I Love That Piece! Who Painted It?

I was sitting in a restaurant on Friday. On the wall was a very cool painting of fish. It had a whimsical childlike quality. The stuff I like to paint. The longer I stared at  the painting, the more impressed I was by how well the artist had captured fun and playfulness in the work.

When the owner of the restaurant stopped by our table I  just had to ask, "Do you know the artists that created that painting?"

The restaurant owner leaned over with a big smile on his face. "I sure do." He said. "My kid painted that along with her elementary class."

How great is that?

The painting is pictured above. I hate that the photo is so low quality but it was dark in the restaurant and the photo was taken on a cellphone.

The painting was so inspiring that I decided to pick up my brushes again this weekend. It is the inspiration for my new magazine cover series. Here is one of the covers in the works....

Let's Meet Chug!

Meet Chug is a new art initiative I concocted this morning while drinking coffee. I thought to myself... "Self, what might be fun to paint on?" Then I went to my studio and the only thing there were some old magazines. How fun to redesign the cover of a magazine?

I pulled out some sketches I did during a Christmas party Friday night. You see, sometimes I go to parties and the people there talk about work. I don't know why people talk about work at parties. I wonder when they go back to work on Monday if they talk about the party.

But I digress.. While they talked about work, I sketched stuff. It keeps my eyes from completely glazing over.

The magazine I found was an outdoor sportsman magazine chock full of articles about hunting and fishing and fun stuff that could be talked about at parties instead of talking about work.

The sketch is a cartoon version of a backhoe. I am fascinated with backhoes. If you are looking to get me a Christmas present a backhoe could be on your short list. The backhoes name is Chug. And now you have met.

It's probably a little cliche to paint a backhoe on a magazine that is nature related but it happened by chance.. it's the sketch I did and the magazine I found... so i'm going with it.

Above is a blurry photo of the magazine with the cover painted. There is also a book just incase the magazine doesn't pan out due to technical issues (glossy paper might peel, might curl, etc..)

Want to find out about the artists and artwork that inspired this morning's painting session??

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