Studio View-Six Weeks Before June Show

Well, It's getting towards crunch time here in the 'ol studio...Lisa and my show in Oakland is less than six weeks away. Still tons to do, but here's a couple of progress shots, including one I started last night, still in it's tracing-paper stage. (click to enlarge)-the three stacked in the middle are still unfinished-and then my new piece on the easel, still in it's infancy.
This shows a bit of my process. I do a small sketch and then transfer it roughly onto tracing paper that I tape over my primed panel. I overlay other bits of tracing paper and play with my composition -like the cat here-and then block in my background in paint, and then finally transfer the foreground figures. On the floor is another new start that I've only begun to paint.
Some of these you've seen here, the two on the left are unfinished, as is my new version of "Cherry Graffiti" above the anime Morton-Salt girl.

S.F., Oakland, and Sunol

Man I'm behind in the blog-thing. So before any more time passes-here's a few shots from our lil' out of town jaunts from last week. First we went to San Fran and saw the Juan Carlos Quintana show at the S.F. MOMA collectors gallery at Fort Mason. Shoulda got more shots-
Lisa and I really liked this wall-grid of paintings...I might have to borrow this idea some day...

Then over to south of Market, where we saw several things, but I'm only going to highlight one-the Jennybird Alcantara show at Varnish. Holy mackerel, these are so beautiful! Check it-(and be sure to click to enlarge)









Pretty hard to top that (and for me, nothing else comes close). The show's up 'til May 9th-while you're at it there's also a good show nearby at Catherine Clark, also up 'til the 9th- Philip Knoll and James Barsness-

OK-so, in a whirlwind, Lisa and I headed over to Oakland to meet up with Bob and Erik for a little Murmuring (Oakland's first-Friday art walk)-which was a zoo, but fun. (Paul and Tara were there too but we couldn't hear our phone ringing.) We started over at Swarm Gallery (where Erik shows) for a fine John Casey show. Go over to Fecal Face.com and see their blog photos-nice stuff. Over at the Murmur galleries proper, the best was, as per usual, Johannson Projects and Mercury Twenty (maybe Lisa will post some shots on her blog), but we also saw this fine gem at a CCA student show at Hatch Gallery around the corner from Johannson-Then the next day, a fine hike with my mom over at Sunol Regional Park. Man, that place rules, especially this time of year-This is the part that's called "Little Yosemite"
Me and me mum
Then that night, over to Paul and Tara's for drinks. We shoulda snapped some shots of their pretty amazing art collection-their new Shepherd Fairy and Camille Rose Garcia pieces really looked sweet.
That's all the bloggin' for now. Nice day today-here's a shot of the backyard with the studio on the right, and here's a new small one that I'm working on now-called "Sunnyside Up". Cheers!

"Justice" (That Feel)

Finally finished a rather large commission painting I've been working on and off again on for like three months. Whew! (click to really enlarge)