Update: It is done.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback - via the internet and in person. The consensus seems to be that the painting is done. And I agree. 

I was having one of weekends where I was feeling down and forgot how I awesome I was. I blame this mostly on Megan not being around. How will I survive when she goes to Russia for 2 year?

Thankfully, I snapped out of it today.

I had a fantastic day at work (weird right?).

I had my personal trainer kick my ass again.

I get to where my new dress that is is basically what I would wear while baking a pie for a pie contest at a church picnic (love it!).

I am about to go get sushi with Pat.

Someone told me that, and I quote, "you can be the greatest woman in the world honestly, you are really smart, funny, friendly, and to mention pretty" (thanks again!).

So essentially my day was awesome and so am I.

Thus time to look at my painting. And looking at it, I agree. It is done. 

So I proudly present to you, my dear reader...

THE DOCTRINE OF MANIFEST DANGER!

The title was on a document I scanned the other day. I thought it was awesome.

And that is my conclusion of my opposite of self-effacing post. Until next time!

Is this painting done?

I woke up this morning at 8 am cause I had gone to bed at, like, 11 pm on a Friday night. Can you say lame? Essentially, I was plagued with one of those "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms mood" cause I'm a spaz and over-analyze everything. EVERYTHING. Why do I have my brain?

Anyway, in a fit of spazzy-ness, I decided that this painting sucked ass ----->

It's not that it's terrible, just that I did this originally on 6 12 x 12 inches tiles and I wanted it to be on one canvas. So I thought, hey, I'll just do it just as awesomely again.

I was failing.

The center is just too blah and I didn't know how to fix it. So I decided to just scrap it and start over.

I tried changing it in the way of "Acquiesce to Eternity" and it was just not going well. I was outside listening to my current favorite playlist, enjoying the beautiful weather and making a horrible, horrible painting mistake. I was destroying an expensive canvas. F!

Then I decide, just go the way of "Mother". People like that one a lot and it felt good to finger paint.

So this is what has come out of my painting today:

My question to you is: is this painting done?

Generally my rule of thumb is if I can't tell, it probably isn't. But sometimes I just need to have it around for a while and marinate on it, to really decide. So if anyone has any thoughts, good or bad, let me know. I'd love some help other than my brother with his ridiculous painting names (Close up of Fish Scales #12 - to imply there has been 11 others) or my sister who just puts paint on my face because she was pissed that I put it on her arm? Phst.

Will Work for Food

I really like the idea of bartering, alot. If I could live my life based on bartering, I would totally want to give it a go. I would get tired of it quickly, but I would want to just see how far I could get because the idea of it harkens back to olden times, thus is intrigues me. 

This past weekend I got an unconventional project from my friend Joe, who just opened Sonny's Bar and Grill, a bar/restaurant in Belmar. As some of you may know, today is the Belmar St. Patty's Day parade. Not surprisingly, this is a big bar day in Belmar. My friend Dave started hydrating last night at about 12am in preparation for his drinking that commenced about 7 minutes ago. Best of luck Dave.

Sonny's still has a big sign over the door that says "Casa Tequila". A new sign is in the works, but they needed something up for today. This is where I came in.

I stopped by Friday night to hang out with a group of friends, was given the banners, and went to work on them Saturday while watching Battlestar Galactica with my usual Saturday crew: Megan, Matt and Ian (guest appearance by Caitlin).

Matt and I discussed a different project for a bit that I will hopefully being working on soon (a pokemon painting for Gaming Chronicles), a new project involving "Man Sins" was born with my brother, Matt, Ian and my cousin Ryan from TN, and then I painted so banners. Karaoke was also partaken of, Plants vs. Zombies was played, and Wawa sandwiches were eaten, a solid day all around

How does battering come into this you ask?

Joe offered to pay me whatever I would charge for the painting of 3 banners. I had no idea how that fit into my pricing model. This was not a normal project.

Also, what if I sucked? This happened with a mural once. I didn't like it but I took the money anyway. I believe the person I completed it for liked it very much, but I'm still very hyper critical of my own art.

So, I was willing to do this as a learning experiment for myself, to see if this was a type of project I would enjoy doing in the future.

I also wanted to to help out Joe, who I have recently become friends with and think is a very kind and cool person. He's also an important friend to people who are extremely important to me. Thus, it seemed disingenuous for me to take payment when they were just starting up.

Then Joe offered me free dinner on Monday. I accepted without hesitation. And a barter was struck. The End.

Come out to Sonny's Bar and Grill today, for the St. Patty's Day Parade Day in Belmar. I won't be there, but you should!

Or another day. It's located on Main Street between 16th and 17th ave. in Belmar NJ.

An Art Show

My awesome and talented friend Patrick Perrotto made a video for me with footage taken from my art show this past Thursday at Jamian's in Red Bank. My artwork will be hanging there for the entire month of March. I have more stuff to write about it and pictures to put up, but wanted to get this out there. Pat's really talented and was super sweet for making this for me. Check the video out, as well as his other work: 

PatrickPerrotto.com

Pat's Vimeo site 

an art show from Patrick Perrotto on Vimeo.

Celebrating 50 Years of Love

In the beginning of February I was commissioned by my Aunt Sarah to paint a portrait "my style", of her mother and father (Patricia and Rodney) and their family, for the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary. Sarah sent me several pictures of all the family members, as well as the wedding photo of her mother and father. I agreed and put together a sketch.

Almost immediately afterwards I got extremely nervous. What if her parents didn't like it? What if I completed it and it wasn't what Sarah wanted? What if I didn't complete it on time? A 50th wedding anniversary is a big deal and I wasn't feeling inspired at all. I really felt I had agreed to complete something I wasn't going to be able to do well and this was not a situation I wanted to let anyone down in. I felt honored I was asked to even do this, I couldn't let Sarah down.

Then 2 things happened: 

1. There was a massive snow storm and my company was closed the next day (yes to getting paid for not working!) 
2. I remembered the one thing that inspired me as nothing else can:  David Lynch's film Dune.

I put the movie in and before you could say Maud'Dib, the painting started flowing and I couldn't stop. I started at 9:30 Tuesday evening, stopped to sleep at 12:30, woke up at 9, started up again and painted straight through to 11 the next evening. My bed sheets are now covered in paint (terrible place to paint, I know) and I think I ingested a lot of acrylic paint, but none of that mattered. I loved what I was painting.

The most difficult part of the painting were the beards and moustaches (and wouldn't you know, every older male in the family has a beard and moustache) and capturing the loving couple for the centerpiece. 

         

I can't tell you how many times I ended up restarting both Rodney and Patricia. First the nose wasn't right, then the eyes, then I'd get the nose and not the eyes and accidentally wipe away the nose. It was tough, but I knew I wouldn't be happy with that painting if I didn't get it perfect.

So it ended up taking me 2 more days just to get the celebrated couple complete. And I couldn't be happier with the outcome. This is, by far, one of the pieces I am the most proud of. 

Sending preview images to Sarah helped a lot. I got many texts back saying "You rule!" and "it's gorgeous" and my personal favorite "I'll bring you the cash next saturday, k?".

The subject matter also helped. I could see the love in the pictures and the happiness that surrounded all the members of Patricia and Rodney's family. I loved that I was able to be a part of their celebration. 50 years happily married is definitely something to celebrate, something I hope I am lucky enough to have.

After the presentation of the painting, Sarah let me know that her parents loved it. I couldn't have been happier. 

Then yesterday I recieved an email from Rodney and Patricia thanking me for the painting:

"writers can write stories or poetry regarding love and a successful marriage, but an artist can paint her interpretation of the couple's marriage... Your lovely painting depicting our six children and four grandchildren has captured the very essence of our 50 years together and it will hold a prominent place in our home for the remainder of our lives."

Reading those words not only made me overwhelmingly happy that they were pleased with the painting (I was really worried about that), but also helped me to remember I am on the right path. Sometimes work and life can get you down, especially when you feel you aren't truly pursuing your dreams. Then, when you get to create something that you are passionate about, body and soul, and that, in turn, affects other people in the same way, life couldn't get any better than at that moment.

Thank you Rodney and Patricia, for letting me share in your celebration and helping me get a glimpse of light at the end of the corporate tunnel. It really meant so much to me to be a part of this. 

And Sarah rocks too :D