If only I could get the band to play a song by X.

Wednesday morning I got an idea for what could be a relatively cool painting. Or series of paintings. Now as usual, I was going to need a model for this thing because I'm a slave to my reference. I have this friend named Mark that would be PERFECT for this piece because I need my model to do two things during this proposed reference photo shoot.

First, he needs to not be shy about having his picture taken while looking like an idiot or about having a bunch of people give him weird looks. Luckily, we know he's fine with both of those things because he is a MUSICIAN.

Second, He needs to have a giant, square blockhead.  Done!  He's perfect.

As you can see from this photo, everything worked out just fine.

Luckily, Mark's band was playing that night at a bar that I might visit occasionally and, like a champion, he agreed to be the model without even asking how his image was going to be used. He and the other guy in the band, Charlie were amazing as usual, with  both their music AND their ability to put up with us taking pictures all around them all night while they're trying to fucking work.

Being that the bar was way too dark for me to get a decent shot with my crappy camera, I enlisted Galen and his Super-Camera-of-the-Century to make my job much easier. In fact, I mostly sat around and boozed it up with Mandy and Norodd while Galen did all the work (including the ridiculous photo above). Well done, Andrew.

By the way, Mark and Charlie's band, GOLDEN TICKET, plays rockin' acoustic (as opposed to acoustic rock) music every Wednesday night at Dan's Bar in Walnut Creek. This could be your chance to  have some drinks, experience some great music and just have some fun in the middle of the week. If you decide not to do these things... you might be a complete moron.

Andrew draws yet another naked girl.

The idea of a cactus girl had been floating around in my head for a while and I decided that the plan was to scribble out a quick sketch and see if there was actually something worth developing. So I did this sketch on a scrap piece if mat board that I had laying around the studio. I wasn't really trying for anything special, just warming up my hand on a throw-away before I got down to work on the 'real' painting that day.  Of course, everything comes out better than you thought it would when the pressure is off.

Since I didn't really know how to draw the tines of the cactus properly, I just drew them in lightly. I was hoping to get the idea of them, but not have them be too distracting because they were drawn incorrectly. I know what you're thinking. I could've gotten a picture to use as reference for the tines so they would look right AND I wouldn't have to write a goddamn paragraph making excuses for things being poorly done. Surely a sound theory, but that would've ended up crushing the spontaneity of the sketch. For me it's a dangerous spiral. Soon I'd be spending hours getting reference photos for every fucking thing on earth just in case I might need it and never doing any actual work.

Ball licking is always a good time.

Mike Vanderkarr and The Good One

This is what goes on after a Vanderkarr family dinner. We're an exceedingly charming and classy bunch. And don't pretend that you don't wish you were invited to party with us because we know you do.

I'm never 100% certain that the sun'll come out tomorrow. Annie could be wrong! She was a little fucking girl for christsakes!

It's been raining here for the last two weeks so I haven't had good sunlight to take a decent photo of the finished re-painting, but the sun finally came out and I'm happy to report that I'M FUCKING DONE. It really is ridiculous how much time I am willing to spend on trying to save some sinking ship of a painting. At least after all this I have another piece for my portfolio!  Oh yeah, this one was already in it, I just fancied it up a bit. So after a month and a half this brings the number of finished pieces in my portfolio to a grand total of...THE SAME GODDAMN NUMBER AS BEFORE!  Fuck.

After

Anyway. As you can see from my super-handy before and after photos, things have brightened up quite a bit and  (though it seems unlikely) everything seems to be a bit more cheerful. Lord knows the little marshmallow monster things are happier and cuter than those rotten old teeth could ever be. It's not like I really changed the painting all that much, but it's closer to what I was aiming for originally. This was one of the first pieces that I did on canvas and I just didn't have the skills to make it come out right. Too dark. No movement. Poor depth.

hmmn...Pretty much a review of my life as well as the painting.

When I was originally designing this piece I saw the teeth moving around her as she stood looking at us, but that didn't really come across as well as expected. It seemed more like they were hovering. I tried to use the same positioning as a starting point for the creatures' placement and then adjust from there so whatever good parts of the painting there were would survive the transformation. Now, not only are her little friends are really moving  around, but I got to draw a shitload more teeth as well!  I might have a bit of a teeth fetish, but I might also just be a guy that really, really. really likes to look at certain kinds of teeth.

Before

Important things to be learned here, pay attention!

This is another of Galen's photos from the Cafe (504) excursion to serve as a quick reminder that the show is being taken down this week to make room for next month's artist. The cafe has coffee and delicious snack things for christsakes. Who can resist that... or would want to, for that matter? Thursday is the last day to visit and do what all the cool kids are doing.

DON'T BE NOT COOL!

I'm a point and shoot man, myself.

Yesterday Galen and I went over to Cafe (504) so I could show him the place and he could try to take a better photo of the show for me to post here. Galen has a bag full of professional camera equipment that can do all sorts of things that I'll never be patient enough to understand. Luckily I have my own personal camera-dork to help me out. So in we went and after a few minutes of annoying the customers with his flashes, it turns out that even his fancy camera could't really get anything worth using. The sunlight coming through the windows played havoc with his light-balance-o-meter or something technical like that.

Alas, this also ruined the photo of me talking to the cute girl that was working at the cafe, essentially foiling my first attempt at my secret master plan of getting more hits by posting pictures of hot girls on my blog.

Back at the studio, while I tried to show Galen how my portfolio website is SOOO AWESOME, he decided to take pictures of things HE was interested in for some reason instead of listening to ME.

Strangely, this benefited both of us. I got this cool photo of the re-painting with a blurry me in the background and he got to not have to pay any attention when someone besides him is speaking. 

That always makes him happy!

Maybe a late night song that inspires...

Over the weekend I got to spend both days working on the re-painting and the little squid things seem to be taking shape nicely. Now they've got some random eye sockets and fancy new teeth that actually kind of look like teeth this time. Damn if those wiggly fuckers aren't turning out as cute as could be! I think they might all be enjoying the evening breeze, singing a song for the girls. Maybe a late night song that inspires buzzy heads with with fuzzy ideas.

I think I just got an idea for the title for this painting. Tomorrow's morning light might reveal it to be awful, but this boozy evening I'm satisfied with it. Who says blogging is a useless waste of time!

Oh yeah, it's me. Thank god my time is not in any way valuable.