This Seems Familiar...

So, I'm technically not taking new commissions for the Panda +BUT+ ...sometimes I will. At the starting of the summer Randy Feldman asked me to recreate one of the earlier paintings I had made for of his sons about 3 years ago. The painting was of Ethan and Toby's "lovies", the toys they cuddled with when they were very young. The problem is two boys but one painting. This did not sound like something I should turn down. Plus I thought it would be interesting to repaint the same subject 3 years later. "It doesn't have to be identical", Randy told me. So it's not completely identical. But it is no longer yellow as you see above.

See the original painting here

I just finished the  new "lovies" painting. Above is an image of the preliminary lines made for it with black ink.

.... at least I think I'm finished with the painting. I often will fuss with a painting until the point which I hand it over. Their can be different levels of finished. At some point I reach a time where I call a painting "passable". Not excited about it but someone else may be. I never leave it there, drives me nuts. Then it becomes what I think of as "good". At that point I try to push it to "magical" or "special". I know these are corny words but I don't want to make something that is just okay. I think this new painting is there... but I might still lighten or darken areas or make some minor changes. But I need to hand it over to Randy so I can stop acting like an old lady who collects porcelain cats. Just so. I nned to put my doilie back on the table and get on with things... I don't want to overpaint and ruin.
*

Shortly receiving this request I had surgery on my right hand. I decided to have a cyst removed which had been bothering me for years. I thought I would be back to normal over the course of a weekend but instead it took about 6 weeks for me to get full movement back. Now my hand is better than ever and I no longer have the grip problems I've put up with for the last 5+ years.



I'll scan and post the finished painting when I'm sure I'm finished.

Threatened by a hair dryer...

Manola asked me to paint a dream her friend had sent to her last new years day. Here's what I was given:

Seems like it should be easy, right? I've certainly painted more then my share of dogs for the Panda... so why are still tricky for me.

I did not want this to be a cartoon dog, I promise "real paintings" here, not mall-like caricatures. I decided right off that the dog's interaction with the hair dryer had to be awkward. The dog needed to be clumsily dragging the thing around with it's best effort of making it seem scary to make it sad and ridiculous. A Scooby Doo-like dog using a hair dryer as a gun is wacky and feels more like an ill conceived tattoo (in the same vain as the Tasmanian Devil lifting weights).

Because of the subject matter, I thought this painting would work well with a design-like aesthetic similar to the original "panda licking on a light bulb" painting. A black and white boxer fit the bill. I wanted it to  look like it was made fast and have a very limited color palate.

I also chose a boxer as the result of a series of failures with other dogs. I did some preliminary paintings (though not originally intended to be preliminary) with more common dogs but nothing seemed to work. I wanted to use line and keep it simple and clean. Painting long haired dogs is like rendering the anatomy of a mop head, something is underneath but God knows what. I needed a dog where you could make out where it's legs meet it's body and recognize that it has a neck.

Upon rereading this request, I realize that I left the "owies" out. I was tempted to go back and put some wounds in. Red spots on the dog would work well color-wise with the red hair dryer. However, the presence of the power cord in the dog's mouth may suggest that the dog is begging to be whipped.. and that is just ridiculously sad.  Let's just imagine that the "owies" are on the dog's other side...

I'll be posting a analysis of this dream on my long defunct blog Id Detangler: A Dream Interpretation Blog. I've decided to post here again sporadically.

...and check back next week for the completed painting Beth started 3 years ago for Leon's request! She finally finished it! (...with a sharpie and highlighter).

Thank You, Manola!

He can't keep a beat... but who cares...

I received this painting request from Katie, who won the gift certificate I donated to a silent auction benefiting the City of Lakes Community Land Trust. Katie's request was simple, she wanted a painting of a "baby brown bear banging on pots and pans with a wooden spoon" for her nearly two year old son, Asher, who they call their "little bear".
So, I followed directions with one change. I gave the bear two spoons to make him look more intentionally musical rather than banging wildly. I decided to place the bear in a natural setting as if he just stumbled upon this cookware which could have been left behind by some clumsy campers or maybe fell off of some flashy traveling salesman's rickety cart.
Let's go with the latter and say that the travelling salesman also has a tiny dog that dances and does tricks to attract crowds when the duo stops in small villages as they wind their way through the countryside selling their wares. Stranger things have happened. Right?

Here's a story:

This young brown bear is hungry and it's mother is away. Wandering around, the bear stumbles onto a road where there is a parked wagon and man wearing an orange suit studded with metal bottle caps and tiny tin mirrors. He is playing a clarinet and has tambourines tied to his knees. On his shoulder is is a dancing Pomeranian dog wearing a tiny costume which is reminiscent of something a Bulgarian Gypsy might have worn 100 years ago.
An audience has gathered around this scene and they are enormously enthusiastic about the salesman's routine. There is a great deal of cheering and people are waving money in the air over their heads.
The young bear begins watching and is so curious that he forgets his hunger and runs in closer. The audience sees the bear and cheers thinking that he is part of the show. No one flinches as the baby bear slips in behind the salesman, picking up pots and pans and wooden spoons. When the bear starts banging out an awkward beat, the salesman stops, turns around, and almost poops his pants. (The dog actually does poop... right on the salesman's silky orange shoulder.)
As quickly as he can, the salesman takes his shaking dog and hops in his wagon to gets out of there ASAP, leaving some of his wares behind without regret. The audience, following suit, also panic (though they are uncertain why). The crowd quickly disperses in a mad rush to get back to their home villages.
The bear doesn't seem to care and just sits by himself, beating his pots and pans until late into the night. A sliver of the moon rises and he is still banging away in the dark. He can't quite keep a steady beat but who cares, he's having fun... and he's a bear... who's going to tell him?

Thank you, Katie and family! I hope you like the painting.

Lil' Charlie! Even cuter in his sweater...

This painting was commissioned by Nick Garbis as a Christmas present for his wife Sarah. It is a painting of her much loved lil' buddy, Charlie, who was her present last year.
Charlie is one of those dogs that is ridiculously cute. So cute, I almost didn't want to paint this dog, afraid that some of the cuteness might get away in the time it takes to go from eyes to my hand.

I've painted plenty of dogs for this blog so this should have been a piece of cake and it was, until I decided to make things hard for myself. I had a week and a half to paint this and did so in a few hours well before delivery time. The painting I made was very simple and charming. I used very simple lines and the color was minimal but to the point. I showed this first painting to my very honest wife, Beth, and she liked it. Her only criticism was that there should be more of a sparkle in his eyes. I agreed and the night before delivery I dipped my brush in white to do so... and then decided to touch up a few other things...

I filled in a little more color here and there and defined the body a little more... and the next thing I knew I had gone too far. The charm was gone. The looseness that the painting originally had was destroyed. The inaccuracies that came from simple lines, now made solid, just felt like clumsy proportions which I was feverishly trying to fix.

On these small paintings, the layers of paint get thick and lumpy very fast making clear detail almost impossible. I used so much paint that the lower part of the painting's surface became the Pintos Mountains and my tiny brush was a disoriented pilgrim looking for salvation. Things went wrong... really wrong and I was supposed to deliver this in a few hours morning.

I contacted Nick early the next morning and asked if we could meet later in the day.Then took out a new board and started over. I figured if I did it once I could do it a second time. This painting, which you see above, came together fast. But I made some changes this time. I decided to have the dog wear his sweater (for maximum cuteness) and made the painting more "complete". Couldn't rely on this simple line stuff in a pinch. And very quickly, it turned out well. Probably more satisfying than the first.

I have a couple of new paintings that will be up soon. Today I'll complete a "baby brown bear playing pots and pans with wooden spoons". It is one of those paintings that I've been sitting on for a while. Bound to happen when I'm not given a deadline. So, moral of the story is, if you commission a painting, always give my a deadline for both of our sakes. If nothing else, just arbitrarily say "Groundhogs Day" or "Fourth of July" or whatever. It works better that way!

-John

Byzantine Jesus; Not the Grinning Blond Beau-Hunk.

This painting was made for Mark Scandrette. Mark's request to me was simple, one word, "Jesus". Not surprising since Mark is an author and speaker who focuses on spirituality and social justice.

Being Greek Orthodox, my approach to this was obvious. Byzantine. In the Eastern Orthodox Church there are very specific traditions in portraying holy images that developed in the Byzantine World and still practiced by iconographers today. I don't think there is another form of Christianity in which visual art as important as the Orthodox. (Well, Coptics... but... same thing really.) 

Catholics seem to like Renaissance realism with a large dose of drama. Christ's face filled with excruciating passion in theatrical lighting.

Many protestant groups seem to be more comfortable with a blond cartyoonish-friendly-grinning-beau-hunk-next-door version of Jesus. A kind of Santa Claus-like figure.

The Orthodox portray Christ as a meditative figure. The images are very stylized to suggest a realm that is not physical. In many ways this is very similar to how 20th century expressionist painters created emotional content in art.

I am not a trained iconographer but I do understand the basics of the visual language used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. So, I did my best. This painting humbly emulates the style. Flattened perspectives, articulated clothing, illuminated face. In one hand Christ holds the bible, with the other he is giving a blessing.


Anyway, Thank you Mark!

Working on a new painting for the Panda right now... and it involves another bear... but no light bulb...

-John

Eli is here...

Here is the completed painting of Linda Sue Anderson's dog, Eli, who recently passed away.

You would think that making this painting would be simple, but it wasn't. The image above represents my 3rd attempt at this painting. I was going to post the other two incomplete paintings, but to be quite honest... I'm too embarrassed. They were not good. At all.

Linda asked me to paint Eli at the back door, waiting for her to come home. I did a small ink drawing which I posted here months ago and it turned out well. It was charming and simple. Unfortunatley, when I moved forward to make the full painting something went wrong. I wanted to add too many details and it became grotesquely literal. I felt that I had to make a specific room and an obvious door. Since I'm working in such a small scale, the dog had to be tiny. It's miniture face gave no room to convey emotion. The original painting accidently became an alert dog standing in front of a door in someones kitchen. (For whatever reason I imaged the backdoor to be in the kitchen).  Eli looked like a guard dog, not an loving pet waiting for the arrival his owner.I also tried to use "kitchen colors" for the room which were just distracting and nausiating in this context.

A week ago, I came back to this deciding to use only the picture of Eli that Linda had sent me (though I made him look younger. That's always a compiment, even to dogs.). It was just his face. I painted it with an ambiguous background so there would be no distractions. I then added a very thin white coating of  acylic and matte medium over the top to make the image softer and to make it feel more like a memory. The blue wash on the left suggests the door or a passage to somewhere else.

I hope you like this Linda! Thank You!

-John

A Random Email to the Panda.

Here is my favorite email to come to the Panda so far. I have no explaination for this!


Dear Customer Service

Am Rev.David Pxxxx and i will like to place an order regarding Bulbs and Lamps from your company,so i will like you to quote me on the types and prices for the ones you have available in stock so that i can give you the quantities i will like to order.
And again,i will like to know the types of Credit Cards you accept as a form of payment.
Yours Faithfully


Rev.David Pxxxx


In other news... I've been on a bit of a hiatus working on other projects BUT am finally finishing Linda Sue's painting and just started the next one for Mark Scandrette... So, check back soon!