SILVERTONE

Sometimes I have moments of reflection that don't entail a cartoon image or two, but then again, not very often.

THE DANGLERBLOG MOSTER

Earlier in this blog I posted a print by Matt Dangler and linked to his web site. A number of years back when he first started his own blog, he asked folks who were following the blog to create a creature of their own for the blogsite. This was my offering at the time titled The Dangler Blog Monster and is oil on canvas. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking the swine like creature with the wings is the monster, but things in my world aren't always what they seem!

CHASING SPUTNIK

 

From the time we were very young my brother could build just about anything. Before I could tie my shoes without help, he was already building bicycles out of random spare parts. When he was a teenager he took up the challenge to build solid fuel rockets and one day while mixing up some formula in the basement a batch of fuel exploded. There was no damage and no injury, just a loud boom. The model rocketry program soon gave way to cars, cars and more cars. He’s still in love with cars and trucks to this day and is still building things. He conveniently does not recall the aforementioned incident complete with explosion, but he’s older than I am so we’ll forgive him for that. Anyway, while the Chasing Sputnik story is a total fabrication, my memory of my brother mixing up the rocket fuel and the resulting outcome was the inspiration for this piece of fiction.

STRANGE WORLD

This oil on canvas titled Strange World, has always been a favorite of Andrew, my son. I spent a considerable amount of my youth basking in the glow of the 1960's. It was a remarkable period of time for the advancement of visual and musical artistic expression. Can you dig it?

THE DREAM

The curious thing is, that I'm still having it to this very day.

MATT DANGLER

Today’s post is not about me…surprise! This photo is of a print that is hanging in my house, well OK it’s a little about me. The print is of a painting done by an extremely talented, creative and accomplished artist by the name of Matt Dangler. The photo is the best I could do with the equipment I currently have to work with, but the print looks better than the photo so my apology to Matt about that. Matt and my son Andrew met when they attended The University of the Arts in Philadelphia at the same time back in the early 2000’s and have remained friends since then. Matt is making a career of fine art and has been and is being shown in galleries throughout the country, east coast to west coast. You should visit his web site at www.mattdangler.com/ and see his wonderful work and even buy a print or an original for yourself. I’m sure you will find a visit there worth the time…enjoy!

STEP RIGHT UP

This is one of my personal favorites. It is oil on linen and it just makes me smile every time I look at it. There are a variety of reasons I think that's true. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I imagine multiple scenarios or back stories for many of the things I do while I'm working on them and this one is no exception. Imagine this is one frame edited out from a movie and then imagine the action both before and after this frame. That's about the best way I can explain the process. I hope that makes sense to you in some way.

THE LAST EMPEROR

This painting was done entirely by using glazes, or semi transparent layers of paint. Other than black and white, only blue, red and yellow glazes were used to achieve the effect I was experimenting with. As the original design evolved I imagined a world where amphibians had achieved a level of intelligence and became the dominant life form. Many different stories came to mind while the painting progressed over a period of time. This fellow became a sort of a proud but tragic figure as I imagined him as the last of his kind.

TROPICAL POP

A few years ago I painted a series of images that I guess fell a bit outside of my normal subject matter, if in fact I have a normal subject matter. I called that series Tropical Pop and it features a number of what I would call icons of Florida dated all the way back to when my family first visited Florida in the 1950's. A former follower of my now deceased web site suggested he'd like to see them again so I'll begin putting them up, but not all at once. This particular one is the cover image for the series and it's oil on canvas titled Tropical Pop.

REALLY GOOD COOKIES

I like to eat chocolate chip cookies and I like making them from the same recipe that my mother always used. I also like to share them with others so I created my own label and modestly called them Really Good Cookies, only because it's true

DA DA DALI

Dali is one of my favorite painters. If you like Dali and you are in or near St. Petersburg, Florida, the Dali Museum is certainly worth a visit. Nothing quite like seeing a body of work in person and they have a very nice representaion of his work throughout his lifetime. This is of course is just one of my paintings whimsically titled Da Da Dali, oil on canvas.

PUSH

This is a pencil sketch on Bristol board titled Push. No particular story behind this, it just started with a few lines with no real objective in mind and ended up as this. Sometimes it's fun to just let the pencil lead the way and I follow. There does seem to be a certain level of anxiety or anticipation among at least a large number of the characters while others don't seem to be involved in much at all. I suppose we'll never know what might happen if the button is pushed or for that matter who might push it or why.

AMORISTIC DREAMS

Tex Avery might have had some influence on this particular painting. Oil on Canvas.

MR MANATEE ENJOYS A GOOD SMOKE

Living in Florida has afforded Ellen and I the opportunity to observe the Manatee throughout the years. The Manatee is a very unique aquatic mammal. Growing up to 1300 pounds and 12 feet long it can be quite a frightening sight if you have never seen one in it's natural habitat before, but the Manatee is gentle plant eating creature who swims about rather slowly and enjoys a calm cove or inlet where it can munch on some aquatic plants and basically sleep and pass gas for most of its time.
This painting is oil on canvas and is titled Mr Mantee Enjoys a Good Smoke. The portrait that hangs on the wall in the painting is of one of my favorite cartoonists. I'll leave you to guess who.

HOTROD LIZARD

Sometimes I like to write short little pieces to go along with an image. The creatures that populate this planet with us have some incredible capabilities. The Hotrod Lizard came to mind.

THE KING AND QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE

Keeping with the ET theme for a moment, I wondered what sort of political or ruling system they might have evolved over the millennia. What if in spite of the advance technology they had developed in order to explore the universe they continued to live under a royalty system. That line of thinking led me to the obvious image of the King and Queen of Outer Space, oil on canvas. 

1984 - TOP OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

Long ago and far away...around 1973 or 1974 to be more exact, this image dripped out of my mind and onto a sketchpad. So many interesting things and crazy experiences happened during that period of time that I’ve always kept the sketch as a treasured reminder. It’s not that it’s such a great drawing but I think it’s interesting enough to include on the blog and besides, I like it.