LARAINE AS A MEME WITH DIAMONDS

This week's portrait is Laraine Frid.

I started working on this back in August. The size of these portraits are usually eight and a half, square, which is what you are seeing here. There was an art show at the Art Directors Guild in Los Angeles which I wanted to include it in, but on a larger scale, so I re did it, thirty inches square and I added embedded diamonds, which when they catch the light, give off colorful reflections. I called the piece, “Laraine As A Meme With Diamonds”.

Because of the scale, I used Montana and Molotow acrylic paint markers, despite the color range between the two brands, I ended up mixing my own purple in order to get that reddish tint.

Working on this piece was a pleasure. In my mind, Laraine is extended family.

Lou Reed did a song about someone named Laraine.

“Then we spoke of the movies and verse
And the way an actress held her purse
And the way life at times can get worse,
Then we spoke of Laraine, always back to Lorraine
Ah, she's a wild child, and nobody can get at her
She's a wild child, oh, and nobody can get to her.”

-Wild Child - Lou Reed

I guess a majority of people might know a really great person named, Laraine, worthy of being immortalized in a song or a work of art.

PB Rapper

This week's portrait is Snoop Dogg.

At first I was thinking of using different shades of green, but felt it might make him look more like a Martian or an elf. The dark blue being a mellow color worked best with just a hint of green.

A couple of years ago on Late Night with Conan O’Brien I got to do a comedy bit with Snoop. I was to be an upcoming rapper with a demo tape for him to listen to. Of course it was so bad that in the middle of playing the tape, his bouncer picked me up and carried me out of the room. It was a lot of fun!

 

About a year later, he played a part in an incident that happened at work. I left a message on an assistant

answering machine, which the writers thought was funny. They got Snoop to read back my message word for word but in the “Snoop Dog” style. It's worth a listen if you can find it somewhere, guarantee to make you laugh.

I've been wanting to do this portrait of him for a while now.  I love his music and this is my way of saying thanks for being cool and real.

PERFECT DAY

This week's portrait is of Lou Reed.

I've been a fan of his music since my college days. I discovered “Transformer” on cassette while waiting in the NYU music library for someone who was very important to me at the time, she was a music student. So his music in general has a positive and great association in my life.

The last album of his that I bought was “New York”, a very raw look at the city at the time. I wish he was still alive today, I'd love to hear his take on current affairs.

In this illustration I wanted to capture the iconic look of the Transformer album cover but with an older Lou Reed. I probably could have added a few more lines in his face.

I want to end this entry with a quote from one of his songs;

“Avenge yourself he says to me
Avenge yourself for humanity
Avenge yourself for the weak and the poor
Stick it to these guys right through their heads
Well, the fight is my music, the stick is my sword
And you know that I love you, so please don't say a word
Can't you hear the music playing, the anthem, it's my call
And the last I seen of George was him running through the door…”

Words from: “My Friend George”, Lou Reed, 1984

THE LANGUAGE OF CIRCLES

This week's portrait is of artist Diana Leto.

I've known Diana for a few years now, and got to see her earlier this year at Comic Con where I was able to show her in person what I've been up to, in particular, the portrait I did of her. Drawing Diana was fun, especially because of her fiery red hair. Her artwork is amazing. It's well drawn and fun to look at. I am proud to own one of her original pencil drawings which is framed on my wall.

I haven't been dating these pieces, choosing to focus more on creating.

There's a small part of me that wishes I had tried to keep up with posting these once a week though, as I started in the year but somewhere around March my approach to creating my work evolved, I found myself wanting to concentrate more on creating and less on posting.

It's these circles, they are talking to me I don't know how to explain it given I've been doing them for over 20 years with out a single sound from any of them.

And the more I do them, the better I feel, they put me in a trance like state. I find I've been going out a lot less,watching less television, choosing instead to keep creating with my free time even though there's no deadline or some monetary award for them. I just feel the need to keep doing them. I guess as an artist that has to be a great state of mind to be in and I probably shouldn't question and try to self examine too much. Just enjoy the creative process, keep find subjects and people who interest me and incorporated them into this language I am creating on the paper.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Last week (November 28th, 2016) I posted a portrait of the Joker. I had written a blog entry for it which never got posted.  Below is from last week, titled,

"THE KILLING JOKE"

I thought by now I'd be coming to the end of my 52 blog portraits project.

Early on the creative process took me in a direction I didn't see coming, my work evolved, and I've been having so much fun doing it that I just didn't make much time to post anything.

But I have been creating portraits, lots of them, celebrities, friends, online strangers, adult entertainers, anyone that I found interesting.

“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos.” –The Joker

The Joker has always fascinated me. He would kill endless number of innocent people and yet Batman would catch him, put him in prison, label him insane, let him live to only escape again and start the madness all over again. It was as if he was given a free pass to inflict as much damage to society as possible with zero repercussions.

Such a character could never exist, right?