La Poste - Timbres Bloc Le chocolat

Available at La Poste in France...stamps that look, smell and taste of chocolate!!

December Exhibitions - Monaco & Paris

Dec. 10 - 13, 2009. Salon SNBA Carrousel du Louvre. Paris

Pacific Monte-Carlo. Dec. 3, 2009 - Jan. 7, 2010

Dunking Bunnies - Holiday Windows Galeries Lafayette Paris

I love Paris in December, I am lucky that the SNBA salon is on at this time. My favorite window display was the animatronic swimming bunnies dressed in Marc by Marc Jacobs outfits. Who doesn't love champagne, bunnies and a water fountain?!

The photo below was taken from the blog www.eyepreferparis.com
He has many more photos of holiday windows in Paris.

TCM: Grace Kelly Films

Turner Classic Movies will be showing Hitchcock's Rear Window on Monday, Nov. 30. Also of interest for Grace Kelly fans, TCM online screens a clip written and narrated by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco remembering his mother, Grace Kelly. It is a very touching and revealing commentary. You can watch the video here. Thanks to Bruce Evans for sending me this info!

Grace Kelly - Rear Window

Acrylic on bristol board, 30x40 cm

My second painting of Grace Kelly for my exhibition in Monaco next week, this one from Rear Window. I wanted a still that had a good close up of her face and a background with some depth. Not easy given the limited setting of this film! Lots of long shots, or glamour shots with an uninteresting background. I liked the casual look and colour of the shirt.

Dial M for Murder

Dial M for Murder: Grace Kelly. Acrylic on bristol board 30 x 40 cm

Fire and Ice 1 & 2

Fire and Ice 1 and 2 are now complete. I will frame them separately but sell them as a pair. Working on a sketch now for the Monaco show Dec. 3 of Grace Kelly from Dial M for Murder. Keeping with the theme of film in the principality.

Fire and Ice 1

Fire and Ice - Part I Acrylic on Bristol board 40 x 30cm

I really enjoyed working on a sketch with so much movement, I'm going to do a sequence of this referencing the two or three frames after. I love the snow with the blue and red.

Diner

'Diner' Acrylic on bristol board, 42 x 30 cm

Sketch Part II

'Untitled. Part II' Acrylic on Board. 40 x 50 cm

I decided to turn the sketch into a collage. I painted a second sketch, then ripped it in half, pasting the bottom and top of the second sketch to the top and bottom of the first. Thought I would take advantage of working on paper.

Time to sketch

'Untitled'. Acrylic on bristol board, 30 x 42 cm

After finishing the last piece, I thought I would take a little break and do some sketches. I have wanted to try acrylic on paper or board, so now seems like a good time. I also thought it would be nice to have some smaller sketches to accompany the large canvases at the next exhibition which should be next month. I'll post the sketches as I go along. Today was my first try and so far I really like working on the smooth texture of the board with the acrylic paints.

New diptych. 'Laisse tomber'

From the series L'homme inconnu. 'Laisse tomber' Acrylic on canvas. 2009 diptych 194 x 130 cm

Finally I have finished my new diptych. This one really seemed to take forever, but it was worth it, I am pleased with the result and I am thrilled to finally see the two panels complete side by side.
This weekend I will start on my new piece for my next series titled Conversations in cars. I'll also be busy doing some works on paper to include in an upcoming show.

Brain Training. Does it work? Join the experiment!

From the BBC Lab UK 'Bang goes the theory' website Dr. Adrian Owen and Professor Clive Ballard explain why this experiment is important. The goal is to discover, does brain training really work? Anyone over 18 can join the experiment (you don't have to live in the UK). Its designed to be fun, so even though you need to invest 10 minutes 3 times a week, you'll be motivated to keep it up.
Here is an excerpt from the site:

Scientific evidence

Unfortunately, at the moment, the hype and enthusiasm exceeds the scientific evidence. This does not mean that brain training doesn’t work, just that it hasn’t been properly and scientifically investigated. We know that practising brain-training games definitely improves performance on those specific games; the thing that we don’t know is whether the skills you improve by playing a game can transfer over and be useful in the rest of your life. For example being good at Sudoku is no guarantee that you’ll be able to manage a set of accounts.

Join the brain training experiment.

Push Pause Art Collective

My new project! I have started an art collective showcasing artists that are inspired by cinema. There are currently 4 of us, but more coming soon!

pushpauseart.wordpress.com

Madrid Museums

If you visit Madrid be sure to check out some of the world's most important art museums. I went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. Here there is not only Picasso's amazing Guernica but beside it there area rooms filled with sketches and studies showing how the work evolved. Other artists on exhibit are Dali, Miro and more Picasso. Unfortunately I did not make it to the Museo Thyssen-Bonemisza or to the local galleries (next time!) but I couldn't miss the Museo Nacional del Prado.

What an incredible collection of work. The Velazquez room, Bosch, the Durer self portrait and the upstairs Goya court paintings and the downstairs black period were some of the highlights for me. Other artists are exhibition include Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Titian and lots of El Greco.
If you won't be visiting Madrid anytime soon, download Google Earth, mix yourself a mojito and see the Prado masterpieces in amazing detail.

In Google Earth go to the 'Fly to' search field and enter Museo Prado Masterpieces. On the map a white square marker is shown. Click that to get art zooming. Written on the link is the following:

We present a virtual tour of fourteen masterpieces from the Museo Nacional del Prado, displayed in ultra high resolution, enabling you to see details of the paintings that have never been seen before. Thanks to the high resolution of the digital images, you can view the whole painting or zoom in on a small fragment. Given the plethora of masterpieces housed at the Museum, choosing which works to include was no easy task but this selection represents the best of the collection.

Exhibition Zaragoza

Back from Spain and the group exhibition. Also recovering from 4 days in Madrid...had a great time and really enjoyed the mojitos and museums!

Geek tee

www.thinkgeek.com
I can't believe that I actually saw a guy on the bus wearing this tee today. Sadly I am 1 of the 10 different kinds of people that understood this...sigh. If you want to take a refresher course or need more info on understanding geek tees visit the binary wiki.

'Laisser tomber' diptych, left panel complete.

I have finally finished the left panel of my new diptych titled 'Laisser tomber' and I am now working on completing the right panel. Hopefully it won't take me as long to finish it off. My goal is to have it done before going off to Spain.

Make your own Hockney or interactive street map.

First let me say, this was developed by some cool people in a not very cool place, Microsoft labs. So that means you can't make a synth if you have a mac, and you can't view a synth using Google Chrome. You also need some pretty good processing speed and some patience. This is a new thing, so its still a bit buggy, but I can hardly wait to see how it develops. I shot the photos for this synth very quickly, and actually I had photographed the dvd label details on the shelf. You can't see it all in one shot though because I didn't do enough medium shots before doing the close-ups. Taking loads of overlapping photos is the key, because it gets compiled with texture recognition...some trial and error is going to be necessary. Expect to see some more synths from me in the future!

I love maps!

llustration intended for use in The Selected Work of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. www.tsspivet.com

I really dislike going to a city without having a map to study, even while reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy I was constantly flipping back to the maps to see where the heck I was in Middle Earth. Certainly Tolkien and his son Christopher, who did almost all the map illustrations, loved their maps too. Who doesn't love google maps, and if you check out my post from Dec. 2008 you'll see how great the terrestrial globe in Florence is. On the topic of loving maps there is a new book out called The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, and it looks like something I would really enjoy. Following the life of a 12 year old genius cartographer who tries to map out everything in his life. There is an article on amazon written by the author discussing the illustrations used, and removed from the book. In this quote the author describes his use of illustrations:

"I found that I had to be very selective about what I wanted to show. What is not shown is as important as what is shown. In addition, many of the images in this book are not direct illustrations like might you see in other books—as in, 'let me tell you about x and now here is a picture of x.' Instead of a direct one-to-one correspondence, there's a satellite-like relationship between the text and the image, a kind of graphical parallelism."

Hmmm I actually like a lot of the drawings that were taken out, but I guess I better read the book so I can have a more informed opinion.

Fashion, Film and Art

I know that its advertising, but how great are these?! Sad news though for Karl Lagerfeld and the Chanel mobile art museum designed by Zaha Handid. The tour was cut short after visiting only 3 of the 6 scheduled cities.
www.chanel-mobileart.com

Samuel Benchetrit for YSL


Sofia Coppola for Miss Dior Cherie


Superflat First Love by Takashi Murakami for Louis Vuitton

More work in progress.

I'm just about finished doing the first rough colour on the diptych. I've actually progessed even more since I took this photo. Its a bit confusing to look at the work this way because the pair is the wrong way around. The foreground canvas on the left with the man will be the right panel and the woman will be the left panel. I'll soon start painting them as a single piece so the composition and colours match.

Art stats

Five Angels for the Millennium' [detail] "Ascending Angel" (2001). Video/sound installation.

Photo: Kira Perov

Well good news for the art market. Looks like the worst is over and the art market is recovering if you believe ArtTactic reports. Check out the entertaining stats on this site...see if your favourite artist places in the top 10. Bill Viola is one of my faves and he ranks at number 5...go Bill!

Thinking back to better days

With Wimbledon under way, its pretty difficult for me to get very excited about the outcome with Rafael Nadal's absence. I was lucky enough to attend the final for the 2009 Monte Carlo Open where Nadal won his 5th consecutive championship in Monaco. He went on to win in Barcelona and Rome before problems surfaced. A loss in the finals in Madrid, and a shocking loss at Roland Garros signaled an injury which finally grew too serious to continue playing. With a recovery time of up to one month he felt he was not able to compete in Wimbledon this year and had to withdraw. Get better soon Rafa!

LastFM...pourquoi? (and other news)

One of my favourite sites LastFM has decided to charge users 3euros/month if you live outside US, UK, or Germany. At first I thought I'll find something else just as good that is free...but now I've tried a few alternatives and nothing I know of has such a good smart radio. I've now contributed what amounts to one less latte per month to LastFM. Consider yourself lucky if you live in one of the exempt countries!

In other completely unrelated news, it seems like Formula 1 will not split up. The top 8 teams have now reached an agreement with the FIA. I was not entirely unhappy with the possibility of a split as I hoped Montreal might get its race back. I still can't believe that the Canadian GP which was always a huge event for the fans was removed from the calendar, and others (cough...Turkish GP) stay; where on race day the big topic of conversation was 'Where are all the people?'

Bobblehead Song of the Summer 2009

This new track by Animal Collective is obviously targeted to be a summer tune, its even called Summertime Clothes. Most of their stuff is much less commercial but they went for mass appeal with this one...and I like it! Anyone up for running through the lawn sprinklers??

Diptych 2 work in progress

Slowly but surely my second diptych is coming along. I usually draw both and do the undercoats first then roughly fill in one, then the other then finally go back and complete all the details. This time I seem to be spending more time with the first panel as sometimes its hard to leave parts unfinished and move on. This weekend I will be sure to move on to the second panel.

Exhibitions 2009

In 2009 I joined the Com2art association which creates group art exhibitions for unique venues. So far this year my work has been in St. Tropez and Beziers. The St. Tropez exhibition was in an old wash house, it really brought something to all the art. In July some paintings will travel to the Langedoc region of France to be exhibited in 2 winery estates. September 1-15 for the first time my paintings will be shown in Zaragoza, Spain. The last stop before attending the SNBA Salon in Paris will be at Galerie Aleph in Marseille. A busy year for my paintings touring..I wish I could go along with them everywhere!

new diptych

Work is underway on my new diptych...still untitled. I had to change the composition after I created the undercoat, the woman on the left needed to be enlarged and moved over. In the sketch it looked fine but once the composition was blocked, I noticed there was too much tension in the middle and there needed to be more space around the diving board.  

Recent work: The tempest

Last December I completed my 5th painting for the L'homme inconnu series titled The tempest. size 116cm x 89 Acylic on linen canvas. I am currently working on another diptych.  I think this will be the last piece in the series before 'Conversations in cars' begins. 

Juxtapoz Reader Art

Some good news today...my paintings are featured on Juxtapoz magazine website.
When you submit they say if you get selected it could take months to get on. I submitted last week, so I'm really flattered that they put me online so quickly. There is some great work there, just click on the Reader Art link on their website. Thank you Juxtapoz!!
www.juxtapoz.com

SNBA Salon 2008 photos

Belated 2008 SNBA Paris salon recap

Its been far too long since I've updated here, but I've had a few exciting months. In December I was in Paris for the SNBA salon. It was a great experience. The opening on Thursday was more like an open house than a vernissage. The place was packed with thousands mulling around. Next time I'm going to bring a chair and some water so I can last the whole evening. My friends Cheryl and Paula joined me for the trip and we took a little break from the opening for a drink at Le Fumoir..a great bar just beside the Louvre. Saturday evening there was more of a cocktail where artists were able to socialize a bit with each other. Even though I knew it was going to be a big salon, it was still a bit overwhelming. Next time I'll know a bit more what to expect. Speaking of, its actually time hard to believe but its actually time to enter for the 2009 Salon.