Here is the image for the second week of the advent sermon series, "Songs of the Story". This song was song by Zechariah right after his mouth was opened again and he could speak.

Songs of the story.

It has been a while.

Here is a quick Illustration I finished for the Advent sermon series at my church Redemption Hill. The series Is titled Songs of the Story and it is 4 weeks long with each week focusing on a different one of the songs surrounding the birth of Christ. The first one is sung by Mary, the second is Zechariah, the Third was Angels, and the fourth was Simeon. I am going to do a different painting for each week to be presented on the slides and the website. I am pretty excited about doing this.

Capone Wants You!

An old piece I did for a assignment freshman year.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Here Is a piece I finished for the Visual Literacy Program monthly contest. The figure is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The author of Sherlock Holmes). We were supposed to pick two different ways of working or focuses and combine them together. I chose line and a painterly application of media. I am very pleased with my concept which I spent quite some time honing and coming up with through a quite successful ideation process. I did not however leave myself much time at all for the final execution and made many rather rushed poor decisions. I decided to submit what I have done anyway even thought I plan to destroy the painting and find it again once it dries. I lost most of the line work and the likeness from my initial drawing, having done it all in oils and rushing faster than I would have liked to. The result is a rather flat, simplistic almost cartoony painting. It has its elements of charm that I can enjoy... yet for the sake of my initial intent with the experiment i will push on.

And dont even get me started on those hands.

A friend of mine explained how fun it is to hear what music different artists work to and are influenced by... so I decided Id post the playlist Ive been listening to A LOT lately.

"Take Your Medicine"- Cloud Cult
"Degausser"- Brand New
"Sowing Season"- Brand New
"Boy With A Coin"- Iron & Wine
"Arms of a Thief"- Iron & Wine
"God Made the Automobile"- Iron & Wine
"Love Vigilantes"- Iron & Wine
"Eyes Wider Than Before"- Scott Matthews
"For the Widows In Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti"- Sufjan Stevens
"Furr"- Blitzen Trapper
"Glory"-Radical Face
"Welcome Home, Son"- Radical Face
"Heartbroken Forever"- Tender Forever
"Hospital Beds"- Coldwar Kids
"In Our Talons"- Bowerbirds
"Love is No Big Truth"- Kings of Convenience
"Lullaby"- Electric President
"Robophobia"- Electric President
"Metal Fingers"- Electric President
"My Mind is An Altar"- Brown Bird
"No One Does It Like You"- Department of Eagles
"Running Up That Hill"- Placebo
"Ten Million Slaves"- Otis Taylor
"2080"- Yeasayer
"Sunrise"- Yeasayer
"When Your Mind's Made Up"- Glen Hansard
"Parrots"- Alexis Harte
"Runnaway"- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Take The Leaves" -Lesser Birds of paradise
...and a lot by Xavier Rudd

When I get tired of all this I either bounce to Movie Soundtracks (Master and Commander, The Last of the Mohicans, Braveheart, and anything by Hans Zimmer), some classical music, or the classics like Pink Floyd, The Smiths, Tears For Fears, The Chieftans, Dylan, Zepplin, David Gilmore, The Pogues, Talking Heads, Yes, The Who, and Jethro Tull.

A few from the Ol' Sketchbook.

My Bike is hanging from hooks in my apartment... dont worry the pic is not scanned upside down.

The above are sketches I did one day with Tin Salemunic, Francis Vallejo, Will Godwin and Patrick Benbow.

Left and right sketches copied from the work of Kay Neilsen and Tina Schart Hyman. The middle painting was influenced by the work of Edward Kinsella.

My good freind and artist Brandon Lewis and his sister's boyfriend at church.

Mission for the day...

I am planning to create an master copy of this N. C. Wyeth painting "McKeon's Graft" ("Train Robbery") at actual size today to get my painting juices flowing. He conceived and finished this painting in ONE morning... lets see how I can do.