Pumpkin the Third

Yeah that's right, I carved a third pumpkin this year. If you follow my blog you probably know that for the last four years I've carved "celebrity tribute" pumpkins; i.e. pumpkins in the likeness of a celebrity who has passed within the last year. The first was Michael Jackson back in 2009. Then came Dennis Hopper, followed by Macho Man Randy Savage. Then finally last year I payed tribute to one of my favorite illustrators, Maurice Sendak.

This year I decided to go with film critic Roger Ebert, known as the partner of Gene Siskel in their television show "At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert."

The day I carved this I learned that Marcia Wallace, the voice talent behind Edna Krabappel on the Simpsons passed away. Then the next day we lost Lou Reed. Both would have been fine candidates for my celebrity pumpkin tribute, but at that point I was pumpkined OUT. Perhaps next year.

What do you say? Would you give this Pumpkin a thumbs up or thumbs down?

An Eye for a Pumpkin

Happy Halloween everyone! Once I started carving pumpkins this year I kept coming up with ideas for more. Here's a giant eyeball pumpkin I carved with wire eyelashes. 

I wanted it to look correct when it was lit up so I carved it in the negative so that the thinnest parts would be the most lit up. 

And here it is keeping watch at my house!

Spooky Scary

Halloween is nearly upon us, which means that it's time for pumpkin carving. I had a lot of fun with my pumpkin sculpture of Slimer last year and wanted to do another one to work on my skills. This year I decided to do an original character with pretty decent results I think.

During the carving stage (Dana Carving stage, that is)

I decided he needed ears, of course, because I'm a glutton for unnecessary work

To make it more Halloweeny I decided that he probably had a lobotomy at some point and needed stitches

Spooky Scary

All lit up

The mustache was probably a bad idea too. Much more work than I anticipated

And finally its home on the steps

Happy Halloween!

Insect Buddies!

Sorry for the wait, friends!

Here are the final two pieces from my show. If you're familiar with my work you may recognize these guys from previous paintings, but this time there's a whole new spin on them. Enjoy!

The original drawing of this guy can be seen on my website (with his full story!)

                          That's a Sphinx Moth around his collar, it's what Mr. Marvelous will eventually turn into.                           I have have been wanting to update the original drawing of this guy for a while now and
 I'm pretty happy with the results.

The original drawing of this guy can be seen here in all his kaleidoscopic glory!

We've Been Bugged

Here are two more pieces from the Insect show. These two were an experiment in turning people into bugs. David Cronenberg's "The Fly" is one of my favorite creature movies and was definitely going through my mind when I was working on these, even though they don't even come close to being as grotesque. You might say I was going for something a little more subtle. 

Faceless Woman

Despite what some people think, that is not a Star Trek uniform.

Fly Guy

I probably had the most fun with him.

Insectopia

I really wanted to create new work for my show at Flutter (that I actually uninstalled yesterday) and I knew I wanted to continue exploring working with ink wash and wood, so it seemed like a natural medium to use for this show.

Lately I've found myself fascinated with insects and as such I've decided to incorporate them into my art. I've been thinking about how the world of insects exists almost as a parallel universe to our own, while at the same time inhabiting the same space. We are increasingly being made aware that we are more dependent on each other than ever thought before and I thought it would be interesting to try and bring those universes closer together visually and thematically. These pieces take a step into imagining a world where insects instead of mammals grew to be the dominant wildlife on Earth.

While I don't feel like these paintings address all of my ideas, I do think it's a good start and I look forward to investigating these ideas further. Here are two pieces from the show with more to come later this week.

Portrait of a woman with Rain Beetle hat and Millipede Boa

A boy and his Rhinoceros Beetle

Detail

All pieces are painted with an ink wash.

Book Release Party!

Well it's no lie that I've been busy lately. Or at least I WAS busy up until my art opening and book release party at Flutter on September 12th. After frantically preparing for that show I decided to take a week off from the studio to relax and recharge, but now I'm ready to delve back in it.

The book release party for the Advanced Style Coloring Book was a ton of fun. People came dressed in Advanced Style outfits and everyone indulged their crayon loving inner child and colored in some of the illustrations from the book. Here are a few pics from the event.

Marvel at the concentration!

Some didn't have to delve too far to discover their inner child

For others it was just under the surface

Our community coloring experiment yielded interesting results. Why so serious?

It was an exciting week indeed! In addition to the party I was interviewed by Marjorie Skinner for her weekly fashion column in The Portland Mercury. You can read the article online here.

Check back soon to see images from my all new, all different art show hanging at Flutter right NOW.

(Or go down there and see it in person. Up until the second week of October)