Happy Masks

     For detail on the face of Mona Lisa I cut a stencil for the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, then touched up with a Q Tip.  Total time for Mona Lisa was 1.5 hours

African  Mahem

 48"  x  24"            2 hours

     Jingle Man took about 3 hours of spray paint work, then about 3 months of work on the frame for it.  I painted this the day my son went off to the Navy.  I wanted to create something that would give the viewer a taste of what it was like in Afghanistan - the whole frame is a 'jingle truck' and is lit with a red glow at night,  it makes a God-awful racket when the handle is pulled, and is mounted on springs to give it the noisy bounce I wanted.  The appearance changes at night as shown below.

Spray Paintings

     The Stewart-Gardner Heist is a mixed media with acrylic and digital art reproductions that have been printed and applied to 

the board.  

     It is a reference to a proposed theory I saw on a documentary featuring a most interesting character, a private investigator that has a very distinctive appearance - probably best described as 'The Last Person On Earth That Anyone Would Want Following Them".  

     In the documentary he's on the trail of the 5 big pieces from the Isabella-Stewart Gardner Museum  (ISG) heist.   I went to school next door for 3 years and loved hanging out, it was fun to imagine the private residence that it used to be

       Prior to making this I was going to practice reproduction work on some or all of the stolen pieces.  I was going to go for it with oil paint oil in a very small format on the board above, within the appropriate frames...I talked myself out of that because it sounded tedious the more I thought about it.  I re-worked the paintings digitally - overlaying, then losing the original work with my own work using Photoshop and/or Illustrator.  Working digitally is just the modern version of a camera obscura, light table, tracing paper, or projector.  I like taking my own work and getting a second chance re-work it. 

        Digital art is art, just as visually viable and vibrant and technically challenging as other mediums.  

                                                                                  CLICK HERE for Digital Art 

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First composition in Photoshop

        I've always loved spraypainted graffiti.....it's big (it has to be because of the nature of the paint stream from the can), it's colorful, and the 'clunkiness' of the medium forces it to have a certain appearance that I've always liked.   I don't and haven't defaced anyone's property or public space, I just don't want to deal with the legal hassle, public scorn,  and job loss that would go along with that....although you might see a sticker of my images in a random bus stop or on a telephone pole.   I limit my tools to the spray paint can, a piece of cardboard to 'cut' lines in, and a handful of Q tips for details.  Some of the images below are mixed media - with acrylic or marker.  

      Happy Masks came first, then Angry Masks came about because I covered up some of the best spray paint work on Happy Masks.   I had been inspired by the stencil work I did on Mona Lisa to try something more complex, so I sketched and cut 6 stencils using Goya's grotesques as inspiration.  I think I was trying to say something like 'there may be some creepy shit lurking beneath the happy masks that people wear" - or something deep like that.

     Anyways, the awesome stencil work was lost when the mask went over it so I decided to use the creepy stencil images to make a 'darker' piece.  Angry Masks has concrete, plaster, and uses both the stencil and the 'negative' of the stencil that I cut it from to form the shapes.

      Both of these look great as 3D images (available in the Gallery in the Box).  The image to the left is the stencil work from Happy Masks before it was partially covered up forever.

             Spraypaint on Board, 3.5 hours

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American Gothic

Stencil work under the Happy Masks

Angry Masks

Gardez Tower 4

Spray paint with Acrylic and Marker on Board

Mona Lisa Gaffiti

  This is dedicated to the guy in the picture and others like him who made it easier for me to go to sleep.                           Thanks for YOUR service.

Stewart-Gardner Heist

Stone Farm #1

Jngle Man at night

Jingle Man

Badass Vigilant Mother

Spraypaint with acrylic and digital art.

     My first attempt at spray paining was the American Gothic pictured here.  I made very good reproduction of the original in charcoal directly onto the board, then with the very first blast of spray paint the 'guide' of the charcoal sketch was gone for good!  Lesson learned.  Total time for this job was 2 hours.

O M A Y ' s    S T U D I O

The First 9 Feet of Our Cross-Country Road Trip