. No rules and feeling right about it.

I gave him the name Pliny after Pliny the Elder who wrote Naturalis Historia around the first century. It is one of the largest surviving texts from the Roman Empire and in it Pliny the Elder described a giant squid with a head the size of a cask and 30 foot tentacles weighing 700lbs.

Hello My Name is Bill

 

This is Bill. He is Bison. I attempted to embed the skull into the life of the bison in this painting. The stark contrast of the skull against the array of colors and strokes creates a great portrait of both the vibrant life of the animal and what's generally left behind. Studying both live bison and the bison skull was eerie. And the painting reflects that eeriness through its color vibrations. This painting has a great (what I call) Ohm. Hans Hofmann guided me through this one with his theories on push and pull in painting. 

I chose Bill as the name in reference to the mass extermination of the great American Bison. From the wikipedia:

  
William Frederick Cody ("Buffalo Bill") got his nickname after the American Civil War when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. Cody earned the nickname by killing 4,280 American bison (commonly known as buffalo) in eighteen months, (1867–1868).

Seems these great American beasts were nothing but walking dollar signs.  Also, in my image searches I've been staring at this picture.

The American Frontier was brutal.

Our Name is...

This latest Skull piece is a bit different but a lot the same. I think we are going to move away from human skulls for a bit and take a zoological tangent. These came out pretty nice though! This is the second painting I've finished in Columbus.

Our Name is
20"X24"
acrylic on canvas

For sale.