If you happen to be in the Seattle area next Thursday, June 6th, drop on in at Trabant Coffee on 2nd Avenue and James Street. I’ll be hosting an open house for my first gallery showing there. We’ll have wine, beer, snacks, and of course Trabant’s amazing coffee. My work will be on display at Trabant for the month of June.
602 2nd Avenue
Seattle, Washington
One of my pieces was used in an online Russian article about Asteroid Mining and Planetary Resources. This is my first credit as a space artist, and I’m thrilled to check off another “to-do” off the list.
I began the year with the intention of bootstrapping my artwork into a business of its own. Using the best suggestions and plans I’ve accumulated over the years on how to start any business out of pocket and with the tools at my fingertips. As I said before, this is a marathon not a sprint. I have no illusions of becoming fabulously wealthy by painting space scenes. It’s simply something I enjoy and feel compelled to create. The only trick really is to just do it.
By putting my foot to the floor I’ve managed to check off a few other milestones on the journey:
In the meantime I am still an active User Experience Designer for software with a number of fascinating projects in progress.
Last weekend Emerald City ComiCon hosted their first scale model show, Model Mayhem 2013, here in Seattle. My thanks go out to the folks who run Emerald City ComiCon, and to my fellow model builders from the Galaxy Hobby Science Fiction Model Club for making this wonderful event happen.
The show almost didn’t happen, as the original organizer was unable to carry out the preparations. At the last minute I picked up the task as we already had space dedicated to the show. Initially this was to be a contest for area modelers, but given the remaining time we elected to present our work as a display-only. This format has proven quite successful for the Seattle IPMS Club (International Plastic Modeler’s Society), and allowed us to bring in a large number of our kits.
Based on our own off-the-cuff counts, and this is a conservative estimate, we think we had at least 5,000 people come through our room this year. That’s quite a large number for the scale model community, and it was likely far more than this.
We were rather impressed with the number of people who found our little room – far more than I can remember seeing in some of our previous shows. It was the largest Emerald City ComiCon to date, and unlike many of our model-themed shows this ComiCon crowd brought us a lot of people who may not be aware of our hobby. And among them there were those who fondly remember building models when they were young.
Our display featured a great cross-section of the models we build – spacecraft, vehicles, figures, busts, and even a carnivorous plant. A perfect way to demonstrate a wide range of subjects. John, Preston, and Paul also brought kits to work on during the show, which proved to be a popular demonstration for the crowd.
I mostly build spacecraft from science fiction movies and shows, and I brought every finished kit I had that didn’t need extensive repair. This is one of the unique aspects of a model display show like this, you get to see a lot more of everyone’s models. With a contest, participants usually just focus on their latest projects.
The most common comments I had on my models were:
We’re looking forward to expanding the show next year to include a full-on model contest with prizes, a make-and-take for the kids (very popular in our other shows), and more hands-on demonstrations.
For those of you who visited Model Mayhem 2013, I’d like to thank you on behalf of the Galaxy Hobby Model Club, IPMS Seattle, and of course the folks who run Emerald City ComiCon. We had a great time showing off our hobby and hope that our excitement was shared.
If you are interested in learning more about the Galaxy Hobby Science Fiction Model Club, you’re welcome to attend our regular meetings which are open to the public. We meet on the second Thursday of every month at Galaxy Hobby Shop in Lynnwood (check the link for location and details).
If you dropped by to see Model Mayhem 2013, thank you! Tell us what you liked and didn’t like!
My new friends Justin and Janell hosted guest artist Son Duong for an afternoon session at The Drunken Easel in Woodinville, Washington. Son’s art has been used by companies like Skull Candy, and he has a love of comic book heroes like Wonder Woman. For me, this was a great chance to paint a human form – something that I’ve been practicing, but haven’t yet gained confidence to the level where I’m happy sharing any samples.
The class included several Drunken Easel regulars, of all ages, and I was happy to see it wasn’t only comic aficionados.
Son provided a a graphic to use as guidance, which helped in a four hour session, and walked us through the steps as we dripped paint onto the plywood boards we were using as a canvas.
I’ll admit, I struggled, and it wasn’t clear to me why I was having difficulties getting the color tones to work the way I wanted them to. In principle, shading and forms work similarly to the kinds of illustration I’ve been doing with hardware and space scenes. By merely adding the human element, I got tense. We’re born knowing human faces visually, at least those who have sight, and as a result we’re all highly aware of faces that are off by just the smallest bit. Whether it’s the proportions on the eyes, expressions, even the fall of hair on the shape of the head. When any of these aren’t working, it’s easy to spot.
Eventually, with the help of several quality stouts, I loosened up and pushed through the final stages. Overall I’m happier with the end piece than I was halfway through it, and it’s not something I’d be inclined to hide in the garage anytime soon. I consider it a success in that I tackled a subject, and a style, that is outside of my comfort zone.
Son did an amazing job on the sample (shown below), which is up for a raffle on The Drunken Easel’s site. If you’d like a chance to own this yourself, check it out.
My daughters have grown up with parents who enjoy many creative, artistic pursuits, and with my recent plunge into the world of art and painting I’ve begun showing them around a paint brush. They’ve painted before, but not with the artist acrylics I’ve been using, and this may have been their first tutorial on painting.
There’s a trick to getting the paint to just the right consistency, something I didn’t find out until much later in college. We started with some ocean beach scenes on little canvas-covered illustration boards. Allison, my oldest daughter, wanted to paint the MockingJay pin from her favorite book last year, The Hunger Games. She’s much more the perfectionist about these sorts of things, just like I was, and exhibits the same frustration when she can’t get things exactly the way she’d like.
Jessica, on the other hand, was gung-ho about getting her beach painted with a palm tree. At 8 years old, she blasts into projects like this with great enthusiasm. No fear, no hangups, just give her the brush and she’s off! Both stuck it out for several paintings before showing fatigue. They didn’t realize we’d been at it for a couple of hours.
Both of them tried out my little beach scenes (above), and then did their own. It was a way to spend time with the girls, sharing with them some tricks and skills without the interference of a glowing screen. But for me it was fascinating to see elements of my own personality play out in their excitement, frustration, and their own view of the world through these little pieces.
“The Bunker” was my favorite suggestion as a name for my home studio, thanks to my pal “Crazy Joe” Nedjberger. It won out over some equally good suggestions like “The Dollhouse”, “Dollshop”, “BlackBirdCD’s Cave”, and so on.
The room itself is the fourth bedroom of our split-level house in Bothell, Washington, and the largest bedroom in the house. It was partitioned by one of the previous owners in the originally unfinished downstairs. For years it’s been the home office, craft area, and model-building space all crammed into one. Having such a dedicated room is one of the luxuries our modest house offers, but as is the nature of such a space it was rarely comfortable to walk into, much less work-friendly than it needed to be for my new career as a Freelance UX Designer and artist. Let’s face it, the hobby room is the last to be sorted out and organized unless it’s used on a regular basis.
Gone were the piles of half-started, in-progress spaceship models, paperwork and tangles of cables from long-forgotten computer hardware. That’s all out in the adjoining family room now, or in the refuse pile. That which is to be retained has been brought back in carefully, put in its appropriate place, as I re-configured the desks to be more efficient for my work.
Digital on one side:
And my workbench for painting and model building on the other:
The feature image of this post shows the shelves that I use to display finished models, awards, and books that I turn to regularly for the work that goes on here. It still needs a little love, but that’s for a later date. The photos only show 2/3 of the overall space, the rest is dedicated to my wife’s craft station, and a large closet. Four people can be seated at the central island where the easel is sitting. It’s a good sized room.
Originally planned as a weekend project, the cleanup has extended into nearly ten days of careful re-organization using the existing furnishings. It will never look this clean again, but I’ve already noticed how the change has improved my own efficiency, and my own demeanor when I’m in the space.
If there’s any lesson to be gained from this exercise, it’s gotta be one of the most basic – “clean your room”.
2013 brings with it for me a new direction for my career as a designer and an artist. I will continue to provide User Experience guidance for software companies as a consultant through my own company, Rendezvous Design. In addition, I’ve created a plan that will allow me to devote the time and energy necessary to build a name for myself as a multi-faceted artist. The fact is, I’ve always been an artist but I’ve never put my foot down on the accelerator and made it part of my life. Instead of obsessively sketching these scenes in every notebook within reach, or building scale models in the confines of “The Bunker” – my workshop at home), it’s time to explore a path I’d not considered viable in the past. Now, in the midst of crushing economic conditions I’m taking a bit of a leap of faith. Faith in my own skills.
I must be mad.
In preparation for this transition, I’ve been filling out the portfolio on this site with my latest work. It remains mostly Space and Science Fiction imagery, but I’ve discovered the joy of painting scenes from real life in and around the Seattle area.
So what’s the plan? At the moment I’m pulling together enough finished pieces to be used as display items in galleries, local venues, and events. I’m in the process of sorting out the technical details of printing these pieces here, to sell on my site and in person. Most of the work I’ve done in the last month is at sufficient scale for excellent reproductions on canvas. In addition, there is a consortium of colleagues that are building their own body of work and we’re discussing the possibility of an organized show later in the year. Scale models will make their way into the mix as well, although the details remain to be sorted out. And, as always, I’m maintaining a program of exercises to build up my skills.
For those who’ve read so far, my thanks for your attention. Now on to 2013
