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New Paintings and stuff

There is a ton of new stuff going on! First of I was asked by the Blue Bottle to have a dual show in 2009. That’s crazy, because I’ve been trying to get in there for five years now. Awesome. Also there is a painting available in the Art for Sale section of The Hive Gallery’s website. It’s only $200 if anyone is interested.

So I’ve been working on this new cool little series. I got 4 small frames at a church rummage sale and have been putting together a small bird family. So far it’s really cool.

I guess you could say that it looks like the beginning for a children’s book or something but it was really just a new way to start to think of these birds. They really have taken on a character as opposed to in the beginning when there wasn’t much to their structure to add character to.

I kind of like the bird with no headphones even better. I don’t know what is happening to me. Soon I’ll be making pastoral scenes and talking about my new painting of mallards and how maybe I’ll make the three cent stamp or some crud…..

This is the piece that I did for my mom for mother’s day. I started it four months ago, but finally got around to finishing it now. Go ahead, call me lazy. Tell me I’m one step away from pastoral scenes

Feeling normal again. Actually spending time painting, and not totally immersed in websites. I mean websites are cool and all but I love painting. It’s been weird not doing much of it…..I guess that is what happens when they turn you down from MCAD. Ha, don’t really know why I wanted to go anyway. I’d rather just go to Minneapolis and hang out with my friend kelly.

But anyway, not to disappoint, I finished my second painting for the boutique in New York finally. I think it’s pretty rad. The bird house series is starting to become more extensive, and that is allowing me to get more into the character of the birds. Good stuff. Also helps me to build more character into the bird houses themselves.

Anyway….

The blue bird rock continues. I don’t know what it is about blue birds but they sure rock…maybe it’s the state bird of new york thing, or maybe it’s that all of the school buses were blue bird buses. I don’t know, but blue birds rock at least as hard as the stones do. Or rather at least as hard as sixty something year old rolling stones…..

I was just invited to be in the May show at the Hive Gallery, and this is my first sketch for my piece. It’s my first attempt at one of the more exaggerated looking birds. It also goes right along with chinese poetry.

until then….

So I know I know, I haven’t put anything up here since February…..

Slacker!

It’s not that I haven’t been working though. Although, truth be told I’ve mainly been trying to teach myself how to be a web designer, which by the way I am not doing to badly at. I’ve been working on www.tincanwebworks.com, (TinCan Web Works is the name that Beth’s brother and I have been working under) So far so good, just need to update things so as not to be ripping people off.

Here’s a banner off a site that is never going to launch because the guy that was trying to put it up was absolutely crazy……

I really like the banner, but that is about all that I am absolutely sold on.

I’ve also been working on a few paintings. Mostly for the “After the Ice Caps” series, but I’ve also been working up a couple birds with birdhouses for a boutique in New York, and a couple paintings for the Hive Gallery in California.

This is one of the two paintings that I will be sending to the boutique in New York this week.
I am so in love with this series. This is supposed to be a male house finch. I’ve started only doing birds in this series that I see at my feeder this summer. Sounds like a plan to me. Did I mention that I am glad that it is finally spring…….

This is the painting that I did for the “Avatar” show at the Hive Gallery. My Avatar is the Mighty Sparrow. Half mighty mouse and half Run DMC. The idea of having an Avatar is kind of ridiculous and I love it…..

This is a self portrait that I drew out shortly after walking around the ICA in Boston. A guy was doing a bunch of pieces using speakers as different voices representing different cultures in urban areas. Interesting concept but I chose to take it a completely different direction…..

My computer is finally up to date and I’m painting more and sleeping less so I’ll probably have some more stuff up soon……

Mattie if you’re reading this I’ve been working on the *expletive* ark.

So two nights ago, beth and I were sitting on our couch talking about heavy stuff for a long time. The next morning I woke up and had to go work on something a little light-hearted. I’ve only got so much seriousness in my whole body.

I am super proud of this little guy. I’ve always had a complete obsession with Barry Mcgee’s work. He takes frames that he gets cheap at thrift stores and rummage sales and makes art to go in them. Basically a backwards process, since framing is generally the last step and not the first. I’ve bought many cheap frames in the past, but usually they sit around until we move and then I get rid of them. This time I actually finished my painting though, and I am quite pleased. I want to do more even. This one is called “Jam I am”

I also finished the first of a couple pieces with birds in trees. Simple stuff, but I like the “subtle” headphones. Anyway until next time, Hasta la pasta.

mike

so I finished my goldfinch piece yesterday morning, or maybe it was friday morning. I really can’t remember right now. The last two days at the cow have been pretty intense, so who knows in the end right?

But anyway I really like how this piece came out. I’m planning on using both of the new bird pieces in my portfolio for MCAD. Other good news, by the way, all I have left to do is choose twenty items out of thirty to thirty five for my portfolio and send that and my proposal out and I am all done applying to MCAD. Wish me luck. I hope to be in Minneapolis by September.

Until next time, Keep on trucking.

I was up at about six thirty this morning and it looks like it is going on two now. I finished my proposal for grad school and then went to work on a painting for the Hive’s global awareness show. Of course I have to be in that one. With the subject matter I am usually using, how could I not be in it. Then I went to the cow for a while and then right back to studio until about one or so in the morning.

So this is the first actual painting that I’ve finished in my tribute to Marvel comics “What if?!” titles. I think of this series as “What if Al Gore is actually right about global warming and the polar ice caps are really going to be gone in three years?!” I know that sounds a little skeptical of Al Gore, but he’s a politician. My dad’s been telling me since I could walk that politicians are no good. However, I can agree with not polluting for obvious reasons.

The next piece in the series I think will be a panoramic painting, probably twice as wide as this sketch, with power lines just peaking out of the water. I need to get off the kick of violet green swallows. I think the last three paintings I’ve finished have had violet green swallows in them, and it is really time to stop.

but….

…thankfully, this sketch which I’m using in a painting that is almost done, has a goldfinch on the branch. In fact I should be done with that one tomorrow morning. It’s almost there. All that is left is to bring the color up on the bird, which will be quite simple. When that’s done though, I’m not really sure which piece I should send to the Hive…..

Oh well, better to have too many than too few.

until next time….who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men

the shadow knows

muhahahahhahaha!

Riley’s pretty much the man and he sleeps in boxes, what more could you want out of a cat……

So I’m a little groggy. It’s been a busy week and a half or so. Last wednesday Beth suggested I apply to MCAD(Minneapolis College of Art and Design). I’ve been wanting to go there for a while now. So I applied and I’ve been trying to get about three months worth of preparation for an application done in a week. It’s always been my style though.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some more work in the sketchbook, including a new bird and robot combo. After not doing those for so long, it’s easier to come back with new and different looking birds and robots.

It certainly seems like a long time since I originally worked up a robot and bird together. This is a little more complex than the beginning, but I still have some fond memories of the beginning.

I’ve also been working on different ways of incorporating the tv with teeth into my work. This one is kind of like jonah and the whale, except there is no whale…..

So my niece, Patience made that color behind the bird. She didn’t use all of the paint on her pallet, which is not really a surprise since she’s seven, but I thought it was a pretty nice job on her part.

more to come soon. I am almost done with another bird in the post polar ice cap world piece.

So I’ve been doing a lot of work in my sketchbooks lately; trying to figure out what to do with two speaker boxes that my friend RC gave me. Also, since recently getting an internet connection, I’ve been researching different grants and programs for artist retreat and what not. The fact that New Hampshire is somewhat of an artist retreat by default doesn’t really hinder things either.

I have, I’ve previously relayed, become quite obsessed with birds of late. I have a collection of bird books that seems to ever be growing and becoming more and more dog-eared(it’s a form of love right?) This said, the idea of crossing birdhouse with speaker housing isn’t too much of a stretch. The only problem for these research institutions could possibly be “why?”.

I’m thinking double doors where the speaker would be, opening like a grandfather clock. No cuckoo out of this one, but more a bird being amplified. The fight between technology and nature continues. I’m open to suggestion on this one, if anyone feels like offering anything up, be my guest.

This sketch is out of a series that has been following the global warming debates. Essentially, I’m thinking that if the polar ice caps melt, all that will be left will be birds and fish. Hopefully we won’t see, but it is interesting creating some pieces with the intent of developing interest in a global issue. I guess some of my work is along these lines, but not usually this blunt.

After the two loaded images, I’d like to just throw out the happy go lucky little guy listening to his tunes in the tree limbs above….

This was a huge sketch for me in my career. At least I think it will prove to be so. It was one of the first times that I took care with the pseudo background instead of just the figure in the center of a piece. I’m not sure if the illo instructors at Syracuse would be proud or not.
I like it though.

I’ll be posting a couple more things before the week is over if I can remember to bring my other journals home from the studio. And if anyone has some more ideas about birds with speakers…….maybe you can help me tear the envelope.

So as any of you who come here with any regularity know, I’ve moved from the booming metropolis of seattle to the quaint village of Ashland in New Hampshire. And now that I have the internet at my pad again I feel pretty darn good about the whole thing.
Oh yes, I asked beth to marry me and she said yes. Very good news. Most days she even still seems into it.

I have a new studio in my almost a brother in law’s basement. Pretty cool. I need more wood to paint on, and I need to build myself another mondo easel, but the room itself is pretty cool. I got a lot of my schtick up in it, and I even have a mouse in there(in a cage) It makes me feel kind of like Batman in the cave with a lot of bats. I’m going to be like the Mighty Mouse of the art world or something.

So anyway, I’ve got some new stuff for everyone to check out too.

This is the “Birdhouse Jam #1”. It actually already sold in a show at the Hive Gallery in LA. There will be lots of birdhouse stuff coming up soon. I’ve been getting really into them. Beth’s parents even got me a book on building different types of birdhouses. I also put up a bird feeder in my yard. Thistle for finches. This being in the country thing has its plus side.

Beth made me another sketchbook for my birthday this last year. This was the first real page I worked up in it. The actual first page was just two flies(the fishing kind). I’m not really into emo. I guess i was sort of suggesting that people that are into emo generally like to broadcast their feelings. My apologies to anyone who may take offense…..

I told you man, birdhouses…..

Ok, so this probably needs some explanation. I’ve been doing a lot of reading since we’ve touched ground here. One of the books that I read was a Robert Heinlein all about how if the koreans and japanese got together after the korean war, came over the north pole, and beat the crap out of us, then subjected us to brainwashing. I’m not suggesting that that robot is what I think of when I think of various Asian countries but it is what I think of when I’m thinking about brainwashing. Don’t worry. Soon tv’s and this robot will combine to take over the whole kit and kaboodle man.

And Lastly, I don’t usually use this spot for inside jokes and whatnot, but this is for Kelly Bartell, because I miss her. I don’t know why minneapolis has to be so far away!

So here I am. Made it to New Hampshire. I found a job within two days. Not too bad. Working as a line cook at the Country Cow. Not my preferred employment, but at least it’s employment. Better pay rate than driving the beer van though. But “a man and his fry pan” doesn’t sound nearly as cool as “a man and his beer van”.

Anyway I am at Beth’s parents house, no scanner, so I guess I’ll be putting up some old stuff for the time being. Although I do have one new piece that has been color corrected, so everyone can check out Michael Boston’s new piece:

I do have a lot of new work that is going on in my sketchbook and my journal, however, so when I do have a scanner and my internet connection set up at my new place, I will have a whole bunch of stuff to put up. Until then, be well. And if you are in Seattle, run to Latona and buy up the rest of the paintings there so I don’t have to have them sent to NH.

Peace