Illustration Friday: Elephant Oil

"Elephant Oil" Acrylic and Spray Paint on Found Sign

"FUEL" is the theme for today at Illustration Friday.  I've got a brand new painting for you to preview as my entry this week.  "Elephant Oil" is a painting on a repurposed metal sign.  These pricing numbers for old gas stations were salvaged as scrap and I painted a slew of them with Charles Bennett for our show, BUY the NUMBERS which is currently on display at The DAC in Clarksville, TN through the end of next week.  Drop in and check them out live if you're in Clarksville!  The gallery is housing over 60 new works from the two of us!

Click HERE for The DAC's website and find them on Franklin Street to see the art in person!

Click HERE for pics from the installation of the BUY the NUMBERS show!

Click HERE for a stream of ALL of my Illustration Friday entries!

-10- COUNTDOWN to HALLOWEEN: Shirley Temple on the Zombie Walk of Fame

Zombie Shirley Temple (inks on bristol / 2010-11)

What do you do when you sketch and outline 100 zombies over the course of sixty or so days?  You throw them in a box in the corner of the closet for a year to get musty!  Last year, we counted down to Halloween with some creeeeepy process pictures of my zombifications of some of the 100 stars I picked from the Hollywood Walk of Fame for my new series, Zombie Walk of Fame.  I had sketched up all 100 and was posting the progress of outlining them all to build up to our favorite Holiday of Gorey and Gruesome Goodness.  We ended with a bang on October 31st of last year with my zombie portrait the original Hollywood Child Starlet, Miss Shirley Temple.  I felt it would be fitting to pick up where we left off, so she was the first of the series I colored today to start our new Countdown to Halloween 2011!  I'll post new zombies daily for you to dine your eyes upon as I start the process of coloring over 100 zombies for this upcoming series I'll be shopping around for a venue and publication next year!
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In Memoriam: Ronnie Van Zant

I got a strange outstanding back-road history with Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Growing up in a small town peppered like a gob of mud on the buckle of The Bible Belt, southern rock is a staple... and southern rock comes first and foremost from the mouth of our dearly departed Ronnie Van Zant, the lead singer of Skynyrd who died on today's date in 1977 in a plane crash in Mississippi.  Here's my portrait for Rock Star Martyr, where Ronnie will be featured today on the anniversary of his death.  Ooh ooh that smell... that smell that surrounds you...

Click HERE for a stream of all of my Rock Star Martyr portraits and how I created them!

Click HERE for he Official Rock Star Martyr website and read Joebot's new article about the singer's legacy!

Click HERE for the Official Skynyrd Site!

Illustration Friday: Wagga

"Scattered" is the theme of the week at Illustration Friday today.  I wanted to share one of my Topsy-Turvy illustrations since they are indeed cure and medicine for the madness of my scattered brain.  This series in fact is what I finally found interesting enough to get me using my drawing skills seriously back in my mid-20's.  This guy is from my first Topsy-Turvy exhibit in 2006...

"Topsy-Turvy: Swagga" inks on paper / 2006

Click HERE for a stream of all my Illustration Friday entries from this year!

Click HERE for my TOPSY-TURVY Page and more about the series!

Illustration Friday: Frankenstein

Well, it's actually Illustration Wednesday as I play catch-up here at DREGstudios!  I've been on vacation to Phoenix, AZ this past week and have a long day of running, list making, and getting things back on track.  IF's theme this week is "Contraption," which made me think of the ultimate machine in Dr. Frankenstein's monster.  Here's the portrait I drew of the undead beast in 2009...

Click HERE for a stream of my Illustration Friday entries from the ENTIRE year!

Janis

Janis has been with me a long time.  One of my first memories from any genre of music was my father playing a cassette of Pearl in the car on his drive home from work.  I got off my bus at my father's small-town convenience store so our ride home was bonding time daily when my grandfather would relieve him from his shift.  Dad talked a lot about Janis which was rare for him to do with a musician or artist or any sort for that matter.  He despises celebrity worship to this day; however I think he was truly in love with Janis Joplin. 

Janis Joplin (inks on bristol / 2011)

 If the sound of this woman's voice doesn't send chills up your spine exploding a nebula of emotions for you to soak up and bathe about in- well, you just aren't breathing.  Janis's voice carries her through generations... it's epic and immortal, guttural, depraved and devastating.  When you listen to it, take comfort that those notes will never be achieved again... you're hearing something unique and untamed for the first (or thousandth) time.

My illustration of Janis is for a special article coming soon to Rock Star Martyr based around the 27 Club which will also including my recent portrait of Jimi Hendrix.  Rock Star Martyr is an ongoing collaboration with Joebot this year as I draw these musicians for his articles which are published on their death dates.

Click HERE for the Rock Star Martyr Site!

Click HERE for a stream of all my Rock Star Martyr Portraits!

 

 

 

BUY the NUMBERS OPENING this Week!

Hey hipsters, if you're out and about this Thursday evening during Clarksville's Downtown Art Walk, you can check out my new series of recycled works with Charles Bennett.  It's a long story and history behind this exhibit coming to fruition from the materials used to the venue itself.  To make a long story short, our good friend Richard Hogan roped us in to do a last minute fill-in spot at The Downtown Artists' Co-Op in Clarksville this month.  For the most part, The DAC is a very high-brow establishment so we're gonna turn some heads at the opening Thursday!  Since we had about six weeks to get an exhibit together, we decided to up the ante with ourselves and make an almost entirely new body of work for the show involving repurposed materials with numbers on them.  I showed you several days ago a preview of some of the works we were doing at the time [Click HERE for the Preview!]  This blossomed into a collection of over 60 mixed media works to view at BUY the NUMBERS!

BUY the NUMBERS

New Paintings by Charles Bennett and Brandt Hardin

opens Thursday, October 6th, 2011 during Clarksville's Downtown Art Walk

The Downtown Artists' Co-op

96 Franklin Street / Clarksville, TN

Here's some pics from our installation of the exhibit last night!  Thanks to Richard & Mary Jo Hogan, Alexis from APSU interning at the Gallery, and Aimee Davidson for helping us get this thing up with absurd hilarity in record time!

We got a funny way of thanking Richard for getting us a gig at such a fancy venue!  He asked, "Are you guys EVER serious?" 

Richard with Alexis

Aimee and Charles hamming it up

Showtime!