placeholder while i formulate

my independence day manifesto.

one of a few new listings on my Etsy shoppe.
*no i have not forgotten the FINAL #10 painting *

program note: i am returning to my old blog handle "K9" with my original avatar of the rotty with the devastating nanny killing stare. i would be "Trout" but Trout isnt a "sparrer" shes a "jumper-climber".

i became "she" as a courtesy to Mayden after i was busted for my solid year of fronting as a black male dog. grrrrherherherherhaha! but it's been over a year now since the "bust" and i feel like getting my spar on. "chickory" will be my art and controversy free zone from now on. /grrrrrrrrrr

10 days of painting day 9: squirrelette

* sung to the tune "in da club" by Fiddy Cent

go go go go go go
go squirrelly
its your nest girl
you gon' party up
in ya nest girl
you gon' crack nuts up
in ya nest girl
an damn!
ya took the jewels up in ya nest girl!

you'll find her in the tree
tormentin' my trout--ty
sniffin' poplar pollen
then out the tree she fallin'
she's into liftin' tail
an' callin' all da males
so get the pellet gun
let's have ourselves some fun!


*******************
(squirrel's chorus)

you should have not gotten that hound
you should just take her to the pound
my nuts, my seeds, my pretty shiny things!
when i drop 'em on ya dog; it'll really sting!

an listen' you sukkas im
the queen of this lot
i tore up insulation
that you homies bought
i chewed the attic wires
and started all the fires
an' that's jus' a little of da
mis-er-y
i wrought!

****************

you'll find her in the tree
tormentin' my trout--ty
storin' up the seeds
preparing now to breed
she's into liftin' tail
an' callin' all da males
so get the pellet gun
let's have ourselves some fun!


grherhaha ha ha ha ha squirrelly! don't try an' act like you don't know where we at!
im up in this yard all the time!

its about to pop off squirrelly!


* JUST KIDDING i love my girl squirrel *
before we got Trout, she would take peanuts from my hand.

(the fast studio "warm-up" painting that took hours when i obsessed on the nest)

10 days of painting day 8: dogs in a landscape

* as usual click for big *

10 days of painting: day 7

phish phor PhoKid

the meme for ruela the 6 word memoir

fur of daffodil heart of gold

10 days of painting: day 6

here is number 6 out of 10 studio warm up paintings. its designy, not painterly. but i can't help it design is where my mind is now. when i can't think it's always about birds.


*little photochoppin' on the original*

a preview of the new business should clear up why. what i am developing is a line of christmas stuff, which includes ornaments like this bug, and one-sheet wrapping papers, boxes, gift tags and cards. i hope i will be ready for the international gift market in January 2009. i am having a mini-showroom opening this june with a few invited retailers to test market the line.


having been an illustrator that did mostly assigned work, meaning, other people's concepts, it is fun to create my own products. but then again, its not a sure thing as before (on the money front) and i never know whether or not others will like the stuff as much as i do. or like it enough to buy it. the ornaments are all hand made which means (relatively) expensive. however if they can sell as collectibles then i should be able to get some capital investment to manufacture...although more and more i am wondering how that would work.

i have settled on 8 out of 14 ornaments to start with. they are: the bug, a husky like dog, a flop earred hound-like dog, a cat, a mouse, an otter, a monkey, and a bear. i couldnt photograph the others it is too windy outside right now.

im a little scared. okay, a lot scared. i don't know if this will fly. by the time i take it live i will have invested almost a solid 9 months on the project. all my savings are in this. every chip i have has been pushed to the middle pile; betting everything on it.

last week i had a panic attack and started looking at craig's list for a job. im not qualified to do anything. im not joking. entrepreneurship is my only option. i recognize fear is what makes me look backwards; fear of failure, fear of loss, of ridicule, of disappointing others, of embarrassment, and all the usual interior threats. i have to press forward however it turns out. if theres one thing i really believe its that the best possible road to take is to think up your on gig and do it.

also mr. she announced to me a few weeks ago he would like to move to Chile, where he was born. so added to my day is 30 minutes of rosetta stone spanish class. which will come in quite handy whether we ever immigrate to south america or not. i love rosetta stone. its really really fun. and we are going to soon go to a spanish only policy in our household. won't that be fun?

obviously blogging is becoming a luxury of time i don't have. and, i think sparringk9 has about run it's course. im sure to reinvent myself again, but the next blog will be in service of the studio; an extension of the soon to finally be launched website. so that's my story for now. but there are still four more painting exercises to come.

* i will be at chickory for a while so no new paintings this week - no scanner in the woods*

10 days of paintings : day 1

i've been working on one project for months and will for at least another year. the tasks involved are very concrete and defined. even though i am painting and creating art, its not free as it was when i was just painting "art art", or even doing illustration.

so as an exercise to loosen myself up and to prevent stiffness; and to counteract the required daily precision, im going to start each work day with a free form painting like the one above. each painting will be freely painted without drawing first, or planning at all, and without being overly critical and without censorship....like correcting ragged lines or making color fields absolute.

each one is a 7x10" painting with gouache. *gwash* my goal is to upload one each day for ten consecutive days. of course letting my sub-conscious drive means i found myself inside a psychedelic bird jungle today. grrrherhahaha! see you tomorrow.

oh yeah. click it. see? it's real big. you can print it if you are so inclined and by the end of this blog project you'll have a book of 10 by she. yee ha!!

still on hiatus

way busy painting for the show (oct.4) and rebuilding my website (God help me).i went to an art opening last night with some heavy hitters exhibiting. i didnt see many red dots, but i did see a quite a few very skinny fake-tanned ATL art matrons assuming the chardonnay art pose and not really looking at the work. later we saw at least five of these same groups of people at the bistro we went to after the show. we (another artist and myself) bird dogged them from the bar. i noted one of the husbands had a thick stack of crisp C notes in his wallet when he came up to get a drink. heyyyyyy...short AND rich! i like that. gotta get him on the mailing list.grrrherhaha.

er, this isnt the best of times to sell art...figures. dumb rottie luck. i am looking forward to returning to all the blogs i love to read very soon. kate and /t: almost finished with the 2 panel bird painting.













a detail shot.
i noticed blogger takes VIDEO now! grrrherhahaha! yay i cant wait to get back to blogging. enjoy the stellar upcoming SEC weekend everyone. /she

animal stack place holder

this one's for Iamnot

I was tagged by iamnot to do the 8 random things about me meme. I have been tagged with this meme twice already, but because i have a minor (and completely non-threating) blog crush on iamnot, i cannot refuse his tag. However i will answer this tag in photographs as a nod to his own rather impressive skill behind the lens. so with no further ado:















#1: my new favorite cocktail: the hypnotiq martini. hypnotiq is a blue liqueur made of cognac, vodka and some kind of fruit juice. then i add coconut rum and orange-pineapple juice, a squeeze of lemon or lime, shake with crushed ice and strain. blue monkey optional.
















#2: i am heart-broken and hardly able to work or write because i may have to send Trout, my sweet nut-brown hound, to the country to live on a farm. If i hadn't come back to the city this wouldnt be happening. regret is my co-pilot.

#3: number 7 on Iamnot's list was his problem with "completion". grrrherhaha. let's see if he can top this: i have a studio full of incomplete paintings. Here are just three examples:














this one's stuck at the background noise stage











this one, a painting of Luke, is stalled out for no good reason.











this one has been like this for almost 6 months.

#4: i was recently annoyed by the news story about how Cecilia Munoz, the spokeswoman for "La Raza", plans to start a campaign to register and mobilize voters and to address "hate" messages spewed by conservative talk shows.
"That had an extraordinary impact in and as a nation, I don't think we should be comfortable with the fact that the U.S. Senate responded to what was largely a wave of hate."

this is the level of political discourse in the USA now. Citizens decide they want to enforce immigration laws and that makes them racists. Irony alert: a short photo essay on "La Raza" which means "The Race" whose motto is : "Por la raza todo: "For the Race, Everything"

































Grrrherhahaha! Instruction on "hate waves" provided by EXPERTS!





































#5: favorite TV star:












Little Yellow Jacket

#6: This is a recent editorial illustration i did about "hiccups" starring Mr. She:





















#7 i love thunderstoms and scary weather and love to be out in it. this is what the sky over Atlanta looked like last night:
















#8:for some inexplicable reason my friend has tickets to Marilyn Manson and Slayer for saturday. predictably, no one wanted to go with her. But i agreed to go because of the potential for a fun photo blog for next week. Stay tuned.

home alone

with a Nikon CoolPix, HDTV, and photoshop.


Mayden left and i turned my attention to She-Daddy's new HDTV. like a baby sea turtle on a desperate mission homeward, i headed immediately to the Discovery HiDef theatre channel. With a glass of dry bubbly in hand, i settled into "winged migration" the most insanely beautiful TV i have ever seen. 120 minutes of birds flying all over the world. half the time i couldn't tell if it was real or a bunch of industrial light and magic. either way it proved to be a treasure trove of imagery to crib and reconfigure into compositions i can use for the juicy 40x40 inch canvases waiting for me in the ATL studio.

it's tricky shooting the TV cause there's going to be a broadcast moire about every 3 seconds or so. still, the images can be overlayed or combined with my own photography from the beach to create a satisfying composition.






sometimes just a straight shot cropped and tweaked in the hue/saturation filter is enough to create a decent starting place for a canvas. this is an image i can see painted in sheer layers with a ton of build-up and glassy finish. i like the blurred areas and have been thinking all night about how to get that look in paint. and thank God! because for about 3 solid days my mind has played steely dan's "razor boy" 24/7.


nice potential painting, 'cept varnished black paint gets mirror-like and that's BAD.


the rain has finally arrived and it looks like time to head to the beach for the change in atmosphere. but tonight i will return to creative endeavors and grilled salmons on the QV salad, and maybe a pina colada in honor of:


drive safely grrrrrrrrrrl.