DIORAMA-O-RAMA! (group art exhibit this weekend)

This Saturday night at 6PM, Billups Art in East Nashville will host The Diorama Show curated by Brooke E. The exhibit will consist of dioramas created by local artists here in the mid-south. Here is a sneak peek at the process I went through with my wife, Aurora and my good friend Alex creating a collaborative piece for this exhibit...

Aurora likes to make origami and we'd wanted to play around with her making some small animals and me drawing on them. The opportunity had not presented itself until Brooke announced this unique group exhibit! We knew right away what we wanted to do and I sketched out a game plan for the box as Aurora worked on the animals we'd be housing in our diorama...


I employed Alex to build our box. I traded Al some art for a very nice shelf that he build me a few years back... he's got mad skills with some molding and wood! A little blueprint and quick trip to the hardware store and we're in business...

I got to staining the box and accents and got everything put together and clear-coated...




...and then painted the inside to give us our background!


Aurora painted her little pets...


...while I got to work drawing out the other elements for the diorama as well as some small details to collage on the origami!



With the origami sprayed down with a sealant and the tree and foreground illustrations laminated and cut out, it's time to put the puzzle together and get the light in!



Be sure to stop by Billups Art in East Nashville this Saturday night between 6-9PM for the exhibit. There will be art from many of the best local artists there are. It's bound to be one interesting journey! $5 at the door gets you in, get's your whistle wet, gets you sixteen artists, and gets you Ronnie Lee Twist and the Future Cats! See you there to check out the Origami Forest in full swing and lit up!!

In Progress: New works for Bram Stoker's Dracula

This October, The Roxy Regional Theatre in Clarksville, TN will run their production of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Charles Bennett and I will have the pleasure of producing a body of artwork to accompany their play for this Halloween season!

Charles and I have had the honor of working with the Roxy in the past with both their Julius Caesar and Frank Sinatra productions which both bore some great work from us both. We'll be creating some collaborative works this time around as well!


Here are some sketches and line work from my works in progress for the exhibit...



Embodiments of vampires from film and Vlad the Impaler...


Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi...


Count Von Count...

Fright Night Film Fest

Well, I got Con #2 under my belt this past weekend in Louisville, KY at Fright Night Film Fest. I knew the weekend would be fun and I'd be turning my head frequently when I hopped out of the van to check in to the hotel- I took my first double-take at the slashed-throat corpse on the lobby bench (in reality a girl with her head down texting and in full zombie get-up- the head drooped down like that got me though!)

Two weeks ago, I was compelled to draw a portrait of the festival's guest of honor, early B-movie pioneer Roger Corman. Corman was off the beaten path in his time. He directed Jack Nicholson in his first movie, the original Little Shop of Horrors. Later, he went on to direct one of Nicholson's few scripts, The Trip (of which I'm more familiar than most of Corman's work -thanks Ryan!-).



In the movie, Peter Fonda's character takes his first dose of LSD as a self-journey and the basis of the entire movie (the acid is given to him by Bruce Dern via Dennis Hopper, who plays the drug dealer). The film is a very mature and realistic look at the drug experience itself. One of the main reasons for this is that Corman didn't want to make a movie about something he in fact hadn't experienced. So He, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper dropped some LSD in preparation for the project. The first thing you'll probably notice about my illustration (as many did over the weekend) is the famous plant. The part I like the most is the hit of blotter in the corner inspired by The Trip. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Corman in Louisville and talking about the movie early Friday before things kicked off. He seemed surprised when I brought it up, which led me to assume that it's not one many people ask about. I urge you to check out this true gem of rebel cinema. Roger had pleasant things to say about the print of this work which I gave him. I thought it would be neat to give him a souvenir since he's usually on the giving side signing autographs all weekend.


During set-up Friday afternoon, I was humbled with the compliments of a guy who stopped in his tracks when my work caught his eye. We spoke for a minute before I realized he was Jeff Gaither, an artist who's work I've admired for some time. Jeff is a self-taught artist (as am I) who has been making his sick art professionally for thirty years now. He has made album covers and art for hundreds of musicians including The Misfits, Guns 'n' Roses, and Stone Temple Pilots. I ended up trading him one of my new Third Eye books for a nice poster print.

Saturday night, we drove down to Shepherdsville to see my long-lost friend Stacey and his wife. Stacey had been harboring a few paintings I'd left behind when he and I lived in Nashville back in 2001. I think he was just happy to unload some junk! The visit brought the artistic experience full circle seeing work I'd done almost a decade ago.

Sunday, we took the down-time of a slow day to get around and meet some of the other incredible artists who were present. I lugged around one of my new print books (holding the nearly 70 prints I have stocked) and traded prints with some of the guest celebrities and filmmakers in attendance for autographed pics and DVDs also.

Aurora with Mike Christopher who played the Hare Krishna Zombie in the original Dawn of the Dead...



Rochelle Davis (Sarah from The Crow) was a really sweet gal and had some wonderful things to say about my art!



This guy ain't that scary for being the Predator!



If you think this is frightening, you should see her when she's mad. Aurora at the Shadowland booth...