The Ring Master and The House of Joy, Painting Blog #4

Hope you all had a great Christmas/holiday season!  My family in AZ gathered together last week and celebrated Christmas early with a family dinner so I could join in, and then I spent Christmas in Montreal with Michel's family this year.  Always good to spend time with Michel's family.  Both sides, are a pretty interesting group, and quite entertaining.  We were only able to spend time with his dad's side this year, spending Christmas eve and day at Michel's sister's house, her family, his dad and his wife, and then most of the rest of the family gathered together at his grandma's house on the 26th.

Michel (right), his grandma (center), & myself.  October 2013

His grandma is awesome.  She's a celebrity in Quebec and France, an actress of both stage and screen, and well known for doing voice over work in tv and movies.  She's an awesome woman even beyond all that though.  She's a lot like me in that she's always working, because she loves what she does, and she likes to do most everything herself, even the little things, so she knows it gets done "right".  She wont even let other people wash dishes during her dinner parties, and will disappear from time to time to rinse dishes and load the dishwasher.  She and I differ there.  If you're ever at my house during a dinner party and want to help out by doing dishes, by all means, please do so.  I much prefer cooking to cleaning, so I probably wont let you help me with cooking, but doing the dishes, don't even bother asking me, just jump right in.  Everything you need is under the sink.  ;-)

I really have to learn French one of these days, as most of the conversations amongst Michel's family, and our friends here in Montreal, happen in French.  I know I'm missing out of some good stuff by not understanding.  They're all pretty good about keeping me in the conversations by recapping the highlights from time to time of the rapid paced conversations in French, but I can tell that having to translate for me so often gets tiresome for people.  I've tried many times to learn French, from cds and books, but the Quebecois people use a different accent, and different colloquialisms and phrases.  A definite deterrent to sticking with the French cds for lessons, as most of what I learn, is slightly wrong for use in Quebec.  When Michel moves to AZ in the new year, I'm going to have him teach me Quebecois French while we work in the studio together.  Looking forward to chatting in French with his family someday, especially his grandma, and watching her movies without subtitles.

Speaking of words on pictures (subtitles), lets get to this weeks paintings.  Excuse the clumsy segue, but I'm short of time this week, and it'll make sense in the next paragraph.

I've been featuring the weekly paintings based on the order in which they were painted, one each, from two different groups.  With one painting belonging to the paintings from the very beginning, starting in 2007, and the other belonging to the 16 paintings from 2012.  It was a happy coincidence that the two paintings this week were matched up, as I've always felt they were similar in composition, and display well together.  They're also the only two paintings I've done so far that contained worded signs in the background (thus explaining the above clumsy segue of words on pictures/subtitles) :-)

Limited Edition "The House of Joy"

"The House of Joy" was the third, of the original Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) paintings that I created for the art show at my friends restaurant in Jerome, in 2007, written about in the very first blog.  By the time I finished the other two Day of the Dead paintings, the photographs, a couple of smaller, non-day of the dead paintings, building frames, shadow boxes, a display rack for the show, and started this painting, all in that 2 week period before the show, I was running out of time, so I did a bit of what I consider "cheating" with this painting.

If you read the previous blog, you know I painted part of "Las Senoritas" on glass.  I did the same for "The House of Joy", painting the two women on separate pieces of glass, as well as the sidewalk and street on another.  The paint went down smoother, dried faster, and my digital skills were still rather amateurish, so I was able to use the three pieces of glass, much like cells from old school animated films.

The "cheating" part is the background of the painting, which is a photograph I took of the House of Joy building in the town of Jerome, AZ, and then altered with a couple photoshop filters, and printed out.  At the time, I didn't have a scanner, so like the "Las Senoritas" painting, I laid the altered photograph I had printed out, flat on a table, layering and positioning the three painted glass pieces on top of it, and then photographed it all as one piece.  I made sure to have some safety ropes tied to the lamps to keep them from falling and destroying these glass pieces like the previous painting, but was still kind of nervous while photographing it just the same.  The slightly humorous part is the paintings on the glass pieces were still destroyed.  I was rushing to finish everything and left the glass stacked on top of each other after I finished photographing.  After a few days I managed to get back to it, and the weight of the glass on top of each other, caused the acrylic paints to act as a sort of glue and when prying the glass pieces apart, the paintings on them were destroyed, and the top piece of glass on which the lady in red was painted, cracked into several pieces.  I later cleaned the remaining paint off the intact glass and built frames around those glass pieces.  Some of original prints of this mixed media painting were sold in those frames.  This was the second and final time I painted on glass.  It's also the only time I've ever ever used photoshop in this manner.  I often wanted to redo this painting, mostly because of the photoshopped background, and I never quite liked the wings on the woman in red.  It does have a large number of fans though, so I've left it alone, but someday soon I plan to do another painting that features the House of Joy in the background and retire this one.

The original title of this painting was "House of Joy Hos" because during the heights of Jerome's mining town boom, the House of Joy (in the background) was one of the most famous Bordellos/Brothels in Jerome,  and I purposely painted the ladies to look like old time prostitutes.  I ended up changing the name to "The House of Joy" a few years later, after getting a couple of notes from people claiming to have been offended by the title.  I was rather surprised by each note honestly.  I wasn't a known artist, I only had these for sale in a couple of places, didn't have them posted anywhere on the internet, and the title was only visible on the backs of the prints which were framed and hanging on walls.  The people who sent the complaint notes, would have had to have taken

the prints off the wall, in order to have seen the title that offended them, and then make note of my email address which was on the back of the prints as well.  I was never sure whether I should be a little honored that two people went to that much effort, or be a little sad that they didn't have anything better to do.

The House of Joy is no longer a brothel.  When the mines started closing and the town decreased from a population of 15,000 people to less than 80, it went out of business.  Later it was reopened as one of the most famous restaurants in the United States, voted in the top 100 by Conde Nast Traveler, under the same name.  When the owner/chef was in a bicycle accident and injured too badly to keep cooking, it was transformed into a "Brothel Boutique", and is a definite must visit if you find yourself in Jerome, full of all sorts of fun stuff for sale.

The second painting this week, is the 4th of 16 paintings painted in 2012:  “The Ring Master”.  Originally, this was going to be entirely different.  There were dancing horses, elephants walking on their hind legs, lions, tigers, clowns, acrobats, and the Ring Master was a man.  I studied my sketches for days, trying to figure out why I didn’t like it.  Then one day as I was walking around Montreal, I saw a costume on a mannequin displayed in the window of a costume store: It was a lady Ring Master.  I went back to the apartment and sketched out a new version, that I liked much better.  With this painting, it was the first time I had ever painted animals.  They’re fun to paint.  Expect to see several more paintings featuring animals in the upcoming Dia de los Muertos series that I'll start releasing in March of 2015.

I've been working pretty hard at becoming a better painter, and the animals in the upcoming Day of the Dead paintings are turning out much more lifelike.  I've spent immense amounts of time working on new techniques for painting fur, feathers, shells...  animals in general.  I really cant wait to start releasing the new series, as I'm pretty proud of how they're turning out.  While working on these blogs, it's been fun to look back on the older paintings and see the progressive improvement.  In looking back at the older paintings, I immediately see the things I would change if I were to repaint them.  I'm going to resist the temptation though to repaint the old pieces, keep painting new pieces, and hopefully keep improving.  As I get a larger collection together, I may stop printing some of the older pieces though.

11 x 14 "The Ring Master"

I mentioned in a previous blog that I let Michel look at my paintings just before I start the finishing touches, where he then mercilessly tears them apart, telling me everything he doesn't like, or things he feels I've done completely wrong.  It really does make for a much better painting, as he'll see things I didn't.  There’s something in this painting that just drives him insane:  the perspective of the individual circus sign letters are completely wrong.  I don't even know how I managed to mess up something that basic, and started to go back and fix it when he pointed it out, but the mistake itself made me laugh so much that I kept it.

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 
"The House of Joy" is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10. 
 

8 x 10 "The Ring Master"

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"The Ring Master" is available in 3 different sizes at the Dizzybear Creations webstore.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr, ello.... 

5 x 7 "The Ring Master"

 It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated.


Thanks for reading!  If you have any questions you'd like to ask that I can answer in a future blog, you can either post them in the comment section below, or send them to my email  dizzybear73@gmail.com  

Happy New Year!!!!

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3rd week of Painting Blogs. Merry Christmas!!!

Painting of the week at the Dizzybear Creations Webstore

Only 3 days to go... Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a very festive and joyous Holiday Season!

As part of my ongoing series of blogs about my older paintings, before releasing the new paintings in March, today I'll be writing about "Las Senoritas", my second of the original series of Day of the Dead (dia de los muertos) paintings, painted back in 2007, and "The Pirate", painted in 2012.

I quickly mentioned "Las Senoritas" in my first blog about how I started painting, and how I learned how to do so in a two week period, due to a friend having confused me with someone else. You can read that blog by clicking here. There's a LOT more about this particular painting within this blog though. 

Las Senoritas

"Las Senoritas" was my favorite of the original paintings to paint during that two week period. It challenged me at every turn and made me want to quit several times. Fixing every mistake I made, seemed to improve the painting, but every fix seemed to ruin something else. I was trying out all sorts of methods of painting that I had read about, so there was a lot of trial and error, mostly error.  It ended up surprising me how well it turned out. Which made me fairly upset when it was destroyed.

I initially started painting "Las Senoritas" in oil. The mariachi man and the background were both painted in oil.  I finished this part of the painting late one night, planning to continue after a little sleep. Being the first time I had ever worked in oils, I had no idea how long oil paints took to dry. I set up a fan to blow on the canvas before I went to bed, expecting it to dry the painting, or at least enough to be able to resume painting the next day.  It didn't.  I went ahead and tried to continue painting, since time was limited, but quickly discovered that the background paint was mixing in with the new paint, and muddying the colors.  I decided to give it another day to dry, and worked on some photography pieces for the show at my friend's restaurant, and built some frames, leaving the fan blowing on the painting.

The next day, it was still too wet to paint on, but I had an idea. I had a fish tank at the time that had seascape illustrations on the front of the tank, pieces of glass that stood up inside the tank with more illustrations on them, and the backside of the the tank was one large image. It was basically a layered, miniature stage set, for my goldfish. Looking at it gave me the idea that I could paint the senoritas on glass, and then set the painted glass in front of the oil painted background. I painted the senoritas with acrylic paints, as I discovered that I had no patience for how long oil paints take to dry. None at all.  I even use a hair dryer to speed up the drying when I paint with acrylics, which dry pretty quick on their own.

When I finished painting the Senoritas, I set the canvas with the oil painted background down on a table top. Using legos I made little supports about a half inch taller than the canvas to set all around the outside of the canvas, and placed the very thin glass I had painted the Senoritas on, on top of the legos, so the canvas with the wet oil paints, wouldn't touch the backside of the glass. I set up a camera above all this and photographed the painted glass, with the oil painted canvas behind, adjusting the lighting to keep the glare off the glass. While adjusting the lighting, I noticed that if a little bit of light got under the glass, it gave the Senoritas a little bit of an ethereal glow, so I positioned a little keychain light to shine up under the glass, behind the Senoritas. 

After photographing it, there was a bit of a mishap and some of the lamps I was using to light everything with fell onto the glass, shattering it, cutting the canvas beneath it in many different places, and smearing the paint in many other spots as well. Needless to say, I was beyond pissed off. I wanted to call my friend with the restaurant right in that moment and tell her that I wasn't going to be able to do the show. I calmed down after a while, cleaned up the mess by putting all the pieces into a box, and then proceeded to look at the photos I had taken of the painting on the computer. 

I had taken several hundred pictures of the painting, with many different settings, and different lighting options. My camera wasn't the best camera for this kind of work. It was more a cheap, point and shoot with a few manual modes. Most of the pictures were awful: blurry, not well lit, glare from the lights on the glass, but mostly unusuable.  There was only one photo that managed to focus and not have lighting glare.  That picture, with a little digital work, resulted in the print that is available today.  

A couple of weeks later I looked at the destroyed painting, and decided that the glass shards were mostly too small to try and put it back together like a puzzle, and the canvas was all but destroyed, so I ended up throwing it all away, and have never used oil paints again.

Even with the mishap, and all the stress of making it all come together, "Las Senoritas" remains one of my favorite paintings, mostly because it was so challenging, and forced me to try, and to learn how to do new things.  Even the digital work was new to me.   I had played with photoshop previously to alter photographs, but with this painting I had to learn how to digitally paint to fix a few areas that didn’t photograph as well as I would have liked.  This painting seems to be a favorite among the prints I sell as well, as I get notes asking me about it fairly often. Like this one:

"Hi!! I bought several of your pieces while I was in Sedona in January and I love them. I have a question for you. I purchased one that looks a little different than the others. It has an angel in a pink dress and one in a yellow dress and unlike your other prints they don't have the little white highlights in their eye sockets. Is it an earlier work? Is there a significance to it??"

My reply (with a couple of edits): ((The first paragraph is a pretty good summary of a large portion of my first blog))

That is "Las Senoritas" and is one of my first paintings. It's a fun story actually that I should probably start putting on the backsides of the prints of the first paintings. Just real quickly, about 7 years ago, I only made jewelry, gift items, and windchimes (you may have seen them at Sedona Green, as about 60% of the items in that gallery are made by me). A friend of mine in Jerome owned a restaurant and she asked me to be their "artist of the month". I agreed, thinking she knew what I made. She asked me three weeks prior to the art night, so I started making extra pieces and figured I'd be setting up a table on the night of the art walk. A week later she called me, and asked when I would be coming in to hang my artwork. I said "hang? What artwork were you wanting me to bring?" and she said "you know, your paintings and photography." I played dumb a bit, and we decided upon the day before the art night. I then set out to teach myself how to paint and painted for a solid two weeks, barely any sleep, and discovered I was kind of a natural at it. The pieces were so popular, that the restaurant kept me on for 3 months, since I was the first artist to ever sell anything off the walls. 

I've done two more series of Day of the Dead paintings so far, and in each of them, the style has been different. The first series, I referred to paper mache dolls while painting. Between me still learning to paint, and the dolls themselves, the style was more primitive. Beginning with the second series, I again worked with figurines to refer to, that were much more refined in construction, so the paintings themselves became more refined in style, as I was doing my best to paint in a realistic (photo-realistic) still life manner. After finishing the first four paintings in this series, I felt as if there was just something missing, and decided I wanted the skeletons to have a little "spark" of life, so I went back and put the little sparkle in the eyes, and have ever since. No one has ever asked me that before, I appreciate the interest! Thank you :-)

 The second painting being featured this week is “The Pirate”. This is the third painting I did in the series of 16 paintings painted in 2012. Unlike the first two series of paintings, I didn't use Day of the Dead figurines as reference for these paintings, which really gave me a lot of freedom in how the paintings progressed, relying on my imagination. Not having something sitting in front of me to look at, and to paint like a still life though, had a set of problems in itself. Mostly in understanding light and shadows. Michel was really amazing in helping me with that, he has a really good eye for light and spacial relations (and should start painting himself).

I can be pretty stubborn at times, so I wasn't the best at hearing him tell me what he felt was wrong about the paintings. I was even a little insulted at first, as he had a lot to say on the first couple of paintings. A LOT.  He was pretty good in pointing out what he did like, but the list of what he didn't was definitely longer, especially on the first four or five paintings of 2012.

After hearing what he said, I put that first painting away for a few days, and when I looked at it next, I realized the thoughts he had on how to make my painting better were actually really good ideas and I started making some of the changes he suggested. The painting did get better. Which made me a little mad, both because he was right, and that I didn't see it myself, which ended up making me laugh for having gotten mad. It happened pretty much like this on the next couple of paintings too. It's funny how much the ego can get caught up in something.

Michel & I at the Day of the Dead procession in Tucson, AZ

Michel & I at the Grand Canyon in Arizona

 I still have Michel tear my paintings apart, or try to anyways. I've gotten a lot better at stepping back and looking at the paintings with him in mind, so I can fix things he would notice before showing the new paintings to him, since I dont really let him see the paintings until right before I finish them.

As I mentioned in last week's blog: "The Pirate" and "The Mermaid" actually started out as one painting. I decided to split the one painting, into two paintings because I did not like how small the characters had to be to all fit into one painting. 

The Pirate 8x10

The Pirate 5x7

Originally, I planned to have the Pirate on board a pirate ship, and one lone tentacle coming up behind him, preparing to grab him. It didn’t look ominous enough to me though, so I added more tentacles; however, the sea creature then looked more like it was hugging the ship, rather than preparing to pull the ship and the pirate to a deep, watery grave. Solution: Start over, yet again. This time, I painted a small

The Pirate, matted to fit an 11x14 frame

pirate boat in the distance (as in the original Mermaid picture, see previous blog) & placed my pirate in a rowboat. My favorite parts are the little tiny people jumping off the boat in the background and the look on the pirate's face. 

Prints of all the paintings shown here in this blog are available at the webstore. 
"Las Senoritas" is available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints. Limited to a series of only 10.  

You can see the other limited edition prints by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com and clicking on the "Special Edition Prints" link on the left hand side.

"The Pirate" is available in 3 different sizes at the Dizzybear Creations webstore.

Two more paintings next week! Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts: Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, tumblr.... 

 It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world, and is greatly appreciated.

Merry Christmas from Dizzybear Creations!

Limited edition Holiday Cards

You can see my other blogs by clicking here.



Merry Christmas!!!!!!

The 2nd week of featured paintings.

10 days until Christmas.  I'm really looking forward to the holidays this year.  Growing up in Arizona, I've never really been a fan of the cold and snow.  I like the idea of winter, it's pretty, but it's more a thing I want to visit, and then quickly go back to where it's warmer and sunny.  This year, however,  Michel is determined to make me find the fun in a snow filled winter.  I will say that I'm excited to try ice skating again.  There's several large lakes in various parks in Montreal that freeze over every year and become ice rinks.  In 2010 I went to one of the largest of the lakes to try ice skating.  It was a disaster.  First just standing on skates was near impossible.  I'm a big guy, 6'4", 250-260 pounds, so putting all of me on top of two thin metal blades....  I fell on my butt like a big cartoon character with lots of flailing limbs on the way down the instant I stepped from the mat onto the frozen pond.  It didn't get a lot better from there.

As I continued to try and skate, I think people started feeling bad for me, seeing me struggle as much as I was, as I kept having strangers offering me pointers or words of encouragement as they'd skate by.  My friends had given up on me and went on ahead to skate around.  After several people had lapped me 4 or 5 times, I started having strangers skate up on either side of me, grabbing my arms, and trying to hold me up.  These brave people were always French speakers, so I didn't understand a word they were saying while they were dragging me around on the ice and trying to tell me what I was doing wrong.  At least that's what I think they were trying to speak to me about (I dont speak French).  I took a couple of these people down to the ice with me as I fell at one point, so I stopped letting people try holding me up.  The best I got was taking 2 or 3 strides at a time before falling, and what should have taken maybe 10 minutes to go around the lake, took me about 2 hours.

I never really learned how to skate growing up, for good reason:

I'm often asked "why Dizzybear?"  Growing up, I never had a lot of balance, would get dizzy frequently for no reason, and often just fell over while walking.  It made things like riding bikes, skating and such a bit difficult.  Eventually I outgrew it, for the most part, but not until my early 20s.  As for the "bear" part, I'm part Native American.  My dad's Indian name was "Bear Tracks".  My parents didn't really put a lot of thought into a name for me.  They just slapped a "Jr" on my dad's name, and added a "little" to his Indian name.  It was quickly shortened from "Little Bear Tracks" to "Little Bear", and then just as quickly to just "Bear", as I was a huge baby and it seemed odd to call me a little anything.

I'm looking forward to ice skating again though, as earlier this year I decided I was going to learn how to skate and start playing roller hockey with some friends of mine.  I lost count of how many times I fell while learning.  It took over a month before I could even let go of the wall around the rink while trying to skate.  I'm a fairly decent skater now, on roller blades, almost a year later.  I'm hoping that translates to the ice.  There's also talk of seeing how I do on skis.....  You might want to start buying prints now, as most artwork goes up when the artist dies.  haha.

Speaking of which, let's get to the two featured paintings of week two.

The first of which, is my very first, Day of the Dead painting.  I wrote an earlier blog that did a nice job of talking about The Bride and Groom painting.  You can click here to read that blog.

The Bride and Groom

What I dont mention in that blog post, however, is that The Bride and Groom painting is still one of my best sellers in print form.  I gave the original to a friend as a wedding gift back in 2008.  A couple of years later it was destroyed in a house fire.  That house fire, and what happened to the next two paintings, are a big part of the reason why I don't put a lot of importance in painting in such a manner that results in "originals".  I was really sad when I heard the news about the original of The Bride and Groom being destroyed, until someone pointed out to me that they were happy I still had the digital files and could make more prints.  Between this, and what happened to the second painting (that story coming in next week's blog) I started thinking differently about how I painted.

When I paint now, for the most part, I break down the paintings into smaller, individual sections and then digitally bring all the pieces together.  Most of my newer painting are each comprised of hundreds of individually painted pieces.  Painting all the elements separately makes it easier for me to paint wherever I am.  Traveling with big canvases isn't an option for me, and I'm on the road a lot.  Often times though, it proves to be a lot more work to paint this way, and definitely a lot more time consuming than it would be to paint in a traditional manner.  I've become a much better painter as a result though, and the finished products have definitely improved over time, because I can paint little bits of the painting over and over and over until I like that little section, and then move on to another.  This method is not really something you can do easily when you paint everything on a single canvas.  In late 2015 I'll be traveling less, and will be painting some of my future series in a "traditional" manner, all on one canvas, and making the originals available for sale.

The second painting being featured this week, is the second painting I did of the series of 16 paintings painted in 2012.  I'm married to a French Canadian, so I've spent a lot of time in Canada, going back and forth between Montreal and Northern AZ.  Usually shorter trips, but in 2012 I was able to stay for an entire six months.

The Mermaid

Painting #2 “The Mermaid” and painting #3 “The Pirate” (which will be featured next week) actually started out as one painting.  The mermaid and her rock were smaller, and there was a pirate ship (complete with skeleton pirate onboard) over her left shoulder where you now see the larger swirling wave.  I ended up starting over on this painting and breaking them into two paintings because I did not like how small the characters were when it was all one painting.  I was able to save some parts of the original painting to use in the new mermaid painting, but the pirate painting was a complete start over.  The waves were my favorite part to paint and the largest of the waves over her left shoulder was painted over the spot I had originally painted the pirate ship.

Prints of all the paintings shown here are available at the webstore.  The Bride and Groom is available in 4 different styles and I have each of those four styles available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints.  Limited to only 10 of each design.  You can see all four styles by clicking here or visiting http://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com  The Mermaid is currently available in 3 different sizes at the webstore.

The Bride and Groom - Metal Frame

The Groom

The Bride

Direct link to all blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

Two new paintings next week!  Thank you again for sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest....  It is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world.

Happy Holidays!!!!

5x7

8x10

11x14

Not really a blog, just a quick message.....

Just wanted to quickly say Happy Holidays to everyone who's been following my blog.  I have the next couple blogs written out, and will be posting one each Monday as I continue to feature 2 paintings each week.

I'm still a one man operation here at Dizzybear Creations, and will have so much going on during this holiday season, that I know I wont be able to take care of the webstore in addition to everything else I'm scheduled to do.  I'll be leaving the webstore open to place orders, but any order placed at the Dizzybear Creations webstore AFTER Dec 21, 2014 will not be shipped until AFTER Jan 7, 2015.  My apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.  I'll come up with a special gift to include with orders placed during this time to make up for the wait.

In the spring Michel is coming on board to help with the day to day operations and taking care of sending out orders, so I can concentrate on creating more jewelry and gift items, and having more time to paint.  Really looking forward to having his help!  We've got a lot of fun things in store for everyone, and will steadily be adding stores and galleries where you can purchase prints.

If you're ordering something to give as Christmas gifts, I suggest you place the order soon, preferably before the 18th of December, to give the US Postal Service enough time to deliver your package before the 25th.

Hope you all have a very festive and joyous holiday season!

Cheers!
Dennis Mead

New paintings coming, but first........ the "first" paintings

Over the last several months, I've been painting every free moment I've been able to find.  Finding free time this year, however, definitely hasn't been easy.  I honestly didn't expect a webstore to take as much time to build as it did, and the stores and galleries that carry my work, have been keeping me pretty busy this year.  I have finished 4 new paintings, have another 3 near completion, and about a dozen more sketched out.  In 2015, my goal is to release a minimum of 16 new paintings, starting on March 30, 2015.

Before I start releasing the new paintings in March, I'll be featuring TWO paintings each week of my currently available work.  Complete with a blog entry, with little facts about each painting and tidbits about my life.  One painting each week will be from the painting series I did in 2012, and the other painting each week, will be from my collection of earlier paintings.

"Vanity"

This being the very first week of this new blog series, I'm featuring what I consider to be my "first" piece.  First in that it's the first I've ever been a little bit proud of.  I did this piece for a high school art class.  The way my class schedule worked out during my Junior year, the only elective classes available to me were Art 1, and a Home Ec class.  I have two sisters, and my mom made it a point to teach my sisters how to cook, bake, crochet, sew, knit.... all that kind of stuff.  While she was teaching them, she taught me how to do it all too at the same time, which made the decision to take Art 1 pretty easy, so I could learn something new.  I had tried drawing prior to taking the class, but I was never any good.  I always wanted to be.

The teacher of the Art 1 class was an amazing artist, and an even better teacher.  I learned a great deal that year, but even so, most of the artwork I did in that class, wasn't good enough to hang on a refrigerator.  With the exception of one piece:  "Vanity".  My grandmother had a picture hanging in her house, and I was always drawn to it, of a woman looking into a mirror, but from far away it looked like a skull.  One of the assignments of the Art 1 class was to take a preexisting piece of artwork that we liked, and to recreate it with a spin "all your own" on it.  I did this piece with brushes, pen and ink dip quills, and using a very large, very sharp African porcupine quill to do the finer detail work.  It is the only piece that I've ever done that has always been displayed somewhere in my home.

The second painting being featured this week, is the first painting I did of the series of 16 paintings painted in 2012.  I'm married to a French Canadian, so I've spent a lot of time in Canada, going back and forth between Montreal and Northern AZ.  Usually shorter trips, but in 2012 I was able to stay for an entire six months.  I truly love Montreal.  The people, the architecture, the food.....  all amazing.  Other than the lack of good weather, like here in Northern Arizona, I could probably live in Montreal.  I'm too accustomed to good weather, and being able to wear shorts and flip flops most of the year though.  

After spending the first several weeks of that trip playing tourist around the city of Montreal, mostly on my own, while my (then) fiance was at work, I began to feel a need to be creative.  Here in Arizona I have a studio to work in, but in Montreal we rent a furnished room, so I'm limited to a small desk.  I hadn't really had time to paint anything since the fall of 2009, when I did a book cover.  I had wanted to paint, but I stay so busy with everything else I do, that there usually isn't time for it.  With 6 months to do nothing but play tourist though, I finally had time to paint.

"Wedding Cake 5x7"

Painting #1 (of the 2012 series), “Wedding Cake”.  I originally created the couple in this painting as an advertisement for Señor Rio Tequila, having met the owners at a little diner party.  Just barely within earshot, I overheard these two people talking about wanting to find an artist that did Day of the Dead artwork.  Earlier that day I had been selling my prints at an arts and crafts festival, so I had a stack of prints in my car of my Day of the Dead work.  I ran out to the car, brought them back in to show, and was basically hired on the spot.  My life seems to be full of happy coincidences like this. 

"Wedding Cake 8x10"

In the advertisement I did for Señor Rio Tequila, the couple in the painting is holding the company’s signature cocktail.  As soon as I finished that ad piece, however, I wanted to repaint it with the couple holding wedding cake instead. The detail of the wedding cake in the foreground, took forever to paint.  A little fun fact: the cake toppers in the painting are an homage to my very first Day of the Dead painting, which will be one of the paintings featured next week.  

I wrote an earlier blog talking about the odd circumstances in which I first started painting Day of the Dead themed pieces, if you would like to read that, click here.  

"Wedding Cake 11x14"

Prints of all the paintings shown here are available at the webstore.  The paintings that were painted prior to 2012, are now available as a series of specially reprinted, limited edition, hand signed and numbered prints.  Limited to only 10 of each design.

While writing these blogs on the older works, each week, different paintings will be featured.  I'll write a short blog talking about each of the paintings, and for one week will be offering those paintings on the webstore at a discount of up to 50% off.

I like giving people discounts when I can.  While it can be very difficult and not always that lucrative, I'm very fortunate to make a living doing something creative, and I appreciate and thank the customers that make it possible.  Fans are greatly appreciated too.  I rely mostly on word of mouth to advertise so I can keep my prices as reasonable as possible.  Sharing my artwork/posts with friends that you think would like my artwork, on your social media accounts:  Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest....  is INCREDIBLY helpful in getting my artwork out in the world.

Looking forward to sharing these blogs with you over the next many weeks.  Looking EVEN more forward to releasing the new paintings.  Some of my best work.  Thank you for reading, for sharing, and if so inclined, for purchasing.  Happy Holidays!!!!

Direct link to all my other blogs: http://dizzybearcreations.blogspot.com/

How I started painting........

In the summer of 2007, I was asked by a friend to be the featured, monthly art walk artist at a restaurant she owned in Jerome, AZ.  I was under the impression that she knew what kind of artwork I did at the time:  jewelry, little wire sculptures, windchimes, fanciful dreamcatchers, and other three dimensional work.  I assumed she just wanted me to set up a table the evening of the art walk. She asked me three weeks prior to the night of the show, so I started to work building more sculptures, making more jewelry, and about a week later I get a call....

My friend called to ask when I would be coming to hang my artwork. Confused by the word “hang”, I asked when would be good for her, figuring I would get more details in the conversation. We decided that the day before the art walk would be good. I then asked, which of my artwork she wanted. She replied, “you know, your paintings, and photography.”  It was then I realized my friend had confused me with someone else. I played dumb, and said “Perfect!  See you in 2 weeks.”

I had always wanted to try painting, so I went to the art store, picked up some supplies, came home and started painting. The first couple of days I was really worried and stressed about it, mostly because I didn’t know how, or what to paint. Jerome is a ghost city, with a population of 15,000 in 1929, down to about 80 after the mines closed.  I began brainstorming about what would be a good theme for such a town when I remembered a pen and ink sketch I had done 18 years prior in high school, based on a picture hanging in my grandma’s house, of a woman looking into a mirror, but from far away, it looked like a skull, entitled "Vanity".   I decided to paint more pictures of skulls and skeletons, to continue the theme. While looking around on the internet for pictures of skulls as inspiration, I found a picture of two skeleton doll sculptures, a bride and groom, and decided to paint them (entitled "The Bride and Groom"). I was pretty happy with how it turned out, so decided to try another, (entitled Las Senoritas). And then another (entitled House of Joy), featuring a famous bordello of Jerome, AZ in the background.

"Vanity"

"The Groom"

"The Bride"

"Las Senoritas"

"House of Joy"

When I went to hang the artwork, my friend loved it all, and mentioned that she had never seen these pieces before. She still had me confused with someone else. I told her that I did these special for her restaurant, with a smile on my face, being rather happy that I was able to learn how to paint, and able to create 15 pieces in two weeks. In addition to the 4 original Day of the Dead paintings, I had several photography pieces of Jerome that I had taken over the years, having had grown up in the town.

Within a few days, several of the pieces had sold, and she wanted more. I was the first person to ever sell a piece of artwork off the walls, and her customers just kept talking about how much they loved them. I kept painting, and making specialty frames for the prints. I had never heard of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead before I did the show, but each time I went to hang more pieces at the restaurant, people would tell me all about the holiday, and what it meant to them. The collection proved so popular, that my work remained hanging at the restaurant for three months, and I kept adding to it. The show only ended because the restaurant was closing for a couple of months to remodel. A coffee shop in Jerome took over the show and continued to sell prints for several more years.

It wasn’t until almost two years later that I painted the next series, for a gallery in Sedona that carried a lot of my jewelry and smaller sculptures. The gallery owner wanted landscapes of Sedona. I painted a few, but  quickly discovered people didn’t talk about landscapes with the same excitement as they did the Day of the Dead paintings.  I talked the owner of the gallery into trying the day of the dead prints for a couple of months, and to his surprise, they sold great. He was not a fan of them, but I was his biggest seller at the gallery, so he gave them a chance. He really wanted to sell artwork of Sedona, so I combined the two, and painted Day of the Dead figures, with Sedona backgrounds, finishing the last piece in the fall of 2009.  Shortly after this, I illustrated a cover for a book entitled "The Return".

"The Cigar Smoker"

"Archway Bride & Groom"

"Coffee Pot Senoritas"

"The Return"

"The Bullfighter"

"Please Stay on Trail"

I didn’t have time to paint again until 2012, when I was able to take 6 months off from work, to do nothing but paint, and finished 16 new pieces. 

Brief bio:  Born in 1973 into a long line of folk artists and jewelry makers, Dennis Mead moved to Northern Arizona as a young child. At the age of six, he began working at his parent’s arts & crafts store in Arizona’s most famous ghost town, Jerome. He quickly displayed a talent for creating items that visiting tourists and locals would buy just about as fast as he could make them. 

Over the next twenty five years, before starting his own company Dizzybear Creations, Dennis learned the skills of jewelry making, painting, woodworking, sculpting and most everything anyone was willing to teach him. His work demonstrates a colorful combination of Arizona life experiences that are evident in the expressions of his artworks.

Living in Northern Arizona, Dennis enjoys a renaissance man’s life: reading, writing, hiking, biking, creating art, karaoke singing, welding, silversmithing and traveling as often as possible … all the while, causing as much mischief as he can.

Dennis is best known for his whimsical Day of The Dead paintings, his turquoise jewelry and his unique silverware creations, including his colorful windchimes that employ the principles of “up cycling” combining found objects to create beauty.

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Contact me at dizzybear73@gmail.com

Find me on Facebook: 

www.facebook.com/dizzybearcreations

Webstore:

https://dizzybearcreations.storenvy.com

Direct link to the paintings shown on this page and the Sedona landscapes mentioned, click here.