The New King of Queens

I'd like to congratulate the Mets and their fans on aquiring Johan Santana (pending physical and contract talks) yesterday. Moreover, I would like to thank them for keeping him away from the Red Sox and allowing the Yankees to keep Phil Highes and Melky Cabrera.

I've heard a lot of talk this morning over whether this is good news or not for the Yankees and Red Sox.

Of course it's good news! While either team would love to have him on their staff, they each, clearly, felt that the price was way too high and their teams were already pretty damn strong without Santana.

That's why both the Yankees and Sawx had all but left the bargaining table, leaving the Twins' poor rookie GM Bill Smith with no choice but to take the Mets offer - arguably the 4th best offer the Twins had for Santana this offseason (after 2 from the Red Sox and 1 from the Yankees.) So, please, please, do not turn on Sportscenter this morning and think that the Yankees or Sox somehow missed the boat on this or believe Mike Lupica's ri-cock-ulous assertion that , somehow, Omar Minaya stepped up and got the deal done that the Yankees couldn't. As a Yankee fan, this is honestly the outcome I wanted most.

The Mets will remain competitive (always fun for a Yankee fan), the Sox will not become a juggernaut behemoth, and the Yankees will hold on to some good, exciting young players. It's win-win for New York baseball fans. Now, the Twins fans... Man, they got pantsed.

Big Ben III

Here's another update on that Roethlisberger painting. I'm hoping to have it done by late tonight or early tomorrow. I'll expound upon it a bit more then.

Drawing Jazz

I've been a little backed up lately. I think I stacked my plate with a bit too much and then burned myself out a little the last week. I'm back on track now, and will have some more updates on that Roethlisberger painting, as well as the other two tracks from that recording session up this week. In the meantime, here's a little fun somethin' for you.

As some of you that have been reading this blog know, I've been having fun messing around with markers lately. I finally picked up a new set and was eager to try them out. So, Friday night I went over to Cask 591 here in Long Branch where the Junior Pauls Duo plays every Thursday and Friday night, with my man Joe Peterson on bass. I haven't done too much drawing or sketching of any live stuff lately, and I've had an itch lately to bring the sketch pad out and capture some musicians in action. I had to say it was fun trying to capture these guys playing in less than 40 minutes, and the markers are a lot of fun to play with. Hopefully, I'll have a lot more stuff like this in near future.

Big Ben pt. 2

Got back to work on the Ben Roethlisberger painting from a few posts ago. I've pretty much laid in the whole background. Normally I try to shy away from a background that's too busy or photorealistic and try to go with something a little more abstract or stylized, but I was commissioned to do a painting of a photo. So, the trick is to do the closest approximation of the photo possible while still putting my own spin on it.

My idea is to do a somewhat muted, impressionist background a bit darker from the one in the photo, then contrast that with a sharper, brighter, figure in the foreground. One of the things I wanted to do as well was stick to nothing but autumnal colors for the fans in the stands. Although, I noticed a few blues, greens, and other colors in that part of the background I stuck mainly to browns, reds, yellows, and oranges. I hope this will really make Ben pop out at you, especially with how stark the black and yellow is in his uniform.

New Music - "Fly Me To The Moon"

You can hear the first song from my new 3 song demo, "Fly Me To The Moon", over at my MySpace page. Nick Esposito's on guitar and Joe Peterson handled bass duties.

Not having a whole lot of money to shell out on studio time, we decided to spend a few hours recording here in my living room. All the tracks were done live with no overdubbing, and were all pretty much done in only a take or two. For what it is, and it is meant to be nothing more than a quick sample to book gigs, I think it turned out well. Given the chance, I'd like to go back and perfect my vocals, but there's a nice freewheeling energy to the whole thing that I think works nicely.

Check it out and feel free to leave any comments you'd like.

I'll have the others finished and up next week.

Still Here. Don't Worry, Folks

Hey, I checked the stat counter and noticed this blog's been getting some traffic lately. And, of course, that's the exact time I pick to slack off on the posts. I've been busy the last few days gettting my ass kicked training for a half marathon, rooting for the Giants, celebrating the Giant win, and doing some recording.

I'll post some thoughts on the Giants, as well as a few links, later on today and, hell, for the next 11 days. I'll also post one of the songs the guys and I worked on, with a few notes on the recording. And, yes, I will also post new pics and updates on some new drawings and paintings.

So, a super big happy fun thank you to everyone that's been stoppin' by. Click by again later on today and throughout the week. I promise you there will be plenty of goodies for everyone.

Let's Hear It For Big Blue!

I know it's a few days late, but I would be remiss if I didn't do a little gloating and celebrating over the Giants sweet, gooey, candylike win over the Dallas Cowboys. The much maligned Jints are now just one Favre-in-the-freezer game away from the Super Bowl, they've finally coalesced into a team, and li'l bro Eli's all grows'ed up.

It's a really great feeling to root for a team like this and watch them grow and succeed over a seaason. At times, during the season it wasn't fun at all, but seeing them overcome a number of obstacles and really come together as a team - as a coach and team, I should say - is great for any fan. Especially when it culminates in an unexpected run to the NFC Championship game.

And, especially when it comes at the expense of Jerry Jones, Terrell Owens, Patrick Crayton, and thousands of obnoxious, asshole Cowboy fans.

Plus, it saves the country from a possible Dallas/Patriot Super Bowl in which no one would be able to decide who to root against and America's collective head would've exploded. If anyone should get the chance to take the Patriots and their insufferable fans down, it should be good ol' boy Favre and the heartland Packers or li'l bro Eli and the surprising Giants.

Here's a few goodies to help all you Giants fans celebrate the win:

From The Onion: "Jessica Simpson Completes Elaborate Plan To Destroy Cowboys' Season"

A downloadable Eli wallpaper of my own from a while ago:

And, finally this nice recap of the '07 Cowboys:

Big Ben

Sorry that I haven't posted in about a week. I got caught up in family activities and Giants football this weekend. Plus, I was working on a few things which are meant to be surprises and can't be posted just yet.

Yesterday, though, I started a commissioned Ben Roethlisberger painting. You can see the reference photo below, followed by a light charcoal rendering of shapes and forms, then a more detailed line drawing, and finally the one I'll be painting on. The last one isn't any different than the line drawing except that I wanted to plan out my use of negative space, as well as strengthen the line of action. I'll post more later today and tomorrow as I add color.

Painting with Markers

I took this picture months ago at a bar in New Hope, PA. For some reason I've completely blanked on the name of the bar, the beer that is, and the cigar I was smoking. But, I do remember all three being excellent. I was looking for something to do while experimenting with these markers, and dug this out. I think I tried splitting the difference betweeen something painterly (i.e. blending colors) and purely illustrative (putting colors into an inked line drawing). In the future I should pick a method and stick with it.

More Dames!

A li'l follow up to the previous post. I refined the rough pencil sketch into a graphic line drawing that I plan on inking, but I still haven't decided how I want to drop the color in. I'm not sure if I want to do a more subtle and realistic coloring job or something flatter and bolder. I originally wanted to do the whole thing in marker, but my marker set is old and incomplete, thereby ruling out any possibility of lightness or subtlety in her flesh tones. And, while I think I could get away with a flatter color job on her arms, hair, and dress, a more gradual shading would be better to define the shape of her face.



But... since I had the markers out, I decided to see what I could do with them; working from a pic in an old Victoria's Secret catalog. It's nothing spectacular, but a good first try with a new medium for me. In fact, I originally thought I was only gonna be able to do something very flat and graphic. If I knew I could get as close to realism as this I would've taken a bit more time on it. But, for something dashed off in about an hour, I'm pretty happy.


One more note - I wanted to do a more gradual gradation with the background (from dark pink to light to white) but I don't have the colors to do it. So, I improvised and gave her the Marvel superhero background you see now. But, hey, if a girl lookin' like that ain't super, nothin' is.