preliminary sketches: angels without wings

more on this later.......

a board I'm doing for my little bro Josh

I have this kid that I mentor who is the epitome of stud.  He is into graff and I have been kind of mentoring him through spray paint techniques and fine art stuff.  Anywhoo he sanded down an old skateboard and ask that I paint it for him.  I started in on it and have reached a road block because I don't know if I can paint something awesome enough for this guy.

Painting in progress

This is a painting I'm working on for one of my best friends mom.  The painting is of Jesus and the disciples laughing.  The whole concept is flawed because to paint what we think Jesus would look like is going to be based on our narcissistic projection of something familiar i.e. a caucasian jesus smiling and wearing a freshly washed linen robe.  In my opinion there is no way that we as humans could ever paint a picture to fully embody Jesus or God for that matter.   So instead I abandon the idea of capturing God on my canvas.  Instead I try to paint the closest thing to aspects of who God is (joy, beauty, etc).  This painting is of people oppressed and labeled as ugly.  The center character (who is the only painted so far) is a homeless man laughing.    What does he have to laugh about?  Maybe God's ideal of beauty is what we label as ugly.  Billboards and advertisements are filled with women and men who all look the same.  Maybe God loves ugly because each line and indent on those faces are handcrafted and painstackingly different from all the people we elevate to model status.  We cheapen beauty to a word meaningless.  Beauty becomes the familiar so that it can be quickly labeled and categorized as sexy, beautiful, and hot.  We call ugly people characters, and rugged because we feel the need to patronize their struggle.  God has his own aesthetic regardless of how we twist it.                 G  o  d     l  o  v  e  s     u  g  l  y

Some practice sketch stuff I've been working on

events

I just found out I'm confirmed to be doing on stage painting for a Salvation Army Youth Council Conference in New Mexico April 17-19. On that note I never put up the pictures from CCCA so maybe posting this will motivate me to finally get those up.

Also if you're in Boulder come check out my art alongside opera. April 10th at the CU music building there will be a gospel opera with my unsolved civil rights series as the backround. I'll have all the details soon, but come on opera and art is always epic...