Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their time with family and loved ones. The piece above was a small thank you piece I did for a cousin I grew up with. Real good guy, happy to have my work in his place!

Now I have to go put on some turkey weight!

-fv

Pitches

The above imagery was created for a graphic novel pitch I was asked to put together. The writer asked me to recreate a panel in a few styles. Unfortunately I wasn't selected as the artist, but it was nice to play with a few different inking styles. Good Experience.

This image was part of a pitch I put together for a large mural project. I worked on a few other pictures. I did in fact land the gig.... it didn't take long to realize that the project was a huge scam. Like the kind you see in the movies. Bad experience.

But all in all, I enjoyed working on these pictures!

best,

-francis

Save the Elephants charity auction!!!

Super stoked for this project! I was cruising through my blog lists and noticed a post by the very talented Andrew Shek. It seems the "Elephants Managers Association" is having an auction of artwork to help raise funds for their cause.

I'm an animal fan, I worked at the Detroit Zoo for 2 summers, so I found some time to do a piece. Another experiment, but this time I'm pretty cool with how it turned out. I've been searching for that loose-but-polished aesthetic in my work for a while.

So my piece, along with other great works, will be available for purchase at the auction date, which I will announce! I'm sure you've seen the videos of the elephants painting. Yeah, that's right, the elephant's work will be up for auction too. My most diverse show yet..haha. I hope other artists in blog-land have time to donate a piece!

Mr. Shek summarized the cause nicely:

"The Elephant Managers Association is made up of professional elephant handlers, veterinarians and researchers. They exist to improve the care and management of captive elephants as well as support conservation projects in Africa and Asia.

The association is asking any interested artist to donate pieceswhich feature elephants in an effort to raise funds. Money generated will be used to support the organization as well as conservation projects for wild elephants. Several zoos have already donated pieces of art made by their elephants.

Dead line: November 28th 2009.
Paintings, sculptures, carvings....anything you would like to donate is fine."

Sergio "Are You Serious" Toppi

I did the above drawing over a couple days warming up in the morning. They are all copies from the grandmaster 2000XL of ink: Sergio Toppi. He is a modern master, and is still with us, although he is getting up there in age. He's one of my favorite artists, in any medium, and I think I'm gaining a lot studying his work. His use of negative space is just as impressive as his use of "positive."

Not familiar? Here are three incredible links with a lot of great pages of his work:

LINK1 LINK2 LINK3

Up next: Alberto Breccia.

take care,

-francis

This is a new painting for Erik Jones' Tata Gala show opening this Saturday the 14th at 7pm. It's in Sarasota, FL and this is it's 3rd incarnation. A sizable amount of the show's proceeds are donated to Breast Cancer research, so it's a great cause.

My piece is 18x18 oil and wax on board. It went through various incarnations as illustrated in the progression shots. In the end, a Francis Bacon influence (among others) brought me to the final. An experiment for sure. Loads of fun was had. I do think I like the version of the painting before the final a little better, tho.

Funny story: I finished a phase of painting and needed it to dry, so I thought it would be a fantastic idea to use a heat gun to encourage the process a little. I had forgotten that much of the painting was over a layer of wax. So I proceeded to heat the piece up, and watch the wax start liquifying and bubbling..hahaha! I repainted some areas, but the drips on the right side, that resulted from this goof, are my favorite parts..haha. As Barron Storey would say, "give yourself something to react to!"

best!

-francis

Soviet War Paintings

I found the link to these collections of painting from James Gurney's blog. I'm a huge 19th and 20th century Russian art fan, so these just blew me away!!! I've posted a few of my favorites.

LINK1 LINK2

best,

-fv

Heres a few doodles I did while waiting for some paintings to dry. A bonus of being home is I get to chill with one of my best buds, my German Shepherd Wile. E. I grew up with this dude. He's getting older, so I'm trying to take advantage of this time. I wanted to try something I read about: spraying milk onto your charcoal for an interesting effect. Edel Rodgriguez talks about it here. Not sure if I'm doing it right, but it was a good time. Definitely had the great drawings of my buddy Trey Bryan in the back of my head while doing these.

Here he is kickin it in my painting space:

take care,

-fv