Jimi Hendrix Backed By Dylan On YouTube!

Well, I used the "Are You Experienced?" I found. Hope I did a good enough job for such an amazing album. It'd be like using "Revolver" or "Pepper". I created a YouTube video for it as well. I used "All Along the Watchtower" behind it and it turned out pretty nice. So maybe if it gets enough exposure, more people will get hip to what I'm doing and why. I know, just know, I'll have to explain again that I use albums a phonograph needle would run and hide from and that, yes, they are handpainted directly on the record, and no, you can't play them anymore. It's fun though, kind of an ice-breaker to a discussion about vinyl, music, recycling and so forth. That's why I'm creating these, to give people something positive and creative to talk about that adds to and celebrates our pop culture.

First Fridays attendees who visit Red Dog Gallery will see 8 pieces to talk about, compare and share. Who's your favorite? Dylan, Cash, or Hendrix? Nah, Ozzy! Sweetness.

I can still get commissions done for the holidays, so:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and let me know who the music-lover in your family would want!

Top 9 Things To See In London?

Now live on YouTube! Click on the photo to see my new movie.

I've got some done with still much to do. Today, besides putting the video together, I did Damian Marley and Warren Zevon for commissions from Newport Nights. I've got a Jerry Garcia and Miles Davis to go, so far. I'm hoping for more interest after Primitive Kool puts those 16 up on their website. It looks like the Otis Redding sold too! We're going to London next week so I won't be posting here or able to paint, so I've got to get a lot done this week. I've got to get the ones done and framed for First Fridays, which'll be next week too. Feelin' the crunch!

Speaking of our trip to London, these are the things I'm most excited to see:

The Verve concert
Stonehenge
Westminster Abbey
Abbey Road
Tate Modern
St. Paul's Cathedral
London Bridge
Mary Poppins
Hyde Park

Please let me know what else we should hit! Otherwise:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and comment on my videos on YouTube too.

Miles, And Miles, And Miles!

Newport Nights rocked! It was a great gig, lots of people. I got to watch quite a few checking out my work. Ocean Beach is a cool place and getting to see the ocean was wonderful. A couple pieces sold, with more commissions as well. The Miles Davis they had sold online and another of him was requested by one of the employees of Primitive Kool. We'll definitely be heading back there for a future show!

Red Dog Gallery in downtown Phoenix is going to be displaying 8-10 of my pieces during the upcoming First Fridays! I've been hoping to find a place that participates in that monthly event as well, as the turnout of people interested in local culture is supposed to be huge. Woohoo!

I also found an inordinate number of records today at 2 local used stores. Bob Marley, Hendrix, the Dead, Pink Floyd, SRV... man, that was sweet! So now I'm stocked up and ready to paint. Besides the Miles Davis movie, I've also got the shots taken for a Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix so I'll be posting those this week. In the meantime, I've still got my gallery so:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and, please, leave comments here, on YouTube, or email me!

EDIT: I wanted to note that the image I use for the Miles Davis piece is the 1985 photo by Anton Corbijn. He's well known in the music world for his photography and music video work and I wanted to make sure to give him credit for the initial beautiful vision of the legend on muted trumpet.

The Man In Black On His Ring Of Fire

Dylan worked out alright, 40 some odd views so far. So here's Johnny!

Let me know what you think and if you like it, share the link from YouTube!

Heading out to SoCal on Saturday, but I'm tryin' to get two more done that they already sold. Anybody got a Hendrix record they don't want? Hehe, yea. So you can still see the ones for the show in San Diego if you:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and help me blow away the smoke and ash!

Dylan On YouTube

This is making me nervous. I haven't done one before and I don't know how well it worked. I made a time-lapse movie of my painting of Dylan. There are some 20 slides as the painting develops. I'm not sure if it's too dark. On one computer it might be, but on another it looks the way I want it to be seen. I've also done one of Johnny Cash that I need to tweak and add music.

We're still planning on being at the Newport Nights show on Saturday. Hopefully the San Diego fires will be contained enough to allow traffic through. We don't know how many people'll show up, but maybe it'll be a nice welcome home for some locals if they had evacuated. Four pieces have already sold, but they're keeping them for the show. Pretty exciting.

I also am in contact with Roger Steffens who is interested in possibly adding one of my paintings of Bob Marley to what will be the founding collection of the National Museum of Jamaican Music in Jamaica! Whoa! I've got a pic of what it'll look like in my gallery online, so:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and please let me know what you think about the YouTube video here, by email, or on YouTube.

Exposing Myself

I love doing what I do! I get paid to expose myself! Being an artist is hard, but satisfying in that my direct creative expression is getting attention and appreciation. I put part of myself, my soul, into my art, and yes, my goal has become to sell myself. I used to shudder thinking about that aspect of being a professional artist. Now, though, it feels better than working for someone else. I AM my business. It is frustrating to not get feedback and to feel ignored sometimes, but it has built my self-confidence a great deal. I believe in myself. I'm not sure anybody would recommend becoming an artist to bolster one's self-esteem, but it definitely encourages self-reliance. I have to be my own biggest fan. For me, that's big, as before now, I was my biggest critic, not cutting myself slack for mistakes and imperfections that I far overlooked in others. I still hold myself to high standards, but optimistically!

I'm realizing this on a day with little visible progress. I painted Otis Redding because I wanted to, not for a client. I added an XML sitemap to my website for search engines which already have me indexed. And I created yet another profile/gallery for a free artists' directory with no other posts in its forum since September. Yet, the more things I do to promote my online presence, my artwork, myself, the more I realize that I must consider myself worth it! I'm spending all this time on me!

This post, then, is meant to share my inspiration. Not quite an epiphany or anything too profound, just a simple acknowledgement of how lucky I am to be my own business. My ultimate goal in being an artist is to spread my idea and creativity to as many people as I can, to bring people together by communicating about our collective culture, and to live a human life. It's why we're here I think, to be humans and to be understood as the individuals that we are within humanity.

What do YOU think?

I also submitted a press release to AP.org regarding Newport Nights this October 27th at Primitive Kool in San Diego. Hopefully they'll find it suitable for distribution, but in the meantime, if you haven't:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and see the 16 pieces that'll be on display and for sale!

Otis Redding 10/19/07

Do Work!

The Man in Black is definitely giving Zep a run for their money in popularity, at least as far as my paintings go. A collector already bought the one I had done for Newport Nights at Primitive Kool before they even publicized them! They asked if I could do another one for the show so they could sell that one along with paintings of Johnny Cash from a couple other artists. So, I did work! This one is on the Pickwick release "Walk the Line". I had to reunite it with it's cover at the record store because it's a bit warped and they were going to sell just the sleeve. Doin' my part!

Speaking of my part, apparently Blog Action Day was a huge success. They took down most of their site so I had to put the banner image on my site. Makes sense, though, to streamline their site. They probably didn't want some 20,000 blogs hitting their site constantly for those banners. In any event, feel free to use my copy. You can find it in my previous post:

http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-action-day-make-it-more-than-day.html

Also, if you want to see more examples of my work, you can go through the rest of this blog and:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and tell me how you found me!

Blog Action Day - Make It More Than A Day

Fits right in. I recently considered the recycling, repurposing, reuse aspect of my artwork:

http://www.treehuggingfamily.com/recycled-vinyl-art

So, here I'm wandering online and I happen to find Emily Chang and the post on eHub about today in the blogosphere. Since I'm a reasonably active blogger, I thought I'd do my part to spread the idea. Especially since my artwork has a bit of a connection to at least saving landfill space.



If you don't know about my art, you can find more info in this blog or you can:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and leave me feedback too!

The Godfather - Vinyl Killers

This James Brown is for a show in Portland called Vinyl Killers - http://www.craptastica.com/vinylkillers/vkmain3.htm

The sheen is from the acrylic clear coat I sprayed on liberally. Made my garage smell lovely, but it'll protect the painting without needing a frame. I've thought of using resin, but this was much easier, other than a slight ventilation problem. The effect is kinda cool, almost glossy with the grooves smoothed over. Most of the submissions are spray paint, but Klutch said mine'd fit in. We'll see. The show is at a place called The Goodfoot, which I didn't know when I choose The Godfather to paint, so a cool connection there.

I can't go to the show because we're going to San Diego that weekend to see my 16 pieces at Primitive Kool. You can see those in previous posts or when you:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and help me get the buzz going!

Knocked Up, a.k.a. The Top 101 Unforgettable SNL Moments Revisited

[EDIT - 5/15/08: To those of you arriving at this post searching for information about E!'s 101 Most Unforgettable SNL Moments, I know there isn't too much out there, including from E!. I found this which lists all the moments. I do hope you're not too upset that you've ended up here. Happy trails!]

What a great movie! So honest. I like comedies like that, like "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin". You'd think I must like Steve Carell. But I don't. I don't? Wait, yes... yes... I don't. What? I do. I do what? I do... not like Steve Carell. That can't be right. I do like Steve Carell, no? No. Wait, no I do or no I don't? What? Like Steve Carell. No. No, I do. I really do... like Steve Carell. Yeah? Yeah... I don't. Really? No, I do. What? I must like Steve Carell. Do I? No.

I feel a little guilty about using the Top 101 Moments of SNL on a preceding post. A bunch of people are finding it because I initially screwed up and put "100", which, because it was incorrect, got my post kinda high up in Google. People hitting that link see Jimi Hendrix and a list of comedians. Some from SNL, but honestly the show was only tangentially related to the post. Well, it did inspire the post, but there wasn't any info about it. I didn't even put a link to the E! page for it or anything. Was that wrong? I hope people at least like my artwork. I am genuinely putting those lists to give a sense of who I am, what from our pop culture has seeped into my brain. And I'm trying to keep my rambling to a minimum, so I don't add paragraph upon paragraph detailing why each item on a list is there. Otherwise my posts would be epic, but in a bad way.

Right now, though, comedians like Steve Carell and Will Ferrell are making me laugh the most. Even "Blades of Glory" was a riot in spurts. They're kind of like modern-day screwball comedies, fast-talking, physical humor, silly, yet with an undercurrent of intelligence. Of course, as previously noted, "Bringing Up Baby" and the others of its time are in our limited DVD collection. I love it when funny people come together with a funny script and the perfect director for their time and place.

The owner of the Tempe Improv balked at my paintings of Steve Martin, Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Robin Williams, so if anybody's interested, let me know here or:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and email me. Let me know, too, who your favorite comedians are!

Some Like It Hot

I was amazed that I found an album of her recordings for her movies that was in bad enough shape to paint. I hope I did her justice. I wouldn't want to offend Joltin' Joe's memory of his Marilyn. What the American public has considered "beautiful" has sure changed over the years. I've considered many very different actresses to be gorgeous. I used to draw and sculpt the figure from live models, so I became aware of the subjectivity and individuality of beauty. Here is a group of publicly known women that helped shape my sense of feminine exquisiteness:

Audrey Hepburn
Lauren Bacall
Rita Hayworth
Marilyn Monroe
Barbara Feldon
Shannon and Tracy Tweed
Gillian Anderson
Michelle Pfeiffer
Anna Nicole Smith (as the Guess girl)

So American... oh well, that's where I grew up! And near Hollywood. I suppose, then, these really capture what I consider the beautiful celebrity, not feminine beauty in general. How shallow is that? This is, however, a part of who I am and of my pop culture, so it's definitely relevant to this blog.

Also relevant to this blog about my trials and tribulations as an artist, the glass of 2 of the 3 I sent to Wild About Music broke in transit. Blast! This is the third time. I am switching over to plexiglass for everybody now, for sure. It's just not worth the worry every time I send one with glass. Plex is lighter anyway. The practical issues of being an artist are trying. I just want to be able to paint and make people happy, not be bothered by packaging concerns. If you'd like to see the ones I sent to Austin even though they aren't displayed for sale yet, you can:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and look through the online gallery.

Newport Nights Collection

They're a little small, I know. But I've posted most of them already. This is just to show the whole show together. News emails and posts have gone out to spread the word. If you know someone who lives in the San Diego area or will be there October 27th, please let them know about my art. Http://primitivekoolart.com has the details.

They don't however have the paintings yet. I'm going to send them next week. There's still plenty of time for commissioning me for holiday gifts too, so let me know if you're interested! You can leave comments here or:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and email or call me. Thanks!

Top 101 Moments Of SNL

[EDIT - 5/15/08: To those of you arriving at this post searching for information about E!'s 101 Most Unforgettable SNL Moments, I know there isn't too much out there, including from E!. I found this which lists all the moments. What follows here is another more personal list of mine.]

We were watching the countdown on E! last night and it reminded me of how important comedians and comedy have been in shaping my outlook on life. From the zany Monty Python troop to the warmth of Bill Cosby, there've been tons of funny people through the years who have connected with and influenced what makes me laugh:

George Carlin
Steve Martin
John Belushi
Dan Aykroyd
Gilda Radner
Bill Murray
Lucille Ball
Mitch Hedberg
Burns & Allen
Fry & Laurie
Sid Caesar
Steve Carell
Charlie Chaplin
Bill Cosby
John Cleese
Chris Farley
David Spade
Jimmy Fallon
Tina Fey
Will Ferrell
Mel Brooks
Christopher Guest
Phil Hartman
Rowan & Martin
Tim Conway
Caroll Burnett
Harvey Corman
Andy Kaufman
Buster Keaton
Denis Leary
David Letterman
Conan O'Brien
Marx Brothers
Tracy Morgan
Bob Newhart
Trey Parker & Matt Stone
Carl Reiner
Molly Shannon

These are a bunch of the biggies for me. There are lots of comedic actors, but they don't fit in with this list, I don't think.

I've gotten all the paintings done for Primitive Kool. Now I've just got to frame and box'em! The Newport Nights show is going to be 2007/10/27. http://primitivekoolart.com/ has more details. I'll do commissions of the ones that'll be in the show too, if you can't make it, or any other musician you'd want! I'm going to put a post of all 16 pieces together soon. For now:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: http://www.vinylart.info/

and tell me who you'd add to my funny people list!

Two For Tuesday

Rockzone Records hung the ones I gave them! They look great. I'll take my camera next time I'm down there and get a shot of'em. I'm sending 3 to Wild About Music today and the ones for Primitive Kool are almost ready to go too.

Yesterday, I tried to contact the radio stations I listened to growing up to see if they'd be interested in my work. We'll see. They did play an important role in what pop music I listened to during my teens. I found out about classic rock groups from KLSX, heavy metal masters from KNAC, and all those great alternative bands from Pirate Radio. All of those are different now, but KLOS, KCBS, and KROQ are still there. Grunge certainly wouldn't have influenced me as much if it hadn't been for radio and MTV. I'm looking for a Nirvana record right now to do for Primitive Kool, but they're hard to come by for sure. Ozzy's available through PayPal in my online gallery, so if you're interested:

CHECK OUT MY WEBSITE AT: WWW.VINYLART.INFO

and scroll through the jukebox.