Catch Up Work

Playing catch up here.  I've been pretty relaxed with my updates this summer and wanted to share some recent works I did in the last few months.  Things have been pretty busy, with a fair amount of commission work and continuing my birds.  

This first one was a piece for the Rock and Rawhide Gala.  They are a New York animal adoption advocacy group and I painted and donated this one to be auctioned off.  Haven't done my best to follow up with the gala, but I hope it made them some moola.  

The dog above is the adorable, yet extremely masculine Bruno, Casey's co-worker's dog.  We got a chance to dog sit this guys for a day and I took the opportunity to both give him a shower and get some good action shots.  Naturally, I sent Bruno's owner some pictures that I took him and of the painting I did of him, and he was so stoked on it that he wanted his own.   

Here's what I painted him:

I'd like to think that I don't rank paintings, but I do and I like this one better.  It's amazing, looking at the difference between the two, what painting for free as opposed to painting for a set price looks like.  Not sure if I can draw hard conclusions from this exercise, but it's interesting nonetheless and my weird perfectionism seems to come out under pressure.   

On to birds.  I had taken a break from them, so it was time to get back to it.  Currently, I'm displaying nine of my birds and in anticipation of this show I painted a couple birds to be part of it.

The first is the Aplomado Falcon.   I took some liberties on its coloration here, but in general, it's probably one of the cooler colored raptors.  Plus, that tail is pretty hard to beat.

And then there was another Puffin.  Had to do it.  They are just so expressive and something about the proportions of their bodies is so interesting to me.  I had fun on this one and feel like I finally found some balance between the details and the gestures.

These next few are drawing that I'm doing for Darwin Cafe's soon-to-be little, yet much bigger and louder, baby sister.  The new restaurant and venue is called Doc Ricketts, slated to open in mid-December.  These drawings, along with a bunch of others that I really need to do, will be part of the website, menu and other printed materials.  I'm super excited and honored to be working on this project and can't wait to see the final product as well as enjoy a nice glass of wine in the new spot.

You'll notice a marine theme in these.  Doc Ed Ricketts was a character in a couple of John Steinbeck's books, as well as a real life marine biologist in the Monterey Bay area and pioneer in the field.  Naturally, the visual concept and theme of the restaurant will based on his work and local, coastal imagery.  (sorry about all the white space, just posting scans here)

That's pretty much what I've been up to since the Wonderland SF Show.  Speaking of which, I'm working on another painting for a November group show there.  I just started today and have a good feeling about the first pass, which is always a good sign.  Hopefully I'll have something to show for it soon.