Cotton District Arts Festival 2011

The 2011 Cotton District Arts Festival will be held tomorrow (April 23rd), and it looks like it will be a pleasant day for it! I entered 3 pieces of artwork in the juried show and all 3 were accepted! The three I entered were Manic Depression, Vent, and Out of the Fold. Hopefully, one or more of these will win something in the show! This year's juror is Terry Cherry, an accomplished watercolorist and art teacher extraordinare at East Mississippi Community College in Scooba, MS. If you get a chance, come by the festival and check out the juried show, which will be held in the Visual Arts Building on University Drive. Awards will be presented at 9:30, but the arts festival will be all day!

Manic Depression 48 X 48 inches

Out of the Fold, 19 X 24 inches

Vent, 20 X 20 inches

Energy Art Show in Russia and new collaboration

The Energy Art Movement recently had a competition and all gold medal finalists get to have their pieces exhibited in the City Exhibition Center "Dialog" in Novgorod, Russia.


I only entered one picture in the competition, a piece I did a number of years ago entitled "Infinity" and was lucky enough to be a gold medalist. Based on various feedback, web stats, etc., this piece has proven to be my most viewed image on the web. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculously high mailing costs by Fed Ex or UPS, I decided not to send the original to Russia. However, I did send a high quality print that I matted and framed with plexiglass. This show presents a wonderful opportunity to show my work side by side with other artists doing some very exciting work. For more info about the Energy Art Movement, visit their web site at: http://www.energyartmovement.org/

Infinity

In other cool news, I just finished up a collaborative drawing with Marcel Bakker. Marcel in an awesome artist! He started the drawing by doing the top portion, then covering it with card stock except for a one inch strip. He then mailed it to me and I completed the bottom section. I entitled the piece "Garden of Unearthly Delights". You can see more of Marcel's work at: http://mbkkr.deviantart.com/

Garden of Unearthly Delights

Collaborations and new artwork

Been working on a collaboration with Marcel Bakker the last couple of weeks. I am drawing the bottom half of a drawing of which he did the top half. He covered the top half with paper only leaving an inch wide strip for me to work with. We call this type of collaboration an Exquite Corpse. I started doing these with some other artists a couple of years ago when I joined a club on the Deviant Art web site called "The Exquisite Corpse". This particular drawing is being done in ink and is about 11 x 17 inches (more or less). When I finish, I will upload the final image. The last two we did were colored images. I started one, and he started the other. I painted an abstract painting, very simple, then scanned it, and emailed it to Marcel. He then used a pen to draw a picture based on the color patterns. Since it was an Exquisite Corpse collaboration, he only drew one side, then covered it except for an inch wide strip and mailed it to me. I finished it up, took off the paper, then got to see the final image. We called this one "The Abyss of the Mind".

The Abyss of the Mind

Marcel also did a color image, emailed to me, and I did half, then mailed him the other half so he cold finish it up. Both of these two images turned out very nicely. In fact, one of them, "Just West of Eden", received a Daily Deviation on the Deviant Art web site and has already been viewed over 15,000 times on that site alone.

Just West of Eden

I got a better image of one of my latest pieces. I decided to call it "Vent", as in, the main figure appears to be "venting" or relieving himself of some sort of physical stress. This particular one is 24 x 24 inches in size. I did this one on birch plywood that I had primed with white latex paint. I then applied thinned acrylic paint. After it dried, I used a pen to pull out detail. I decided to leave some areas with no ink on this one.

Vent

New works in progress

Been working on a few new color pieces lately. As with my recently finished "Manic Depression", I am doing these on primed birch plywood. I have a couple that I started with thinned acrylic paint and another with colored ink. I love putting random color down and then trying to draw something out of it with pens. I decided to put an unfinished one up to illustrate how I add detail to the colored areas. This particular one was done with colored inks and has a greenish overall tone. The green picture is 2 X 4 feet. The first section picture below is near the bottom of the image. You can see large uninked areas at this point. I also put up a couple of details of one of the acrylic ones I am working on.

Green Detail #1



Green Detail #2


Detail of acrylic-ink painting, as yet untitled

New mixed media drawing/painting finished

I finally pretty much finished up a drawing that I started a year ago. Although I did not work on the picture everyday, it took a ton of time to finish. The image is 4 x 4 feet on a piece of plywood. I painted it first with white paint a couple of times, then randomly applied colored inks using various methods. Then, of course, I went back with rapidograph pens of a couple of different thicknesses to find and delineate weird stuff. The title of the drawing is "Manic Depression". Thus far, I have not been able to get a good image of the piece because it is pretty big and a bit shiny. I do have some images anyway that may give you an idea.

Manic Depression 4 x 4 feet

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4

I have some drawings in a couple of books

I have a few drawings in a cool new book entitled "Visionary Art Yearbook: 2010-2011". Otto Rapp, who started the online group for Visionary artists, put this beautiful book together. The book includes works by artists from around the world. I have artwork on pages 37, 92, 142, 143 and the inside of the back of the dust jacket (the piece entitled Disintegration on page 142 was a collaboration between myself and Deb Valentine, although it was mislabeled and my name is not associated with it). This book can be purchased at the Blurb Online Bookstore.



I also have two collaborative drawings that I did with Bernard Dumaine of France in a book called Miximages, which is also for sale on the Blurb Online Bookstore. This book is an incredible compilation of many of Bernard's surreal collaborations that he has done with artists from around the world.

Energy Art Exhibition July - August 2010

The opening reception for the Energy Art Movement's "Energizing Radiance" show on 9 July 2010 at Gallery Fifty Six on 2256 Central Ave., Memphis, TN went well. We had lots of folks show up for the opening, and several sales were made including my piece "Dreaming of Id"!

Dreaming of Id

The show is scheduled to come down next Tuesday, but several pieces in the show will remain in the gallery for an additional month including the other piece I had in the show, "Infinity". If you are in the area, please go by and check it out! For more info about the show go to my page about the show on my web site.