a bridge too far...

Forgive me for another moment of artistic pride...

A piece I did was selected for Robert Goodin's great site, Covered, which allows artists to recreate comic book covers in interesting & unusual ways. (Get it? "Cover versions"?) The site has been wildly successful in its little-over-a-year existence & many artists I respect a great deal have done work therein, so I am quite thrilled & more than a lil' proud to say that the following piece was accepted by Mr. Goodin to be in the company of such luminaries of the field & actually posted just a few minutes ago.
Please check it out & give it some love (in the form of a comment) if yer so inclined both here & there (& everywhere!)~

The original cover to compare & contrast~

& if you've come visiting from "Covered", please feel free to wander around & see what these here "very secret monster things" are all about...

satchmo

How can a lil' Louis not make ya' happy, 

even on a cold Monday morn?

I like this piece a lot actually. I think it really captures the essence of the man- his character, his personality & his music as well. I dig the detail in the lines of his face as contrasted by the loose feel of the hands & the middle ground of the horn, all offset by the stark black & white of his suit & spectator shoes.
It just makes me smile, the same way listening to the man himself does, & that's the point, isn't it?

positivity 6

positivity 5

positivity 4

positivity 3

positivity 2

positivity

Back to art, back to reality...

I did a series of portraits many years ago of folks who were HIV positive. These pieces were composites from many interviews I had done & I tried to capture the ideas, feelings & spirit communicated therein to convey rather literally (or perhaps graphically would be more apt) the faces that can give a real human sense to this insidious disease.

I present this piece & the rest of the work in ensuing days in honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day~

so it goes...

Kurt Vonnegut has always held a special place in my heart as well as in my head.

His writings, his beliefs, simply his way of being, influenced my younger self profoundly & still hold a great deal of sway in this somewhat older body in which I now find myself. Of course, Vonnegut would claim, & I think rightfully so, that these two identities are interchangeable, occupying the same time-line albeit at different points, but both exist together, now & forever intertwined.
More important than his works & his philosophies though was his place in the literary triumvirate that is one of the foundations of my relationship with my dad. Devouring those books off my dad's bookshelf in my pre-pubescence became a catapult to help us traverse that leap from being father & son to being friends.
As high school reared it ugly head, the oh-so-long (but equally wonderful) times we spent editing my school papers dwindled. Our Scrabble games also slowed a bit (although they picked up with a vengeance whilst I was in college~ when I finally beat him for the first time!).
But Vonnegut has always remained a cornerstone.

For better or worse, he & my father are responsible for the writer I am today, & a good deal of the man I am today as well.

So it was with quite a good deal of joy that I found this portrait I had drawn of Mr. Vonnegut in one of my old sketchbooks. It's unfinished, smudgy pencil & all. It's certainly not an antique, but it is somewhat vintage.
I had the pleasure of sharing it with Vonnegut at a book signing that I went to with my dad. He looked at it quite intently, then looked up at me with that same bemused smile that he wears in the drawing.
That was a good day indeed.

Enjoy:

feliz cumpleaños mi amor

haven't been here for a spot, but my beautiful bride's birthday is a good excuse to post indeed~