early illo....fresh....

wooohoooo! i actually finished an illo that i love and........its early!! how bout them apples?!!? well anyways, here it is. nothing actually to do with the topic persay, but i was sticking with trying some new ideas with my art. when i heard the topic i thought of new art thats trendy and fresh, so of course i had to use really vibrant, upbeat colors. i had this all set up in my head and it actually came out looking alot better than i had imagined. i must say its pleasing to my eye and yet another good one to add to the portfolio. i hope you all really like it. oh.....and dont get your hopes up, just because this one was early doesnt mean ill always be on time. but hey, heres hoping. enjoy!

IlloFriday....escape....

another illo for you guys to fiest your eyes on. this one is for escape, and whether you agree with my interpretation or not, i hope you like it and leave me some feedback. as you can tell, i painted some funky, mis-shaped music notes ( and for those of you that are not music savvy, that one in the middle is a formata, it is placed above a note and is meant to let you know you should hold that note ). i wanted to make these notes appear to have a Salvidor Dali feel to them, seeing as how he is one of my favorite artists. then on top of the piece, i did some awesome light splatter painting, which added a nice splash of color, but also was another tribute to another favorite artist of mine - jackson pollack. okay, so now that all the explanation is out of the way, its time for the interpretation and the way it fits with the topic. unlike some of my other abstract pieces, i decided to take this topic personally. i asked myself what kind of things or means help me to escape my reality. well easy....two things are for sure, art and music are definately my escapes! so i decided to mix the music with art and even give some props to some of my faves - dali and pollack. i was really pleased with the way this one came out, and i even got decent pix out of it. so here is escape and i hope you leave me your thoughts, which by the way, i really appreciate!
enjoy.

Venus Williams gives props to 311....

whoa. never would i have thought that an awesome tennis player such as Venus Williams would enjoy listening to my boys....311. here is what she had to say in a clip from an article that she wrote about this years tennis season -
"This season has been a great one for women's tennis. Sony Ericsson became the sponsor of the WTA Tour. I love their W800 Walkman™ phone and listening to "Kick It Up" by Lyndrea Price, "Can't Fade Me" by 311 and "One Spin" by Zack Hexum. These songs represent the soundtrack of my life as a player."
not only does she like 311 and lead singer, nick's, brother zack hexum, but she picked an awesome song to keep her spirits up and to get her pumped to play. you can check out the rest of the article here. right on gurl!!

RIP Andy Howard.....

Thanks to bulletin boards on myspace.com, it has come to my attention that the former Twisted Method guitarist, Andy Howard, passed away this past friday afternoon. i have seen these guys play numerous times at Neptunes in fort myers, fl. i was always trying to get more and more of my friends to hit the shows with me. they were such good shows too....full of energy, pumping up the crowds, and just getting everyone to jump and go crazy!! not only did they put on a good show, but i was so proud to see that a band from down here in southwest florida got so big and so quickly. eventhough the band split up and other members are doing side projects, it was great while it lasted. Here is the article that is floating around a few websites about the late guitarist :

"Former TWISTED METHOD guitarist Andy Howard was reportedly found dead in his bed Friday afternoon (September 16). He was 23 years old. Howard left TWISTED METHOD back in May, citing his desire to take care of his twin girls at home as the reason for his departure.According to The News-Press, TWISTED METHOD were one of only two rock acts to originate in Lee County, Florida and go on to sign national recording contracts. The band were signed to MCA in 2002 and released "Escape from Cape Coma" the following year. In 2003, the band were tapped to perform on the second stage at Ozzfest.Over the past two years, TWISTED METHOD continued to tour and and bring new "inmates" (as they called their fans) to their asylum of sound. Their first show back home after Ozzfest at the defunct Neptune's was sold out and their performance at radio station 99X's X-Fest stole the show from more popular bands such as PUDDLE OF MUDD and TRAPT.Following TWISTED METHOD's split in June, the group's vocalist, Derrick "Tripp" Tribbett, formed a new project called MAKESHIFT ROMEO with ex-TWISTED METHOD bassist Derek DeSantis (who plays guitar in the new band). The new group also includes ex-MOTOGRATER bassist Jonny Nailz and former SLITHERYN drummer Tom "T-Bone" Burke."

Illofriday....depth....

so here it is. not too happy about the way it came out, because these pictures dont do it any justice, but i tried! i worked long and hard on this with acrylics and pastels, but when i sprayed the clear coat sealant over the top, it made it sooo much darker than i had hoped it would have. so much for trying to preserve my artwork. the bottom picture is the best one i could take to get the aura and the feel for it fitting the depth topic, but the top one is a better one of the darker colors around the edge and the really vibrant colors i used in the middle. there is a bit of a glare from the flash on the digital camera i used, because this was way too big for the scanner although that would have been the safest way to go. im still working on cleaning up photos in photoshop and getting a feel for using the digital to my artistic advantage, but it takes time. well anyways, here it is and i hope you guys can sort of see what it should look like. around the edges i used black, olive green, and a lighter brown color that i mixed up almost to look like a tree trunk. then in the middle i used pink, yellow, white, orange, and purple to make it as vibrant as possible. i had the idea in my head of showing artistically how people perceive each other. on the outside they can be very dark and drab almost a mysterious feel to them, but the deeper you look into the core or the more you get to know them, they are bright and full of life and energy that seems to just light up the whole entire room. i know there are plenty of people that just soley represent the middle part, but im sure they have their down days too. be ever so kind to leave me your comments on this one. i might just have to fool around with it on the computer and see if i can get a better view of it, but i wanted to make the deadline and earlier than thursday nite or early friday morning! enjoy.

Illofriday....Roots....

soooo, this one came to me at the last minute....really. i had sketched out a few things over the past couple of days, but nothing was hitting me enough to put up here, so i was just gonna skip it! then, i was just laying in my bed ready to close my eyes and enter slumberland, when i just realized i had a good painting i could use for this topic! this one was one i did back in my high school days, and was one of the pieces my art teacher loved and had matted for me. i remember this one taking me sooo long to do too, i was trying really hard to get the shades down pat, because as you can see, this is another...no dont say it.....watercolor!!!! but eventhough this is a watercolor, it is not a landscape or some sort of floral piece, but something different with a little chacha flare behind it. so here it is, better last minute than never. and i hope im not breaking any unwritten illustration friday rules by using some older stuff. i do like this one and i love the colors i chose. so here it is! enjoy!

Fat Mike is back in action on Cha-Cha Vision....

well for whatever reason, i was not receiving my newsletters that i use to share with you every Wednesday or close to it. but now, its back and im ready to post. if any of you do not enjoy the intellect of Fat Mike, no worries. just click on that little 'x' in the top right corner of the screen, and read no more! do come back to check out my artwork, but in the meantime, some entertaining words of the wise......

"Greeting from the Third World! Louisiana Purchase? Maybe not such a bargain after all. Even at a measly 15 million dollars, it seems the French knew something that the US didn't. Building a city 10 feet under sea level in a hurricane zone isn't the greatest plan. OK, all kidding aside (and yeah I know that the Louisiana Purchase was a lot more land than just Louisiana), it's nice that some people are giving out the big dough to help out the Big Easy. George Clooney, George Steinbrenner, Jay-Z, P-Diddy, Oprah, Nick Cage, and Spielberg each gave a million bucks and John Grisham gave a whopping 5 million. Lots of citizens are digging deep to help out, so when I read how much money some of the biggest US companies are giving, it surprised me. Actually it didn't surprise me.Chevron is giving 5 million. That's nice cuz I'm pretty sure John Grisham and Chevron have about the same annual income. The only real difference I can see is that Grisham didn't double the price of his books when this disaster happened. Then there's Walmart. Walmart originally pledged 8 million. Now it's up to 17 million. Walmart is the biggest company in the world. If it had it's own economy, it would rank 33rd in the world (right behind Portugal). Last year alone, it grossed 285 billion dollars. The family that owns Walmart is worth over 100 billion dollars. If my numbers are right, it's kind of like a family that has 10,000 dollars giving 170 cents to the relief effort. Thanks Walmart. Citizens: yay. Corporations: boo. --Fat Mike"

IlloFriday...dreams....

well first of all, i know alot of you are probably wondering how this ties into this weeks theme of dream, but honestly it does. first thing that popped into my head was some sort of shooting star idea. ya know when you were a little kid, or maybe still to this day, whenever you see a shooting star you were to make a wish. and if you were lucky that wish would come true. there are so many different sizes, shapes, and colors of people ive come into contact with in my years. in this piece, each star represents a different dream that someone has wished for. and just like jimminy cricket use to say, 'when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.' man how many times have we heard that, jimminy's getting some real bank off of that one. probably glad he was the one to set it loose to the world back in the day. man i love that little guy!! so here it is. leave some comments and your own interpretation. i love hearing what you guys get out of my art. for those of you who are wondering, that word says 'dreams' and its made out of pipe cleaners i bent into crazy shaped letters. enjoy.

oh yeah....only 1 more day until im in tampa rocking out to 311 with cheryl, jordan, and jerome. what an awesome time we will have. oh yes we will....watch out!!! cuz 311s got the boom ya'll.