What a difference...

304 days makes. What a difference indeed.

This is another redo of something I had in the wings. I first created this image back in November of last year. I was just beginning to figure out what I needed in order to make the images that I wanted, but I wasn't quite there yet. I've picked up a trick or two here or there, and I thought I'd take another crack at it. I figure if Phil Hale can redo the illustrations he did for a book, then I could redo illustrations I did for myself.

The first time around I was poking fun at both of these Republican "mavericks", but this time I centered more on Palin. All of her props are "toys", whereas McCain's are more authentic. Her vest has the little frilly bits like you'd see in some cheesy backwater Arizona mall. And it's hard to see in this image, but she has a logo on her hat that's vaguely reminiscent of everyone's favorite Southern California rodent. (But no! it's Maxfield!)

All in all I'm pleased with this one. I think these things are starting to make sense. Again, attached below is the original painting.

Oil on canvas. 27" x 37"

There's a first time for everything...

I was digging through some of my old stuff the other day and I came across yet another assignment I wanted to rehash. Once upon a time a teacher gave the assignment to illustrate the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelly with current events in mind. Well, at the time, Katrina was very current, so that's the tilt most of the assignments took. In earnest, my piece made no sense. Well, it made sense to ME at the time, but now... even I can't remember what it's supposed to be about. That's a bad thing. I aimed to refocus my attention to see if I came up with something that was more readily accessible to the public at large.

This painting is a first for me as I somehow managed to make it through four years of art school (through the bulk of the Bush administration) without painting Dubya once. At the time I very much tried to avoid political commentary, and I just think I got lucky that none of my teachers assigned something that was strictly "politician-geared". The research for this guy was a lot of fun. That's a Brown Pelican sitting on his head - the state bird of Louisiana. The view of the city is looking east, so aside from the river (which is on the other side of the buildings) the nearest body of water is Lake Pontchatrain - 4 miles to the north. And the last thing that I'll mention is the shadows on the buildings are accurate for about 10:00 am on a Louisiana morning.

Attatched below is a version of the painting sans the type, and for grins and chuckles the original painting I turned in.

Oil on canvas. 21 1/2" x 17 1/2"

Sexting

This is something I've known has been going on but hadn't known it was given a name until very recently. In a nut shell sexting is the act of sending nude (or semi-nude) pictures via text message, and - big shocker - it's particularly popular amongst high school students. The big-ticket item surrounding this issue is - how close to child pornography is it?

There are kids in schools all across the country who are formally being charged with child pornography. Generally speaking the photos are intended solely for the boyfriend or girlfriend, but the problem arises when the photos are shared between classmates and children from other schools. In some cases there have been reports of the pictures winding up on the internet. Once it hits the internet and Myspace or Facebook (or really whatever your social networking site of choice may be) it spreads like wildfire - and that's the kind of thing you just can't get back.

Then again, kids are notorious for not thinking that far ahead. It all seems well and good when they're together and feel like it'll be that way forever, but if there's a messy break-up there's no telling what someone may do out of anger. (And honestly I'm willing to bet a good percentage of the time a messy break-up isn't required for someone to share and brag with their buddies.) Anywho... I'm not here to try to argue one point over the other, and there are plenty of more eloquently written articles on the matter out there, so yeah...

I wanted my image to be kind of flirty without being to sexy or over the top, and I felt I had to get the idea across that it was a text (picture) message but that the whole thing is kind of ridiculous. Hence the emoticon winking face ;) My friend likes it, but says it's kind of creepy, (I suppose it's too soon after she saw Coraline) but I think that speaks to the issue at large. That kids as young as 8th graders (14 years old on average) and willingly exposing themselves in such a way. Oh well, I guess I'm just an old fuddy-duddy at heart.

Oil on canvas. 10 x 14