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and it actually made it into the professional show at the Society of Illustrators West  "Illustrators 44", in the unpublished category.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 People's Art of Portland: Love of Portland show

Last night I ended up checking out The People's Art of Portland's "Love of Portland" show at Pioneer Place. It was a huge collection of art! So many great artists; some who I knew, and quite a few who I didn't. I happened to be taking photos of my painting at The Pony Club earlier (I'll post those next), so I had my camera on me and was snapping away like crazy. It's been a while since I shot a show and I forgot to get exterior shots or something that would show the full scope of how large the group was, but here is a limited selection of what we saw:

Art for the People!

My friend Roxanne Patruznuck with Brin Levinson

Roxanne's painting

Brin's Painting

Roxanne and her friend S.P. Burke next to his piece

A creepy baby statue

One of Erin's favorites

A great wall of work (I wasn't sure if this was part of the same show, but still awesome)

Another wall of work. Love the one in the center.

I also ran into my friend Mike from high school. The piece in the middle was his wife's,  Chantel Greene.

Just...Just awesome. I think I'll end with that.

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!