In the meantime: two new pieces I’m working on.

Games Industry Meltdown (almost finished):

I wanted to do someone screaming. But thought it would be cliched to have them screaming over newspaper headlines. So I used the Out of the Box catalog, and voila! A self-portrait of John’s psyche when a deadline nears. (Also: I *love* the juxtaposition of Gaming Fun with a Primal Scream (PS. I am neither bald (at the oment) nor smoking (at the moment) That’s the fun with LEITMOTIFS!).

Smoking Cow (just started):

The cow just looked guilty when I sketched him out. So I thought he should be smoking. And on the lookout for Mrs. Cow…

Also: for those of you in Madison, c’mon out to Gallery Night!

Here’s nice preview 77 Square penned on our studio.

I’ll also have all the Mythos Buddies and other toys I’ve done there. So: Games, Toys, Art (wit three fingers). Come see the totality of my professional existence.

Food and drinks available. I may even make Igor Bars…

Anyway, this coming Friday, Madison is having a Gallery Night. Which has always been a well cool event to begin with. But now that I have a downtown studio, I’m aghast to find I’m actually taking part in it!

I think I’ve bragged about how much I love my studio before. I will most likely do so again in the future. But now, all eight artists who have ever worked in the Suhr building are putting on a show, and it should be a blast. We’re just one of MANY studios having a showing, and all are welcome! I think we’ll be putting on a swell shindig!

I’ll mostly have some Munchkin and Dork Towers original art up. I’ll also have some games going on in My Own Little Room, but oh but and, when it comes to “New” for me, I’ll be exhibiting some paintings I’ve done for Louisa’s room.

These all started after I did a surprise Valentine gift for Judith, of a portrait of Maude, her cat.

This was a 14″ x 14″ acrylic on vinyl painting I did, that inspired me to do some pieces for Louisa’s room. Like pretty much all of my work, it’s whimsical, but I also wanted to try out some stuff playing with Design and Color Theory (something I’m notoriously weak at).

So next, I did a Monkey. This was actually originally for a Sekrit Jonathan Coulton project, but I appropriated it for Louisa’s room.

This was followed by a Lion, that was more Pure Design:

(By the way – at this point, I must apologize to the 5,000 or so folks who subscribe to the Dork Tower feed on LiveJournal: it’s hard for me to put in LJ-cuts without these pages looking screwy for every single other person who sees this. I shall at least endeavor to keep posts this long few and far between)

Anyway, the Lion led (as Lions do) to a Giraffe that I’m quite fond of:

Here are some closeups: I really need to find someone to photograph these proper. An iPhone just don’t cut it…

And but so…also, a piece I call “They Would Never Let Poor Rudolph Join In Any Reindeer Gangs.” It is most emphatically not for Louisa’s room, and based on a card I drew that I just liked werra, werra much.

I know eventually I’ll put some stuff like this up for sale, but I have no idea what to charge…

One thought is to offer unique paintings of Munchkin cards. Ie, if I do a “Gazebo” painting, I’ll never paint it again after that. The person who has it will have the ONLY one in existence.

But that would also mean going back and recreating my old style from 7+ years ago. Am I interested in that? Dunno…

So, anyhoo, yes, by all means…come on down Friday! Art! Cartoons! Art! Did I mention <i>ART</i>? Refreshments! Games! Bohemians! Alcohol! DRUNK Bohemians! Drunk Bohemians who can kick Fanny Garver Gallery’s FANNY! Super happy music friend show (ie, I’ll be playing my mixes in the studio).

John