The Rooster’s Home

Back at the Milleridge Inn Restaurant on Long Island I am hanging out with the roosters again. Its a quick ride from my house so as long as it’s warm enough to stay in the mobile studio without running the engine to keep it warm, I pop over in between the stuff I am supposed to be doing during the day.

The Barn

I have been experimenting with composition. I worked for a pretty famous comic book artist many years ago and It got me to thinking about comic book page layouts. I want to bend the rules a bit and journal in a visual manner. Tell the story of what I see without using words. There is always the big image/emotion of what drew you in; the visual that caught your eye and said, “paint me”. But, then as you are painting, you start to notice all these other things that are really cool and you want to include them too. So I have begun to play with framing; using frames to highlight, or call out other interesting things or close up details from the main picture.

The iconoclast drive thru

Here is another experimentation with framing. I feel like I am on to something, but it still needs some refining. Well, I guess, the next entry will tell. Have you thought about mixing things up a little? I am wondering what you did, and how it worked. Please comment below.

Roosters on the lam

Out at the barn adjacent to The MIlleridge Inn, a local restaurant, live a flock of roosters. They sneak under the fencing and chicken wire enclosure and have a gay old time strutting their stuff in the parking lot oblivious to vehicles and gawkers. Due to February weather in NY, I painted these in my mobile studio.

I am becoming rather smitten with these feathery fellows as it really allows me to play with my Rosemary &Co. 1/2″ sword in a very calligraphic way. While it is usual for me to not put down pencil first, in these instances it would be a fool’s errand. They scuttle around so quickly that they would long be gone as I was just getting an indication of the back tails in graphite. Laying down instantaneous color on clean paper in a wet on wet and dry brush manner is my only chance.

One actually flew onto my minivan hood and tried to get onto the roof by climbing the front windshield. I felt like I was in a scene of Hitchcock’s, The Birds, until I saw him sliding down the same windshield; then, it was pretty comical.

As the weather permits, I am sure to go back repeatedly as they are equally fun to paint as they are to watch. Stay tuned for more barnyard antics!