I recently moved out of my old studio and now I’m using my dining room to temporary store a lot of older and newer work. Not sure how long my wife is going to allow this so if anyone wants to buy anything I’m sure she’ll be happy to see it go.

This is my first oil painting since high school, so different than the using acrylics. I’m kept leaning my hand on the painting while working on it only to be reminded that the damn thing is not going to be dry for days/weeks unlike the minutes it takes the acrylics to dry. I do like the color that the oils produced but getting used to new techniques may take a while. We’ll see how it goes.

I was introduced to Warhol’s work at the age of 17, in English class none the less by a girl who was and still is an amazing artist. I was immediately drawn to the crisp, in your face images that Warhol produced using photographs and the silk screen process. So, in college I took screen printing classes, made t-shirts, posters for the theater department along with paintings covered in screen printing but all the work I did turned out to only imitate the dead pop artist. It was like everything had a silver wig on top of it. It wasn’t new, it didn’t push the language forward that was created by the past. I loved screen printing but I wasn’t going to continue creating yesterday, so I put down the squeegee and picked back up the brushes.

Jump ahead twenty years, I’m 36 and screen printing again, but hopefully with a new idea and vision on how to utilize the screen printing process. Below is my first painting/silk screen with this new thought in use. It’s called ALI and I can’t find a hint of pop in it. I ask, “Is it new?” Questions? Comments?

Couple new figure drawings from the sketchbook.

Pulled from my sketchbook and printed on paneling, these two pieces were then hand painted using acrylic paint. They’re smaller (15″x15″) than I would have liked but I’m somewhat limited by the screen sizes available to me.

Overall, I’m happy with them. What do you think?

Spent the evening with the guys and gals from All Along Press getting a refresher course on silk screen printing. It’s been 10 years since since I burned screens in a make-shift darkroom located in my basement.

Working in an actual studio setup for printing was so nice; the amount of space, proper equipment and help from professional printers made all the difference. Thanks Steven.

Special thanks to Emily Phillippe,  Dr. Staci Young, Shani Bellamy, and Brad & Lisa Queen for the work. It’s always fun to take a break from my personal work to work on these pieces. I also like the money.

You can find the new commissioned paintings here or click on Commissioned Work to the right.

If you like letterpress artwork be sure to check out Impressed by Design: Letterpress in the Heartland at the Edwardsville Arts Center (EAC). The show was curated by Creativille, Inc. and featured 5 artists from the Midwest.

The night also doubled as a celebration for the 10 year anniversary of Creativille, Inc., congratulations to Steve Hartman.

Here are a couple ink drawings from the past several days. It’s been a while since I just sat down with a pen and paper, normally I would go straight to painting for that is all that mattered for so long. I’m finding more patience lately. I like it, I hope.