TSA
Joined: Aug 31, 2006
Posts: 3978
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TSA
aloha tiki tribe!
Okee-dokee! I worked late into the dark warm Hawaiian night, as the trade winds whispered in the palm trees out side my window, and my old fan creaked in my art studio made too warm by bright lights to let me see what the heck I'm painting…. (I swear, I used to be able to draw with out all these lights, but I must be getting old!) anyways, I finished up the painting! It was inspired by another artist's work: Shawn Dickinson. He paints Surf Art (or Out-sider Art) and was featured in the book "SURF GRAPHICS" with me and BigToe and 27 other artists who have surfing, or Island life style, or TIKI as a theme in their art. Great collection by KORERO books.
http://www.korerobooks.co.uk
Anyways, Shawn paints what looks like animation cells from a cartoon from the 1930's. Like Popeye, opt Betty Boop. but with his own characters, skeletons, Ghosts, monsters, cats, hula girls, surfers, and like dat. Amazing, fun , wonderful stuff. I was in love with it the second I saw it. BUT, I didn't want to just rip him off, so I contacted him and asked him about what his thoughts were, and showed him a sketch. He's a great guy, asked if I'd mind changing the cat head to be more like one of my cat heads, which was no problem at all, and away I went with his blessing! Thanks Shawn!
"Scardy-Cat meets the Ghost of Exotica"
or
"Hanuted Hotel Honolulu"
24" x 30", acrylic on canvas.
I wanted to capture that 1930's black & White feel. And that oh so classic One room hotel room, with old style wooden boards like I always loved seeing in underground comics like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers by Gilbert Shelton, or anything by the brilliant R. Crumb! Yet, I still am influenced so much by my environment - a remote volcanic tropical island! So I HAD to put in a beautiful red colored Sunset made so by Pele's VOG venting out of Kilauea. So I had a window in the Black & white Hotel Room with a view to a full color cartoon Hawaiian Sunset, threw in my obsessive need to paint the perfect wave, and there we go. Next I love Exotica music, and people tell me it's Dead… I think there a new exotica bands still making Tiki-fied music, but It would be funny to play with a "dead type of music" as a ghost. I picked a famous Exotica album, painted it side ways in forced perspective…not as easy as I thought it was gonna be (WHEW!) and let the other mandatory "Cool Black Cat" play along with an old record player… there!
I can't tell you how easy I thought this was gonna be… it seemed like a great idea. However I felt troubled through the whole thing. It never felt right…then I was done, but still felt wrong. I was in danger of over-working it. but didn't know what to do. …and I had to go to the dive show DEMA in Vegas to see some clients, meet an art Patron, and have a meeting with a writer who I'm working with to bring you a illustrated mystery-history-novel that takes place in Hawaii during the end of WWII - & the Birth of Exotica. Fun stuff!
Well the trip was great. It brought me a fresh perspective when I got back to my island studio, and I took one look at the painting and I knew what was wrong. I forgot the first rule of Saint Tim Hildebrtandt (Patron saint of all fantasy artists) "Thou shalt not forget where thy light source is cometh-ing from!" Sure enough I needed the full color sunset to touch the black and white world inside the hotel room. Hit the cat and the ghost and a few things with a rim back-light of yellow/orange. I jumped to it, and now it feels right. (HOO-RAY!)
Hope you dig it. Here's another shot:
as you can tell someone has bought me a GoPro which I am learning.
Big Mahalo for watching the paint dry - ALOHA!!
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