Erasing Erasing Erasing Erasing

Every artist has a process and mine includes some elbow grease before I get to have fun and begin slinging colors all over the bristol board for my illustrations.  For the record, I loathe erasing- you think this would be a very simple and trivial step in the creative process but it depends on the scale.  For my Zombie Walk of Fame series in progress, I've sketched and outlined 101 celebrity zombie portraits. Can you really make a blog post about erasing?  You can if you do it for 2 1/2 hours, which is what happened late last night when I decided to go ahead and erase the 90 or so portraits I had left to clean up so I can go wild with coloring them!

Here are some previews of Zombie Walk of Fame and the mess I made...
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Art of Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day!  Here's some of the work I've done over the years with hearts in various mediums which I dug up to share with you today!  Drop by the DREGstudios! Art and Design page on Facebook when you're finished looking to enter the KISSING CONTEST and a chance to WIN some FREE ART from yours truly!  All you have to do is upload a Picture OR Video to the the wall of my Facebook Page (click HERE) of you kissing to win!  Kissing WHAT you ask?  Only you and your lips can decide!

"Hanging Heart" (inks on bristol / 2008) Click HERE for PRINTS of this Illustration!

"4 of Hearts" (inks on moleskine book for The Sketchbook Project / 2008)

A Little Psychedelic Love (Acrylic and Glow-in-the-Dark Paints on Canvas / 2004)

(Ink on Paper / 2009)

"Topsy-Turvy: King and Queen of Hearts" (inks on bristol / 2009) Click HERE for PRINTS of this Illustration!

"Kissy Kissy" (acrylic on wood panel / 2007)

For "Letters to the Post Office" (inks on bristol / 2008)

"Wounded Heart" (inks on bristol / 2009) Click HERE for Prints of this Illustration!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Nooga Love

Since Valentine's Day is this week, Aurora and I decided to take an impromptu overnight trip across-state to beautiful Chattanooga to celebrate ours while we could both get the time together over the weekend.  It was the first chance either of us got to spend any time in the city, having only driven through in the past.  We were pleasantly surprised at all the art and cultural activities available.  I see a few return visits in the future having not even scratched everything from our beginner's to-do list and we know so many other folks in love with this scenic place which is so close to home.

I took a vacation day from work Saturday and we drove to the mountains in the morning to get the day started by just frolicking and walking around to see both sides of the river.  The wind burned but the snow flurries were a romantic touch to our site-seeing.

Here's some pictures from our getaway weekend...

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Zombie Walk of Fame Sketches

Check out MY TUMBLR today for some previews of my upcoming Zombie Walk of Fame Series with some of the initial sketches of Kermit the Frog, Larry King, Groucho Marx, John Wayne and MORE!

Click HERE for DREGstudios! on Tumblr!

HULK SMASH Music Video

Transformation of the Hulk / Acrylic on Canvas / 2012

If you missed My Hero | My Villain a couple of weeks ago, I presented four new Pop Surrealist paintings of Superheroes Spiderman, Iron Man, Batman and The Incredible Hulk.  Each painting had a special theme music track composed by Dustin TEADS Wright on display and loaded to headphones for the audience to listen to!  I spent the past few days meticulously splicing together a video for the Hulk collaboration so you can experience the mindbending multimedia for yourself with process pictures of my painting as well as a few shots from the show....

Superhero Theme Music from My Hero / My Villain

TEADS

Earlier in the week, I posted some awesome pics my wife Aurora took from My Hero / My Villain which was a one-night only art event at No Egrets Tattoo hosted by Joe Melanson this past weekend.  For the show, I created four original superhero paintings, for which my buddy Dustin TEADS Wright composed some superhero-themed music tracks. This collaboration  created an interactive experience for the audience Saturday night.  Each painting was equipped with a set of headphones with the track loaded on them for the viewers to listen to while they looked at my artwork!  (Click HERE for a closer look at my custom headphones used in the display!)

Artists Mark Griffin and Charles Bennett trying out the headphones during our show setup

Click the links below for each of the songs which went with their respective paintings!  We're also working on some superhero music videos of sorts which will be coming soon for those of you who missed out on the LIVE interactive experience!  Keep an ear out for TEADS' new band, Climbing Giants, who are working on material for their new concept album and show!

Spiderman (1960's Theme Teads REMIX)

HULK mashup (Teads Original SMASH remix)

Batman (Teads Original Bat mobile Breakdown)

Iron Man (TEADS Make God Bleed mix)

Red Dots and Heart-Bending Art!

with Richard at his opening in The Downtown Artists' Co-Op

Tonight was the First Thursday Art Crawl here in town and I dipped down for the last hour or so tonight to see Richard's Hogan's "LOTS OF RED DOTS" and also check out the Roxy Regional Theatre's Valentine's Art Exhibit which I had a collaborative work with curator Miranda Herrick showing.

Richard has been a source of encouragement for me and other local low brow artists.  He has a taste for the imaginative and we've collected one another's work over the past several years.  He's even been nice enough to rope me into local events and warn everyone else about me and my art beforehand!

The paintings Richard exhibited tonight in LOTS OF RED DOTS took tradition from the china his mother painted with a technique where she used one small dot of red paint to draw the viewer in with the most active of all colors.  Richard used this technique over the years and you could walk through his installation and experience the ruddy magnetism of each to your eye.  At times they are subtle and in other paintings, they appeared more like a laser sight on a gun, for which I accused Richard of having a more macabre intention with the work!

Here are some great pictures my wife Aurora got this evening...
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