The Crazy Monster Art Show!

I created a poster for the upcoming Crazy Monsters Art Show at the Toy Tokyo Underground Gallery in the East Village this May. Really excited about it. If you live in the area, be sure to check it out! Come on by opening night and have a drink with me. The Gallery is on 2nd Ave and 6th St. www.tt-underground.com

I have a ton of material I am sifting through to see what I want to hang. Using that show as a pivot point, going back to more fantasy based work this summer. Relaunching SHAPES and Magical Tales, starting up new projects (comics and books) & updating older works with the new set of skills I've been sharpening over the past year. It's time to get FANTASTICAL. Here's a taste!

- Click images to enlarge -

The funky orange dude on the upper right was drawn by mad monster master Basil Wolverton
but all the creatures in the bottle are mine. Come by the show and meet all 88 of 'em!

Here's the official release below

Royal Flush Magazine / A Fistful of Rock / Toy Tokyo presents:
THE CRAZY MONSTER ART SHOW! Friday May 6 to Sunday May 15
Opening Night Reception Friday May 6th 7-11pm
TT-Underground Gallery, 91 Second Avenue , NYC , NY 10003
(212) 673-5424 http://www.tt-underground.com/

Featuring 18 of the greatest Crazy Monster artists! Jason Edmiston, Patrick McQuade, Justin Erickson, Josh Bernstein, Erik Rodriguez, Steve Chanks, Brian Ewing, Gary Pullin, Sean Pryor, Stephen Blickenstaff, Steve “Pheck” Ritsua, Christain Bracco, Darren Marinuk, Daniela Fullam, Paige Reynolds, Tim Lastfogel, Dennis Bauser & Jeff Lamm!

"In the spirit of Basil Wolverton, the self professed "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet", Sal Canzonieri, in association with Royal Flush magazine and Toy Tokyo, presents a series of modern day "Crazy Monster" artists! The Crazy Monster show features some of the greatest and most wild humorously grotesque artwork that elicits a wide range of reactions. Offbeat and daring, this show combines the best of both worlds, humor and horror!"

SUPER COOL Note: Stephen Blickenstaff did the album cover art for one of my favorite albums, The Cramps - Bad Music for Bad People!!!

Prints at Papél

I hung a bunch of prints at a really cool card shop called Papél New York in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn the other week. It's located at 225 Court Street. They have custom paper everything!

From Time Out New York

Papél

225 Court St (between Baltic and Warren Sts) Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

(718) 422-0255

Subway: F, G to Bergen St

Mon-Sat 11am-7pm; Sun noon-6pm

Skip the Evite and go old-school by picking up invitations at this stationary store, started by Cali transplant Raegan Hirvela. Its walls showcase paintings from local artists, and the ceiling is adorned with paper airplanes. Wrap a present with Seltzer Recycled’s funky skull-and-crossbones gift paper ($3 per sheet) or Art with Heart’s robot-patterned paper ($8); then personalize it by filling out one of Snow & Graham’s assorted watercolor alphabet note cards ($12 for a box of five cards with envelopes). Or just skip the stress of gift giving altogether, and buy yourself a silk-screen-covered journal to pour your heart out ($12).

The prints feature Brigitte Bardot, Patsy Cline, H.P. Lovecraft, 2 Japanese Snow Monkeys, John Lennon as a walrus, and two of my SHAPE characters, Queen Nadya of Pollen Nation and Stagg Willy & The Fronyon Man. They are all framed 11.75x15.75" and are available for purchase if interested. They are several 8.5x11" unframed prints as well.








I'm also going to get some custom cards in there soon. Below is a pic of the HOTH-Y Holidays Tauntaun card I did on the shelves.





It's a really cool store if you are into this sorta thing. My wife has converted me into a card nut. I was hopeless in that category before. Anyway, swing by if you are out and about in the area and tell the owner Raegen I said hi!

HOW Magazine Portraits

These stylized portraits of contributors were recently featured in the March 2011 issue of HOW Magazine. (Top L-R clockwise) Co-founder and Creative Director of Archrival Clint Runge, President and Creative Director of Osborne Design Michael Osborne, Founder and President of Firstborn Michael Ferdman, Senior Partner at Bond Art + Science Karen McGrane & Executive Creative Director of the Cincinnati Office of Landor Associates Richard Westendorf.

Looking forward to doing more!

http://www.howdesign.com

Recapturing the 70's/The Wager

"Pamela & John"

I was recently commissioned by a young woman to do a restorative painting of her parents from the above photograph. It was to be a gift for her mother. It was quite difficult for several reason, one being the obvious damage to the picture and the other being it's overall fuzziness, especially when zoomed in - too bad they didn't have high resolution photography in the late 70's.' Essential facial features and details were unclear. I asked her to send me other photographs of them from around the same time to assist in rendering them. This helped out quite a bit.

I'm never bound to the photograph when doing works like this - elements can be moved around/removed, composition can be altered. All that matters is capturing the likeness, the soul of the people in frame and honoring the moment.

This portrait was created digitally using a Wacom tablet, CS3 and Coral Painter 11, and printed out on Canon Pixma 8 Color Pro9000 Mark II Printer on Hahnemunle Fine Art PhotoRag.

a photo of the print

The final print was asked to be 8x8" for framing. It looked quite good and the client was very happy. She said I "nailed" them, from her mother's expression to her father's subtle smirk. I heard later that when she gave it to her mother, she cried. What an amazing compliment! This one was a real pleasure to do, even if that flannel shirt drove me a bit nuts.

Photo detail of print

I'm currently doing 5 other portraits, and have gotten many inquires about commissions. If you are interested, please check out my in-progress website, COBBLE HILL PORTRAITS and contact me there.

BUT...

before you do, please realize that custom portraiture is expensive. Most take at least 2 full days + to do, so extrapolate that out for the start of a fair price ($$). Be honest with your budget before you do. Thanks for stopping by.