The Face of the Sun

Came across this large piece in a gift shop while on a recent trip. Those puffy eyes are so calming.

A Kiss of Clashing Colors

That's what I've named this image. This is unlike anything I've ever done before. I was asked by the gallery director at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center to submit a piece for display in their administrative offices. I have eleven other pieces on display in the backstage dressing rooms and green room. 

But this one is completely different. Many years ago, I did some freelance painting for a local sign shop, painting signs and lettering trucks. I noticed one day how certain hues of the red and blue enamel sign paint would mess with my eyes when they were next to each other. The two colors would cause an oscillation where they met on my painting pallette, a sort of clashing of the colors.

Soon after, I had a dream where I saw this cool image of two faces melding together. The hands of the figures sort of defines the ear of the other. As an experiment, I decided to paint the design using blue paint on red sign metal. The saturation and high gloss of these enamel paints really emphasizes the oscillating effect. What's really strange is that the image above seems to show a dark line between the two colors. But that is NOT present in the actual artwork.  Very weird...
I've never shown this piece in the 25 years or so that I've had it. So I decided to drag it out and see what people thought. The reaction has been good and there have been various ideas of what the figures represent, such as man & woman, aggression & calm, war & peace, and racial intermarriage. 

What's a Gobo?

I'm often asked this question when discussing lighting possibilities with a client. A gobo is a template of an image or words that is placed into a lighting fixture between the lamp and the lens.  Adjusting the lens will focus the image as it is projected onto a wall, the floor, or a backdrop. 
I needed a couple lekos for the musical South Pacific which were going to be outdoors for a few weeks. I chose this beat up old Altman leko. The gobo template holder is slid into a slot on the top of the light fixture.
There are many theatrical supply companies that create catalogs of stock gobos which they offer in printed catalogs or online. The three largest producers are Rosco, Apollo and GAM.  Typically, they're made from steel or glass, either laser cut or etched. 

Whatever areas allow light to pass through is what becomes projected. Moving light fixtures will often have several gobos which can be rotated and overlapped with each other.
I've used these stock gobos many times and they will eventually disintegrate under the intense heat from the lamp.  

Some companies use brass or a heavier gauge steel for longevity, but heat resistant coating on glass gobos also withstands the temperature.  This multi-colored glass gobo is made from bits of dichroic glass and should last a long time under normal circumstances.  I store my gobos in an old fishing tackle box with dividers.


The manufacturers will also create custom gobos from your design. A steel custom gobo will cost about $75+ before shipping. In a pinch I've had to create my own when there wasn't enough time or money to order the gobo. Sometimes I create the design and print several copies of it onto transparent film sold at office supply stores. I will then cut them out and overlay three of them and tape them together. This will work, BUT... the film cannot withstand the heat and it will begin to smoke and melt in the light. I found that in a standard Source Four leko, which uses a 575 watt lamp, I can raise the lamp intensity to about 30- 50%, depending on how much dark area is in the image which absorbs the heat, before it crumples up and smokes. This is NOT a safe thing to attempt if you don't know what you're doing. 

For South Pacific, I needed two gobos that would project, "Thanksgiving FOLLIES" onto a white parachute (see one of the stage photos in my last post). I hand-cut these with an exacto knife. Having the lettering look rough and hand-made was completely acceptable for the scene. I tried a number of materials but ended up using black wrap, which is basically heavy aluminum foil painted with heat resistant paint. They also make it with an adhesive backing, so I stuck one to the other to make it a little heavier and it was just the right thickness for cutting with the razor knife. I also used the black wrap to make what's called a "donut" or a "cookie" to place in the color slot at the end of the lens barrel. Cutting a smaller hole helps to sharpen the image being projected.
Feel free to file this post under cheesy theatrical tricks...

South Pacific - the musical

It's quite the challenge to pull off a show like this in the middle of an empty field. But Maui grants us good weather and beautiful surroundings, especially at the Maui Tropical Plantation, where there is a gently sloping clearing they call the Field of Dreams.

It does have a small stage in the center and the field is ringed with a variety of tall palm trees. There's also a windmill off to one side that helps to irrigate the 60 acres of garden.

The musical was put on by The Maui Academy of Performing Arts under the direction of David Johnston.

We met at their offices months earlier where set designer Caro Walker brought in a mock-up of the stage set.

When load-in began, some authentic WWII vehicles were parked near the stage. This army truck's bed held the musical director. A vintage military tent held the props and wireless mics and a classic jeep flanked the audience.

The lighting design was very simple, and I hung instruments from scaffold towers placed out front and on the corners of the stage. 

The towers were draped in camo material and two towers on stage had wheels that allowed the actors to spin them in between scenes to create different locations within the play.

Once lights were hung, patched and gelled, I climbed the towers to focus under a beautiful starry sky.

Blocking began at dusk and rehearsals followed as the sun went down. 

The show was magical and the weather held up nicely, except for one brief downpour, which happened appropriately as the song "Wash that man right out of my hair" was being performed.
During the song Bali Hai, I bathed the ring of palm trees around the field in green, yellow, and red. I also lit the windmill and the towers. It's a blast to light objects in ways that nobody would ever expect!

Leaders in Nose Pickin'

Another report from the "Mad Artist".
This time he's giving us a beak at his collection of various leaders picking away. It all started years ago when he got this famous shot of Harrison Ford on the set of Indiana Jones searching for buried treasure.

Then there was this shot of Rep. Henry Waxman... a chronic picker, as you can tell by his stretched nostrils that a truck could drive into.

And daughter Liz Cheney was mortified while her nose-pick'n daddy, Dick Cheney, was drilling for oil while chastising the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

...who responded in much the same way...  With a defiant finger, he illustrated that Cheney should stick it where the sun don't shine.

More recently, President Obama stuck his nose into the issue, without a tissue, and supported a nasal blockade of ships flowing from Noseran, Iran to the Schnozzle strip in Gaza. He then referred to Iran's leader as Mahmoud "Ahmadigmyschnoz".

Mahmoud quickly blew back saying Obama was acting arrogant and snooty, and he couldn't put his finger on it but something smelled fishy.

Of course, blowhard Rush Limbaugh weighed in by snorting how he had found substance in what Ahmadigmyschnoz was smelling.

The Dalai Lama said Rush must be sniffing glue, and he pointed at the internal passageway to finding the source of inner piece.

That made the pope chime in to say that the Dalai Lama has hit it on the nose... "We must dig deep within ourselves, dislodge those inner obstacles and let the spirit flow."
The pope then honked out a booger, dropped to his sneeze and said, gesundheit!

Sapporo Beer Commercial - Legendary Biru

I came across this unusual ad for Sapporo biru.  Not your typical beer commercial, it's a visual feast that moves you through time in a vertical motion to show the brewing process of Sapporo beer using bits of Japanese legend and culture.
Lavish scenes of flowing streams, caverns and temples with Daiko drummers pounding on beer casks, humongous sumo wrestlers, and fire breathing dragons heating the vat.  It's refreshing to see a commercial that doesn't bore and cause me to flick the remote, which I do compulsively, because 99.5% of tv commercial suck!
For a larger view, here's the Youtube link.

Custom Bass Guitar from hell... or the farm

Here's an idea I came up with for a custom bass guitar, made in the image of a classic shovel.  The body is still crafted from hardwood but painted with a metallic finish to simulate metal.  Using shades of gray on the face gives the illusion of being curved like a spoon shovel.  In addition, it is tastefully decorated with a lovely sinister skull and his bony hand which seems to be strumming that ol' deep, dark devil music.  I call this bass the "Gravedigger".
In case you're wondering, yes, I am serious... 

As Frazetta would say, why the hell not?

Yes, it will bury the competition, and people will dig it, and there are probably a thousand other puns that'll accompany such an odd-looking guitar. But that's the point, isn't it? Gaining attention any way you can is exactly what a band needs and it's what a bass player should want. Standing out from the crowd is essential, and I guarantee that if it's made with craftsmanship, this is the type of thing photographers will shoot while you're playing on stage, the type of thing that will get mentioned in magazines, the type of thing that gets talked about, simply because it is unique and unusual.  Not only that, it's easy to carry, easy to hang on the wall of your garage, and easy to swing at the drummer's head.


Stay tuned for upcoming pics of the Pogo stick bass guitar.  :-)

How Van Gogh burned my eyes out

Seeing my artwork appear in digital book form is a little unnerving.  The reproductions are reproductions of reproductions of reproductions, and that has made colors stray quite a bit from the originals.  This is one reason why I've decided to learn how to make my own prints, so that I can proof every one and make sure the colors stay intact.  But images are reproduced in many different ways these days and different formats have advantages and disadvantages.

I'll never forget the first time I saw an original Vincent Van Gogh.  I had never been to the Fogg Museum at Harvard University before, and I wasn't expecting any "wow" moments from the impressionist section we were exploring.  The Fogg has a fine collection of  impressionist paintings including works by Picasso, Monet, Manet, Matisse, Renior, Degas and Cezanne.  But I didn't expect to be impressed by the impressionists.

Strolling through the rooms I came to a doorway and turned my head to the right to look inside.  On the other side of the room was an entire wall with only one painting hanging in the center.  It was a Van Gogh self portrait, painted in 1888 for his friend Paul Gauguin.  That green background... I was slammed in the eyeballs by this weird, lime color.  I started walking toward the painting, drawn to it like a moth flying into a campfire.  It radiated off the wall like an emerald.  

As I got closer, I saw that he placed paint strokes in circular patterns that emanated away from the head, as if he was radioactive or something.  Hell, he even used the lime green in his skin tone.  Wow, that was creepy-weird.  "Yeah", I thought, "This guy was nuts!"... or, he was brilliant... or more likely, a bit of both.  Vincent had painted himself in the image of a Japanese monk, with a calm exterior on the surface and an inner intensity beneath.   He knew exactly what he was doing.  
But he painted this just weeks before lopping off a chunk of that ear.  I remember thinking that this was the oddest, and yet, one of the most intriguing paintings I'd ever seen.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it.  I stared at it for quite a while.  Also odd, is that the eyes aren't looking at you, unlike most self portraits where an artist looking in a mirror is likely to paint the eyes looking directly back at the artist. 

That painting changed my opinion of the impressionists. I finally began to get it.  I began to see in a different way... which was the whole point of what they were doing.  Design was not the goal, they were exploring emotions, through color.  Van Gogh had painted himself with an aura.  The image gave off an energy.  I had this surreal feeling as if Van Gogh's soul had been painted right into this painting. I realized that the painting itself had an aura.  Some images do that to you. I'd felt it with other paintings, but never like this.


Getting back to the point, seeing an original painting is important, even though time may give it a bit of a patina.  Googling images of paintings will inevitably bring a variety of versions, most of which do not accurately represent the original, and most likely will not reproduce that aura, if it has one.

Comparing examples of another Van Gogh portrait taken from the web, it's clear that accuracy is lacking.  Design is present but color is random.  How would anyone know which is closest to the original?

Photoshop CS5

After several months of waiting, Photoshop CS5 has been released and I've downloaded it to my imac.  The beauty of this is that I can now plug my Cintiq into the imac and use both screens.  This allows me to place Photoshop tools on the left screen and paint on the right.  Having all that space clear on the Cintiq screen is really helpful. Being able to draw right on the screen has been an adventure.  I've grown accustomed to it and marvel at what it can do. 

As nice as this setup is, I do miss the days of smelling oil paint and linseed oil.  I own a complete set of Old Holland paints and new sable brushes which have been sitting unopened in my studio for several years now.  I've been looking at painting easels and if I get one, I'll have to rearrange the entire work space, but I'm looking forward to creating things the new way AND the old way.

My working space here on Maui has been a lot smaller than my previous studio in Massachusetts.  Here are a few photos of my old studio which was on the top floor of an old brick factory building in Worcester, complete with skylight and huge windows.

My cat, Nerf, was quite at home among the painted animals on the walls.  In the corner was my drum set on a riser where the boys would rehearse on Wednesday nights.  The space was beautiful.  Unfortunately, it had a downside... it was located in the city of Worcester.  I got tired of the cold weather.  I got tired of hearing gunshots and sirens at night.  The back windows overlooked a small lake... which often had trash and broken shopping carts all along the shore.  In 1995, it was time to move on to greener pastures.  Not many artists get to have such a cool studio as this one, but I'm going to try it again... if I can afford it!   

Frank Frazetta 1928-2010 (Part 6)

As I was writing a final post in this series about Frank Frazetta, I have just learned of his passing.  Very sad day for his family, and for his admirers who were inspired and amazed by his artwork and talent.

Hanging on my living room wall is a fantasy painting of a deer with wings.  The deer was my first attempt at a fantasy oil painting, inspired by Frazetta.  While it wasn't monsters or warriors, the deer originally had a rider on its back.  She had a dagger strapped to her leg and a spear in the other hand.  And she didn't wear much else (hey, I was a teenager).  It was only my second attempt at using oil paints and unlike the first attempt, a still life painting, I wanted to create something purely from my imagination, thanks to Frank.  But I never tried to copy Frazetta, I just wanted to share in his world.  Three years I spent on that painting, fussing with the wings so that you could still see the beautiful, primitive huntress.  Eventually, I decided to paint her out so the wings could unfurl. That was around 1980.

At the same time, Frank Frazetta was at the pinnacle of his career and had sketched this drawing about five years earlier (my guess). When I came across this little gem for sale, I couldn't help but fall in love with it. I purchased it and framed it in a bronzed wood with black velvet and gold inset.

It's quintessential Frazetta... Conan posing with a battle axe, a quick sketch that he inked in with all the little pen noodling that I love about his line work.  The pen seems to have zipped along his form with just the right touch, getting lighter and heavier at times.  The stance is solid, the angles are perfect, the pondering attitude on his face, and his classic signature off to the side.  Maybe it's me, but I see beauty in that squiggle that runs up the ax handle.  Never have I seen a better portrait pose of Conan.

Or is it something else that draws me to it?  Could it be his depiction of the raw nerve of the barbarian that just gets my testosterone up?  Yeah, that's me inside.  I'm certainly no muscle dude.  In fact, I'm all of 142 pounds. But a part of me is that guy, poised and ready to give life a good swipe.  That's me making a decision... do I guard myself or do I just attack?  
But I digress...
 
I now own a drawing by one of the greatest artists, in fact, thee grand master of fantasy art, who has now passed on in flesh but he will live on in his magnificent art.  Frazetta's Conan drawing shares wall space with my Deer painting, a tribute to the artist who inspired me so much.  Rest in peace, Frank, you'll be missed.

Links to the other posts in this series about Frazetta are found here:
Frazetta Part 1
Frazetta Part 2
Frazetta Part 3
Frazetta Part 4
Frazetta Part 5


To see the most recent posts by Mark Astrella, click on the header at the top of the page (A Burning Designer)

Frank Frazetta (Part 5) More sketches

I'm posting a couple more examples of Frank Frazetta's preliminary sketches to compare with his final illustrations,  That he traced some of his initial drawings onto his canvas before painting is in no way an unusual practice among painters, in fact, it is one of the most logical ways to transpose a drawing that is best created on a substrate meant for drawing, over to a substrate meant for painting.  To re-sketch it from scratch onto the canvas could run the risk of losing the essence of the sketch.  The whole point to sketching is to flush out the design.  It's like a wire frame for a sculpture.  If the final is not to be painted but finished with ink, he may have traced the sketch onto Bristol paper, which is a very smooth paper made for illustration. It's especially good for inks.  I've been using it for all my airbrushed acrylic illustrations because the smooth surface is ideal for using Frisket film. 

Above is Frazetta's pencil sketch side by side with the final ink drawing.  I've laid the sketch over the ink drawing and merged the two at 50% opacity to show how closely they match up.  He seems to have stayed close to the original sketch and it leaves little doubt that he traced one onto the other.

That he traced some drawings over to Bristol paper doesn't mean he always worked in this way. He doesn't really have one set method. In some instances he sketched right on the canvas and sometimes he sketched with paint rather than pencil. 

In this example of about a dozen people fighting, you can see the darker lines which were most likely the lines he traced over and applied pressure in order to get an image on the paper beneath it.  Then he'll have a clean surface to begin inking it in and he can refer to the drawing for shading if he needs to.
 

Again, I merged the two to see how they fit together and how closely he followed the drawing.  
There's no real point I'm trying to make here.  I just find it interesting.  Frank Frazetta is known as the Grand Master of fantastic art and the most influential illustrator of the 20th century.  He is without doubt one of the great artists of our time.  His work has had a profound affect on many artists, including me, even though I can't say my style is anything like his.  I've simply admired his genius and talent.  He wowed me, as did Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, Michael Whelan and Roger Dean, among others.

Here's one more sketch by Frazetta that he did for Savage Pellucidar.  The parts don't necessarily line up exactly with the painting so he must have reworked the design on the canvas.  But there are some heavy lines that seem to indicate a transfer.  You be the judge.  I just love the way the shadow under the tiger becomes an abstract shape.  Pure genius!


Links to this 6-part series on Frazetta by Mark Astrella are found here:
Frazetta Part 1
Frazetta Part 2
Frazetta Part 3
Frazetta Part 4
Frazetta Part 6


Click on the header at the top of the page (A Burning Designer) to see the most recent posts by Astrella.