Batboy Designs & ARTROMP20 opens!

Another busy week where not much has been produced that is worth posting as a finished product. However, much of my time was taken up by Planet Arlington this past weekend, so I was pretty pooped by the time labor day rolled around. We are in the final stretch of painting Joseph, so I will try to post pictures "post load-in to the theater" next week.

I also was able to get a good handle on the sketches for Batboy the Musical this week. To give you an idea of how challenging this show has been, (its a good show, but its hard to do anything other than the intelligent obvious with the set if you are trying to be clever, and this production opens at the same time as Joseph...)
This is the DCAC space empty. One of the challenges of working here (other than it being very small) is that all scenery needs to be setup in 15 minutes or less, and then struck in 15 minutes every night...
This is the design for batboy thus far. The director wants to put the band offstage, and on a platform (spilling into the USR doorway) which means that I need to make a foldable "parallel" platform. I will be repainting the Cannibal drop from last year, and adding an "arch" that will give the feeling of a West Virginia railroad trestle/mine/cave/slaughterhouse/revival tent/veterinarian's house...
This is a photoshop sketch of the backdrop. I have sewn together a number of different sources and I haven't made any attempt to make them "seamless" because its a sketch. I have found that I enjoy working on the drop more than sketching beforehand, and I am kept more interested if I have things in the design that I don't quite know how I am going to paint until I start...so you can look forward to the finished product soon.

Lastly, I want to urge you to come out the Artromp20 tonight (I have two screenprints, a painting and a drawing in the show). It promises to be a historic occasion!

ArtRomp20
the grand finale
Friday Sept 7th Warehouse 6pm til late
*art *performance *projection inside and out *picnic in the parking lot
artists - hipsters - friends - patrons come bring a friend - free
See the work of artists from all the years of ArtRomps
See art in all the Warehouse spaces buzzing with the echos of the past
Be part of the past and future of Warehouse. AND as usual Food - Drink - Fun
ArtRomp 20 Sept 7- Sept 30
Warehouse
1021 7th Street NW

MRTIKIHEAD.com is LIVE!

MRTIKI.COM is live! I have finally gotten off of my tuchas and made a webpage for the magnet set. I know, its a bit rough around the edges, but it is at least a web presence for the product...I plan to tweak the sight a bit (like adding a paypal link, instead of sending them to my email) and then announce MrTikihead on Tikicentral later this month. So click the link below and get your set now before they are all gone!

WWW.MRTIKIHEAD.COM


Once again, a rendering of the magnet set

I am going to be brief because I have to go to a production meeting for Joseph, but I will leave you with a rendering of the painters elevations for that show:

Joseph...Painters elevation
Photoshop sketch

Cats! Dogs! And DISCO!

After the Nats game on Wednesday, and Weird Al on Thursday, it was looking like my week couldn't get more exciting...until...

KT's 30th Birthday Disco Extravaganza at the Doubletree Skydome!

Although they weren't actually playing disco in the rotating restaurant, a good time was had by all!

Simply put, this week saw the completion of two pet oriented projects, Al and Ralph. First, Al (the clipped-eared mascot of the Palace of Wonders) was completed on Friday, and will be installed tomorrow.

"Al" Valance for Palace of Wonders
Acrylic on Luan, Approx 4'x7'

And I made a final push to get Ralph the dog's portrait done on Monday...

Ralph the Dog
Oil on Canvas, 36"x30"

So, after all that, I hope not to paint anything with fur for a while...(however, I do need to do some more monkey paintings for ArtRomp20!)

Good Photos of Super Secret Show! Mermaid not so much...

So our good friends at Furcafe have just posted some great photos of Trixie's Super Secret Show! I've pulled the best ones of the scenery (natch) Enjoy:

This one is my favorite, its got all of the silliness and Film Noir mood rolled into one!

Unfortunately Furcafe did not seem to make it to the Virgin Festival, so the only documentation I could find of the Mermaid Misting Tent was from random people on Flickr:

Because it was so misty, the above photo is what most people's photos looked like...How was I to know that it would be so misty in a misting tent? At least I polycryliced the heck out of those flats...they are probably warped real good now!

To complete this post, I'll briefly tell you that we got the Buick back from North Carolina...and KT is looking at trading it in ASAP (something about being an "old lady car"...she might be having a "30's" crisis...so I'll cut her some slack)

I also painted out the rabbit on the Palace of wonders sign, in preparation to paint "Al the cat" in its place...more on this as it develops...And lastly, I'll tease you with this fragment of a design I am working on for another (not Trixie related) secret...

Feels like I am slacking...

I don't know why I have been going around feeling like I have been slacking this past week. I guess it was the fact that I didn't have any extremely pressing deadline to meet. Upon reflection, I did get a few things done this week after all.
First, I was able to chip away at the tattoo I have been working on. I don't know if I will be able to get a final design to him before burning man, but I think some large strides were made.

Tattoo Sketch
Photoshop, 3"x5"

I am getting close to the end on this design. I need to redraw the whole thing so that the tattoo artist can translate it into his medium...

This week also saw the completion of the Joseph... model. I did a 1/8" scale model of the set to show the producing staff on Saturday. Unfortunately, I don't have the model anymore, because I gave it to the director to show the cast, and I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, start a Vectorworks drawing of the set:

Joseph and the... Technical Drawings
Vectorworks, 1/8"=1'

TAP loaded into the shop on Tuesday, so that means that we are swinging into high gear for this production...expect pictures of progress over the next month and a half.

Speaking of theater, I have accepted the set design role for Batboy the Musical, with Landless Theater Co. (the same people who brought you Cannibal the Musical and Night of the Living Dead) at the DCAC. The tricky part is that Batboy opens the same day as Joseph...

This past weekend Hal and Ellen were in town. A good time was had by all...I even feel that they might have left too soon...

And lastly, I started work on a project that I have been putting off for far too long. I traded some jewelry for a painting. Well, a commission for a painting, Of Sandy's dog, Ralph. I decided to try to tackle the project in oil, a medium befitting portraiture of such a noble beast...I blocked in the color this morning:

Portrait of Ralph, in progress
Oil on Canvas, 36"x30"

Tune in next week to hear the travails of "the expedition of the Buick Century!"

Mermaid o' the Mist

Another whirlwind weekend. This Saturday I got to see the scenery for the super secret show in action at the Warehouse. My pictures are really crappy though...and I seems that I will have to wait for better pictures from the official Fringe photographer...which means I shouldn't hold my breath. Its a good thing I took those photos in the shop... the ones I posted last week...

Production photo of Trixie's Super Secret Show at the Warehouse Theater
This is the best I could get, without disrupting the show

I would like to make it clear that the show was friggin' FANTASTIC. I think that they should tour this puppy around the country, it was that good. (if they do that, I will have to talk to them about doing a program for the show...so I can see my name in print as the "set designer"...but I take no credit for the desk....)

Anyway, after the super secret show, we went to Deb's housewarming party in Germantown. (we missed the opening of the splashpark around the corner of or house) and returned kinda late to the closing party for Art in Heat. We had to leave early from that because we needed some shuteye for the Yard Sale on Sunday. The Yard Sale made us some money, and got rid of lots of stuff, which can be counted as an overall success. That evening KT and I crashed hard, so we missed one of the many "farewell to the Warehouse" evenings. But that farewell was to be short lived for me, because on Monday night I accompanied Scott in the process of taking down all of the art in heat artwork and redistributing it to the artists. We joke about not wanting to do another one next year, but I think we might do another one...just you wait...(I also used this uncertainty to start rumblings about Yuri's Night 08)

So then the marathon effort of getting the Mermaid Misting tent backdrop made started. Yes, I was able to complete the project in under a week...and all told, perhaps only two days! The idea for the tent was to have some sort of underwater scene. So I wracked my brain for underwater imagery and came up with the idea of having Poseidon watersking on crocodiles. I did a quick sketch, and the rest fell into place...

Poseidon Riding Crocs

Pastel on black paper, 12"x16"

I was going to do this on three flats, the 4'x7' flats left over from Bill Crandall's Chernobyl show, hinged together. So I had to change to proportion of Poseidon a little bit, But all of the other elements seemed to fall into place...

Left Panel (Poseidon) of Mermaid backdrop

4'x7', Acrylic on LuanCenter Panel (Moai) of Mermaid Backdrop

4'x7', Acrylic on Luan

Right Panel (Diver) of Mermaid Backdrop
4'x7', Acrylic on Luan

And here's the finished product standing in the shop:Mermaid Misting Tent Backdrop
12'x7', Acrylic on Hinged Luan Panels

So, go on out to the Virgin Festival this weekend, and get cool at the misting tent!

Next week, I will have photos of the model for Joseph...and they start building in the shop!

Super Secret Show opens, Art in Heat Closes

This week has been dominated by getting the Super Secret Show up off the ground. I spent the large part of Saturday painting the show(basically Noon to Midnight...which isn't bad on a Saturday because I get to hear the whole Saturday lineup on WETA, which is great...except for "the splendid table", but I digress...)

Gun and Hooch flats for Trixie's Super Secret Show

11'x7' cutout luan, Hinged in the middle

Owl and Phone Flats for Trixie's Super Secret Show
8'x7' cutout luan, Hinged in the middle

Progress shot of Super secret backdrop being painted flat in scene shop
12'x12' Muslin Backdrop

Hopefully this week I will be getting some production shots of the show...but its going to be difficult because the Fringe festival has events booked back to back...

I am going to start work this week on a backdrop for Trixie, in her mermaid persona, for the Virgin Festival. She's given me free reign over the design, which she may live to regret...of course, this is due by a week from Friday (Aug 3rd), so the next pictures I will have for you is of the finished product.

I had some good news on the Palace of Wonders front. I had a sit down with Erik, and he enthusiastically agreed that a "quarterly" design arrangement would be best for the valance project. So you can expect me to kvetch about designing and painting another valance every three months or so...

I also made some progress on a tattoo I am designing for Dustin. He wants to have a matchbox on his arm, and he has asked me to design the cover. The matches are for a mythical motel (perhaps mythical is not the right word...perhaps existential is better) called "the Chaos Motel".

Chaos Motel Tattoo Design
Photoshop Sketch

This is really a process sketch, so don't look at it as done in any significant way. I will be adding monkeys and babes, and alligators to the pool...I need to move a bit faster, however, because he wants to have it in place (on his arm) in time for Burning Man...

This weekend we can look forward to two significant events. First, our annual "purge" yard sale. This year we will be having it at Blair and Gwen's place (3210 38th St. NW...near the Cathedral) on Sunday 8am-3pm...come on by and take some of our crap back to your house!

And Lastly, all good things must come to an end!

Closing Reception for Art in Heat: Saturday, July 28

It’s the last week for Art in Heat, and we’re having a closing reception this Saturday, July 28 from 7 - 9pm. Swing by and join us for one last hurrah!

The Capital Fringe Festival is going strong. There are several events at the Warehouse itself, so catch a Fringe show and stop by before or after.

Alert your procrastinating friends, and come on out.

Warehouse Arts Complex
1021 7th St NW
Washington, DC 20001
202-783-3933

Letting you in on a secret...

Right off the bat I'd like to admit that I have not had it together enough to submit anything for the DCAC Wall Mountables show. Which is a shame because I probably wont remember to renew my membership this year without being in the show...Oh well, I still encourage everyone to go out an see this show, because there is always a great selection of artists, and it is good to support the DCAC in general.

I do have pictures to show of progress on the two other things I mentioned at the end of the last post. I have gotten over the first design "hump" for Joseph...

Joseph and the... TAP, Thomas Jefferson Theater
Photoshop Sketch of Pharaoh number

The director seemed to like my concepts for the entire show. He seems to have a good sense of humor, and wants to the show to be "Vegas/circus"...so that's what I'm shooting for with these quick photoshop sketches. I have developed a shorthand for sketching with photoshop that sometimes feels like cheating, but to be honest, it really speeds up workflow, and generates more ideas. Lots of people (like Ming Cho Lee, and other old guard theater fuddy duddies) are against using the computer as a tool in design. I can see where they are coming from with lots of people who design everything in CAD, because their work looks stilted and mechanized, but that is not what I am doing. I don't think its wrong to use the computer as the best-est collage tool ever. For someone like me who cant work if something becomes precious (by slaving over a drawing for example) its great to have a medium that can be undone, and rescaled, flipped, distorted, recolored and filtered without losing any of the work. I would go mad if a director wanted to change something in a design I spent three days inking...with this process, that is no longer an issue. So its not really cheating, its just a new tool; and my only sin is showing the process to you, and everyone else on the interwebs...

The other show that I have been working on this week (and I hope to have finished and installed by Monday...goodbye weekend!) is Trixie Little's Super Secret Show for the Fringe Festival

Backdrop design for Super Secret Show
Photoshop sketch for 12'x12' drop (Trixie and Monkey added for scale)

Hooch and Gun masking flats
Pencil Sketch and Photoshop

This should be a fun show. It was kinda last minute (everything with Trixie is...) (actually that is not entirely true. If we do have a concept early, it never seems to get enough steam to get off the ground...) Its a "Film Noir" show, which has a "body cavity search" effect...can you guess what is going in that big blank space on the backdrop? Anyway, I better get back to making this show a reality...Next week, I'll show you finished photos and let you know about the "Mermaid" backdrop I will be working on for the Virgin festival...

Photopalooza!

I have been really busy these last few weeks (months really) and I know you have noticed a significant decline in the quality of the reportage here at BTT. I would like to apologize. I promise to have more time to whine about my personal artistic crises in the coming weeks, especially since Art in Heat has moved into the "exhibition only" phase. Which is to say, if you missed any of the events I will be showing pictures of, you can still see the show, that is, the artwork, between now and the 30th (did I mention that Art in Heat got a mention on the Kojo Namdi show today?)

So I will try to be roughly chronological with the pictures of the show, starting with the opening:

Picture of the display window in front of the warehouse on 7th st NW...can you make out the severed panda head on a fork?

Random crowd shot at the start of the opening. (DJ ADAM and DJ AMOL are apparently kicking out the mellow tunes at this point.) We had a good crowd of people throughout the night. In fact we broke some sort of record with the warehouse for bar sales! To be sure, this wasn't your typical DC Gallery going crowd!

Yours truly, stopping briefly to lend a reassuring smile...

Wanna buy anything? Just ask Kate!Scott (big chief curator) Brooks poses with some of the shows artists, Emily and Candy...

So then one week later, we did it all again (sorta) with the Dr. Sketchy's show!

Elvis, Lil' Dutch, Bambi Galore and Buster Hymen all pose at the end of the night while some of DC's best artistic talent attempts to capture the moment on paper...

It was a religious experience, I tell ya...

These are just some of the photos that helped capture the last two weeks of Art in heat craziness...if you have any of your own that you would like to share, please drop me a line.

I hesitate to mention it here, because of a certain conflict of interests I feel about this, however, if you are a regular reader of BTT you will know that I have been trying to get my "Valance" concept off the ground at the Palace of Wonders. Well, as it turns out, they were having their one year anniversary on the same day as the Art in Heat opening...and they asked me to do an anniversary valance for it. Here's a photo of the result in the shop:

And here's one of it installed at the POW

I took it down today, with the intention of repainting the rabbit, substituting the bars cat "Al" in his place. If I understand correctly, you might be able to get a T-Shirt with this image on it in the very near future. I'll keep you posted.

Hopefully by this time next week, I will have some good updates about, Wallmountables at the DCAC, Joseph... and Trixie's Super Secret Show for Fringe!

Dr Sketchys THIS SATURDAY JULY 7th

As part of Art in Heat, there will be a Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School this Saturday night at the Warehouse. Hosted by Elvis, the “Red King” (yours truly) and featuring Bambi Galore and Lil’ Dutch. The show starts at 7, and drawing continues until 11:30. There will be drawing contests and drink specials, and everyone is invited to stay after Dr. Sketchy for karaoke with Elvis.

Space is limited, but you can buy tickets online now and reserve a spot via the Art in Heat website: www.artinheat.com

Date: Saturday, July 7
Time: 2 Sessions! Act I: 7-9pm, Act II: 9:30-11:30pm
Place: Warehouse Second Stage
Cost: $8 for each session or $10 for both

Email info@artinheat.com if you have any questions.

art by Alan Defibaugh

FAQ (courtesy of www.drsketchy.com)

How is Dr. Sketchy’s different from a normal life drawing class?

In normal life classes, silent students sit in a silent room and draw a bored, oft-uninteresting model. In Dr. Sketchy’s we’ve got bodacious burlesque queens as models. We’ve got ridiculous art contests (best incorporation of a woodland animal? Best imagined costume?), good music and flashy prizes. We’ve got a selection of posh beverages- alcoholic and not- available to buy.

At Dr. Sketchy’s, we don’t care if you picked up a pad yesterday or 50 years ago. Come to drink or to draw. We’re happy to have you.

What mediums can I use?

All dry mediums are okay, as are dip pens and a neat watercolour sets. Oil paints, messy mediums and stinky mediums are not okay. Please don’t cause a mess. Sharpen your pencils over the garbage can.

Are there easles? Tables? Sketchpads?

The Warehouse has a few tables. All seating is first come, first served.