Monday, September 27, 2010

Sketched out Monday - Wake Up on the Bright Side

Hi there from the land of unseasonably warm weather.  The East Bay has been nutty hot!


Been crazy busy with classes but managed to get a few sketches done in the hotel...can you guess where.


cheers,
M

Friday, September 24, 2010

Call me the Fall Guy

Fall Guy goes to Vermont
I love the Fall...my very favorite season...and better yet I'm heading to Vermont during the most gorgeous time to be there.  I'm doing an exhibit and some workshops at the Shelburne Art Center.
click here
An exhibit of the Dusty Diablos art will be on display the month of October and then I'll be teaching workshops on the 16th and 17th.  The classes are: Angels and Demons and the Secret Keeper. http://www.shelburneartcenter.org/

HalloVine Sign
Don't forget to stop by Tangerine to get a little wine signing at 6pm Sunday the 26th.  You might as well take a class too... http://tangerineshop.blogspot.com/

Pickwick and Plum
Last May when I was perusing Collage's satellite location at Art and Soul Portland, I noticed she was carrying some very groovy goodies.  Lost of weathered thingies and dohickies. 
 Turns out it was part of a new biz created by my friend Shelly...called Pickwick and Plum.  Shelly hunts and gathers...she can't tell where...top secret...and brings them to you.  I have to say she has some pretty nifty things.  Last year I walked away with a stash of stuff...ranging from sultan figurines to old movie projectors to a crusty and salty ceramic tiger.

The reason I mention Shelly is that I want to give her a shout out about her upcoming events.
Here's the Skinny
She is also going to be having a sale at Art and Soul on the 9th of October.
Stop and see her sales...I'm sure you'll find something good...impossible not to.
Here is the website: Pickwick and Plum



A Very Delayed Sketched Out Monday.

Delayed Sketched Out Monday


Hey gang
sorry I missed the sketch this week...been running a bit ragged and the last few weeks and no end in sight.
Haven't done any sketches but thought I'd share one of my favorite sketches from Van Gogh
Okie dokey...on to other things.
  
Need to get packing...cheers
M

Monday, September 13, 2010

Portland Sketched out Monday

Here I am in Portland after just eating some Imperial Margarine.  Dun...dun..na... nah!

 Just finished a great weekend at the Ranch in Snohomish...and now a little Oregon action.  So I managed to find a little time to post some sketches...here's the latest installment.

Here's a peep hole for a class design:
And here is some....dude, I guess.
And this one I was going to call the "Thinker" but since he actually looks like he is on the toilet...I am calling him the "Stinker".
Rocker dude!
Well that's it for now....see everyone somewhere.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Cyclopian Sketched Out Monday

hi...
I've been feeling a bit cyclopian lately...just a passing phase perhaps.
  So because of that I thought I'd share my latest cyclopian sketches...
These are a bit Picasso-esqe:
And this guy has places to go and people to trounce:
I've been finding my assemblage has been going this way lately too.  If you've been on my Facebook page you've seen my recent Orna-deMents: Santa Clops and the Polar Opposites:
(more on these guys later)
And the other day I finished a nice little cyclopian heart...cyclopses need love too:
and then today I started on another cyclops toy.  
I'll let you guys cyclo-analyze they meaning of all of this...
Eye promise to be a good pupil...after all, iris-pect your opinion.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

A Funny Thing Happened on the Trip to Wisconsin

Had a great week at Valley Ridge.  A great couple of workshops and much much more.

Part One:
Workshops
Started off with a grand Urn Your Keep class.  The basic idea is that everyone to build a resting spot...as I always say: there is plenty of time to be a stick in the mud when you're dead.
Below is Jackie's very nice resting spot...
what it lacks in spaciousness it makes up for in charm.
Next up is Jenny's:
Perfect for the Post Mortem-er Client on the go.
The next workshop was mask-making:
It all started with a bare face and a bit of plaster...Gary goes under:
Finished?  Well Jessica and Pam are looking pretty stylish:
As is Judy:
And Michael and Kelley:
Of course Gary had to be a bit different...he planted a rusty bolt and look what grew.

Part Two
Hollywood Midwest
I decided to do a little promo for my upcoming Online Art Laboratories (more on that later).  So I convinced my buddies Kathy Engen and Gary Niebuhr to help out.  In between class, during lunch breaks and after cocktails we did a bit of filming.  Pretty fun and it turned surprisingly well...considering it was pretty much ad-libbed and almost all done in one take.
So without further ado, here is:
O.C.D.D.  Case study 232: Gary
and of course no big time production is worth its salt without a showing some of the out takes:
Great times.

Part Three
A Very Strange Place

Once classes were over Kathy and I wandered down the road to the House on the Rocks.  Basically it was a Frank Lloyd Wright parody that turned into a strange warehouse of anything and everything...and then some.
The first portion is the actual home which is weird and covered with carpeting (on everything).  It reminds me of a home that I Dream of Jeanie might have been shot in.
see what I mean
From that point on it gets stranger and stranger...take for instance the urinals:
I did in fact use these...it is in the public restroom but I made sure I was the only one around when I did.
From this point the joint is a collection of strange things:
I am a bit envious of the Frog Girl sign...in case you didn't know she's "Alive".
The place has a jillion automated music rooms.  Machines play the various instruments:
Keith Lo Bue came here a few years ago with his sound equipment to record the various rooms.  
This is the Mikado room:
Ironically the music I used in the Gary video is from a recording that Keith did of this device.
I found a nice collection of puppets:
Onward
Down the corridor...
To an amazing merry-go-round:
that no-one rides
From here I came across the thing I really really wanted to see...the Baranger Collection:
I wrote about this company a few months back.  They made automated displays for jewelry stores, back in the 30s and 40s
the House on the Rocks has the largest collection of them in the world...there are hundreds of them.  Here are but a few:
 
I videoed a few of them.  They are included in a little movie I compiled of the various automated goodies I saw:
Pretty cool huh?  And yes that is the music that Lo Bue recorded from the Mikado machine.

Well, that was my week...very pleasant indeed.
M