The Black Valentine

Hello all! Holidays are over, stress levels have returned to normal, manageable levels and I have a new piece to share! This coming First Thursday (2/5) I will be part of a Valentine/Anti-Valentine's Day group show at The Pony Club in downtown PDX. When they asked me to join in, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do a fake detective novel cover, which I've wanted to do forever. I'm a huge fan of old pulp covers, and while there isn't a huge market for that style of work, painting grizzled detectives and femme fatales all day is still my not-so-secret dream job. The first thing I had to do was come up with a title, and because of the show's theme, "The Black Valentine" seemed to fit pretty nicely.

Generally speaking, when I do stuff like this I try to change how the models look, so my characters aren't specifically attached to any real person, but Erin looked so badass in the reference photos, she is now officially the Black Valentine:

If you've seen any of my recent posts, you'll know I've been experimenting with gouache a lot lately. While the Robot piece a few posts back was technically my first complete painting (background and everything) using the new medium, this one is my first full size illustration using it. The original painting is 11"x16.5" and while gouache certainly speeds the process on those small paintings (as compared to my usual medium, oils), I found it took pretty much the same amount of time when scaled up. There are a lot of benefits to working in gouache over oils — less toxicity, quicker drying times — but there are also quite a few drawbacks. I found it more difficult to get smooth transitions, and much like acrylics (which I hate), colors tend to dry a significantly different color than when applied, making color mixing a challenge. All that being said, I'm pretty happy with how this came out and am excited for the show. I'll leave you with the FINAL final version with some extra campy text applied digitally.

MURDER!!!! (Lobo is named for our friend's dog)

Entitled! (Updated)

Long time, no post! Sorry about that. I've been working on several projects, but I thought I'd post a sneak peak of some recently finished pieces which will be included in a group show at the Glyph cafe on Oct. 2nd.  The theme behind the show was to create pieces based on titles we pulled out of bags. I pulled "Need and Want" and "Mr Auduban finds the lesser bustard". Officially speaking I tweaked the second title to "Mr Audubon finds the lesser bustard (with his bike)"... Anyway, the cool thing about this show is that everything will be priced at $50, so it will be a great opportunity to pick up some awesome art on the cheap! Here are my entries:

You can also check out the Facebook page for more info and photos. I can't actually make it to the show :( so go enjoy and take photos for me!

Opsis Group Show Pics

Just a short post today. Here are some pictures from last night's "Underpinnings" show at Opsis, showcasing the work of some of the employees (myself included). It got pretty busy, but most of these are before the crowd showed up. Enjoy!

The spread!

Libby discusses her work.

Meagan admiring Sally's work.

Jason doing the same.

Other people!

The end!

Opsis Group Show

This First Thursday I'll have two pieces in the Opsis Architecture "Underpinnings" group show, showcasing the personal art of the office's employees. I spent the day hanging the show with some of my co-workers and I gotta say, it looks great! The people I work with are quite talented and it's exciting to see the type of work people do in their spare time. Here's the flyer I designed:

I didn't have time to do any new work, so I hung two "Johnny Classics." The first, "Keep Them Fighting!" you've probably seen before on this blog, but the second, "Progress" was done while I was still in school, and isn't even in my main portfolios on the site. It's still one of my favorites and I thought this would be a great reason to bring it out of hiding.

"Progress"

This painting is kinda my 'Magnum Opus' from college, and it actually made it into the professional show at the Society of Illustrators West  "Illustrators 44", in the unpublished category. Unfortunately the Society decided NOT to publish a book that year and put stuff online instead, thus denying me printed proof that my work once hung next to some of the coolest illustrators in the biz. Oh well. You can see it tomorrow at the opening so come on down and enjoy some wine and great art!

Gigantic's Carte de Visite show pics

Just a short post today to direct you to the awesome photos of last week's opening here. It was a pretty eventful night. I sold a couple pieces, bought a couple pieces, met some cool people...and then I got food poisoning later that night, but hey still pretty fun...

Photo courtesy of Gigantic Gallery via Facebook.

Carte de Visite show preview (part 2)

I popped by Gigantic tonight to see how the hanging was coming along and I was able to snap a pic of my stuff on the wall:

PopSkulls

As you can see, these are pretty far from my normal style. Each piece is a 4x6 ballpoint pen drawing with several acrylic layers over the top. Per Erin's brilliance, the series is now officially called PopSkulls. They are priced at $20 each or $50 for 3.

The show is tomorrow (March 7th) at Gigantic Gallery and starts at 5:30pm. This is going to be an awesome show, especially if you are looking for some art but are on a budget, so stop by and say hello! Here are some more teaser pics, and if you want, read on for some more explanation of my process:

Walls in progress

Richard's pile o' art

Some notes on the process: 

So, I gotta say, it's an interesting balancing act to make stuff really affordable but still a solid piece of art. At $20 each, I'll only net $13 after the gallery takes it's cut, so the goal was to use my time wisely. Most of the skulls were drawn during my lunch breaks, time that would have probably been wasted otherwise, so that was cool. The paint, however, ended up taking much longer than I anticipated. Originally I had planed on simple ink spatters, so I drew the skulls on bristol board. When I switched to the acrylic idea, somewhat late in the game, I realized there would be some pretty significant warping issues. Each drawing had to be taped, painted, then flattened and mounted. Yikes. I think it was worth it for the end product, but I'd probably do it differently in the future. Anyway, it was a good learning experience and I'm glad I tried some new stuff, but I'm ready to get back to 'normal' painting. I bought some gouache to experiment with, so look out for some new stuff in the near future! Till then...

Love and monkeys,

Johnny

Carte de Visite show preview

This next First Thursday (3/7) I'll be participating in Gigantic Gallery's annual Carte de Visite show. If you don't know what a carte de visite is (I didn't) you can read about them here. Basically, the idea is to get as many artists to do as many 4x6 pieces as possible, while keeping the art cheap and accessible.You can see the post for last year's show here.

For my entires I've decided to do some drawings of animal skulls and then add some color to give them a bit more interest. Here are some of the drawings without the color:

Camel skull

Warthog skull

Bulldog skull

I'll be the first to admit that I don't have much experience with ink drawings, but I thought it would be a fun way to practice my skills, while producing something kinda interesting. These are all done with cheap ballpoints, which I love doodling with, but never used for finals. The nice thing about skulls is that unless you are a biologist or something, you can't tell when they are slightly off. It allowed me to work in pen and chill-out about not having an eraser. I'm shooting for 12 in total, priced around $20 each.

Anyway, check back here as we get closer to the show and I'll have more info and some images of the finals.

The Pony Club Round Up

This is a bit late, but here are some photos from The Pony Club show. The actual night of the show was packed, but unfortunately I forgot batteries for the camera, so these photos are from a lazy Saturday afternoon instead.  I posted these on Facebook already, but seeing as how Facebook is, indeed, the worst, I figured I'd post them here too. Enjoy!

My portrit of Ian next to his of me.

The rest of the wall.

More.

And More!

I always love group shows, especially ones like this where everyone is working with similar subject matter. The range of styles and skills is just plain impressive, and it's cool to see each artist's point of view. I recommend you go see the show in person, but if you can't, you can check out some of the other artists' work here.

Anyway, I have another show coming up soon so I should go get back to work and get off the interwebz. I'll keep you posted!

The Portrait Show: Feb. 7th

Hello all! Just a quick update on the portrait show I mentioned in my last post. The opening will be at the Pony Club (625 NW Everett St. # 105) on this upcoming First Thursday (Feb. 7th). Here's my Portrait of Ian Seniff:

Hope to see you there!

Surprise Show!

Like a ninja grabbing a doughnut, I managed to sneak myself into the cross gallery "Rivals" show at Benjamin Benjamin and Gigantic! The idea of the show is that both galleries hang one side of an epic rivalry, and the owners were cool enough to include a few of my paintings that just happened to fit the theme. Here they are:

"The Saint" and "The Sinner"

I was really excited about this show because I've had these paintings for a while, but they never got the gallery treatment I thought they deserved. "The Sinner" was originally created for the "Satan-folio", a calendar featuring lighthearted paintings of the devil that never made it to print. "The Saint" was created as a companion piece for a show at a bar in the wastelands of Queens,NY. I don't necessarily work in these styles anymore, but to see them finally hung in a real gallery was pretty gratifying. There is a ton of great work in this show, like Neil M. Perry's "Mario" and Erin Nations "Socs" vs "Greasers", so check it out and support your favorite struggling artists for X-mas!

Also, Myah and Scott, the super cool owners of Benjamin Benjamin, are moving to Colorado. In Honor of their awesomeness, lift your frosty mugs and toast to their grand legacy and safe travels! I, and the Portland art scene, will miss them dearly! Prost!

First Thursday Recap

This First Thursday was a little more lax than usual and I didn't get around to quite as many galleries, but I did get to go to a few of my favorites and they didn't disappoint. Gigantic is showing some Beer inspired work, and were pouring a new Deschutes brew that was quite tasty. A great way to start the night. Right next door, Benjamin Benjamin is showing the work of Jimmy Pickering and I gotta say, as a whole, its one of the nicest looking shows I've seen in a long time. I had the pleasure of talking to Jimmy for a bit and his process is super interesting. I love his sculptures and custom frames. He has a few step by step walk-throughs on his blog so go check that out.

Cycloptic: Robin's Egg Blue by Jimmy Pickering

Moving downtown, Blue Sky, as always, had some killer photojournalism. The show that really struck me was of Colombian beauty pageants shot by Carl Bower and all the "interesting" stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Seeing this type of work really makes me want to get out there and do some real life inspired work. Maybe not reportage exactly, but something gritty and a bit edgy. Anyway the shots are stunning and fascinating. Everything I've come to expect from the artists shown at Blue Sky.

Miss Coffee By Carl Bower

Last but not least (and I totally mean that because this was by far my favorite show) the Compound is showing the work of Senjiro Nakata and Tadashi Ura. Both artists are great, but I think I'm in love with Senjiro . I'm a sucker for Asian ink style drawings, but his color palette and drawing style make my art heart hurt. Awesome-O-Opossum. The Whale image on the show's postcard is a good example of the awesomeness. There was also a ridiculously cool droopy looking elephant and as soon as I rob that bank...Eh-hem, I mean do some productive work that I shall get paid legitimately and handsomely for...I'll be back to snatch it up.

Karesansui Kujira by Senjiro Nakata

Well that is pretty much it. Portland has been really impressing me with the quality of the shows lately so keep it it! I didn't get a chance to hit the Lofts or much in the Pearl this time, so maybe I'll take another trip down there later this month. Till next time,

Love and Monkeys

First Thursday Recap

Sorry for the long absence in posts.  Benjamin Benjamin asked me to fill out their Susan Lucci tribute mini-show, debuting Sept 15th, and I've been rushing to get something done. Anyway, I went out this First Thursday and there were some great things I felt compelled to share.

Blue is Always Stronger,  Jude Buffum

As always, Benjamin Benjamin had a great group show, this time celebrating the time wasting glory of video games. Great work by Shannon Larson, John Padlo and a perfect zelda inspired print by Jude Buffum (above). Blue Sky had some moving, albeit depressing, photos from Dana Popa, chronicling the victims of human trafficking in Europe. And even the Everett Station lofts had some great work, including an upside down robot and a video of a naked lady making herself into a green screen. Neat!

But my "I love it so much its actually inspiring me to get back to work" award goes to the show at Benjamin Benjamin's neighbor gallery, Gigantic. Brook Cashbaugh's (brookcashbaugh.com) paintings are unique, totally unexpected and the life size portraits on hanging sheets of mylar are absolutely incredible. Just the right amount of detail and the perfect use of color. Unfortunately, pictures don't them them justice. You HAVE to see them in person to experience them legitimately.  Here is the show card:

Anyway, that about wraps it up. I was really impressed by the amount of good work being shown in Portland this month. Even though the economy is a crap-hole, its great to see people pushing through it and making art. Yay Art!

Adaptation Show

Ahh yes, summer has arrived. And just in time for the to-be super awesome Benjamin Benjamin "Adaptation" show this first Thursday, where all us creative monkeys took some time to make art inspired by authors. To all of you who care not of the long and boring story of how difficult getting ready for this show was, I'll get the important tidbits out first and then you can peruse down this post if you are so inclined. As the flier says, the show opens Thursday the 7th at 5 and goes till 8. I'll be there showing off the three paintings I managed to complete from my Murakami's Women series. If you've read any Murakami, you know that he loves writing these strange women who almost always make the narrators' lives just a bit more insane than it was otherwise. I took a few that spoke to me and here they be:

This one is called "Tuesdays Girl". She is inspired by the short story version of The Wind-up Bird Chronicles called The Wind Up Bird and Tuesdays Women. The story centers around a guy who is out of work, and just having a really weird day. He meets this girl while looking for his cat Noburo Watanabe.



Probably my favorite Murakami Novel is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World because its just SOOO bizarre. In this book there are unicorns, dream readers, evil underground kappa-like monsters who can be held at bay with paperclips and two entirely separate but intertwined worlds. This painting ("Granddaughter") however, is based off of the opening scene of the book and the narrators lengthy mental wrangling while walking behind this "..young beautiful woman who is, shall we say, plump..". Even with all that other crazy stuff , this is still one of the funniest and most surreal moments in the entire book. Just some guy trying to figure out his own emotions when confronted with what he sees as a fundamental contradiction in his libido.


Finally we have "Sumire" from Sputnik Sweetheart. I couldn't get a good scan of this one but you get the idea. Sumire is the narrators best friend, secret love interest, and eventually the catalyst for a mystery involving an island in Greece. I love this description of her: "Sumire wanted to be like a character in a Kerouac novel—wild, cool, dissolute. She’d stand around, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets, her hair an uncombed mess, staring vacantly at the sky through her black plastic-framed Dizzy Gillespie glasses, which she wore despite her 20/20 vision. She was invariably decked out in an oversized herringbone coat from asecond-hand shop and a pair of rough work boots. If she’d been able to grow a beard, I’m sure she would have."

UPDATE: You can buy prints here: http://johnnyacurso.storenvy.com/ 

Wow this a a long post. Good for you for sticking with it. Or maybe sad for you because you have nothing better to do than read my blog. But anyway, now you can be rewarded (?) with a picture of three other paintings that were worked on during these last two months but for some reason (not finished, ruined and abandoned) will not be appearing in the show. The one in the middle will probably be finished at some point this month, but the other two are dead for good. Just about everything that could go wrong with paintings went wrong this time. I think I just tried to do too much, got distracted, and forgot how to paint. Luckily the series survived, so that's something. Hooray...


Anyway, I hope to see you at the show, but my stuff will be up all month if you want can't make it Thursday. The end.

Face off show recap

Here are some pics from last nights show at Benjamin Benjamin. It was great turn out and a ton of fun. I was really impressed with the diversity and quality of the work . If you couldn't make it last night, the show will be up through the end of the month.

Dustin's and my work side by side:

Some pics of the other artists stuff:

Super Awesome owners Myah and Scott:And finally a picture that sums up how feel about my work as I am painting it:Good times indeed.

Face Off!

Guess what! Its almost First Thursday! And Guess What! This First Thursday I'll have a painting in the Benjamin Benjamin "Face Off" show! (Oh my gosh, four exclamatory sentences in a row?! How exciting!!!!) The premise of the show is pretty cool. B&B took a bunch of artists and paired them off to do portraits of each other. My victim was illustrator phenom Dustin Hostetler, better known as UPSO. This was a really fun project and it was great to work with such a well known artist. Here are the results:

Dustin's Portrait of ME:And my portrait of him:

I made a few edits to the painting after I scanned this one, but you get the idea. And speaking of ideas, I had close to a billion for this project, so here is a drawing that may or may not ever get painted (but definitely not in time for the opening):

If you know UPSO's work, you'll get the diamonds reference. Anyway, I hope you like and I hope to see you at Benjamin Benjamin this coming Thursday (5/5) for the fun. Stone Brewing and Canvas Art Bar will be there, so its gonna be a straight up PAR-TAY.

First Thusday Awesomeness: Mary Ellen Mark and Eric Joyner

For those who aren't from Portland, we have a magical monthly event known as "First Thursday". Basically, it's when all the galleries have their openings, and the gallery district become one big party. I try to go every month, for inspiration and free wine (or free Pabst at the Lofts), but this month I was so excited by two shows in particular I felt the need to BLARG about them.

The First was the Short Circuit show at Benjamin Benjamin. For avid readers of this blog (all two of them-"Hi Mom") you'll know this is a gallery I recently showed at, but I promise this isn't biased. This month they were showcasing one of my favorite artists, Eric Joyner. He paints robots and doughnuts pretty much exclusively, so you can understand why I love him so. Needless to say I was psyched to see some of his work in person, and the other artists were also super kick ass. If you like robots at all, or fun retro stuff, you have to check this show out.

Eric Joyner “Too Many Choices”

The Second show was a huge, but incredibly welcomed, surprise. Blue Sky, a photography gallery near the north park blocks, was showing three series by Mary Ellen Mark. The series (Falkland Road, Indian Circus, an Ward 81) are shocking, moving and beautiful. You very rarely come across photo journalism exhibits in the first place, and even more rarely ones of this caliber. If you have even a passing interest in photography, you'd be nuts to miss it.

Gloria and Ravi, a Trainer, with His Bear Gemini. Gemini Circus, Perintalmanna

1989

platinum print

19" X 19"

Image © Mary Ellen Mark

Anyway, I just wanted to put it out there that if ever there was a month you should be visiting P-towns galleries, this would be the month. If you want company, give me a jingle.