Last Friday was Carnivalesque.  It was a burlesque performance put on by Smoke and Mirrors Cabaret.  The show was quite a bit different from most burlesque performances that I’ve seen.  We tried a few experimental ideas with the performance that are not normally seen in burlesque performances.  There was a narrative to the show instead of a disconnected series of performances.  We incorporated some live digital painting into the event.  I made some images that were projected as backgrounds in the performances.

I also did the event flier.  For some reason, when it came time to do the flier my main source of inspiration was the Drew Struzan Blade Runner movie poster.  Because nothing says burlesque like 80′s sci-fi and Rutger Hauer.  It was digitally painted in Photoshop and sized for print at 11×17.  I didn’t know if my computer could handle that many pixels, but it managed.  I based it on photos of the cast from prior events.

Originally the idea was to digitally paint the backgrounds as the show was happening.  But after playing with the computer and the projector a bit during a rehearsal we decided that having the painting happening during all of the routines would be too much of a distraction from the focal point of the performance.  That and the fact that most of the performances were only a few minutes long wouldn’t give me time for much more than scribbles on the screen.  So I ended up doing a lot of that art for the show before hand.  Since we waited until the weekend before the show to actually hookthe laptop up to a projector, I did the images in two very late nights.  I did have the chance to do a live painting before the show started as people were filtering in to the show.

These are the images that were projected behind the performers.  I had thought that since I wouldn’t be able to do paintings during the performances that I would instead do illustrations for each of the backgrounds.  After I spent and evening on a horrible attempt at painting a carnival ground I decided on photo-manipulations instead.  These I could finish quickly enough to have ready in time for the show.

The show went well.  People seemed to really enjoy it.  There’s a review of the show on launch787.com.  There’s a set of photos from the show on Flickr by photographer Menelaos Prokos.  They all look great.  I’m really impressed with all of the photos I’ve seen from the event.  There’s also a video of Miriam’s aerial dance routine.

It was a great event to be a part of.

Hey all,

I’m painting at Art Erotica tonight.  I painted there last year as well.  Here’s a video from last years event.  Evidently I’m not photogenic enough to actually appear in the video, but I swear I was there.

Here’s my display from Art Outside 2009.  It put on by the Artseen Alliance in Texas farmland outside of Austin.  Evidently it used to take place in Austin, but they had to move because the city built a parking lot or something where it used to be.  OK, I made the parking lot thing up.  I have no idea why it had to move to the countryside.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the event, but there was a lot going on.  For the few hours I was there last night, there were multiple band playing the entire time, a carnival, a fashion show, a film screening, and many contraptions that spit fire.  In all, it was a pretty awesome event.

I was glad that I had to chance to set up my own display.  Since I didn’t have frames for any of my paintings, I had the idea to paint frames around them.  I also threw water into the frames to match the drippy aesthetic of the paintings.  I think it came out well.  I took a couple of pictures with my cell phone.

I contributed a couple of paintings to a fundraiser for a local indepentant production of a science fiction rock opera called Faster than the Speed of Light.

It’s from 6-10 Sunday night, May 3rd, at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre.  The play looks pretty cool and the fundraiser event sounds like a lot of fun.  There’s gonna be bands and probably a lot of short haired girls wearing glasses.  Which is enough to get me to kick in a couple of paintings. More info here.

Here’s the paintings that I contributed:

So come on out and pay a lot of money for my paintings, or somebody else’s.  It advances the cause of short haired girls doing cool shit.

I was invited through the AFG to do live painting Saturday night on stage at the Art Erotica 2009.  I accepted.  I’d never painted in front of a crowd before.  But I was prepared.  I had made business cards so that I could participate in the most douchebag of activities: networking.

I knew that the paintings that I did would end up being auctioned.  The Art Erotica benefits AIDS Services of Austin’s Paul Kirby Fund and all proceeds from the sale of the paintings go to the charity.  Despite the philanthropic nature of the event, I participated.

The scene was pretty much what I expected; men dressed like Rob Halford, women dressed like Rob Halford, and giant penis statues.  The walls of the place were lined with erotic art that was being sold through silent auction.  The highest bids were being placed on a print of a painting by Jacques Louis David.  My guess is that due to the high quality of the print, people didn’t realize they were not bidding on an actual painting.  Either that, or they liked it and I’m a condescending asshole.

We set up on the stage, ringed around a black chair.  There were about 10 artists, some drawing in charcoal and some painting.  Because I was one of the last to arrive I set up front and center where my paintings would be the most visible to the audience.  We were doing four 15 minute poses.  This is a rather quick pace to produce a painting, especially in front of a crowd of a few hundred people, many of whom undoubtably had art hanging on the walls.  It’s easy to impress hippies, but other artists…

The first pose was the female.  I found my hands shaking while I was painting.  I didn’t realize that I was nervous until I couldn’t hold my brush steady.  Fortunately I was doing the drippy acrylic style  I’ve been doing for the last few weeks at the AFG.  It doesn’t exactly require the precise hands of a surgeon.  But it does require steady bowels. I was able to pull through and the painting turned out ok.  This gave me a boost of confidence, and my hands didn’t shake for the rest of the paintings.

The other three went well also.  I don’t think that I blew any of them.  They all sold in the auction afterward and in a clever display of douchebaggery I slipped a business card into the back of each painting.  People seemed to like the paintings.  Despite my general unapproachability I received several compliments.  The organizer of the event looked at my paintings, said they were beautiful, thanked me for participating and gave me a hug.  I could occasionally hear comments from the crowd such as, “Damn, he’s quick.”

I took a picture of the crowd from the stage, so people wouldn’t think I was lying when I said I was painting in front of a crowd of hundreds.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the costumes in the crowd, but here’s a couple of shots that I like.

Here are the paintings that I did on stage.  They were taken in a very adverse lighting condition, so the colors are all wonky, but these give a general idea.

Here are all the photos I took that night in a set on flickr.  In all, I consider the night a success.  I had a great time, people liked my art and I saw some of the finest penis sculptures south of the Mason-Dixon.