On October 17th 2007 Kevin Corcoran and I are having a major 2 man show entitled "FuZe" at the Asta Gallery in Huntington with an entirely new body of work. We'll be showing all new individual work as well as a brand new collaborative project that'll be unveiled on opening night.

We've officially begun production, planning and promotion for this event. "FuZe" promises to be something you'll be talking about long after opening night. It's time to put the Long Island Art scene back on the map.

As part of our efforts to bring you something unique I'll be blogging about our progress in getting prepared for this show, with sneak peek images, thoughts and video. I'll be posting at least once a week until the show date of Wednesday October 17th, 2007 so stay tuned, check back often, mark your calendars and tell a friend. You won't want to miss this groundbreaking event.

Here's a cropped section from the first piece of artwork I've created for this show…..more to come…..

Caitlin Nitz of Nixenitz jewelry and I worked together on my bio interview. We did what most artist's do for compensation. We traded services. Here's the deal: She makes me a ring and does my interview and I give her multiple prints of my work. Not such a bad situation at all. That's the great thing about the arts. The Barter system is still alive. When she asked me for my ring size I decided to have a little fun with it. I used my right hand to do a sketch of my LEFT hand and used my left hand to sketch the RIGHT. It's a good exercise if you haven't tried it. Here's the result…. A creative way to pass along information. If you'd like to commission Caitlin to create a piece of jewelry for you contact her by emailing nixenitz@yahoo.com. Samples of her beautiful work can be seen by watching the beginning of the interview.

Yay I won!

My design, "Serenade", has won the Threadless competition and will soon be on t-shirts around the globe and I couldn't have done it without you. (and the 30+ years locked in a room hacking away at a piece of paper with a sharpened tree limb.) 

This means that my design is going to be printed and sold on Threadless.com for a certain period of time (no one really knows how long that is). Basically until the t-shirt sells out. Point is if you want one you should get it now. After they sell out you have to beg and plead on the forums to get them to reprint it and let me tell you it's not a pretty site. (the website's pretty, the begging's ugly).The thing is you can not get the shirt from me. I signed a deal when I won that they could sell the shirt exclusively (in exchange for a large suitcase full of money). Ok maybe not a suitcase but enough to convince me to give them exclusive rights to sell it on Threadless. I'm not kidding when I say that this item will sell out and of course this is not a sales pitch to make me more money. I've already been paid (where is that damn check?). I make no more money off the future sale of this shirt but as I mentioned before if you want one and miss the opportunity I can't do anything about it. (Just a little inside info if your really interested in having one.) As you can see from the title of this newsIetter I have nothing but big love for Threadless because they love designers, artist's and creative people in general and that's pretty awesome. If you like cool t-shirts and you haven't been to threadless yet head on over there now and tell em I sent you. (I claim no responsibility for what they may do, say or throw at you if you do actually mention my name.)

Here's your options:

> Buy the shirt < 

> View my profile on Threadless <

Just wanted to mention that there are 2 new updates to the site.

1) The About section has been beefed up adding a few more galleries that I have been getting numerous requests for.

Here's a screen shot of the About section. Added galleries include:

Digital Sketches > Now has all the sketches that I've done thus far on the "Sketchpad" section of this site.
Sketchbook > Random sketches from the 30 something sketchbooks I have. This is just a sampling of images but there's plenty to look at. I will continue to put new images in this section.
2005 Sketchbook project > From Jan 13 2005 to Jan 12 2006 I drew one image a day into a daily planner. See all the images in this gallery.
California Dayz > All the paintings that were produced between the years 1996 and 2001 are in here. Those of you how knew me in California will feel more familiar with this section.

2) The Gallery section has a new project in it. The Composition Project is a collection of 100 drawings that I did to help raise money for the LI2DAY Breast Cancer walk. A portion of the proceeds from sales of all Composition Prints until May 13 at 1200am, will go to benefit the LI2DAY Breast Cancer fund and Chelsea Mansion Renovation fund.

Here's one of the 100 compositions that make up this series. Check out the Gallery section to see the other 99.

On Wednesday April 18th, 2007 from 6pm on myself and fellow artist Kevin Corcoran will take part in a 4 person group showing at the Asta Gallery, "Wine Cafe and Art Gallery" located at 335 Main Street Huntington, NY 11734. Kevin and I will have three of our 4 by 6 foot paintings at this show. (The names of the paintings we'll be showing are "Castles in the Sky", "Distant Places", and "Lost World") We will be sharing wall space with Long Island artists Jack Pierce and Tevye Scherline. Come down and enjoy the festivities during this opening reception. There will be live Jazz music by Electra Jacobs, Colin Dean and friends to accompany the event. The Openings at Asta are always a great time. We hope that you can come down and spend the evening with us. The show will remain up for one month (April 18th to May14th) if you should decide to make it down there after the opening. You can get all the details about the Asta Gallery by clicking the image below which will take you to their website.

Ahoy Mates, scallywags and vermin alike. Today's image started out as nothing, just a few lines here and there and before too long I was on a journey, an adventure, a quest. That's right a quest for THE BLACK PEARL. The meanest, most devious ship to ever haunt the waters of Port Royal. I've just recently seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2 which was unbelievable in my opinion. Never mind the 5 hours worth of extras on the DVD (well worth watching if you like to see how much thought and artistry go into a movie like this, not to mention the physical labor). I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. I drew this entire image in the Sketchpad section of my site, but the skull and words are of course a photoshop addition. I hope you enjoy this image and to those hardcore Pirates fans out there that will look at this image and say "That ship doesn't look exactly like the Black Pearl", I didn't look at an image of the Pearl when I did this. It's all out of my head. So in true Pirates fashion I choose to invoke "Parlay"….

Been having a little fun lately with the launch of my newsletter. I started to use themes that relate to the time of the year back in December with my Christmas release. Being an artist and a designer I have the opportunity at all times to show off what I can do and generally have some fun with it. A newsletter is the perfect opportunity. I use Mailchimp as my newsletter service but there are plenty of others out there. If your an artist and you don't have a newsletter yet it might be a good idea to start thinking about it. It's a great way to keep people informed of what your up to and to reacquaint them with you as an artist, your site, and your current work.
Here's what the header of my December newsletter looked like….

Here's the header of the recently released Spring newsletter. See how fun that is…..

And here is a screenshot of the content section of the newsletter. It's still retains my image as a company but it's themed in a fun way. Remember all that "stuff" that we receive in our email everyday? It can be overwhelming so it makes sense then to make the "stuff" that you send out something someone actually wants to open……

If you aren't already receiving my newsletter and would like to join in on the festivities you can JOIN MY NEWSLETTER HERE. Oh and Happy Spring……

This is the second year that I am contributing to help raise money for the Li2day Breast Cancer Walk. I am proud to be able to contribute the design of the logo for "Art From The Heart", design of the Poster for the event, postcard design, and design of the Myspace site as well. I also have a piece of artwork that has been donated for the auction that will occur during the opening on Saturday, April 14, 2007 at 6pm at the Chelsea Mansion in East Norwich. Come join us to celebrate and help raise money. There is a $5 admission at the door. Thank you.

::Clicking on the image below will take you to the "Art From The Heart" Myspace page where you can find detailed information on this wonderful event::

Here's the poster……..

The image below was a fun one for me to do. This image was done imporvisationally, meaning that it starts and ends without a plan. As I often do I am letting the music and what I see in the image dictate what I do next. It kind of feels as if I were composing a piece of music conducting an orchestra and performing at the same time. In order to illustrate what generally happens when I draw on the Sketchpad located here on this site I have recorded this drawing as a quicktime movie which you can watch below. The movie runtime is 9:39 and brings me to about 98% completion of the image. As you'll see in the finished image there are some adjustments made. Very slight but worth the change. Can you see what I changed? I hope you enjoy this inside look into my creative process. This video has sound which is important to the process. Please turn the sound off above in the top section of this site prior to watching the video.:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Watch this quicktime video of me creating the image above .

Here is a rediesign of the Josh Ritter shirt………click the thumbnail image below to visit Threadless.com and VOTE FOR ME. I would like to get this one printed.

You can see a slideshow with all the colors by visiting my About page
Thanks………