Strokes And Carvings

Welcome to my DIY gallery, works by a largely untotured artist punching his way through arts and crafts! Although I tried my hand at painting in the late Seventies I stopped for awhile and now find myself creating pieces just for fun, which is a nice way of saying I've become more of a hobby painter. The serious art days are far behind me, and that's alright. I like being a Sunday painter.

One of my favorite subjects is glam rock, so painting Seventies style hard rock stars rockin' out makes me happy. Right up above is a favorite of mine. It's a dramatic portrait of my man Desi rocking out some righteous metal a la Poison, Great White, etc. with his band Whiskey Starr circa 1988 at White Trash A Go Go, maybe English Acid, prob not Zombie Zoo.

In front of the stage is his rich Jewish American Princess girlfriend wearing the official band tee getting pissed off at some cheap poodle-haired blonde who's been shaking her shoulders to Desi rocking out. I don't know about you, but I think a catfight is imminent.

Or how about a painting of Iggy based on one of the photos in back of the Raw Power album? I liked doing this one, and took great care in rendering a stylized look to his crazy eyes and lipsticked mouth. I really invested as much glam realness to the image as possible.

At this point it should be pointed out that when I first painted I used oils, giving everything a rough, expressionist look. I used a lot of heavy black lines and really slathered on the paints. It was a really violent look, however, later on when I got back in the game I used acrylics for a smoother, more refined look.

Getting tired of paints, I tried my hand at woodcuts because I liked the raw, violent look it gave, so here's yet another picture of Desi rocking out on stage with a smoke impudently dangling from his lips. I printed it with black ink on colored paper. I thought it turned out rather well.

Here's another woodcut I call King Cactus, showing a very tall, happy cactus rejoicing in his native habitat. I always liked the way large cacti always had long arms reaching out for you, and this guy seems to be having himself a good time in the wild.

Pictured below is Payin' The Bill, a painting of Desi offstge enjoying margaritas and some taco combination plates with the his rich girlfriend paying the bill for her very kept boyfriend. Where are these girls??? I need to find me one, but that's another blog.