Childish Paintings

Croc Baby

2012-01-03T01:08:00.006-04:00

This is a piece I did over the course of the whole year... maybe even longer as I picked away and picked away at it, but I finally gave it a good solid 2 month push in October and November as I tried to finish it in time for Christmas for my parents.

I like the fact that it's very odd and large, mostly because it forces my parents to have this weird curiosity up in their house taking up space and not matching any of the furniture. Of course I'm assuming they will find a place for it to hang as it's a gift from their second favorite son, maybe they will just pull it out whenever I head over there.

Like all my stuff, it doesn't symbolize anything, just a doodle. The difference is this piece is very large, my largest by far at 5.5 feet x 3 feet. As you can see from this size relation with my lovely daughter, it's quite big.

I've included a few details in this post and due to the sheer size of the piece it was difficult to photograph. The glare reflects from the oil paint black outline and sort of makes it look white flecked or inconsistent in tone. The line work is pure black, but shiny and reflective. I hope my folks enjoy this piece, it was hundreds and hundreds of hours of work, but according to my Mom so was her labour with me, so I guess we're even???

Monkey's Paw

2011-12-25T23:54:00.003-04:00

This piece is 10" X 20" and was given to one of my very best friends for Christmas. It started out as a doodle of a man, but quickly involved a monkey, which seems to be a consistent theme these days. At least this piece has a severed limb and a ghostly monkey.

Monkey Business

2011-11-18T14:36:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posts, I've been busy and I haven't really been doing a lot of painting lately. Boo. What I did manage to complete was this piece here for my new media and gaming company 'Fourth Monkey Media'. Check us out online @ www.4thmm.com we have some pictures of the new studio up and I've put a number of my previous paintings up in there until we can fill our walls with accolades and awards haha.

This piece is 3'X3.5' and is acrylic. It took about 46 hours to do in total but I've been told (at least according to my wife) that I'm a slow painter. I have 2 pieces in progress now with a sketch for a third so hopefully it won't be so long between posts. Cheers!

Town Sign

2011-05-06T16:49:00.005-03:00

Over a year ago I was contacted by representatives of Bridgewater Nova Scotia (the town I live in) to draft up a highway sign welcoming travelers. Bridgewater is a lovely town, but sometimes suffers in anonymity from the positive tourist reputation of our two closest neighbours in Mahone Bay and Lunenburg, each only 10-15 minutes away. Each of these towns are amazing and very well known to tourists, and both Lunenburg and Mahone Bay have these giant 'folk artsy' highway signs meant to take travelers off the 103 and divert them into town.

(photo source: http://girottifamily.typepad.com/mountain_musings/travel/)

I was commissioned to do something similar, but I was asked for a bit more depth and less simplicity. Clearly these signs are attempting to capture the folk art style that can be found here along the South Shore, but I thought Bridgewater's sign may stand out a bit more from the others if it was a bit more complex and more bold and colourful. This was the final image:

I think it turned out pretty well, Similar to the others yet a bit bolder perhaps. I especially like the flat colours, and I feel it has more depth than flat folk art but still retains (in my mind) a level of simplicity. The fountain was an interesting addition, as I was asked to add it before the town installed the actual fountain, so my placement in the image is not entirely accurate to where the fountain ended up. Here I am standing (looking like a derelict drifter) under the final 10ft X 17ft highway sign:

Undoubtedly the largest representation of any of my work, and something I get to see every time I drive back into town from Halifax. I now kinda wish I had managed to sneak some crazy message or hidden imagery into the sign so I can giggle as I drive by... maybe next time.

Old Timer's Hockey!

2011-04-09T02:02:00.003-03:00

I designed this logo for a local Bridgewater Old Timer's Hockey club. I like the old style skate and the old Vancouver Canucks logo homage works well on the current Vancouver Jersey slug.

No smoking!

2011-03-30T00:42:00.006-03:00

Invisible was hired to design and produce the characters and backgrounds for a series of anti-addiction ads. I've included the BGs here because they are painted. I went with a pretty simple black and white style that I felt complimented the line-work. The overall sensibility was to keep the art black and white with the only colour points of focus being the various 'addictive elements' in a scene.
I'm not sure how effective the Ad campaign was, but every time I look at this grungy shot of a filthy back alley I find myself craving a cigarette.It's weird because this type of 'smoker's area' is really what most smokers have to look forward to these days, tucked away by the garbage and littered with old butts. It's gross and shouldn't give me a nostalgic feeling for smoking, but it does. Hopefully it's just me and the actual Ad campaign was a success. Stay off the crack kids.

Lumberjacks!

2011-03-28T14:46:00.006-03:00

A few years ago I did the hockey logo for the local junior hockey team (essentially one tier below major junior). I'm a huge hockey fan, and possibly an even larger hockey jersey fan with a collection that is now around 150. I always wanted to design a jersey logo, so when the opportunity came I was very excited. When I started doing the concept art I originally was told to do a 'Buccaneer' logo, I liked the 'Bridgewater Buccaneers' name and got pretty far in the concept art before the name became the 'Bridgewater Lumberjacks'.

The best part of the experience is seeing people around town with jackets, ball caps and bumper stickers with the logo on it. It's also great to have a few of the jerseys myself.

NDP Samurai

2011-01-09T01:20:00.003-04:00

This little piece (9"X12") was probably my favorite painting of 2010. A very simple image that was originally inspired by a doodle I drew while waiting on hold on the telephone.

As you know, I really don't like parting with these paintings but I recently gave this piece to a local MLA who was instrumental in restoring Nova Scotia's Film and Television Tax Credit. Pam Birdsall, MLA for Lunenburg, represented the provincial animation industry like a champion, she was communicative, responsive, caring, passionate and hard working. Pam was everything an elected official is supposed to be, and she represented us with pride and helped our little industry through a very tough time. Thanks again Pam, enjoy your childish painting.

Visit Pam here:
http://www.ns.ndp.ca/PamBirdsall/

Monkey on the brain

2010-12-09T23:22:00.003-04:00

After I painted Isabella's growth chart last year (in December) I took a break from painting on canvases and concentrated more on digital painting and praying for animation work. In early June I decided to get back to the analog painting by slowing in with some smaller canvases. I did a few of these smaller 'sketch' paintings where I took a doodle and transcribed it onto a small art board canvas. These canvases are 8"x 10" and are quite easy to paint in layers and short sprints.

This particular image was not inspired by anything specific, just a fun little image of a monkey (with headphones?) rummaging around in some dude's head. These days I seem to have a bit of a love affair with green monkeys (www.4thmm.com) so there may have been some osmosis happening from my right brain to my left as I painted this, if so it was unintentional.

I was hoping this small piece would inspire me to produce more paintings and I did a few small ones in a row after this... but then I stopped again. I have a 5' X 3' canvas in the works, and hope that I can take a chunk out of it over Christmas.
~M

Final Omarr image.

2010-11-28T23:01:00.002-04:00

One more Omarr image, roughed by Derek Jessome and cleaned and painted by me. I love the fact that the three wise men look like such jerks. How wise can they be? They are not even wearing shoes!

Countryside

2010-11-26T01:13:00.004-04:00

I don't have much to say about this, it took a while as I was experimenting with texture brushes a bit. It's washed out with a lot of green, but I was trying for a slightly more realistic feel than my usual stuff. It was fun! 'Awesome Stuart Dunphy' did the initial rough, what a sweetheart.

Finally new stuff! With JESUS!

2010-05-25T11:04:00.007-03:00

Sorry again for my delay in posting (ha ha I actually sound like I think people are anxiously waiting for me to post new stuff), I've been pretty busy and largely uninspired to paint. I have a few canvases on the go, but it's been a while since I put a brush to them.

I have been digital painting, and I recently completed three development images for a feature length production from the U.S. from a company called Snowfall Films. The project is entitled 'Omarr The Camel'. http://www.snowfallfilms.com/

My frequent co-conspirator Derek Jessome did the initial rough and the art was cleaned in Flash and painted in Photoshop. I've been attempting to get more painterly and show brush strokes and even add a bit of watercolor paper texture to the work in Photoshop to try to get it to look more convincingly hand painted. I feel it's coming along and with each new piece I get to try a few new techniques and approaches.This first image is my favorite, it's adventurous, dangerous and mysterious... just like me!
The second image is cool too, very sunny and reminds me of teasing Patricia for her love of 'Egyptotology'.
The third image is what you would expect for a Christmas movie. It was hard for me not to put a Street Fighter style Fireball in baby Jesus' outstretched hands.

These paintings each took about 18-22 hours to paint, let alone the couple of hours they took to clean and prep out of Flash. I'm not used to being a slowpoke, but I certainly am when it comes to these types of set-ups.

Liberty Screen Shot

2010-03-03T20:06:00.005-04:00

I've been too busy to paint with my acrylics lately, but I was given an opportunity to collaborate with my partners on a service gig for Loogaroo. We were asked to do a screen capture for a potential web series, and we went with a very dynamic action shot on the statue of liberty. Derek Jessome set the shot up and designed the characters, and Chad Boutilier inked and colored them. Stuart Dunphy drew the background, and I had the pleasure of painting it. Ron Doucet did all the sexy electricity. This piece was painted in photoshop, and it took about 6 hours.

Bella's Full Height Chart

2009-12-31T14:43:00.003-04:00

Here are all 5 pieces assembled together to demonstrate the layout of the piece on Isabella's wall. The colour of the water is consistent from central piece to the satellite pieces, it's just all the pieces were photographed at different times of day in different rooms over the last week.

This will certainly be my last completed piece for 2009, I'm almost done my second player from my Original 6 Hockey series, but he's still a ways off and I wouldn't be too surprised if I do another painting or two before I get back to him. Thanks for checking the Blog out and leaving comments, I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2010. ~M

Depth Chart

2009-12-31T14:32:00.003-04:00

This is the central piece to the 5 paintings I've been working on for Isabella. As you can see it's a height chart for her wall, and seeing how the little monster is growing like a weed, this may only work for her for a few more months.

I had the four colours of blue for the different depths of water, and each of the satellite pieces is painted in one of the four colours. The painting is 30" X 10" and it took about 24 hours in total. I really like how the Sea Turtle turned out, and I really like the expressions on the Shark and the Fish at the bottom.

Pufferbelly

2009-12-29T18:48:00.003-04:00

This is the last of the satellite paintings around the larger piece. I chose the name Pufferbelly as a nod to a song my Mom always sang us. In the song pufferbelly refers to steam trains "see the little puffer bellies all in a row", but I thought the name fit for a blowfish. I tried spraying paint with a toothbrush for the first time to try and achieve the speckled texture. It worked I guess, but my thumb got all paint-covered and I had to run to the sink to wash it on a few occasions. The painting is 6" X 6" and it took about 5 hours.

8 Hugs

2009-12-28T10:58:00.003-04:00

This is my favorite sea creature I've painted so far, he turned out well and the dry brush highlights and purples really made him look slick and wet and 3D. This piece took a solid 7 hours, and it is 6" X 6". I find I'm not too comfortable painting at this small size as I feel very clumsy with even a small brush.

Nite Lite

2009-12-27T11:24:00.002-04:00

I always love seeing pictures of new deep sea fish. They look positively alien with their own light sources and nasty mouths full of crooked teeth. I can only imagine Noah's reaction when he hauled a pair of these fish up into the Ark's saltwater tank (Noah would have understood that a downpour containing enough freshwater to flood the entire Earth would have adversely effected the salinity of the oceans enough to kill almost all life adapted to the briny deep).

This piece is 6" X 6" and it took 4-5 hours.

Isabellyfish

2009-12-26T20:15:00.002-04:00

Happy Holidays.

This piece is the first of 5 paintings that will all go together as an underwater scene for Isabella's room. There will be one central canvas with 4 little canvases around it (if a Triptych is 3 paintings will this be a Quintych?... spell check says no!).

I will post these over the next few days in the order I've painted them. Jellyfish first, and I'm hoping to have all 5 pieces hanging in Bella's room before the New Year. The canvas is only 6" X 6" my smallest painting yet. I was hoping that the small size and relatively independent nature of the pieces would lend themselves to me being able to start and finish a painting in one or two sittings, but that proved a little too optimistic. This one probably only took 4-5 hours.

Original 1

2009-11-18T14:26:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted, sorry for the delay. I've been busy and I've managed to start 4 or 5 new paintings without finishing any of them. Hopefully it won't be another 2 months between postings.

This is the first painting of what I hope is a 6 piece series. I wanted to paint the NHL's original 6 franchises as you would have seen them on cards from the mid-fifties. Those old cards usually had a splash background in some ugly colour, with a cut-out action pose from the player.

The player is not a specific person, I just wanted to capture a 50's Brylcreem look with some of that great old leather equipment. This piece is 12" X 16" and the white border is measured in such a way to give the interior painting the exact dimensions of a hockey card. This was my first painting on Canvas Board, and it is acrylic paint. I'm about 2/3rds done the next one in this series (Boston Bruins), and I hope I have enough steam to do all 6 teams. I'm a little intimidated by the Chicago Blackhawks logo, and the Toronto Maple Leafs logo from the 50's as well. This one took about 45 hours in total.

The Night Game

2009-09-08T17:54:00.005-03:00

This piece took a long time to realise as I found myself very busy with some series work. I was sketching bats for a children's book concept and I was struck by the visual absurdity of setting their entire world upside down. I drew these two 'fruit' bats in various poses and outfits but in the end I really liked them just having a mundane game of 21 or H.O.R.S.E. Going with my upside down world creates a few mechanical issues for basketball, but these bats are young earth creationists so they don't let the theory of gravity get in the way of their fun.

I really like how the tree bark detail turned out, I put a lot of effort into it. I also like the transparency to the wings. The signature is upside down on purpose in keeping with my topsy-turvy theme, and I realize it's not a 'night' scene but my title 'The Night Game' is for the bats... because to them daytime is nighttime. This painting is 12"x36", acrylic on canvas and it was probably 50 hours all together (though it has been hard to track as this piece was started about a month ago).

Street Scene

2009-08-22T17:16:00.002-03:00

This is another digital development piece for the same project I posted for earlier. I am quickly realizing that my favorite colour is green. This was painted in photoshop, but the B&W art work was hand drawn in inks and scanned. It's dark and moody, which is what I was going for. It's not particularly artful in style but it got the job done.

Zombies come in Threes!

2009-08-18T14:43:00.004-03:00

This painting was inspired by some doodles I was sketching during a confluence of morbid events. Michael Jackson had just died, so I was being nailed by all the creepy autopsy death talk as well as inundated by images from the Thriller video. At the same time a few other celebrities had died and I was being bludgeoned by the ridiculous and recurring myth that celebrity deaths come in three's... obviously if death comes in three's than zombies would also logically follow this apparently natural numerology. On top of that I was reading Mary Roach's excellent book entitled 'Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers' which deals with decomposition, willing your body to science, and the human history of how we deal with our dead. Suffice it to say I couldn't really stop drawing zombies and skulls, and this painting is the end result. The piece is acrylic on canvas, 12" X 12", and it took me about 22 hours total.

Development Painting

2009-08-06T00:51:00.002-03:00

This is a digital piece I did for a development project. It was painted in Photoshop, after all the hand drawn ink layers were scanned in to the computer. I really concentrated on the mood and the time of day. I wanted it to appear misty or hazy so close to the river, and I wanted to peg the time at about 3:00 am. The bridge was referenced from some very old stock photos of New York City.

Johnny's Wedding

2009-07-30T00:23:00.002-03:00

This is the first painting I ever painted where I had the intention to give it away when I was done. This was difficult for me for some reason, as a lot of time and energy go into these things, and I'm enjoying their company so much. I have no desire to sell any of these pieces, so giving something away is somehow even more abstract(I've really learned to put a price on my artwork and time, being a professional artist will do that I guess). The target for this painting is someone really special to me, and I was going to be unable to go to his wedding (him getting married is the equivalent to witnessing a religous miracle, an alien spacecraft, and Bigfoot all at the same time... it was previously believed to be impossible, so missing his wedding is pure craziness). I painted this for Johnny Dimartile, a colleague and a friend, almost a brother, and a very very special guy. Obviously the concept is hell freezing over, which is appropriate in celebrating Johnny's wedding, but the double joke in there is that Johnny is a Catholic (An Italian Catholic, ash on the forehead, Pope is infallible, Italian Catholic), AND a loyal friend so he will undoubtedly feel obligated to hang this somewhere in his house... and I love the idea of a serious Catholic having a picture of the Devil up somewhere in his house. This painting is 12" X 12" acrylic on canvas, and is full of drybrush technique with the snow and ice everywhere. This piece took about 40 hours even though it's the smallest piece I've done, a lot of small details and a lot of drybrushing. Congratulations on your marriage Johnny!

Nero

2009-07-30T00:09:00.002-03:00

This painting is of my favorite kitty. I had to put her down because of some serious behavioral issues, and in my last week with her I chose to paint a little homage. This piece is 18" X 14" acrylic on canvas, and I was definitely trying for a classic 'Golden Book' style of painting. Those little Golden Books (The Poky Little Puppy, The Little Red Hen, and of course The Saggy Baggy Elephant) had an awful lot of amazingly diverse artists working on them, and a lot of the artwork had an undertone of creepiness. The paintings were detailed, and usually very rendered, and I tried hard to treat Nero's fur with that textural brushy approach... she was a very fuzzy cat. This piece took about 30 hours, and it was actually emotionally difficult, but probably cathartic. I loved my Nero.

Isabella's Playlist

2009-07-29T00:48:00.003-03:00

This piece was a lot of fun. I wanted to do something for my daughter, and she is such a musical little girl. She loves singing, dancing, and playing the harmonica (she calls it a 'hoo-hoo', so it's not uncommon for her to ask 'Where is my hoo-hoo?' when company is over). This piece represents her 4 favorite songs to sing and hear, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Wheels on the Bus, Incy Wincy Spider, and Baa Baa Black Sheep. The painting is 18" X 14" , acrylic on canvas. I tried to do a few different cartoon styles in there, a UPA background, Rain FX, and a few different character styles as well. She liked it, and she sang each song when she saw it. Her new favorite songs are Pop Goes the Weasel, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Wake Up Jeff (The Wiggles), and Cookie Face I Love You (My Mom)... so a new painting may be in order, but if I get into this habit how long will it be before I'm painting some boy band? The piece took about 32 hours, and it was worth it just to hear her sing one song.

Redcoat Diplomacy

2009-07-29T00:18:00.008-03:00

My 3rd painting, Acrylic on Canvas, this one is my biggest so far at 18" X 36". I actually found it too big to work with, and I went with a rendering effect on the shadows (and shadows of shadows) which was painfully time consuming. It looks pretty cool up close, very textural, but the process is something I will likely avoid in the future.
As you can see, the small detailed (and controlled) brush strokes are meticulously placed everywhere. I wanted the painting to look flat with regard to colors, like a click and fill Photoshop style look, very clean looking with solid and flat textureless colors, so the little rendered details were very difficult to apply (for me) as they are not a brush effect but a solid color tone. I started experimenting with a 'looser' paint style on the gun only.

This approach was effective in giving the gun a gleam, and a metallic feel without straying to far from my 'cartoony' comfort zone. Other than clouds this part represents some of my drybrushing experimentation, and a 3 or 4 tone effect on the metal of the gun. I kept highlights and reflective highlights on some of the details to really try to sell the 'metal'ness of it all.

As you can see I also tried a frenetic outline around the image, sort of a boiling line effect. I have not tried to do this type of styling since, but as an experiment it had a cool effect that I may bring back in a future piece.

The inspiration behind this piece was the trial of the RCMP officers who had tasered Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at a Vancouver airport. Ever since the Maher Arar rendering and torture incident I've been disillusioned with our Federal Police force, and I was ashamed as the details came out throughout the internal investigation into Mr. Dziekanski's brutal death. The painting has nothing to do with either embarrasment, I just had the RCMP on my mind, and their uniforms are really neat. This piece took about 76 hours to complete, and I was pretty glad to be done with it when I finished.

Skeptical Yeti

2009-07-29T00:03:00.005-03:00

My second painting, acrylic on canvas, 18" X 24", so, a bit bigger. I was listening to a LOT of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and they had been debunking all of the Sasquatch pseudoscience, so it started with a doodle. I had a lot of fun with the texture in the clouds and trying to make a luminescent moon. This is Jen's favorite for some reason. This one took about 44 hours total.

Bilderberg Cosmonaut

2009-07-28T15:16:00.004-03:00

This childish painting is acrylic on canvas, 10" X 20". He was the first painting I ever committed to canvas and he got me into non-digital painting. The name is a vague reference to what media I was absorbing while I painted him (a common theme to come), and at this particular time I was looking at, and listening to, a lot of crackpot internet conspiracy movies and podcasts regarding the 'Bilderberg Group' and their alleged stranglehold on the world economy and world politics. Utter nonsense of course, but the word 'Bilderberg' has a nice rhythm and cadence to it especially when paired with 'Cosmonaut'. He took about 30 hours in total.

Hello

2009-07-27T16:51:00.002-03:00

I thought this would be a fitting first post seeing as how a section of this painting is used in the title banner for this blog. It's painted in Photoshop, probably the 4th attempted colour version of this scene I've produced, and it's for a series concept I created over 10 years ago. Time flies.