My first pet portrait commission!
I could paint a portrait for his friend that he’s flying out to see the following week. At that point, I have heard many inquires
12/13/2011
10/30/2011
Why retreating is good (& coming back strong is better)
Why is my website changing again? And what was I doing the last few weeks? a – did the “caveman” thing and retreated to my cave. b – went senile and found myself…in a thriftshop. c – quit the art life, now I’m a certified monk. d- changed my last name to “Picasso” so I’ll [...]
10/05/2011
My painting from the Great American Mural Competition
I just got back from Tucson after competing in the Great American Mural Competition. It was a grueling 24-hour period over 3 days, and at one point my nerves were a bit shot, that I thought I had a fever. But I made sure I finished the painting and ended up winning “Most Exotic Painting” [...]
10/02/2011
Day 2: The Great American Mural Competition
Today I flipped out several ways. One, I flipped my painting over to work on the “Arizona” side of my mural. The mural has two images so you can see both images the right side up if you flip it over. I used a larger brush to fill in the desert , as I got [...]
10/01/2011
Day 1: Great American Mural Project
I’m in Tucson and just finished Day 1 of 3. I spent 9 hours painting and found my inspiration for my subject somewhere between Hatch and Deming, NM. I like how a card (as in a deck of cards) have an image inside, as well as an upside-down image. So painting this image would be [...]
09/25/2011
Step One: The mural sketch
This is my first sketch that I physically put down on paper. All there was before wee ideas in my head. Putting it down visually certainly helped a lot. I thought about doing a horse’s eye, but with a New Mexico landscape in the center and an Arizona landscape outside the pupil. I also want to [...]
09/19/2011
Join me on my 3-Day Mural Project Adventure!
It’s a 3-day event in which each muralist will paint an original acyrlic 40″x60″ mural on canvas based on this year’s theme “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.
09/18/2011
My Zorn experiment of haunting discoveries
Only 2 damn colors (yellow and red) plus black & white. No blue. First comes the bright, rich colors. Peaches, oranges, reds, pinks come very easy, as if the feminine side comes to speak, or is ruler of the house. Then comes the darkness or masculine colors, the hard-edge, gritty, melancholy, affressive and haunting colors [...]
09/11/2011
My updated site and how to improve your website too
I have been writing for 5 days straight to experiment what the writing process would feel like. In the past, I have been writing my blog for just a few times a month, sometimes longer. But I felt that I should discipline myself more and see what kind of posts I would write, what kind [...]
09/10/2011
How to be an artistic hunter
There’s a right way and wrong way to approach the start of a painting. Most people who haven’t picked up a brush wouldn’t know about all the prepartion time going into starting a painting. There involves some research, or as I call “hunting without a license”. It’s a primitive tool I have always used, in [...]
09/09/2011
A few ideas of the word “quit”
plum fiesta 5×7 oil on board The last few days I have been teetering on heaven and hell. I’m setting my sights on getting my act together and prepare for a mural competition in Tucson later this month. Meanwhile, I’m going through some personal stuff that involves loss of pet and loss of relationship. It’s [...]
09/08/2011
Do we really need more idols? (and my Phil Collins encounter)
Do artists really need idols to guide and mentor them through the creative jungles and corporate human race? Well that’s a matter of opinion and I have some opinion on this subject you may find shocking or boring. Either way, enjoy the ride now that I have your attention. Have you stopped watching tv [...]
09/07/2011
Art is the best medication
When you are not feeling well, some people reach for that bottle of headache medicine, or even a presecription. I’m no doctor, I’m an artist, so I only know what I know by experience. Nature created me, so I must be a genius for writing this post, right? And personally for me, I conclude that [...]
08/29/2011
My next surprise art show…coming to Tucson!
“Mountain Ranges” 8x14ft mural acrylic on stucco 2008 “The Enchanted Ceremony” circa 8′ x 8′ acrylic on bus Just found out about 1 hour ago that I was accepted in the 1st Annual Great American Muralist Competition in Tucson, AZ from Sept 30-Oct 2, 2011. This obviously is a huge deal for me on different levels. [...]
08/21/2011
Overcoming the darkness of my creative being
It’s midnight as I’m writing this. I just have a need to write at this hour. Maybe it’s the silence of the hour, the calm darkness that spreads across New Mexico.
08/18/2011
The Art of the Breakup (pt. 2) – This isn’t brain salad surgery
Josh, age 3 Last time we met here, I introduced you to “The Art of the Breakup”. Now, I would like to follow that up with a few provoking thoughts. As artists, we are incredibly sensitive creatures. Life imitates art, art imitates life. We don’t know whom imitates whom, but we carry on like the [...]
08/13/2011
Breaking up the art way
Is changing your art style like breaking up with an old girlfriend? You have a certain history together. You wine and dine, play around in a good way of course. You know how to push each other’s buttons. There is an array of emotion involved. You invested your emotion daily, weekly or monthly and hope [...]
08/04/2011
The big bang of creativity
They said it couldn’t be done. Well at least the voices in my head kept sayg “When are you just going to do a painting just for fun?” Well here’s one of them, An oil on my sketchpad, An imaginary landscape. Maybe a new direction, at least with a new double primary palette. Not [...]
07/02/2011
Storm Front
There’s always a storm brewing, whether it’s the outdoors or in your heart, time changes and nothing lasts forever. That is, possibly except my new painting, “Storm Front”. Sometimes things don’t always go your way and you carry that pain around you for days, months or years. It’s like hell. Fortunately, my outlet in expressing [...]
06/22/2011
40 lessons I learned in 40 years
Well I finally made it…40 years on earth starting at 2:06am on June 23. So much has happened and it feels like I climbed some wall and once I saw the other side, I see the future. An unseen future with ideas without a certain reality. Nothing is certain in this life. I have no [...]
04/29/2011
An experiment (I mean painting) that went right
Experiments are not meant to look good. They are sometimes shadows of the real artwork, they are not meant for public viewing. And just maybe they’re meant to be thrown out because after all, they’re just experiments. But this one is special… Sometimes you go through hundreds, or even thousands of paintings [...]
04/05/2011
My personal “Time to Grow Up” Public Manifesto
I’ve got a lot to say here to my friends, family and fans on Facebook and beyond. I’m going through some major changes lately. No, I’m not doing anything extreme like a sex-change or joining a religious cult. I’m here to stand up for something even greater. You may get turned off or become enlightened [...]
03/29/2011
I’m no liar, Creativity is the fire to go higher
Creativity is the fire we must light our ass to get the results we want. Do you want results? But we have to get off our butt to get anything done. Damn, that stinks to high heaven! I’m going to try a different approach what creativity means to me. I never did it this [...]
03/26/2011
Splat, my next adventure at the Petroglyphs
My next adventure at the Petroglyphs I went back out again to the Petroglyphs in ABQ, NM recently. It was a fine, beautiful day with a touch of strong and breezy wind. This is my second time out and as you see from the photo, a painting that I did last time with a limted [...]
03/19/2011
Be a creative monk, know your priorities
Painting is a solitary activity. You are really a monk of creativity. Actually there are some similarities in being a monk and an artist. You’re in a spiritual profession, because painting is a spiritual activity as well as a solitary one. You must use your monk-ness to your fullest potential. Of all the bombardment of [...]
03/16/2011
My glitch at the Petroglyphs
I ventured out to a unique and mysterious place in Albuquerque called “The Petroglyphs”. It a bunch of black lava rock and some of these rocks have carvings of images done by natives a long time ago. It’s also a beautiful spot to paint, especially since it was a balmy 72 and sunny, so [...]
03/12/2011
Going back to moving forward
This has been a strange and surreal winter for me. I have relocated to Albuquerque, NM from Santa Fe. I painted in Tucson, redesigned my website and started an online ESL course. I needed a cheaper place but more important, a new fresh beginning. But to get to new beginnings, you must revisit and tie [...]
02/23/2011
Just a bowl?
Some say it’s just a bowl, I call it a work of art. A very simple drawing of one of my favorite objects, a clay Indian bowl. Done in the Old Master’s tradition of conte crayon on blue pastel paper. It demonstrates if you break the art in its simplist components, it can be quite [...]
02/09/2011
…behind the art, there are stories, and stories were meant to be told…
Let’s start here. I’m Josh. I paint, blog, teach, travel. I love the art of simplicity. I am very driven to create the best works of art to no end, and it’s killing me! (In a good way) The only way to jump back on the horse is to realize that you actually fell off [...]
02/01/2011
Art & Minimalism: Made in Heaven?
I’ve been thinking a lot about simplicity of life. Art can be chaotic at times, all that rushing around, hunting for your next subject, learning more about painting technique and experimentation (will explain later), and well so much more. Even if I wasn’t an artist, I would probably still have a chaotic mind. I don’t [...]
01/20/2011
Consumed with Process and a Lion’s Heart
Sandia Morning Mist 8×10 oil on canvas board There comes a time when an artist struggles and struggles, and nothing seems to go quite right, you hit that moment of truth. At least in your head. Maybe I’m a fake, maybe I don’t have the passion to do this anymore, maybe it’s time to get [...]
01/13/2011
Just taking my time with two paintings
Tucson Palm Reader 6×8 oil on canvas board Coming back from Tucson last month was a cool experience as an artist. You put yourself into a different environment and challenge yourself to think different, see different and be different. But are you really different? When I stayed at someone’s place for about a week, it [...]
01/06/2011
Not at the sunset of my years yet!
It’s not the sunset of my life…yet. I can’t believe I’ll be 40 this year. I guess it’s some right of passage we’re suppose to be frightened of, especially for men. Are we in some lost universe between our youth and old age? I don’t give a damn, at least for now. Actually, I want [...]