Hallowe'en Costume Contest

I just finished this little series of drawings. I wanted to draw something fun for Hallowe'en this year and I came up with this little idea of an unfortunate kid who throws together a costume the day of the party.

This is a true story. I saw it with my own eyes.

You can see these drawings larger on the portfolio page (click the pumpkin head when you get there).

Pentax ME

This is my camera, my faithful, trusty camera. I take more pictures with this than I do with my digital camera, it takes better photos. My Dad probably gave it to me about 15 years ago.

I am a fan of looking through a viewfinder rather than composing my photos by looking at the LCD screen on the back. I love the real click of the camera (not the sound file you get with a digital camera), the weight of the whole thing, and the frayed strap and flaking case. I also love being able to change lenses. I have the lens it came with back in 1976, a wide-angle and a telephoto.

I would love to own a digital SLR, rather than an automatic, but for now I am enjoying the actual processes of loading film and getting it developed, anxiously waiting for the photos to be ready to see what I actually took pictures of.

Kimmelot County Subway Map

For my recent promotional run I decided to create a map depicting the imaginary locations of the scenes I painted as part of my Country Clutter series.

Since a couple of the illustrations in the series include subway stations I thought it would be interesting to make it a subway map of a fictional place, Kimmelot County.

The subway takes you out to the countryside from Kimmelot City on the B Train and from there you can transfer to the J or the K to see some of the scenes from my series. You can also see some of the county's popular attractions, such as Aaron's Arboretum, the tire depot, or visit the corn festival for delicious corn.
If you are an art director or commisson artwork and are interested in having one, please let me know. Each map folds up nicely into a convenient size and is approximately 11X17 when opened.

Stuck

This is the most recent illustration in my Country Clutter series. I've been having a good time painting them so I'll probably do a new one every so often to keep the series going.

I saw a lot of great country scenes on my way back to Brooklyn after being in Ottawa for Thanksgiving weekend. It was foggy most of the way back, so I'm looking forward to incorporating some heavy fog into my next piece.

You can view this piece larger on the portfolio page.

Canadian Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada so I'm back in Ottawa for a few days for that, as well as a friend's wedding.

I took a midnight bus out of New York on Thursday, got barely any sleep, and had Pizza Hut buffet for lunch when I arrived at 11:30am.

I'm off to Kimmelot on Sunday for Thanksgiving dinner, and then will be back in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Here is the card I made for the bride and groom.

Rodney Park North

I played some basketball at this court last week and had a much better shooting day than when I played at Sternberg Park. There was mesh on the rims which helped, and it was a beautiful court considering it is right next to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Rodney Park north honors American patriot and statesman, Caesar Rodney (1728-1784).
A strong advocate for colonial independence, Rodney was one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

As I was drawing, a man set up behind me with his music stand and practiced his trumpet. He wasn't very good, but it was better than hearing the sounds of traffic on the Expressway. The only song I recognized was What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor? which I learned when I was taking guitar lessons 15 years ago.

You can view this piece larger on the B&W page.

Country Clutter

Over the last two weeks I've been working on a series of about 10 paintings that I recently completed. The paintings are based on an idea I came up with while on vacation in Cape Cod this summer, and then while apartment hunting in Brooklyn for a week after visiting Cape Cod.

I thought it would make an interesting series of images if I combined the nice Victorian and cottage-style homes from the Cape with the hanging wires, liquor stores, subway tracks, pigeons, graffiti and water towers (amongst other things) from Brooklyn.

It was such a contrast to visit Brooklyn after Cape Cod. One is the most paved-over place in the United States (only 8% of Brooklyn's 71 square miles is park space) and practically a living thing in itself, the other is a picturesque, quiet escape with sandy beaches, delicious clam chowder and incredible mini-putt courses.

Despite Brooklyn's lack of earth not paved over with concrete, I love the neighborhoods and all the character it has.

I've always liked the appearance of water towers, and I appreciate the look of a beautiful home. So I combined the two and came up with this series of paintings I hope you will enjoy.

I really dislike pigeons, but I love to paint them.

I like the rumbling sound of the trains on the elevated tracks. Along with the sound of helicopters flying around it really contributes to the Brooklyn I had always imagined.

For some reason, it seems that there is always a pair of Air Jordan's hanging from wires in Brooklyn. Those are my Air Jordan 4's hanging together on the right.

There you have it! I still have a couple more pieces stapled to the gator board that should be finished soon. You can view all these pieces larger on the portfolio page.