The Artistic Biker

Sketches and Musings

  • Videos: Angry Fat and Baby Elephant Mini

    Angry Fat Journal page

     A few weeks ago I decided to get back on the fitness track. One morning I decided to go for a run. The “bowl full of jelly” way my body shook the entire time was not pleasant.  My whole body was not just sore, but sore to the touch.  Apparently, I angered my fat.  Click Here to watch the speed painting of the journal entry on The You Tube.

    Baby Elephant Mini Video Link

    I also uploaded a video of me painting the Baby Elephant mini.  I enjoy painting these so there will probably many more and many more videos of them to come.  Click Here to watch the video over on The You Tube.

  • Weekly Roundup 26AUG2012

    The Art

     With all the craziness that comes with my beautiful, young bride’s school starting back up (she’s the art teacher) and me leaving for a week of training in Houston, there hasn’t been much activity on the Artistic Biker front, nor on the Oasis Gallery & Studios front.  We did manage to get a little arting in, but mostly it was about staying sane and not killing anyone.  While I was in Houston, I stopped in to the Ragin Cajun Oyster Bar and Grill and had TWO DOZEN OYSTERS!!! I love oysters and these were the awesomenest.  Those with six hushpuppies, dirty rice, two Blue Moon pints, a slice of bourbon pecan pie and a cup of spiced rum coffee and I thought they were going to have to roll me back to the hotel!

    The Classroom

    While we’re on the subject of sketching and painting in public, this week on The Classroom, I believe I’ll demonstrate and talk about the pros and cons of inktense over watercolor pencils.  That’ll be Tuesday night 7p central time at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/oasisgalleryok and the password is “arting”.

    Daddy/Daughter Breakfast

    Girl2 has really taken to drawing these doodle tangles that look like flowers, dragons, cats, owls..  Sometimes she colors them and sometimes she just scribbles something.  I encourage her to use her imagination during this time and she’s doing GREAT.  I have been getting a touch bored with drawing spoons and coffee mugs, so for the second week in a row I worked on the plastic flower.  My coffee mug is almost never empty at this cafe because the waitresses are all eager to see what we are doing each week.

    The Video

    Several weeks ago, I made a new art journal on The Artistic Biker Live.  Believe it or not, I finally got around to producing the You Tube video.  You can watch that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnOPG2k9_2A

     Everything should get back to normal this week with the classroom, the show, and the progress on the studio.  There’s a lot still to do and a lot still in store so be sure and tune in each week for the craziness.

  • Sunday Roundup 22JUL2012

    Me in front of a Van Gogh

    WHEW!  Things are FINALLY starting to get settled around here again.  It has taken practically an entire week just to get back into some sort of routine.  As you may or may not be aware, the wife and I went on a whirlwind tour of Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C.  Well, we didn’t really tour Virginia and Maryland, but we stayed with some AMAZING friends there (Hi Charro, Mr. Bill, ShaNayNay, Mr. Alex, Uncle Em, and all the young’uns!).  While the wife was busy with her conference, I made a point to whizbang all through the DC museum scene.

    Since I did quite a bit of Urban Sketching that week, I thought we’d talk a little about tools and techniques in The Classroom this week.  You can join in on Tuesday night by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/oasisgalleryok.  The password shall remain “arting” until further notice.

    new book

    Also, this last Thursday night on The Artistic Biker Live!, I finally got around to making a new book.  That means we get to start it all over again so be sure and tune in on Thursday nights from 6:30-8p central time for The Artistic Biker Live!

  • Framing Stuff

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    I have been considering how to hang my acrylic paintings. As you know, they are painted on expired wall calendars. This made mounting them for display a bit tricky for me. I didn’t want to get them framed just to hang, but I couldn’t bring myself to poke pinholes in them to tack them up. So I came up with something else.

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    Starting with a 1/4″ piece of plywood I marked off the size of the painting and glued on these miniature clothes pins that I found at The Wall*Mart.

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    Then I painted the board to match my painting’s color scheme. I also affixed wire to the back for hanging.

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    I carefully slid the painting between the clips. I ended up adding 1/8″ dowel rods to keep the paper straight and off of the backboard.

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    Then once all the glue dried, I proudly hung that sucker as the first officially hung piece in Oasis Studios & Gallery.

  • Sunday Roundup 17JUN2012

    In The Classroom last week and on The Artistic Biker Live! I showed off some photos I had taken during my lunch break at work.  They were of several tarantulas crossing the road.  During the discussion I was reminded of the journal entry from last year where I captured a spider web on the page and painted over it.  Many people were intrigued by the concept so I thought I would demonstrate it this week on The Classroom.  You can watch the video from LAST YEAR’S spider here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADSKaFZuCvQ

    In preparation for this week’s episode of The Classroom, I made a PDF for you to download and share with whomever you please.  Capturing a Web

     

    The little girl was having difficulty drawing stuff Saturday.  She said, “What’s the point? I’m not very good.”

    Wholly Crap if I only had a nickel every time I said those same words, eh?  We had a long talk about practice if you want to get better and about just doing it for the fun of it.  Letting The Process be your result, not the Product.  She got it and ended up having fun free drawing.  I’ve been doing hands every night as part of #100DaysArt.  If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ , you can get a nightly update about the progress of those.  However, judging from Saturday’s sketch, I think the nightly practice has already begun helping me.