“She was playing a game with us and her own mind, I thought, performing dangerous stunts on the cliff edge of reality, daring the long cloudy fall.” —The Chill, by Ross Macdonald

New Tricks original oil painting 30"x30"x.5" inches by artist Kenney Mencher

Lady Luck and Mr. Chuck a series of images I was thinking of making into a kid's book.

Here's a slide show film and the images as stills. I'm thinking about making this into a children's book. (I wrote and recorded the music so everything is public domain.)

If you write a poem or a story or a song to go with this video please get in touch with me.  I really don't know anything about how to do this and I don't have a clear plot.  I suppose the best story/song/poem wins and I will give you a painting or some of the drawings.

We can work it out.  Suggest some stuff to me.

N.C. Wyeth, Chuck and Me

“Chuck’s Frolic” oil on linen canvas 40”x30”

So the other day I my post dealt with some of the influences regarding Edward Hopper and Emily Dickinson, but, one of my all time favorite illustrators was N.C. Wyeth and so I thought it might be cool to show you my use and abuse of his work as well.  My students always ask me if this is plagiarism. I guess in twentieth century way it probably could be considered copyright infringement, but, in an art historical sense it’s standard practice.  For example look at Cimabue and Giotto, separated at birth?

So here’s a painting of Robin Hood by N.C. Wyeth.

Here is a  reference photo I took of my little guy, Chuck, playing with another Chihuahua names Angel.  This one is actually a Adobe Photoshop collage I did to work out some compositional bugs.

 Here’s my finished painting of “Chuck’s Frolic” oil on linen canvas 40”x30”

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Similar blog posts about technique and the use and misuse of art history:

• Rembrandt, Self Portraits and Me 
• Rembrandt, Matisse and Me
• Henri Matisse and Me
  
• Marcel Duchamp, Rrose Selavy, Mona Lisa, and Me
• Giacomo Balla and Me
• John Singer Sargent, Caravaggio and Me 
• Velasquez and Cherise
• N.C. Wyeth, Chuck and Me
• Me and Hopper: A Certain Slant of Light
• My Use and Abuse of Photo Reference 
• Themes in Art; Sequential Art 

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