The A Stands For Aquarium

I hope the suspension can handle the weight.  That's a lot of seawater in the cab.

8x18 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available at Daily Paintworks.

Smile For The Camera

The sophisticated family size hybrid sea monster, with room for your whole menagerie.

14x10 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available here.

Beached Weirdos #5

It's funny, the stuff you find sometimes when walking along the beach. Most of it's pretty unremarkable.  Bits of agate, broken seashells, a starfish or two.  But once in a very great while, you spot something a little more... interesting.

7x20 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available at Daily Paintworks.

Flotsam

Because it makes perfect sense to put a seafoam green car in the sea, doesn't it?

7.5x14 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available at Daily Paintworks.

Truck Monster 3

Or, Attack of the 5 Foot Woman.

I find white painted trim, like grilles and bumpers, a little more difficult to render than chrome trim.  For chrome, you just paint the sky in the upper surfaces, and the ground in the lower surfaces. (This is a gross oversimplification, but it gets the point across.)  But white bumpers and trim require a subtler approach.  you have to balance the need to convey depth against the color of the bumper.  Go too far with the light reflection from the sand and you'll wind up with a yellow bumper.  Use too much blue from the sky over that yellow, and you've got some ugly green color.  Over rendering can lead to fuzzy edges, which are not so good for representing a glossy painted surface.

How-ever, I believe older trucks, like this Ford, look more truck-like with the trim painted.  There's a utilitarian feel to painted trim that chrome lacks.  Chrome is fine for the car, which, for some people, serves as a badge of status and identity.  It's basically bling, or a silk tie.  Trucks, on the other hand, were traditionally built and bought to do work, and chrome does not enhance payload capacity or stump pulling power.

Don't misunderstand me, I love chrome.  The lack of chrome on modern cars is partly why they're mostly boring to look at.   But if you want to emphasize the working side of a vehicle,  less chrome does the job nicely.

10x16 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available at Daily Paintworks.

The Interlopers 2

"All I want is a bit of peace and quiet while I lay here and work on my tan.  Is that too much to ask?"

10x14 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available here.

Joyriders From Outer Space #6

"Yeeeeee-Haaaaaaawwwwww!!!"

6x10 inches, oil on panel.  Available for purchase here.

Marine Weirdos #9

It's Sea Monster Salvage And Repair to the rescue!

Painted in oil on a 6x12 panel.  Available on Daily Paintworks.

Marine Weirdos #6

Is your diabolical engine of destruction run down, damaged, or in desperate need of routine  maintenance?  Is it making people soil themselves with laughter, rather than terror? Is your iron grip on civilized society slipping like a worn out clutch?  Call Sea Monster Salvage and Repair. They'll have your mechanical beast back on its tentacles in no time.

And they make house calls.

6x10 inches, painted in oil.  Available here.

Beached Weirdos #3

I went to the beach one day, and saw an old roadster that had got stuck in the sand. The driver kept revving the motor, trying to break free, but the back wheels just dug in deeper. The only thing that could be heard over the roar of the engine was the endless string of epic profanity spewing from the driver's mouth. It was pure blasphemous poetry. Even pirates and drunk construction workers were said to have blushed.

5.9 inches square, painted in oil.  Available for purchase here.

Joyrider From Outer Space 3

Lately, more and more people have had their cars stolen by what they describe as "green spaghetti creatures".  These creatures target older vehicles, mostly mild fifties customs.  They are experts in hotwiring, and are able to circumvent nearly any alarm system or anti theft device made today.  Most of the cars are recovered one to three hundred miles away, though one was found in Antarctica, and another may have been spotted on the moon.

Keep an eye out, be aware, and protect yourself and your car from the spaghetti creatures.


Painted in oil on a 6x9 panel.  Available on Daily Paintworks.

Beached Weirdos #2

More suspicious doings at the beach.  Just what's going on out there?

6x6 inches, painted in oil on panel.  available for purchase at Daily Paintworks.

Beached Weirdos #1

Is this a simple case of finders keepers, or is there nefariousness involved?  Is "nefariousness" even a word?  The dude inside the truck may have the answers, but he is mysteriously silent on the subject.  The mermaid's not answering any questions, either.  So I guess we're just left with guesses and assumptions.

Painted in oil on a 5.9x5.9 inch panel.  This piece is available here.

Tiki God 2

Do not be fooled by the tiki's calm, relaxed demeanor. Look into those glowing red eyes and you'll know you are in serious trouble. The instant you cross the line, he'll toast you like a cheap bagel, then smash you into oblivion.

But just look at that car! Isn't that worth the risk?  Besides, you've got a machete, so what are you worried about?


13.5x28 inches, painted in watercolor.  Available for purchase at Daily Paintworks.

The Outcast

Cast out of the kingdom for crimes too hideous to mention here.

Seriously, it was a mess.  Blood, mayhem, betrayal, melodrama.  Now she makes a living as an auto mechanic during the day, and moonlights as a bartender.
When she has the evening off, she sits on top of her new home and looks out toward home, and curses every living thing in it from here to Japan.

Especially octopi.

Damn those octopi.

6x11 inches, painted in oil.

Sold.

Burger Break

"What's for dinner?" 

"Fish.  AGAIN!!" 

 It's another day of the same old, and it's enough already.  You need something new and different before you go mad   So climb out of the ocean, swipe yourself a Chevy wagon, and drive to the nearest Utility Burger for the Heart Stopper Value Pack, with Bonus Fries and an Atomic Chocolate Shake.

Because even lobster can suck if it's all you ever eat.

Painted in watercolor, 9x23 inches.  Contact me for purchase info.

Finders Keepers 9

"An Airstream is the perfect vacation home.  It's spacious, stylish, mobile, and best of all, shiny.   This one's even better.  It was free.  Well, when I say free, I mean stolen.  She found it, she kept it.  And she kept the cowboy hat she found inside, too.  Cowboy hats are cool."

This is the first piece in the FK series featuring a travel trailer.  It's also the first piece in the series done in oil. Curiously, it's the second piece in the FK series to feature a cowboy hat.

6x12 inches, painted on masonite panel.  Sold.

The Little Trailer

The heartwarming tale of a mermaid and her Vacation Of Adventure!

This painting represents what happens when I try to do more "postcardy" subject matter.  I get a couple seascapes or barns done, then a mermaid finds her way in while I'm not looking.  Before I know what's going on, she's got herself a vintage aluminum trailer.  And now she and her friends are ganging up on me.  I'm completely surrounded!  They're corrupting everything!

Painted in oil on panel, 8x8 inches. 

Sold.

Early Evening

We're presenting something a little different this week, a change of pace.  Something without merfolk or disguised tentacle-y mind control beasties.  No, today we present a perfectly ordinary, everyday scene.

This truck's been floating in my reference pile for about eight years.  She almost made it into my Space Hitchhiker painting, but I decided to go another way.  Now she's here, for your viewing pleasure, basking in the early evening sun.

Painted in Glorious Watercolor, 9.75x22 inches.  The original painting is available here.  Prints will be available soon.

Finders Keepers

This is where the madness begins.  This is Genesis for the whole cars and mermaids thing.

Up to this point the bulk of my work concentrated on scenes of so-called "real life", or my interpretation of it, anyway.  But I was becoming bored with hayfields with tractors and combines and thermoses of sweetened powdered grape drink, or beach scenes with surfers running toward the water.  I needed a change of scenery.

So... mermaid.

But not just any mermaid.  I believe every painting needs a good back story, so I created a thieving, avaricious, possibly schizophrenic mermaid with a taste for vintage trucks and cowboy hats.  Oh, she's also carnivorous, that's important. In fact, someone should tell the approaching surfer dude not to get too close.

Thus was born the delightfully weird Finders Keepers series.

FK is done in watercolor, and measures about 10x17 inches.  The original painting and prints are available in my ebay store.