I did a webcam trial for this project at www.philiinthecircle.com/cam where I showed the process in real time. I sent out an email to my emailing list and got some good feedback on it. Thanks for those who tuned in. I anticipate doing this from time to time.

Thanks for those who helped out on Chrysler info. Unfortunately I didn’t find the right person to do the project on so I had to move on. Stay tuned for Art Happening projects coming soon!

Alright, so I was sitting around a couple days ago. Posting the Art Happening Fargo piece and the idea hit me. So I started running. I realized I would have to make the piece huge, larger than anything yet. So I set out to prep the studio. I had to paint the 12×18 foot wall, and create a little bit extra wall to make this happen. Lighting was tough as well, you can see a little bit of reflection in the video.

Once I got around to shooting I immediately became irritated with the gun. The thing constantly had issues always missfiring, getting clogged, and releasing air. Ugh.

oh, in planning I realized this thing would have had to be 40 feet tall to only use the gun. As you can tell in the video some of the paint gets wiped away. That was how the clean lines were made. That is one of those moments that got lost on the cutting room floor so to speak. It slowed down the pace of the video to show the wiping.

Hope you all dig.

After coming back from the Grammy’s, it was hard to get back into the groove of Art Happening. There were so many other things on my plate, and I finally got back to Art Happening but the month is almost over. Oh well! Then beginning of March, I will be going to Atlanta to shoot another commercial. As much as I would love to just do Art Happening all day long, I need to do these other things that pay the bills as well. It will be a constant struggle of trying to juggle my schedule between Art Happening and everything else.

Picking a news article to turn into art can always pose a challenge. I wanted to pick something that was small news with big meaning. Khmer Rouge came at the right time. The outcome of this piece is a little different, but I like how it turned out. Almost everything I make is experimental for me in some ways so I don’t always know how they will turn out. And speaking of experiments, back to back was my project on the Drunken Japanese Finance Minister. More on the art happening blogs on these projects. I will be off to Atlanta for a commercial shoot next week. I’m very excited for the next 2 projects…keep your eyes peeled for them! They’ll be more grandeous. I’d like to crank out more projects in March, at least that’s always the hope!

I’ll post details about the airing of the Dr. Phil show in a bit…

Also check out my experience at the Grammy Nominee announcement below.

So as you know or can tell things have been moving. I was contacted back in July to put together the Grammy poster. It was a tremendous project, both in the depth of the piece and the quality.

I knew immediately what I wanted to create and I wanted it to be a much higher quality of video. I had to create a white room for shooting which I didn’t know how to do (figured it out) and I wanted to work with instruments to create the piece. I initially picked the guitar, a mic, piano, and a drum. The drum got removed in the end but the texture of the background image was created with drumsticks.

It’s funny to look back on because I would have had a lot more to say about it and the process. But I couldn’t much talk about it.

Like this other situation, I was just in NY shooting something, but I can’t talk about it yet either. Hopefully everyone will know about it in a few months.

So now that all of the things I can’t talk about are out of the way, ha. So what is happening now, well it’s almost Christmas, I am finishing up a rare commissioned piece, and then I will start working on another Grammy related piece. It could be released shortly so there isn’t much to keep secret. It will be a slightly different piece for me as I’m really focusing on the video aspect to it and equally as much concern on the final image. It’s a hard balance a lot of the time. Usually the video is better than the end image or vise versa.

Then starting the new year I will be kicking in a new series. (dramatic music playing)

I’m thinking of putting together a DVD of Goodbye Art… but I’m not much of a story teller. I can get a few minutes worth, but trying to span a whole year of ups and downs and many projects it a little overwhelming. If someone has a lot of experience in this field let me know. It would be nice to get some help.

I made fake teeth yesterday, I bought some of that FIMO clay and baked ‘em, then colored ‘em. Kinda gross cause they end up looking rather realistic. You’ll see the outcome of that in the next week or so. And….. yeah, hope ya’ll are well.

on with the blog!

This piece went through so many different designs before finally settling on this one. At one point the piece was going to be 150feet by 100feet (I’m glad I didn’t go that route!). When I finally set about designing this I knew I wanted to really utilize the grooves in the tricycle tires to add some texture to the piece but they couldn’t be too distracting. I picked the size based on that.

Putting the tricycle together was really time consuming because I had very little metal to attach my extension to. After getting the extension figured out I quickly attached the bucket, tubing, and wrapped it all with electrical tape. I ended up at the hardware store dozens of times on this piece and when I went to get paint I had my colors picked out that I wanted and got an inquisitive look from the guy, cause you gotta admit these would be unusual colors for a room.

The recording challenges were interesting as well. I rigged up a holder for one camera and screwed it to the ceiling…. didn’t work… I put a wide angle lens on it… didn’t work …. I put another wide angle lens on it utilizing a friend of mine, scotch tape. The camera looked rather silly with a dozen yards of scotch tape holding the lenses on but it did the job.

I was all ready to paint and was trying to figure out if the paint would actually go through the tubes. I ran a test tube (ha) and found I would have to water it down pretty well…. actually I figured this out after some trial and error. In the video you can see the blue paint going on pretty slowly so I had to keep watering it down. Even at a good mixture it took over an hour to apply some of the colors because I had to ride over every inch of the piece. I averaged about one color a day and ended up riding on my tricycle for over 6 hours. My butt hurt a bit, the seat is not made for an adult.

Some pictures and explanations

This is a great example of how the paint went onto the canvas. I cut stencils out of plastic and laid them on the canvas, rode around applying paint, then took off the plastic to show the paint applied exactly where I wanted it. This was how I achieved detail in such a small area. And here in the photo is the tricycle with the blue stencil.

Some paint on the plastic stencil

In progress. You can see a few spots where the paint got through the plastic into a place it shouldn’t be. Fixed with a light touch up later.

A close up so you can see the imprint made by the tires. I really liked this look.

I took some extra yellow and made covered this canvas. I will be cutting this piece up and giving it away with purchase of a poster on or before May 1st. Also all purchases made on or before May 1st will have a portion of their proceeds given to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We’ll see what gets made with the little items they send out upon donation. woo!

Hope you liked the piece! It was a blast to put together.

phil