Like a dead bird, kinda...?

There's lots of time for me to paint in Grants Pass.
I did this one in two different sittings, I believe,
though I haven't counted hours.
I'm working on a few nest/bird/egg paintings right now,
since I'm apparently monomaniacal (or just really unimaginative).

It's 12x24 inches, oil,
and for sale.
It'd make a perfect Easter present.
Let me know if you're interested.

No Pressure

I've been oil painting for a little while now,
but I kind of use oil paints just like acrylics that dry slowly.
No mediums, no varnishes.
Nothing that makes them look good.
(just like acrylics)

So I was a little nervous to paint with Jeff Gogue today.
Just him and me, from 9am to 7:30 pm.
But since he's the nicest dude ever,
he actually gave me a basic rundown on oil painting techniques.
And then did a super hot painting step by step to show me in real life.
My own little personal art instruction.
So dope.

I had stopped by a used bookstore on the way to work today,
and bought a couple books for the still life I was going to paint.
Then I ripped some of the pages out.
And put a human skull on top.
(yeah, it's real)
This is it all set up in the beginning stages:













Here it is a little later,
and a lot farther along,
but STILL NOT DONE:























I also worked on two other paintings
while this one was drying,
and I'm hoping to finish all three before I leave Saturday night.
We'll see.
I have an all day flaming birdhouse on a ribcage tomorrow,
and then a portrait of Elias' stuffed animal on Saturday.
So I'll have to get to the shop earlier than early both those days
to get some extra painting time in.

But the best part of today was getting to see Jeff work.
He started 4 paintings from scratch,
and brought them each to near completion.
He's a machine,
and I'm forced to re-evaluate what I used to think of as "productive".

Days like this are priceless.
Now it's off to bed.
6 hours of sleeptime scheduled,
then back to the shop.
Goodnight.

Still Off the Map

Day two at my Off the Map Guest Spot was a good one.
I tattooed my two favorite kinds of clients,
librarians, and the colorblind.
(someday I'll meet a colorblind librarian,
and we'll be best friends)

This was Carolyn's first tattoo.
The photo is super dark,
I'm hoping to get a better one soon.























Next, Mr Bruton came up from CT to get a ram (goat?) skull tattoo,
and I used only subtle variations of earth tones that he can't even see.
And after I beat his arm into submission,
I went and did a touch up on his foot.
Nice.
(i bet that was a fun hour drive home)























Tomorrow switches gears from birds to squirrels.
Lots of drawing and tattooing going on,
and I'm hoping to get in a little painting, too.
I only have 6 days every 6 months or so out here,
so you have to pack in as much as possible.

Hyenas and hand puppets.

I finished the boar skull painting the other day,
and immediately started a few new ones.

There's going to be a big to do come March,

and I need to get a move on if I'm going to be ready in time.

Adam W is leaving tomorrow morning for a NYC trip,

and he wanted to get a new tattoo before he left.

I drew up this hyena head for him,

which he didn't see until he got to the shop tonight,

and once he saw the angry face,

he wanted it a little "toned down".

(like adding the teddy bear to ryan's elephant)

So we ran through a few ideas, and settled on hand puppets,

which I then markered on.

We didn't get too far, since we only got started at 8pm,

but I'm super excited about it,

and wanted to post the progress photos.

We'll work on it again some time after Thanksgiving.

Weekending.

This week's Painting Monday wasn't as productive as I was hoping.
I started painting this warthog skull as practice,
but I only got a couple hours into it before I was needing certain spots to dry
before I could go back into them.
I guess it's a lot like tattooing.
If you do a spot orange,
it's going to be a bitch to try and change it to white a couple minutes later.
So when I went to tighten up the mouth area,
I realized it'd have to wait till another day.
(of course, the skull is being painted from life,
since I Ryan keeps finding me the sickest skulls around,
and working off of google images is not dope at all)

I also had a bunch of drawings to do for this work week starting tomorrow.
As long as everything goes as planned,
it should be a full week of tattoo photos for the blog (portfolio?).
It's funny the waves that exciting tattoo projects come in.
Sometimes it's awesome all week long,
and sometimes it's......not.

Old School Anchor, Skull, Wings Tattoo

An attractive skull with wings in front of an anchor. Nice use of red and yellow ink on a mainly black ink design.

Old School Anchor, Skull, Wings Tattoo

An attractive skull with wings in front of an anchor. Nice use of red and yellow ink on a mainly black ink design.