The Naked Silo

Today marks the Sixth Anniversary of this blog (read my very first post ), and since I like to celebrate my various anniversaries (like my  Silver Jubilee ), I'm celebrating this one, too, by uploading better and bigger images of many of my previous posts (for posterity, the original posts won't be altered otherwise). What that means is instead of this kind of quality: ...you'll now see this kind of quality: Better, yes? Which ones am I re-scanning and updating? There are close to a hundred of them throughout the blog, so if you're wandering around, you most likely will see a better version of something. I know that's vague, sorry.

3 1/2" x 9", ink on time card, 2003 This and Pearl are the only two from this daily time card project worth posting here. This painting of Ashley is from December 19. Here's her backside:

3 1/2" x 9", ink on time card, 2003 For a couple of months in late 2003 I did drawings/paintings/collages on blank time cards, sometimes using both sides, which I stamped daily with a punch clock machine so that each one is precisely dated. I've only found two worth posting here (the other features Ashley Winning). This one's from November 26. I only ever did two paintings using this model from a magazine for my pin-up character of " Pearl Jabot ," giving her a tattoo here (which is not in the earlier painting). Here's her backside:

22" x 15", watercolour and gold paint, 1998 The title is from a Wild Strawberries song called "32" from their Quiver album from '98. I'm revisting previously-used photo ref for some new oil paintings and my reworking of this one is a little more literal...and my addition of a space helmet inadvertently seems to make that painting reference the film Gravity which won a bunch of awards. I assure you, there's no deliberate connection (not that there's anything wrong with that)...and, at the time I'm writing this, I still haven't even seen the movie. All the same, I won't be using this title for the new painting.

22" x 15", watercolour, 1994, private collection When I was doing portraits of my fellow crewmembers during my years at The Shopping Channel in the 90s, my crew's Audio/Video Operator, Michelle, opted to have me paint a pun she though was amusing (the full title of this painting is "A Sudden Increase in Violet Crimes"), based on the many jokes we'd all make during the course of too many overnight shifts. Unlike some of the jokes from that time, I don't remember the context for this one at all. It's pretty subtle, and perhaps not a very good illustration of the pun (those are supposed to be knives held by the flowers, pointing at the woman), but that was my intent because the humour may eventually be lost, but this composition can hopefully still be enjoyed. That weird white glow on her right hand is the result of my trying to get rid of some nasty glare off the glass the painting was framed behind. It's not just that a lot of my early wor

each watercolour panel: 15" x 11", coloured pencil words, 1994 Here's my friend, Trish, again, making faces at a bunch of concepts that would buzz around my head and keep me awake at nights (some still do). This was a talisman of sorts, exorcising the demons onto paper, mocking them in the process, hoping to quell the fury. I think her amazingly silly expressions balance out the heavy-handedness of the words. While experimenting with windows-in-the-mat design/framing (see: Body Language  and Go Ahead and Laugh ), I wanted to add some text that would be virtually fade-proof, my considered options at the time were inks, graphite pencil, and coloured pencils (which I finally chose because I wanted to alternate colours, but, if I were to do this type of thing now, I might just use black ink and run all the words together, maybe only separated by capital letters).

each section: 15" x 11", watercolour, 1994 The mid-90s was a bit of a whimsical time for me and my paintings and here I'm expressing that more than a bit. This was specifically designed to be framed with windows in the mat (they're four separate paintings, and only the bottom right one is signed), but I could have done them all on one sheet, I suppose (but where's the whimsy in that?). I did this windows-in-the-mat experiment with a few paintings at the time, notably in Postmodern Pranksterism *, where the words are not written on watercolour paper. Note the handmade "motion blur" as Trish blows you a kiss in the last panel. *see also Go Ahead and Laugh