Hulk Smash on New Year's Day

Kablam!  I'm kicking off 2012 on the right foot today after a five hour painting session at The Wolfman's house where we were working on new eye goodies for My Hero / My Villain, our next art exhibit at No Egrets Tattoo Studio and curated by Joe Melanson.  This one night exhibit takes place Saturday, January 28th!  Check out the Facebook Event page and RSVP when you Click HERE!

Here's my Transformation of the Incredible Hulk which I pounded out today as my first piece which will be displayed!  

Check out the process pictures below from start to finish of the Big Green Nasty...

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Illustration Friday: Sun Mantra

Round is the theme for this week from Illustration Friday. The illustration I chose to share today incorporates a few unique concepts and is called "Sun Mantra." This triptych is from 2008 though I've not displayed or framed it as of yet.

Sun Mantra / inks on bristol / 2008

The tiny peace sign in the middle of the sun you may recognize as my branded symbol made out of bones which you see all over my site. The element found its way into a couple of other works the past couple of years and I drew the peace sign again by itself late last year to begin using as sort of a signature for many of my designs and promotional materials. The strongest element of this composition though is the gradation of the eyes around the inside of the sun. These eyes cycle through a spectrum of grey tones and give much life, movement and visual context to the work.

Click HERE for a Stream of ALL of this Year's Illustration Friday entries!

Illustration Friday: Campy

I believe "Midsummer Night" is my favorite theme so far which Illustration Friday has thrown at me.   I really had fun digging around looking through old work and musing summertime memories just now.  Today's featured illustration is from my Topsy Turvy series.  One of the things about summer which turns me nostalgic is campfires- I've had some of the best times of my life around them here in the south with guitars and stories and dancing (til dawn often times.)  That's where this work and theme brought me today so I'll be on my way- it's a beautiful summer day and I gotta find my next fire...

"Topsy Turvy: Campy" inks on paper / 2007

All works from this series can be hung either side up- today's for example, will look more like the sun in space than a campfire when you flip it over!

{ Click HERE for more on my Topsy Turvy series}

{ Click HERE for a stream of my Illustration Friday entries }

Illustration Friday: Hitcher

"Hitcher" (inks on bristol / 2008)

Here's a surreal illustration for you from 2008 to go along with the theme of "Journey" for this week's Illustration Friday.  I look at this as my backpacker hippie-kinda piece.  I have always been pleased with the way the flower eyes turned out on the figure.  The four armed hitcher has his bag flung over his shoulder as he tests the air with a fistful of the desert.  Which way will the wind take him?

Each week, Illustration Friday chooses a theme from those submitted by artists and patrons for creative types to use as a prompt for their submissions. Click HERE to see all of my entries from this year!

Fred Phelps and The Westboro Baptist Church: Burning Gay

Fred Phelps Burning Gay (inks on bristol / 2011)

Fred Phelps is a guy I've wanted to portray in my work for a very long time and recently got an artistic push via a brainstorming session with my friend and author Zach.  All of the ideas I had toyed with myself were vicious, sexual, and over the top and would have never found an audience here with you.  I guess Fred was getting to me with his hateful rhetoric.  What he was doing was working because what I was experiencing in reaction to The Westboro Baptist Church's actions was hate.  Living in a community housing thousands of Fort Campbell soldiers and families, we are no strangers here in Clarksville to this certified hate group's antics.  Last year some church members scheduled themselves a stop at Austin Peay State University to protest a speaking engagement with Judy Shepard (who's son, Matthew Sheperd was slain for being homosexual back in 1998.) The students handled the situation in a classy way making mock and ridiculous signs to counter-demonstrate the church. 

While hanging out with my buddies Zach and Nick, the subject of Phelps and his "God Hates Fags" campaign came up as did my idea to make him a subject of a drawing. Zach suggested I have Phelps holding one of his signs and sweating with terror in his own little personal Hell- Gay Land (if you will.)  What is this man so afraid of to go to the lengths he does to spread his message of hate?  Rainbows?  Butterflies?  Unicorns?  Or the pink flames of a burning gay apocalypse?

Click HERE for the Anti-Defamation League's profile on The Westboro Baptist Church

Click HERE for my article on this year's Nashville Pride Festival and my unveiling of the Fred Phelps portrait to the public!

And now for one of my heroes, Michael Moore and his showdown with the WBC...

Illustration Friday: Swelter

Illustration Friday threw the theme of "sweater" at us this week.  Well, this guy's sweatin' up a storm so I guess he qualifies.  This illustration from 2006 was from my Scenes of Faith and Devotion exhibit, which displayed at The Phoenix Theater in Bowling Green, KY and then at The Icehouse Cafe in Clarksville, TN.  Pardon the pun on this week's theme and keep your fingers crossed for no more snow (I've been snowed out of the office at my marketing job twice this week!)

(Click here to see all my Illustration Friday weekly entries)  

Episodes (Selected Poem-Prose: 2008-2010) by Zach Matteson

Zach Matteson will be self-publishing a volume of written work this weekend for his Master's Thesis at APSU. I had the pleasure of talking with him about his work and designing and illustrating a cover for the collection this week. Zach has a fine grasp on his voice and has harnessed some wonderful situations onto paper for his audience. I'll take the liberty of giving audience to a sample with you here...


Zach's Thesis:

One cannot disinherit narrative,

neither the number

nor the pronoun.

Ask a mathematician, a linguist.

Sequence equals consequence.



PLASTIC MENAGERIE: 1989


You learn early that fireflies don’t bite, that insects that can’t make their own are attracted to light. My mother drowns a plastic, peanut butter jar in dishwater. With her nails, she flays the wolfish visage of its flakey fish-scale label. No bowl molds before soaking in her sink, though macaroni grows occasionally hairy, forgotten in the fridge. She slits the lid with squinty-eyes.


Zach, I also had a poem with Erato as the subject in my first volume of poety, entitled Sun Twist. My brow went wAY uP when I saw the title in your final draft. Keep the translation of your voice tuned and sound; it's a fine instrument which you've mastered.