slattsville too...

Revolutions Per Minute

2010-05-19T06:16:00.015-04:00

Is anything measured by RPM's, today?

Maybe the design of my band's demo CD is the last.

I shared this with them and it rapidly went through changes...

Here's the first design...

It was decided the whole "LIVE at Millers Pub!" seemed unnecessary.

...this allowed the personnel to be moved into a more prominent and relevant position...

..and that would help "un-crowd" the contact info...

..even to the point where I could increase this information's importance with a larger font size...

There was some unfavorable reaction to the shadow cast from poster on text (see above)—personally, I rather liked it. However, when I re-sized that image, it insured that our drummers pic wouldn't get cropped if the CD art misaligned...

...and there you have the design and re-design of the Walter Mitty's demo CD.

When "lazy" creates a poster

2010-01-14T21:13:00.011-05:00

It started with a gig with some "old friends" of mine from high school—a reunion show of sorts. My band—the Walter Mittys—was to open for theirs.

I said I'd create a poster. And this is what I came up with.

A year later. The same venue. The same two bands (except ours, now, is minus one player—so, new band graphic). I open up the old file and begin to re-create.

This works out great—most of the info is the same. And I manage to create a new look. This one, now, more of an old poster-handbill look.

A week ago, I'm approached by another band. They ask if my band's interested in doing a benefit show. We agree. I volunteer again to do a poster. The turn-around needs to be quick, so, I decide to open up this poster file again. There's no information—this time—to borrow, short of our band name but it proves to be a great starting point.

Liking the retro-handbill look, I push the fire-house theme. Though I played with three colors in and earlier version, I end up going for that low-budget two-color look.

To me, it looks like it would find a perfect home on the telephone pole out in front of three-bay brick fire station with three shiny red and polished chrome fire engines facing front.

It's only graphic is a Gibson Les Paul, But it could easily be a fireman's axe.

So, this is Christmas

2009-12-27T13:11:00.004-05:00

I hope you all had a LONG JOHN HOLIDAY!

The WAR is not over.

And it's not over by only wanting it to be...

Sorry, John. You WERE a DREAMER.
You can't make those choices. We can't.

Unless you're part of the Military-Industrial Complex.

2 Russian musicians, a Beat and a Beatle

2009-10-20T08:33:00.003-04:00

I just updated my website
with this wonderful quartet:
Igor Stravinsky,
Regina Spektor,
Jack Kerouac
and Paul McCartney.

Check it out!

Today is the First Day of AUTUMN

2009-09-22T06:18:00.002-04:00

AUTUMN—overlooked my knitting
Dyes—Said he—have I
Could disparage a Flamingo
Show Me them—Said I
~Emily Dickinson

Today, Autumn begins.
My AUTUMN SHOW began on September 1st. It includes my portraits of the following people celebrating their Autumn events:

September 5, 1957: Jack Kerouac's most famous book, ON THE ROAD is published.

September 26, 1888: T.S. Eliot is born in St. Louis, Missouri.

September 20, 1962: Alfred Hitchcock's The Alfred Hitchcock Hour makes it's TV debut.

October 2, 1955: Alfred Hitchcock makes his TV debut with Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

October 1, 1957: Little Richard suddenly quits rock n' roll for religion.

October 8, 1962: Little Richard begins rock n' roll comeback tour in Britain.

October 11, 1884: Eleanor Roosevelt is born in New York City.

October 18, 1957: Paul McCartney first performs in John Lennon's band, The Quarrymen.

October 30, 1885: Ezra Pound is born in Hailey, Idaho.

My AUTUMN SHOW runs til October 31st.
Don't miss it!

Unlike the First Day of Autumn,
it won't be back next year.

It's September, time for the Autumn Show!

2009-09-02T07:04:00.001-04:00

Some poster designs for two upcoming shows

2009-08-27T09:13:00.002-04:00

Have you seen kslatts.com lately?

2009-07-08T09:33:00.002-04:00

I'm not saying you have to...

...but let's just say, you wanted to buy "something" Virginia Woolf

2009-06-04T12:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time
Now I'm coming back home
I've been away now
Oh how....

This will debut in
the JUNE Show...

CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

the 139th day of 2009

2009-05-19T05:44:00.003-04:00

"You gotta be kidding?"
Is it time for THIS already?!?!

"Yes. And no."
June is still two weeks away. But the newspaper requires a two-week prior deadline.

"Enjoy May while you may."

You say it's your Birthday!

2009-05-13T07:29:00.007-04:00

Stevland
Hardaway
Morris

...was born today in 1950.

This rendering of Stevie Wonder is not hanging in my May Show. No, it's hanging in Barb's house. She purchased it back in December when I was in the Four Artists show at Green Tree Gallery. It was a 20% sale and I had posted all the work for sale on this blog prior the gallery's 30% commission. Barb is a big fan of Stevie Wonder and I'm so pleased this piece is hers.

This rendering is a very early example of what I call a "photo-montage." A process where drawings and photographs are roughly assembled in Photoshop then printed on drawing paper. In some cases, much of the drawing and coloring occurs on this printed stock, in others, coloring embellishments are the only thing added. This piece is one that lands somewhere in between.

The ink portrait/caricature was rendered at least a year before this color piece was finished. I'm guessing around 2003 or 04. My website back then featured monthly birthdays and all the images were composed in ink. Each month had a "color theme" and the ink images took on that background color (similar to the rendering of Courtney Love shown below).

The dates and process for this piece were not documented as well as most of my work now, as I didn't have this blog back then (or at least didn't use it so). But my guess is this piece lands somewhere "in and abouts" Little Richard and Marilyn Monroe as they all use a similar process of existing "birthday month" images. Marilyn was my first to use a line under drawing printed from an image in Photoshop. Prior to her, I traced all line art images on a light table. Little Richard has the piano graphic added and Stevie pushed it further with the photos of the apples and the blue sky with clouds.

This was the beginning for what has become my signature approach for most of my portraits.

It was Saturday, April 11th

2009-04-15T07:25:00.005-04:00

A Day in a Life

Beatles For Sale
On today's schedule was a trip to the Country Cottage Framery. But first, I needed to stop at the post office to mail out a print to Colorado and 10 note cards to Missouri. As I was finishing up preparations, I got a phone call. It was from Jess at the Country Cottage Framery. Someone was interested in purchasing my original portrait of the Beatles in a piece I call "Norwegian Woods."

WOW! This was great news!

And later that day when I had finally made it to the framery, I met the proud new owner of my portrait, in person. We had a great chat. He had many encouraging and supportive things to say. He also pointed out he had brought something to be framed as well...

While My Guitar
Gently Weeps
Yes, I know, Jimi Hendrix did not write or play on this song but I have this Beatles theme going here with album and song titles, so please, bear with me.

...The piece, he had brought to be "re-framed" was my portrait of Jimi purchased back in December during the Country Cottage's 20% Holiday Sale!

So, it appears John, Paul, George and Ringo will be sharing a wall with Jimi!

Now, the reason I was at the framery was to get these two pieces framed for the FIGURATIVE ART SHOW, coming up in May.

Polythene Pam
I hadn't thought about any names for these pieces until this Beatles theme popped into my head this morning with the sale of "Norwegian Woods" (and the fact, this blog was being "composed in my head" all day long) -- it just seemed more and more appropriate to avoid the usual fine art name of "Untitled 1 and 2" and go with Mean Mister Mustard and Polythene Pam.

And actually, Pam here was already being considered in another Beatles themed collage. She was going to be the "big teaser" in a piece I was going base on the Lennon and McCartney tune, Day Tripper.

Mean Mister Mustard
You may have seen both of these pieces in my Life Drawing posts. But something may have struck you as "something different" about them. I created this "torn-look" in Photoshop to illustrate the look I gave these two drawings. I tore them from their larger 18 x 24 inch pages. As I often draw many sketches on one sheet, I wanted these removed. Jess, my framer, is going to "float" them on matte board when she frames them.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they COME TOGETHER!...

ART and TRIVIA For Saint Paddy's Day

2009-03-17T11:25:00.005-04:00

Today is St.Patrick's Day
and today according to the MARCH show...

March 17, 1905: Eleanor Roosevelt and
Franklin D. Roosevelt are married.

"What say we put a little touch of Irish whiskey in your tea, Ellie, eh?"

FOUR YEARS AGO today I was finishing up something.
Something "not GREEN at all." In fact, something "VERY RED." Curious?

It was home stretch for a piece I knick-named "RED EMILY."
I never photographed or scanned this piece in it's entirety when it was finished. What you're looking at is the "most finished" copy of the image I have. That is, outside of it's frame. I do have some pictures of those. One includes where it now hangs on a wall in a house somewhere in New York.

A wonderful librarian bought it!

Just something curious I found in my archives.

ENJOY!

The process...

2009-03-05T12:05:00.013-05:00

This image is featured on my website
for the month of March.
So, here's...
THE STORY behind the picture of POE

I wanted to do "another Poe"
My original "Poe" --the one titled "Edgar Allan Crow," that combined the author's portrait and a raven-- was well received. But I always wanted to take another shot at the troubled and mysterious Edgar Allan Poe. First, I had worked up a rough sketch of his portrait. I scanned that in and combined it in Photoshop with a photo of myself leaning against a church wall in Ireland. (I had my file of photos from an Ireland trip opened as I had just used one of a river for my Virginia Woolf portrait).

The photo was manipulated somewhat and re-proportioned to fit in the archway of the church to make it look more like a door. When my rough was finished, I printed it out and began drawing "on and into" it. I left a lot in the face to be drawn from scratch but allowed the transparancies created from the quick masking and layer effects used in Photoshop for this under drawing to stay "as is."

When it came to open space of the door, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. At one point I thought a woman's face filling the opening might work and began lightly sketching it in. But as I hadn't really planned it out, I started second guessing myself. And finally, just "scribbled it out." That scribbling became the smoke-like effect that now fills that void. It originally was very black on that side of Poe's face and body. "Coming out of the shadows" did have an appropriate look to it, however, in "fixing this mistake," I do like how the light grey-blue helps define that side of the portrait and centers the focal point to Poe's face.

A "happy accident" I guess you might call it. But I see as just a part of the process -- sometimes you don't know where something might take you.

You Say It's YOUR Birthday!

2009-02-25T08:05:00.003-05:00

TONIGHT AT BAND CAMP
When we do HONEY DON'T, I'll sing:

Rock on, George. One time for Ringo!
...and be thinking of ya on your BIRTHDAY anniversary!

Almost time for next show!

2009-02-24T08:43:00.002-05:00

CHALLENGE:
Designing a poster that didn't rely on images of those celebrating birthdays for my MARCH show.

SOLUTION:

"One good thing about music..." Bob Marley

2009-02-10T08:24:00.003-05:00

It's a little late for his birthday anniversary but my MARLEY cards were delivered yesterday!

slatts' FEBRUARY Show

2009-02-05T07:16:00.003-05:00

IF YOU'RE LOCAL...

THIS STARTS TODAY!

Bob Marley
b. February 6, 1945
d. May 11, 1981
Jamaican musician, singer-songwriter and Rastafarian.
"My first colored pencil on batik was of this "first" in the world of reggae music. His smile looking back at me in February 2006, encouraged me to "go ahead! try it, mon!"

February 9, 1964
The Beatles
made their first appearance on
the Ed Sullivan Show to a
television audience of 73 million people.

February 12
Charles Darwin 1809
Abraham Lincoln 1809
Christina Ricci 1980

February 12, 1967
Keith Richards
(with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful)
become the first of “the famous rock stars
busted for drugs.”

February 13, 1945
Kurt Vonnegut
survives the Allied firebombing of
Dresden, Germany.
This will become the inspiration
for his best-selling novel:
Slaughterhouse Five

February 22
George Washington 1732
Drew Barrymore 1975

February 23, 1956
Marilyn Monroe
becomes the legal name for
Norma Jeane Mortenson.

George Harrison
b. February 25, 1943
d. November 29, 2001
English rock guitarist, singer-songwriter
lead guitarist in The Beatles.
“The “Quiet Beatle” was never really quiet—
though sometimes silenced—his contributions
are all crystal clear.”

"I don't mind living in a man's world..." Marilyn Monroe

2009-01-29T09:23:00.005-05:00

IN THE DEPARTMENT OF
NOTE CARDS:
...a new design

Marilyn
A detail from my "RED TRUCK" piece --the one with her and Elvis-- and a quote that fits Marilyn so well....

"February's MY Birthday, too!" coffee mug by slatts

2009-01-22T09:41:00.004-05:00

A NEW mug just
for FEBRUARY....

2009-01-21T11:47:00.003-05:00

HAPPY Birthday,
Mark Martin!

"I'm not the race car driver!"

2009-01-20T08:52:00.002-05:00

POPEYE is Public Domain?

According to: http://www.wpclipart.com/index.html

I think of things like Stephen Foster songs as public domain. 'Guess I never figured we see Popeye there.

Hey, it's MLK Day!

2009-01-19T16:20:00.005-05:00

It's Martin Luther King, Jr. (observed) Day, today.

It's also Edgar Allan Poe's 200th Birthday anniversary.

On Collage 2008

2008-03-10T11:45:00.000-04:00

Collage, to me: drawing meets sculpture.

My drawings involve assembling pieces --sketches, photographs, originals-- on a light table or in PhotoShop. The end result: a seamless combination of those pieces cemented smoothly with my pencil work.

Inspiration often comes from song lyrics. "High Water" gave me my main characters: art for Charles Darwin and Bob Dylan existed from prior pieces. George Lewis was created for the first time. My mind positioned many of the elements roughly. The tower. The water. And Highway Five. The actual building of the sculpture --the collage-- altered some things by their size, shape and space, both negative and positive. And there were a few "positive (happy) accidents".

"In My Room (Again)", collage became a medium choice, such as oils or acrylics. I combined two existing images --Emily Dickinson and John Lennon-- the latter in the original place of the former. I altered proportions of the elements and re-illustrated and re-colored the pieces but most of the work involved determining what elements would rest on what layers.

My most recent collage, "Keith Without S", had no plan. I had a rough sketch of the famous guitarist's head, a photo of a model playing an electric guitar and a high-contrast image of a church from my hometown. I labored extensively on rendering the face to find that moment I wanted to capture. I added more "found objects" than to any prior work. I cut paper. I removed, re-glued, re-rendered. There was no plan. Only results.

Collage has led me down three avenues. One: a map or blueprint in hand. Two: impulse and intuition. Three: somewhere in between. Illustration and drawing only allow "hands-on" with pen or pencil. In collage, my hands manipulate the surface and structure, with tears and cuts and pieces removed and re-glued --a drawing as sculpture.

jack kerouac sketch

2008-03-05T06:46:00.002-05:00

Started as a distorted "essence of the person" rendering from four sources. Last night I tore the pieces up and re assembled as shown. Added some blue pencil.

On Bob Marley's birthday anniversary...

2008-02-06T22:20:00.000-05:00

Here's the story of a piece I titled simply: "MARLEY!"

On the 30th of January in 2006, I inked this portrait of Bob Marley on stretched muslin canvas.

On the 18th of February, I discovered the ink was not "water-proof" to the chemical make-up of the batik dyes we were using. A couple of the other pieces I colored that day were "ruined." The ink streaks were not workable at all. "MARLEY!" was one of the "lucky ones."

The usual process in batik painting is to iron out as much of the wax as possible then have the piece dry-cleaned. I was not particularly happy with the results of my ink accident but I figured I could always attempt to re-ink after it was dry-cleaned.

However, I found the ironing process had left the canvas with a fairly even coat of wax in the weave of the muslin. The canvas was "stiff" like a piece of heavy water color paper. I started drawing on it with colored pencil. I liked how bright some of the pencil pigment showed up on this "waxed paper." Some colors didn't work as well or had no effect at all. And some of the pencil lines really sat "on top" the surface. I couldn't blend as easily as I use to when working with paper. But I figured, what did I have to lose? If it sucked, I would just bring it to the dry cleaners as I had planned anyway. The pencil would probably be removed as well.

This piece had me consumed! I pretty much finished it in one sitting on the 20th of February.

I had it framed like a traditional drawing. On the 10th of March it was accepted in in the Annual Northeastern Fine Art Juried Show at Green Trees Gallery in Northfield, MA.

When books inspire art...

2008-01-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

the beatles met elvis
I read this passage where the Beatles met Elvis in 1965 in L.A. His house was "like a cheesy lounge." The scene was awkward. The Beatles just sat around and said nothing while Elvis flipped channels on a big wall-sized TV.

Elvis finally said he was going to bed if "they were just going to sit around and stare at him."

He finally suggested they play some music. They did. And drank a lot.

Lennon started putting on a fake French accent and poking fun at Elvis.

When they left, John said "Zanks for zee museek! And Long Live the KING!"

This PhotoShop collage was inspired by that passage.

(click to embiggen)

It's ELVIS MONTH on kevinslattery.com!

It's ELVIS month on kevinslattery.com!

2008-01-21T22:50:00.000-05:00

Check out "Elvis Month" on kevinslattery.com...

Coffee is the THINK drink, right?

2007-12-07T12:27:00.001-05:00

I started a CafePress shop. And I found their coffee mugs to be only "decent quality" product they make. (Their T-shirts suck! Unless you like $20. rags with your fav images on them in three months)

So, I'm sticking with coffee mugs (and a couple of book bags).

At first, I just had my paintings and illustrations proportionally printed on them. But then I discovered their wrap-around template. Now, I've been going nutty with creating new designs for each mug. It's been a blast!

Check these out:

http://www.cafepress.com/slatts_shop

Keith without an S

2007-11-18T22:09:00.000-05:00

A "cover" of a Rolling Stone

2007-11-17T11:47:00.000-05:00

Here's "my take" on the original Rolling Stone, Keith Richards.

Here's where this piece was at sometime around 1:30 a.m., the "day-after" my birthday.

This has actually been some time in the making. Not that it's taken long to create. It's just that it started way back in the early part of this year as a PhotoShop digital-montage. Made up of a photo of a friend who posed for my original portrait of Buddy Holly. He posed a number of images in a suit and tie holding his red Strat and those were the images that became Buddy. In this collection of images, he included a couple wearing a white T-shirt. I decided to use these for "the body" of Keith Richards. (My model was also born in Buddy Holly's birthplace, Lubbock, TX. He's a guitarist and a big fan of both Buddy and Keith Richards -- so, he was quite excited to get "double-duty" out of his poses!)

The other images in this piece are of the "brick wall" in my house (used in my Brick Window Series") and the Immaculate Conception Church of Easthampton, MA.

You can follow a more step-by-step update on my Live-Journal blog but I will also follow up her with in-progress steps now and again.

The capture of the collage

2007-11-05T06:10:00.000-05:00

The difficult part in working in this medium of "collage" is the capture. How does one capture something photographically when the piece is now 3-dimensional?

Rob Caswell at Skylake Studios in Easthampton, MA is my answer. We discussed what I'd like to see in the way of what angle the light should hit the pieces and he pulled it off!

(click images to see the proof)

Emily and Lennon: the trivial points

2007-10-26T06:41:00.000-04:00

My latest piece contains the subjects Emily Dickinson and John Lennon. But this is not the first time I've combined these two. A very early piece titled: Not a Girl Who Misses Much was the first meeting of these two.

The piece has always been nicknamed "Red Em" -- for obvious reasons. This was the first piece of artwork I sold in a gallery.

As you can see from the framed art, there's more to the image than is shown in the close-up. Being such an early piece, I didn't have the image capture processes in place that I do now. It was too large to fit on my scanner bed. And I didn't own a digital camera when it was completed (prior to being framed).

And because of this, these are the only two images that exist.

Dylan paints me a picture...

2007-10-16T23:37:00.000-04:00

I was driving home from work yesterday listening to Dylan's "Tombstone Blues" on my iShuffle. I replayed it a number of times. This image came to me and I wanted to get the words right. I wanted to "do this piece" after supper last night. Just jump into. But I ran out of time. So, I thought I would do a digital collage to work from. But that didn't happen either.

I made time for it to happen tonight....

Emily goes digitally-WONDERful!

2007-10-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

Mark Martin...the Cartoonist, NOT the race car driver has a wonderful website: www.markmartin.net with artwork, a blog and "draw-with-me's"...His latest "Draw-With-Me" is all about "super-heroes" and some collector cards or whatever...

Here's who I entered:

http://www.markmartin.net/cdwm/true/believer.html

Emily Dickinson and John Lennon in "The Room"

2007-10-15T08:02:00.000-04:00

LAST NIGHT...after watching The Queen, I returned to the "Queen and King" in progress... I really wanted some closure on my most recent collage of Emily and Lennon. So, I started and completed the assemblage part. I tried a few new techniques in the use of tape and glue adhesives. I also used the the double-sided tape with a foam thickness to build up a whole area. Actually, a whole image. Emily has "three-dimensionality" in this composition. I was quite pleased with the results. This morning, I picked up some colored pencils and started adding more color to this piece. I continued with this process this evening...

Here is the finished piece... (click the image to view it larger)

You can see quite clearly in the larger version the "natural shadows" cast by the light hitting the raised pieces....

...In this image, you can see the "foam thickness" that is raising Emily further from the paper surface than John and the background...

...The double-sided tape with the foam thickness is placed all around the image close to the edges. Then further bridging is done horizontally and vertically to give support. But it's similar to a thin plywood floor placed over joists--there's still a lot of flexibility and "bounce" in some areas...

...This requires a very delicate approach to any further coloring. I like this limitation. It forces me to work areas slowly. And the pencil can sometimes be grainy. This is cool....

...the "logical approach" here would be to complete all coloring before assemblage. And really, that was my intent. I felt the coloring was complete -- last night. But seeing it all assembled on my drawing board this morning, it just called out for "more"....

...Part of that is due to it's size. All the images in the collage were based on existing images. The majority of it is based on my "winter piece" of my "Emily Dickinson: Four Seasons Series". And here you can see how much larger it is than the original. (click on image for larger view.)...

...being so much larger just asks for more fleshing out of the facial features and such....

Well, another one completed (or nearly so), I'm looking forward to the next but it's late so it'll have to wait....

A little about Lennon....

2007-10-09T23:07:00.000-04:00

On this, October 9th, Lennon's birthday, I thought it appropriate to post this image of one of my earliest renderings of John. There actually were a number of others done during my high school years including a couple of scratchboard drawings. But these have been lost or stolen over the years. And so this oil painting done in August 1973 is "the oldest."

In honor of BANNED BOOKS Week

2007-10-01T22:53:00.000-04:00

Here's a piece I created inspired by the "banned book":
Slaughterhouse Five

New art in progress

2007-09-29T23:30:00.000-04:00

ART TRIVIA:
This is the second time Lennon and Dickinson have shown up together in one of my portraits. The last time they also had "words as a graphic element." It was also a line from one of Emily's poems.

This one of John's is included as well....

See the full image HERE

ALL about Emily...

2007-09-29T19:27:00.000-04:00

Here's a detail of my most recent work-in-progress. Emily Dickinson is easily one of my favorite models. Her image is in at least seven pieces I've rendered since 2001.

This is Emily's debut as "Blue Em" in I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY

From "blue to red" in Not A Girl Who Misses Much

Emily with Joyce Carol Oates and Virginia Wolfe in Three Women

The "Four Seasons" of Emily...
SPRING

SUMMER

FALL

WINTER

She's a painting on the wall in "Party '64"

See this new piece "in-progress" HERE