Steppin out to step it up

Things are goin REAL well music-wise for me currently. My band Clean Hands are starting to book shows left and right. Which has be both excited and nerve wracking. It's been over a year since I've played live. Anyway, so naturally I'm coming up with flyer after flyer. My band mates are looking for something more abstract visual-wise. Which is cool with me, but forces me to step out of my comfort zone of using band pictures and thinking of new ways to stand out on the flyer. I'm glad they're comfortable telling me what looks rad and what doesn't because I'd rather us be happy with flyers/art etc then quietly thinking "this really sucks!". Anyway this is my most recent one for our show at Landmark Lanes in Sept. Should be a good time. I really like how it turned out. Took me a good 45 minutes to get the image of us jamming to fit nicely in the ball, without too much going on. Used soft brushes with low opacity to soften the edges. I debated about putting Lady Cannon in the pin, but I figured it'd look horrid and make her look mis-shaped.

Water Colour piece finished!

I don't know how I pulled it off, really. I somehow completed a water colour painting of a beach we discovered in Oahu, Hawaii. Water colour has never been my strongest medium, but I was deeply inspired by my older brother's work, that I wanted to get better at it. I did some practice stuff of some sunset images that didn't turn out that great, but basically said "screw it, I'm just going to go for it". I think in general, water colour isn't easy for anyone. I tend to like having a lot of control of the paint on my brush, so when you ad the water, it just takes away 45-50% of that control. It starts to spread out too much, thus making a mess and not getting what I want...Roughly, I probably put in 26-30 hours in the painting. I spent many late nights painting and drinking trying to capture the beauty and serenity of Hawaii. The clouds were a lot of work, and I put in some extra effort using soft sponges for the clouds, as well as the top of the waves to give them a spray-like look.

Overall, it was a challenging piece, but I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I'll be doing more paintings of Hawaii in the future.