I returned home inspired to reboot my old comic book, since I found that there was a good amount of enthusiasm for it at the horror convention, and because Bethalynne has always been trying to encourage me to get back on it.

I had abandoned the project a long time ago, not because I did not love doing it, but because it seemed the web didn’t like it much. It took no longer caring, for me to go and work on the site, and when I did I found that my “buy now” button had been broken since its very first launch… which makes it very hard to judge the enthusiasm of others on sales.

So, I updated very little… moved some boxes and bubbles around for better flow and easier reading… got rid of all the ads and extra credits inside the covers… prettied up the front cover just a touch, and everything else is pretty much the same. Crazy how ahead of its time it must have been that now it feels almost current.

Anyway, if you would like to read the comic, you can do so here: http://someghoulswanderbymistake.com/horrorcomic/

I have also added the new paintings to my store (page 9 has most of them, you can scroll back to see the others if you are interested).

Those links are here:

http://www.mykeamend.com/new/tagged/voodoo/

http://www.mykeamend.com/new/tagged/kitteh/

http://www.mykeamend.com/new/tagged/skerl/

We’ve done a number of shows at his location, and plan to do quite a few more. The man is great to the artists who show there, and puts on an incredible show each weekend: Bands, hors d’oeuvres, drinks, art, all under one roof… at his own expense most times, because the man loves the arts.

… but it could be much, much better, with a little capital to spend on advertising, future shows, and expansion.

No, this is not one of those things where you are asked to give or pledge money. All you need to do is “Vote”, and the winner for this week gets $5000 from Startgarden to put toward their business.

We Artists would like that to be Ronnie’s business: Ice Cream Gallery and Toys.

It takes only seconds to click “Endorse” (and at no cost). If his idea is chosen by Startgarden, they’ll foot the bill for expanding/growing his business (another great one of a kind gallery to show at)

The link is here – and if you want to be extra helpful you can also drop a kind comment or some supporting words… but just clicking “Endorse this Idea” would be awesome of you :)

Just follow this link: http://startgarden.com/ideas/detail/ice-cream-gallery-grill

If you have ten seconds to spare, and are either an arts supporter, or an artist … or if you just want to do a nice thing, that costs nothing to do – this is for you:

Even if you are not from around here, you can still benefit, since endorsing this idea raises the bar and might inspire somewhere near you to do the same:

A friend of mine has a chance to make a one of a kind art gallery that sells and shows the sort of art that does not get much exposure here in the midwest: Everything that falls under pop surrealism, lowbrow, subcultural, steampunk, gothic, urban, horror, risque, and pretty much everything and anything interesting.

The gallery also sells collectibles in the form of toys, books, comic books, art books, sculptures, figurines, stickers, tee-shirts, and fine art prints – plus they have live music on a regular basis on weekends with a cash bar.

If enough people go to the StartGarden page, and click “Endorse this idea”, Startgarden will give him $5,000 toward adding homemade ice cream/malteds/shakes and other goodies to the bill. This will also allow him to further promote the gallery, and to host even bigger events. It takes seconds – no account creation – no money involved, your endorsement is a vote for bigger and better things in the art world.

For the majority of my friends, I will say this: Imagine being able to see Voltaire here, or Frenchy and the Punk. Imagine whole steampunk exhibits or whole gothic exhibits, and/or a mix of the two.

Would you like to see some live bands, sip drinks, eat snacks, and browse art from local, national, and international artists? There have already been several events like that you may have missed… and there will be more

… hopefully with ice cream.

Follow the link below, and click “I endorse this idea”.

http://startgarden.com/ideas/detail/ice-cream-gallery-toys

The event page is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/529928347047019 , but you can read the full description below. I still recommend adding yourself to the facebook event page to be in the know for new updates and additions.

Also, the pen and ink I did this flier from (and that I will be doing one of my paintings from, is available in my store, HERE.

Join us Saturday Night, February 16th – At Ice Cream Gallery and Toys In Grand Rapids, Michigan for Valentine’s Day Weekend Tiki Party, hosting a broad sampling of American Pop Surrealists, Pop Artists, and Lowbrow artists.

From sculptors to engravers to illustrators to painters and more – drawing from many styles and many genres… dark and brooding to light and whimsical – making for a very unique and interesting Tiki-Themed show at one of Grand Rapid’s newest and most interesting art venues.

Refreshments, snacks, dancing, live music, and art will be served – visit our facebook page for updates and more info.

https://www.facebook.com/IceCreamGalleryAndToys

Artists:

James B Hunt (Visionary Lowbrow): http://nxoeed.tumblr.com/
Chad Savage (Dark Artist Extraordinaire): http://chadsavage.com/
Kirbi Fagan (Fine-art Illustrator): http://kirbiillustrations.com/
Myke Amend (Dreamscapes in Paint and Engraving): http://mykeamend.com/
Bethalynne Bajema (Spooky and Ethereal Cheesecake): http://www.bajema.com/
Anthony Carpenter (Retro Chic and Pulp Genius): http://carpenterart.tripod.com/
Roger Scholz (Wicked Illustration): http://www.facebook.com/illustrator.scholz
Liz Amend (Fantastic and Otherworldly Sculpture): http://www.lizamend.com/
Alexandra Johnson (Sugar-Sweet Oils and Watercolors): http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alexandra-Johnson-Art/309152012432262
Kate Jauw (Magickal and Spiritual Art): http://www.facebook.com/pages/Henriott/123488321123494
Kit Kat Von Bitch (extreme pin-striping, lowbrow, and signage): http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kit-Kat-LOW-BROW-ART/115597481823253
Daniel Sarhad (Lowbrow Mad Scientist): http://www.facebook.com/MadScienceArtsGR

I’ve been in the middle of another major site overhaul for starters, so you might see some things shift here or there even as you browse.

The store will continue to work as usual, and will continue to carry many, many art prints, art originals, and other things – but I am working hard to get the gallery filled with the 100-some images I have available, in order to make it much easier to see what types and sizes of prints are available for each artwork all in one place… because I realize it can be rather overwhelming to sift through 400 items and feel you are miking the best choice.

I’ve removed eyesores like the facebook feed and the twitter feed, because they took up a lot of space – and it was silly to have them, since you are already here, and most posts over there are about things that are available here.

I’ve also removed them because, well, I am going to use them both a lot less often. Twitter really just seems like a lot of people talking into the wind to imaginary friends, Tumblr and Pinterest seem to be the sport of sharing as many images as possible as quickly as possible, Livejournal is filled with Russian spambots where people once were, and Facebook, since they started promoted posts – well, for 800-some people I see a little “10 people saw this post” at the bottom “insights”, and it all seems pretty pointless.

… as does the internet in general, if all it is to be is a billion people slaving away at sharing things quickly, forgetting moments later for the next sharable thing… not visiting sites, or reading articles, just “liking” them and sharing.

… it isn’t exciting anymore; It isn’t even pleasurable or relaxing anymore – just mind-numbing addictive boredom and a day filled with forgettable moments… click – share – click – share – comment – click – share…

Though I spent a lot of time building up readership on facebook – as have many others with their pages: the best solution seems to be if everyone were to go and start that again elsewhere. I’ll only be there, in the sense that my posts from here will feed into my “fan page”… at least until they make that a paid service too.

On the up-side, this has forced me to get back to what I shouldn’t have stopped doing: updating right here – like I did years ago, finding a few things that well-worth blogging about and putting some effort into sharing as articles and reviews worth typing about, rather than all sorts of things “sort-of ” worth sharing at the click of a button.

I don’t have a mailing list in place yet, one of a hundred things on the slate for these next few days… but if you have a decent browser – there is an rss button at the top.

Please check back often; Aside from posting new artworks and books and such things here, and special offers, I plan to return to posting about music, the art of others, event reviews, and whatever else fits well in this space.

If you came here looking for special offers, well, there are many new prints being added in the process of building the gallery, and many products being marked down until the end of December.

If you would like to see those specials, you can now find many of the newest deals through the gallery.

I do have many more appearances in mind this coming year, to be announced – and my mind is so fuzzy on the older ones, so I’ll add them as they come to me.

I’ll also update a lot of this with proper links gradually over the coming weeks.

Current/Upcoming:

“The Low Life” at Ice Cream Gallery and Toys in Grand Rapids, MI. Ongoing.

“Steampunk Symposium“ at the Crowne Plaza Cincinnati North in Cincinnati, OH. April 26th through 28th, 2013.

Past Appearances:

“Urban Lights Holiday Market“ at Ice Cream Gallery and Toys in Grand Rapids, MI. December 8th 2012 from 12PM to 9PM.

2012 World Steam Expo in Dearborne MI (Vending)

2012 Steampunk Symposium in Cincinnati, Ohio (Guest, Exhibitor, Vendor, and Panelist)

“Steampunk Soiree” at the Revolving Museum in Lowell, MA Feb 7th through March 3rd 2012

Mobilus in Mobili at Wooster Social Club in Soho NY (Exhibitor : filming of steampunk NY Ink Episode)

Artprize 2011 – (Guest and Exhibitor) at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids MI.

Maker Faire 2011 Detroit (Guest and Exhibitor)

2011 World Steam Expo (Guest, Exhibitor, Panelist)

Steampunk Form and Function at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham, MA (Exhibitor)

Artprize 2010 (Exhibitor)

Lift Off! at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra CA, January 9, 2010 – February 1, 2010 (Exhibitor)

Horrorfind Weekend 2006 (Exhibitor)

Pittsburgh Comicon 2006 (Vendor/Artist)

Sadly, things didn’t go very right at all for us there, but while it was still on my mind, before whatever hormones or other influences faded, I decided I should go ahead with this one… a little, little project for little one’s… and adults too.

I had several childrens books in my head – this one is more of a silly bedtime limericky thinger, and of course a coloring book… fun for people of any age or ability to color in so it is not just for kids.

It was a headache to edit… you wouldn’t believe how many of the make believe words out there aren’t make-believe anymore, and have rather non-kid-friendly meanings.

Dr. Seuss was fortunate the internet didn’t exist in his time… except that the experience was good for a good laugh or two.

Anway… if you click on the image, and then click on the green down arrow or the magnifying glass (whichever you get), you can scroll across and preview and read the entire thing.

Of course if you would like to *buy* it, you can do that too… and they are pretty inexpensive: Here

Of course this happened on the day before we were to launch these, so I do not have access to her photographic skills for these boards. Also, we are trying to sell some of these, or some of anything in order to cover prescription and aftercare costs once she is released – as well as to keep me in gas and road food for hospital visits.

Anyway, about the boards:

These boards are designed by Bethalynne Bajema, with woodwork by Myke Amend (me).

The boards measure 15×18?, are made of thick 3/4 inch oak, stained a deep red cherry, and are coated in varnish and then waxed for an easy gliding of the planchette.

Edges are ornately routed for an added decorative touch, and some of these have gold leafed edges as well.

There are only 6 available in each edition – each are sealed to the buyer’s specifications, and can be decorated with added touches. Each are also hand-signed, numbered, and dated on the back by both artists.

Each planchette (optional) is uniquely made by Myke Amend, cut from oak, and stained deep red cherry, accented with hand-shaped brass, and gold leaf – no two planchettes are alike. I am letting the saw guide me for each one, and I also have to pick and shape pieces of brass from my found brass box – so each planchette will be designed to fit the buyer and/or the board (if a board is purchased with the planchettes… planchettes can be bought on their own).

All of these are available here: http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/?ptag=planchette

I realize that not everyone has money for boards of these quality on short notice – so of course these are not the only things I am raising funds with. Anything bought from my store will help us out.

Dead Teddy Bear Picnic limited edition Spirit Board

Grandville Spirit Board

Temptation Spirit Board

Hand-Made Planchette by Myke Amend

All of these are available here: http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/?ptag=planchette

These are drawings I did on the back of the post cards I made available for a brief time a few weeks ago. Since I am filling another coloring book and using these characters elsewhere, I figured this was a good way to make original art available cheapish while somewhat covering my hours of work.

Now I am adding these drawings to the grab bags (Available Here) for Halloween, which will ship October 22nd, and will only be available until October 10th. They are a great way to get an assortment of prints along with these pigment ink drawings, for really cheap considering all that comes in them.

The image is one of a little girl drawing out her surroundings with a magickal piece of chalk… floating fish, airships, men riding sharks, and geometric stars like snowflakes are some of the major scene elements, but like always: there are lots of things hidden within ice formations and other elements.

Though it is incredibly cartoony (from a cartoony sketch that is no surprise), and way more colorful than I tend to do things, I rather like it… enough so that I wish I could better communicate the look online, but you know how web graphics go: never nearly as much can be seen or felt as looking at the original painting, or at least the prints which look dead-on the original painting thanks to giclee printing technology.

And, because of the vivid coloring in this one, and because of my love for metallic prints, especially where blues and reds are concerned, I decided that I wanted to offer something more than just giclees and the original painting on my site. In addition, I am offering 25 metallic full-size (18″ x 12″) printings of this, hand signed and dated.

You can view all of these items in my store, and here is a page that shows only prints of this image.

A view of the painting and details of the painting below.

Edge Of Dreams Painting and Details

We had a great time; Aloyisius and his team put on one extraordinary event, and did one seriously good job of keeping everything organized and running splendidly. We would *certainly* love to come back next year to see the next and bigger version of this convention. Many triumphs to expand upon, and, as far as I can see… no mistakes to learn from and that is an incredible feat for a first convention.

I had several panels there, and I hope that people enjoyed them as much as I did… even the second one wherein “hungry” influenced my conversation and concentration a bit more than I would have liked it to have. I’ll learn from this and avoid early morning panels in the future if I can at all… but I did somehow manage to fill a whole hour, and keep people there and asking questions.

I had a tall stage, a big screen, and a digital projector… which I of course did not use. I suppose I like things to feel smaller and more intimate- and have always felt a bit out of place on a stage doing anything other than karaoke-ing 80s and 90′s post-punk tunes.

Outside of the panels, we spent most of the days at our tables, selling art prints and speaking with people – and I experimented by bring many large giclee prints on heavyweight fine art rag paper. I came up with this idea so I could add an alternative above our less-expensive and convention-priced prints, and below that of the giclees on canvas and original paintings/engravings.

In that, I learned pretty much what we had established before: To stick to the $5 through $30 range items. I did however establish that it is not the thought of carrying around some huge-sized canvas print that hinders sales there – but that price, is purely the reason.

People at sci-fi/fantasy/subcultural conventions, myself included, are primarily looking for clothing, accessories, gizmos, trinkets and such… and when it comes to art, they are looking for something more in the souvenir range… perhaps as a keepsake reminder of the convention, to have something that is signed, or simply to show some support for the artists they like.

I’d have to say my first thought whenever I arrive at any convention, is that if I make X amount of dollars, I am going to buy myself a cool vest, a nice pair of boots, a well-made pair of gloves, a new shirt, etc… why should other attendees feel any differently?

It is because of this that I had a thought: Next convention, I will focus more on the smaller prints, and otherwise I will bring the originals for the devoted buyers, and I will be bringing some new things as well… hand-crafted works in wood and brass, mechanical or just practical/handy/decorative… and I’ve got a lot of things in mind, all of which I am excited about having the opportunity to show and offer. I’ll have more on that when I have made them… for right now, it is a bit of a secret.

So, I return home with a great amount of fond memories of the convention, and souvenirs in the form of prints – special made for this convention. Each are rather large, printed on 390 GSM (super heavyweight) rag paper in fine pigment inks. Each are signed, and dated “Steampunk Symposium 2012″. These are *all* rather rare, one of a kind for their size… They are 13 inches by up to 24 inches. Most average about 13×20 inches, and are all beautiful and sturdy reproductions on my work.

Our table at Steampunk Symposium 2012

I *thought* about offering them all as a set… and if you make an offer before any of them sell, I would be more than happy to offer them that way), otherwise: I’ll be putting them up for sale over the next few hours. There are some available now, and by morning I’ll have them all up and available, in their own category here:

http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/unique-prints/

There is only one of each, so if you see one you like, this is a good time, the only time to grab it.

So, what is coming up? Well, Jfax in June (Grand Rapids), In October we’ll be at Kokomo-Kon in Kokomo Indiana, and are hoping to be a part of Utopiacon in Cincinnati the week after. We’ll be trying to fill in many more spots as we can, hopefully some more guest spots and panels, but we’ll be looking at conventions to just vend at as well… maybe a few to simply enjoy attending. Please watch this space, and I’ll try to be much better about announcing our future appearances in the future.

This is one of my three final commissions for this year, meaning I have two more to go before this series is done and I can finally start lay-out for the “Airships and Tentacles” book.

These have been rather slow-coming – I’ve been chomping off bits of my work list, and well, between home repair, prepping for coming conventions, keeping food on the table (web/programming work), shipping, and *still* catching up on kickstarter stuff… it all feels like ‘nibbling’, though I haven’t slowed down or stopped in nearly a year.

Anyway, I painted this one at 18×12 inches on Oak panel… you can see a few details below, but certainly not all of them. As per usual… tiny, tiny brush strokes and figures about the size of a grain of rice…

I have it imaged at 600DPI, to ensure that these details show as well as the original in printed form, and those prints are now available HERE.

There are only 10 available, they are printed on canvas at the exact same size as the original painting. As an early buyer incentive, the first two to sell are available for only $190; They’ll go back up after those two have sold.

The giveaway, as well as some added related features over the coming weeks, are at the magazine web site here: http://unusualtimes.net/announcing-the-myke-amend-artist-box/

A coloring page – something to confuse the little ones in a good way, and promote a bit of thinking outside of the box, while introducing them to some elements of classic artworks as well.

(DOWNLOAD HERE)

Enjoy.

- Myke

Though I have been rather up to my neck in getting out the rewards for the Infernal Device Kickstarter (which when done I plan to celebrate by logging all the ins and outs of the experience into a seriously detailed tutorial), I really hate to pass up good opportunities for promotion, especially when it involves interesting new challenges.

So, in between bonding prints to wooden constructs, waiting for layers of decoupage glue to dry, refining screens for printing, and wrestling with packages, I’ve been hopping into the basement workshop and doing some work on this wooden box they sent me – the box and contents to be given away by Hendricks Gin when done, through their fascinating newsletter and blog at Unusual Times.

My plan, as with all things I do, is to make an heirloom quality and long-lasting piece, so I felt I should do a bit of added reinforcement to the original box with some fine bits of oak, birch, mahogany, maple, and/or cherry, which are the sorts of wood I prefer to make my constructs of and paint my paintings onto.

The wooden box, straight out of the package

The very first step, of course, was to remove the box from the package. There was a wonderful promotional book from Hendrick’s Gin in there as well, but Insects and Angels Author and Editor Bethalynne Bajema so-loved the little book and all the artwork within, that well… she was still thumbing through the book, and I might have lost a finger if I tried to reclaim it. Anyway.. the box, above.

Basic Box opened

Another shot of the box, it’s insides just the perfect size for a number of unique 8.5×11 printings of some of my select artworks.

I plan to fill this box with:

1) At least 6 hand-signed fine art prints on a special paper and of a special size to make them one of a kind.
2) A Magickal Bag of Holding
3) A polar bear
4) A bunch of Arctic Salmon for the polar bear
5) Bethalynne says that Magickal Bags of Holding are not available anywhere around here, and are quite likely mythical.
6) An original painting, as the inside top of the box, which fits snugly but can be removed and framed.
7) Tacos! Everyone loves tacos!
8) Apparently the above is also a violation of postal code.
9) Some sort of sea monster… though a rather tiny one, made of clay and hand-painted.
10) I don’t know yet… it seems like a lot so far, so I’ll have to see what else the box can hold…. maybe some stickers and patches.

Stage One: Cut a piece of oak to serve as a sturdy top to the box.

The first thing I did was to cut some pieces of oak – two for the insides of the box (one to reinforce the bottom, one to be painted and inserted into the box later), one to make for a hard and sturdy plate for top of the box.

Box Top

Panel for Painting

panel for the bottom of box insert

Work Space: YeGads!! …

Ground Zero - dust, wheels, pulleys, cogs, a half-repaired bandsaw, and more dust

brass bits, metal fittings, brass switchplates, knobs, more pulleys...

Ground Zero 3 - saved bits of cherry, walnut, heartwood pine, oak, and mahogany. I use every little bit of wood, down to tooth-pick-sized bits, for everything from furniture, boxes, painting, down to using the smallest bits for fine details and decorative touches.

Ground Zero 4 - animatronic bat machine - in pieces and on hold for a little while more.

Above 4 photos: Ground Zero… I have been working from one thing into another for way too long. The workshop is piled in bits of brass and unsorted wood… and I am pretty sure there are some clamps and other important tools under there somewhere. I should clean up beforehand to make all of this go easier…

… ohhh… maybe after one more cut.

Balls! ... made of cherry, flattened on the tops, drilled, and dowels glued into them.

Holes drilled for the "feet" of the box.

Feet Attached - Outdoor quality wood glue on each dowel, pushed into snug holes in the bottom of the box.

Box, Standing, feet attached

Clamps - not the best for the job. I have lots of ones perfect for ths task... which I am sure I will find when I clean the basement.

Stained - top view - a mixture of red cherry and deep mahogany

Stained-bottom view

Varnished - partially... many more steps to go.

A thin coat of poly completes the night’s work. Tomorrow I’ll sand this down with fine paper, varnish it again, wait another day, sand it down with steel wool, varnish again, wait another day, sand with steel wool again, wax, buff, wax, buff, wax, and buff… until the box is looking very nice.

During that time, I’ll also be working on the painting to go int this box, 3 other painting commissions, shipping, and kickstarter rewards… the good thing about all these projects, is that they each have steps that involve waiting for things to dry or to set… the trick is managing that time so there is always something to do on the next while waiting on the other.

I began by making it 16×20 at 400 DPI, and then took to smoothing out all of my pencil grainy-ness. I chose this size, because I like my works to be high resolution, and my prints to be perfect – I also always consider that I might finish a piece, and then wish I had made it available much bigger.

The downside to working digital for me, is that can I zoom in to where I can see the individual pixels when it comes to detail… I begin just doing this for one part, then realize that the entirety of the work now needs to be in this ultra-high resolution – and set off on a journey of exploring a miles-square map of pixels for.. as long as it takes… in this case, over 300 hours I really did not have to spare. I think I spent nearly two weeks planning on being done “tomorrow”.

It was certainly a way to indulge though – as an artist these days, I don’t always get the chance to put so much work into one piece – though I do put a tremendous amount of work into every one comparatively.

From pencil sketch, to over 2 gigs of file size, hundreds of layers of painted elements, plus all the modification layers for overlay, lightening, darkening, color, multiplication, saturation, etcetera…

About a day or two in, I decided it would be a great idea to actually log the process for this one… and I saved a lot of progress pics.  Below, you can actually see the details of the finished piece. One thing with all of my paintings and other images: Web resolution will never let you see how packed with detail every inch is, or all of the interesting scenes, items, and mini-artworks semi-hidden throughout the painting.

Below that, I’ve added my progress pics – for people who are interested by such things.

Oh… if you would like to buy printings of this: There are giclees available in my store – There are also poster prints and photographic prints available at our Redbubble shop – Also in my DeviantArt account.

Image and details:

Progress Pics:

A rather rough sketch… these were quickies done for $25 a pop for bus fare a year or so back. The paper type really did not allow for erasing, so they were one-shot deals. I liked the concept and base layout enough, I thought I would do some digital work on it to make it print-ready.

A lot of steps went by before I realized it was going to be a much bigger project than I planned. It was the point where I was fleshing out this airship where I decided some screen caps would be good. I had started on the girl, switched to the airship, cut my pencil work out to its own layer, and placed other airships where I wanted them, as placeholders for the sake of layout.

I blacked out the girl for this stage, I didn’t want its pencily quality drawing my focus from the background I was working on.

head/face. This part took all of my night – so not much else has changed.

boots and leggy things… I put a lot of base work into this, then decided I would need to enlarge the feet, and widen and lengthen the lower legs. I write notes to myself whenever there is something important I want to hit first thing the next day… you’ll see these notes in other screen caps below.

The very beginnings of the holster and belt… I would later go in further, and further, sharpening up these details, then making details within these details… and sharpening those up. Oh, you can also see the base/beginning brushings of her stripey-pants.

… and done.

I’ve been having a rather not so spectacular month – with lots of things I need to catch up on, and sickness, fatigue, and finances getting in the way at every turn it seems. Christmas season is always terrible on artists, especially us for some reason – and we hoped to be on top of it this year by finally offering calendars and greeting cards… all we ended up doing was using a lot of valuable time laying these things out – and though I closed down most of my store to get people to shop over there, I think all I have done is to cut ourselves further out of holiday sales.

When there is nothing else I can do, I paint – and this one is the product of a few multi-day – never leaving my table except for restroom breaks – sessions.

The original, since it is already made, can ship immediately, but the giclees cannot ship before the 20th… making them scary last minute gifts, especially with all the last minute and overdue shipping I need to catch up on.

If this painting sells, I will be super happy, and able to catch up on many things, I’ll even be able to visit family for the Holidays – which would be super-awesome.

If it doesn’t sell by then, well, I’ll mark the thing back up to $2400 or more, and just count on it to sell when it sells.

Available as a giclee here: http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/all-products/the-mighty-bloop-24×12-inch-signed-limited-giclee/

Original Painting Available here (until the 11th, then if it hasn’t sold that day, it’ll be available here again): http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/all-products/the-mighty-bloop-24×12-inch-acrylic-on-board-painting/

I wanted it to have a very Beksinski feel to it, dark, brooding, and mysterious. Zdislaw Beksinski was a great influence on my art, and one of my favorite artists to this day – I could say the same for many of the post punk bands from the mid 80s to late 90′s, and it seemed like this combination would be a perfect mesh.

At first, I was going to do the pencil sketch only as the cover, do some adjustments to lighting in photoshop, maybe a bit of blending – but I felt this piece was demanding more, and so I took to digitally rebrushing and coloring the entire thing.

Anyway, here are some pics of the piece from beginning to end – I wish I had saved more pics from the middle of the process, but it pretty much went from sketch to almost done in the course of a day… and then teetered on the brink of being *really* done, for days and days after.

Prints and posters of these are available at RedBubble [here], I am also selling 10 Limited edition full sized and hand-embellished prints on acid-free fine art paper [here].

Like all of my giclees, they will be available for a limited time, and, if any are left – they’ll be available again a year or so down the road when I decide to re-offer them.

I’ve moved my store over to RedBubble, Here: My RedBubble Store.

It includes *new* things, like an Airships and Tentacles Calendar, tee shirts, hoodies, onesies, iPhone cases – and it includes the old and current: My artwork in printed form… though with a much smaller price tag than before… even better… there is a Black Friday sale going on, and they’ve reduced a *lot* of things 25% or more :)

I’ve done this because for a while now, I’ve had a lot of great and wonderful friends, buyers, supporters, and dare I say it “fans” tell me that they love my work, and wish to buy a print when they can *afford to*, wishing I offered posters to fit the sort of budget that, well, 99% of us have to live within these days.

Seriously: A chance to offer prints the full size of the original work, and even bigger, for less than what my standard prints would cost at half size, appealed *greatly* to me, and I had to go with it. I hope you too will appreciate this move.

I will still continue to offer the more high-end limited edition giclees, and art originals in my own store, and at conventions, but the new setup allows you to order, have 24/7 customer service, and have your product shipped by people who are not so tied up in road trips to visit family, conventions, shows, and just trying to make ends meet… I.E. better customer service than an artist type with out of state family to see can offer during holiday season.

I’ve also wanted to be able to offer more shirt designs, and in more sizes hand just what I have on hand or can afford to run up, and to be able to offer those designs on a variety of shirt colors, and shirt types, even Hoodies, onesies, kids, shirts and the like… without sacrificing quality and offering the crummy sort of iron on or inkjet printed shirts that are the standard for “print on demand”.

Well, the technology finally caught up… or at least so much so that a graphic design whiz like myself can make fully transparent designs, to be printed in the quality inks you’d expect from screen printing, directly onto the garment. You can order shirt designs on shirts or hoodies or onesies, on the color of your choice, and even choose whether the design is printed on the front or the back.

I’ve also designed a full “Airships and Tentacles” Calendar, with all of my steampunk airship paintings; There are IPhone cases too, and stickers.

To see more you can view the slideshow below (slower), or go directly Here (faster): My RedBubble Store.

But, as things with artists go, the first opportunity in any opportunity is the opportunity to spend a great deal of time and an insane (for an artist) amount of money on framing and packaging up artworks, and shipping them off to the destination.

Now that that part is done and over with, with 7 days to go, I am focusing on getting fare together, so I can for 22 hours be squeezed into a tiny seat, wedged between other insane people, listening to tutorials on making “shivs” out of toothbrushes, stopping briefly at places where “food” is a $5 bag of chips from a vending machine, and where people with long tangled beards take showers at sinks, and argue with invisible people and toilet fixtures.

You can help me to fulfill this lifetime dream of riding in the lap of luxury on a Greyhound bus, again – exploring the wondrous world of leg cramps and fragrant bus terminals – just throw $1, $3, or whatever you feel this is worth my way.

If I make my goal, I will gift to the world some artworks in downloadable form. They will be pieces of mine which are originally 8×10 inches – that way you can get a full size download – and as good of a print as your home printer or preferred printing service can make. If I make much more than my goal, that gift will get even bigger.

Anyone who donates $25 or more, will get a special greeting card set (10 cards with my airships and tentacles artwork on them, printed on heavy card stock, to send or to keep). Those cards will ship out sometime before or near Thanksgiving.

My goal is $300, but more means foods, bottled water, bus fare, subway fare, cab fare, etc for my stay… If I make less… well, at least I’ll get to the destination. It’d be extra nice to make it back – and regardless, whether I make the full amount, or well-over: This is a chance to get some swag and unique holiday cards.

*** Edit *** I now have my tickets *to* NYC in hand. Tickets *from* NYC to home are another matter, and hopefully that comes together. Cab fare, local bus fare and train fare, meals, are all things I’ll be able to do if I go over $300. … Yes… this is the life of an artist… in many books, on many covers, even on TV shows and news… yet… yeah, a whole lot of, this. Thanks for helping out.

( flash required to view this chip in module – Sorry Iphone/Ipad users, I didn’t realize it was flash-only when I set it up )

That, is perfectly okay.

I took a 6-month break from showing anything new here – not that I stopped creating, but I was building big things, painting big murals upon them, working large scale in everything from the art itself to the undertaking as a whole… I managed 7 new paintings – each 3 foot by 7 foot, and can’t show them right now as I have no budget for imaging them.

I’d like to say I am working on something even bigger than that, but I am working smaller for a bit – less over the top, less fantastical, less with the huge.

… Some of this, is because the project, and all that time, really tapped me out emotionally, physically, and otherwise – I may have shot my life completely down the tube, I don’t know – I’ve lost my faith in humanity save for a small handful of people I met and worked with during the process, and have lost all hold on any illusion that there is any hope for a real arts scene or art happenings in the town I am currently living in and my thoughts in general on art as a living: expletive filled and feeling rather final.

Until I find a job, hopefully something good and hands-on, blood and sweat and not having to deal with people variety… landscaping, construction, etc…

I guess I still have to do whatever I can do, manage whatever I can manage, every day, regardless – so I do what I can do, which is painting, on what I have available to paint on.

I’m finding bits of board and unused canvas around the house big enough to do paintings on, and painting away for no one and no reason in particular.

I think some might call this “freedom”.

If you liked the sorts of things I spent the last few years painting – well, there were ways to express that – Just downloading images, wasn’t it.

But, for those who missed all the oddness and ugliness… well, it seems that I am back in that regard, and will paint new things, whenever I feel like it, whenever I have stuff to paint on.

I’m not done being an artist – I was born that way, I’ll die that way – I am just feeling rather done with *this*.

I am going to go back to breaking my back for a living, because I’d enjoy that a lot more than watching the internet for a non-living. I am going to wrap all my works up as I make them, store them up, list a few here now and then, and show them if and when a chance to show them someplace good comes up.

Anyway…

My latest two pieces are painted on 8×10 inch scraps of birch. They are filled with tiny details. They are the product of free-painting, with no particular image, story, or anything in mind short of the current element leading into the next and tying in with the previous. I suppose this is leading a lot more toward the style of my older, more surreal works, and I am exploring that for a while… contemplating how I will break that formula on the next, reflecting on missed chances in the previous…. building toward something, though I have no idea what, nor do I care.

I’d say more, but I still feel that people who like to talk a lot about their work, should be spending that time working.

Good night.

Same Deep Water as You

Deeper

The Infernal Device at night time

So, this last week we wrapped up the Infernal Device show at the Gerald R Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Tear-down went pretty smoothly, considering that we had to break down nearly two tons of complicated mechanical machinery in less than two days. From standing atop our 17-foot tall wind and solar power sculpture and rotating mural to disassemble Todd’s wind collector, to getting the solar panels and reserve batteries loaded up, to breaking down the 7-foot tall, 7-foot in diameter, 7-sided rotating mural, to breaking down the massive surrounding structure – and all of its pistons and gears and chains, to scooping up nearly 3 cubic yards of decorative stone – all went fairly well – much thanks to help such as Glen Swanson, and Steampig artists/team members: Alicia Vanheulen and Thomas Birks.

There was a *lot* to talk and blog about during this huge 6 month project, and I missed out on that from being too busy each and every day of it – but if you would like a recap, progress pics, and more pictures of the device itself, you can find them all at http://facebook.com/infernaldevice

The project, is not over. We are re-grouping. We’ve all spent a lot of the last six months, and a lot of expense on making  this project happen, and now comes the time when we recover, rest up, catch up on all those other things that have been screaming to be done these last few months… things like blog updates, new art, and standing obligations.

I’ve spent 6 months without posting new artwork, without making sales, without shipping most of the few sales I had made, and needing to catch up on the last rewards shipments from our kickstarter – and I’ve found myself in a spot where I *need* to sell things, but cannot afford to sell things if I have to pay to have them made or shipped to me. My at-home stock is all but depleted, and I have nothing on hand but a lot of paint and wood to paint on.

I have seven new paintings from the device itself, each 3 foot by 7 foot monsters making one continuous repeating 21-foot by 7-foot mural… but not the money to have them imaged.. as well as doubts as to whether I can sell 3 foot by 7 foot prints at the price I would need to sell them at.

So, I’ve put a few commissions for sale – to get me back into the swing on doing artwork, to get some new artwork on this site, and I figure since they are such favorites: I might as well add some new pieces to the “Airships and Tentacles” art collection since I have yet to get it published.

If you are interested in getting an artwork commissioned, and incredibly cheaply – there are several options available – a 24×24 inch painting (already added), an 18×12 inch painting (already added), and more engravings (I’ll have that offer up soon if it is not up already).

You can find all of those offers here: http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/?ptag=commission

Consider a style or media that would be striking, and imagine it taken to a level beyond your ability.

Research said media if it is new, and think on the concept or image for a while – but not so long that something new takes its place – because the longer this thought process, the more ambitious it should become.

Once the thought of even trying begins to fill you with an equal level of dread and excitement, begin.. even if it is after your bed time.

Don’t stop until it is looking as good you had hoped, because this is the *true* starting point. Now work to take it even further, as far as the piece demands, beyond whatever level of ability you  thought you were limited by.

Walk away regularly with the image in your head, process it, think of the parts you like, the things you don’t, and things you would like to add.

Remove and go over anything you have doubts about without mercy.

Add in only what won’t crowd the piece

When you reach the point where any change will only make it “different”, but not “better”, you are done.

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things by breakfast”, is a good phrase to remember.

Most *Everyone* draws at some point in their life. Those who are intrigued by failure, inspired by the seemingly impossible, continue beyond the point of jagged teeth and crayoned stick fingers.

An artist should never seek to do what they already know they *can* do – and perhaps such is the evil in commissions, which are most often specified according to past works, and limited by scope. Not that all commissions are bad – an artist must accept only those that allow the artist a fair share of creative freedom, as well as room, opportunity, or even obligation to try something new.

An artist who finds himself or herself with extra money, tends to spend it exploring a new mode of art, a new mode of printing, or trying to break into some bigger and more time-involved media or project. It isn’t that we are without wisdom, we know what is wise, and choose to ignore it out of a strong and passionate love for art. Buy canvas, sell paintings, buy scanner, sell reproductions, buy printer, sell giclees, buy lithography press, sell lithographs, buy bigger canvas and better paints, sell paintings, fret over a choice between crowns or a big chunk of marble, sell sculpture, buy clove oil … some ramen noodles …and a better chisel.

When I first started the “Airships and Tentacles” series, in wow… 2006… I don’t even think that “Air Kraken” was a word yet, though I could very well be wrong. I can’t remember specifically, but given Final Fantasy’s tendency to make *some* version of every base creature for each and every environment, it would be insane if they never had some sort of airborne cephalopod in all those years.

Yes, It is foolish of anyone to believe they invented anything… logs and stones rolled down hills long before the wheel, and there is sure to be a comic book from the 60s or illustration from the 1800s with flying cephalopods *somewhere* – and a hundred movies and books in-between. I am only saying I hadn’t yet seen them in paintings, especially luminist and/or American arts-movement-styled paintings, and I thought it would be fun to add hints of in the first painting – and loved that touch enough to continue it through the series.

My airships, started with a commission for Robert of Abney Park, based on the existing designs by Eliza Gauger, which may or may not have been based somewhat on an equal interest in things such as Final Fantasy. The fun of imagination, came more in execution and styling, and moreso in the landscapes themselves. Over time, as the result of much research on bag sizes, gas content, altitude, temperature, etc… balloon sizes grew, ship sizes and engines shrank – I also started to lean more towards the stylings of DaVinci for wings and other parts – and mixed a bit of the aesthetic stylings from my favorites like Derek Riggs, Michael Whelan, Brom, Bethalynne Bajema, Gustave Dore, Pieter Breughel (E&Y), Zdzislaw Beksinski, and others wherever characters, creatures, scenery, or technology allowed.

Anyway, I wanted to do a series of what is essentially landscape art, explored by this fascinating mode of travel – as a means of adding a human element for the viewer to view through, without focusing on figures so much as to make it “character art”.

I sought to combine Lovecraftian elements and mythos with Vernian machines and aptly romanticized visions of exploration; in this, I also wanted to hide every bit of my usual dark and spooky art in such a way that it goes mostly to completely unnoticed.

The latter is most likely why this series was the first series I ever did that people *both* liked, *and* would hang on their walls (Criteria: Does not scare children, much; Does not creep in-laws and future in-laws out; Does not give the potential future girlfriend reason for pause; Does not get a cubicle-dweller fired).

Shadow, Mist and Stone: The last of the series (crop)

Shadow, Mist and Stone: crop 2

Shadow, Mist and Stone: full view. This, the last of these images is finally available as a giclee on fine art paper, a giclee on canvas, and a metallic print at our Etsy store: http://ettadiem.etsy.com

I *thought* I was going to explore this into many, many other types of media – and planned to have a sculpture in wood and a sculpture in metal in the series of nothing else. But, I’ve done more paintings in this series than I intended to, and many, many engravings. The very last painting ships out tomorrow… technically that is not true, because there will be *some* of that in the Infernal device – but I am counting that as my sculpture piece to complete the series.

I’ve got one hell of a collection together in this – plenty enough for the book I committed myself to making works for. I’ll be releasing it in a time when dirigibles and flying Cephalopods have over these years become an odd sort of ‘norm’ (a subcultural standard that to most, comes out of *nowhere* for no apparent reason). The journey has been in interesting one, and I feel that alone merits the book’s release if nothing else… pending until all this Infernal Device stuff is under control.

Thank you everyone who supported the making of this series by buying prints, sharing links and such – and of course thank you  everyone who continues to do so.

I really have no idea what I am going to do from here, because I have *many* ideas and will have to choose one, or combine a few – but whatever I am thinking, I am sure going to look forward to it the moment I allow myself to look forward to other things.

Right now I am looking forward to getting the first build of the Infernal Device done, and looking to make it better than anything I could ever possibly do.

In celebration of the closing of the series (okay… I really need money to get my butt to Maker Faire Detroit), I am making large giclees of the very first image from this series available online. They are 30 inches by 24 (printed area is slightly less), and they are printed on fine art rag paper. I will also sign and date these. These are not limited editions – the reason is that the metallics and canvas prints I sold as limited editions, must always remain more special than any version I put out afterward. These are prints I make available in small quantities at conventions, with no set number to be made – but they beautiful, high quality, and they are the biggest prints of this  image you can get without buying one of the 4 remaining giclees on canvas.

If you would like one, these few prints are available HERE – and are only $100 until they  are gone.

I decided to take this one step further, because limited editions and all, though they appeal to some people – most just want a good wall hanging at a good price. And the added cost of having these shipped to me, so I can stretch them, sign them in paint, re-varnish them, print up certificates on hahnemuhle paper, stick holograms on them, etc… well… this is a bit of an experiment.

Not to say they *aren’t* somewhat limited, I mean, my life is finite… unless you both believe in quantum immortality and also believe that you and I will never part coils – in which case I guess you have forever.

But, whether you and I live forever, or otherwise – I anticipate I’ll probably sell about 20 to 50 of these, before I stop selling them, and you can be one of 20 to 50 owners – without all that cost and delay involved in limited editions.

You can buy  them here

I’m catching up from the kickstarter – having sent out files and orders for all elated prints, the coloring books, the downloads and other rewards we offered – the limited edition tee shirts for the kickstarter were needing some rework before final printing, so I decided to go ahead and rework these as well – so I could order all of them at the same time.

If you have already ordered shirts, you might notice that the new price is a dollar more – don’t worry, you’ll be getting your shirts for the price you paid.

All shorts ordered up to now, or ordered now, should be ready to ship on or around the 15th of June. So, if you are reading this after then, they are already to ship.

These will be sold until this batch of 50 or so shirts sells out, and then we’ll be introducing a one-sided design using the device as the large image on the front.

PURCHASE:
purchase link: http://infernaldevice.net/Artprize/store/fundraising/infernal-tee/

back:

front:

front (closeup):

back (closeup):

If someone grabs it, through our Kickstarter:

- I will fill it with every print from the Airships and Tentacles series
- each printed on a fine rough-edged rag paper
- each page annotated as the coffee table book would be, but in my own handwriting
- each page signed discreetly and numbered “1 of 1″
- each of these prints will be an entirely unique size from any editions made
- The front page will have “to [Your Name]” and my signature.
- To make it even more rare, I will make one unique work or original art to complete the piece. Yes, one page will be an original work of art to complete the series.

The Book size is roughly 13 inches by 15 inches, and will be a hefty and beautiful tome for your tabletop or shelf. You can also remove each print if you wish, to hang them, and secure the book cover away someplace safe.

It isn’t cheap… It’ll cost me about 20 bucks to print each imaged page  – which means you’re getting this at no actual profit…maybe even a loss – but I am hoping that this sale would push us over that tipping edge of 50% funding. And I’ll do anything to ensure the success of our project… including this.

Yes, it will be well worth it if it sells – so don’t feel bad about grabbing this great offer and helping us to make something even bigger.

So, if you would like to have this book, it is available for a donation of $1350, as are many other great things, at our Kickstarter: HERE

ALSO:

$20 through our kickstarter gets you a signed and personalized print of any of the below (you’ll need to go to my gallery page to get full views… it was hell just putting this compilation of thumbnails together):

We are beyond dedicated to making this happen… so much so that I stayed up all day and night putting this special drawing together (image below), which will be available in printable PDF format exclusively to everyone who donates $1 or more though our Kickstarter.

A $2 purchase of a good piece of fine art paper from your local craft store, plus this download, and you’ll have this silly piece of my steampunk storybook for your wall… $3 total investment, and no shipping.

We’ve also received an unpublished text by G.D. Falksen to add to our kickstarter offers: An Original Never-before Published Exclusive Short Story by award winning author G.D Falksen; You get a hard copy of the short story in a binder, decorated with exclusive print by Myke Amend (an illustration of the story within) – each illustrated cover HAND EMBELLISHED, numbered, and signed… making for a *very unique* work of literature and art combined.

Other offers include everything from exclusive prints from me, the Airships and Tentacles Coloring Book, the Airships and Tentacles Scrapbooking kit, Original Paintings, and other incredible offers as *much* less than regular price…

We’ve had some good fortune this week, blogged by Warren Ellis, tweeted by Neil Gaiman and Kyle Cassidy, you may have seen us mentioned by Vernian Process, Abney Park, Nancy Overbury, and other greats… who we will be sure to mention more in depth when we compile our big list of People Last Against the Wall…

Please help us to keep this momentum going. 7 days remain, and we are nearly 30% there. Your donation of $1, retweeting, reblogging, or otherwise spreading the word of this project can put us over that hill.

Cooties - Available only through our kickstarter (click to enlarge)

This coloring book.

When I was a kid, Advanced Dungeons and Dragon’s Monster manual, and their Dieties and Demigods, had some rather awesome illustrations in them: All black and white. I loved those illustrations, but I loved them even more when I caught a Glimpse of my friend Brian’s book… which he had taken colored pencils to for each and every illustration. I thought it pretty amazing how with some simple color over the black and white of the pages, those illustrations really came to life. They were simple to color, because the shading was already there – which made for a basic coloring level, with lots of room for improvisation, and advanced looking results.

I thought to myself this AM, “Hey… all these engravings I’ve been doing would be perfect for this”,and so I set to gathering up pages for a coloring book… and with all the engraving that I do, I have a *lot* of them.

Here are the images that will be in this coloring book… which will for the time being, only be available through our kickstarter for an $11 donation (which includes Shipping and Handling). The coloring book is over 30 pages, and ready to color.

You’ll notice that some of the images below are colored, because I copied really quick from my gallery. These images will be uncolored in the coloring book version (see above).

If you would like to see a PDF of the actual book, CLICK HERE

If you would like to buy a copy of the book for $12, CLICK HERE

Seven cubes, seven limbs, seven chains between the cubes, seven chains on her neck…

I suppose it would be good for a children’s book on numbers, but I’ll probably end up using it with the other tarot inspired engravings one of these days for something more card-y.

The original is available here, as is the limited edition of 20 giclee

Steampunk Tales 10 Cover

Steampunk Tales 10 (Featuring my cover) is out now – Lots of great reading, on your device of choice, for $2.99.

This piece is another digital work, something I rarely choose to do – one which I actually did have a lot of fun with. Woman, hair pins, Winchester rifle, guards… The story by G.D. Falksen, is a great story, but my particular episode of the serial was less action-packed and more intrigue. So, I went with the less action and more suspenseful story within the art, and am very happy with it.

I forgot to mention the rewards such as limited etchings on brass, paintings, and the like – but, if you’d like to know more, we’ve got a writeup about the project here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infernaldevice/the-infernal-device-an-enormous-mechanical-and-pai

Still, I am proud of it – if not simply because I managed to not wear a helmet with blue spandex, nor am I waving a frisbee about.

If you would like to know just what the hell I am going on about in this video, you can see images of the parts we’ll be using, the part of the model already built, progress pics of building this drum, pictures of us and our works, and actual things about the Device and why we’re building it, details about our ArtPrize bid, all at InfernalDevice.net.

If you aren’t familiar with Kickstarter, it is a perfect addition to our community project feel, in that it allows fellow art lovers to become a part of our project, while receiving rewards for their participation.

Gifts offered for donations starting as low as $1 begin at our sincere thanks, and go as high as being painted into the artwork itself – with many, many levels in between at $5, $10, etc…

If you do not have a dollar to pitch in at the moment, we completely understand, and would appreciate your help in simply forwarding on the link to others. All those little donations matter greatly, especially when friends and friends of friends are chipping in.

On a sidenote: If you would like to hep out in other ways, from donating junk from your garage, to being there for the hands-on work such as the build, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us through our contact form, linked at the top of this page.

Bethalynne Bajema, my fiancee, co-conspirator, and occasional collaborator is working on her third eerie and beautiful neo-victorian Tarot deck “The Black Ibis” – and taking a different approach at her deck from the previous two in that she would like to have the deck published in one big run.

Being artists, and in this day and age where discretionary spending is at an all time low, being able to offer great things at low prices is essential.

Though the Sepia deck is very popular, with inquiries made every day about purchase, we are running that deck in very small runs (as our budget dictates), and for that reason have a higher asking price of $70 per deck. We would prefer to be offering them at $30, even less – because we’d like to have our art in the homes of everyone who likes what we are doing.

We would like to get this beautiful deck into the hands of *many* more fans and enthusiasts, make it more widely available, and maybe even go so far as to get bar codes and all that stuff that would allow for distribution… which requires a lot of printing setup fees and bulk ordering, the sort that is always way beyond our means.

Toward this end, she has set up a kickstarter fund. We need to raise $2,000 in printing and material expenses, and every dollar counts. She has set up many rewards for donations $5 and up, but what would be really amazing would be to receive a $1 donation from you, the reader.

People tend to feel that little amounts do not matter, that such gestures are unappreciated – but if even half of my 2,000 daily visitors pledged one single dollar, you and other contributors would have made a mark (and a damned good one) on art history by allowing an incredible artist to achieve her dream of bringing this project to life.

I know you’re probably thinking:

2000 other people? Well, that should all be taken care of then.

No… because most every one of them is thinking that exact same thing. Seriously. We get a *lot* of visitors and readers, we get a lot of email, we get a lot of people viewing images and galleries, we a lot of people downloading wallpapers, we get a number of comments, we get a handful of re-blogs (some of which even credit or link to us), we get a couple of twitter shares, we might even get a sale or two on a *really* good day… and that is generally the point where the world feels artists are well-rewarded for their work.

Here is a little-known secret: *You* are every bit as important in the art world as *any* artist. I’ve seen great and talented artists give up their dreams for a day job; I’ve seen *terrible* artists rise to the top. And if you are even a fraction as disappointed as I am in this, then you must know that artists live or die on support – not from hoity-toity self-appointed aficionados – or outlandishly rich philanthropists: but by real people, spreading links, making tiny donations, buying a print or two here or there… being involved, rather than being a bystander. You personally shape the future history.

If you would like to help out, be a part of the arts and of art history: be a part of this project, not an observer. Whether through sharing the link, or through donating $1 (seriously just $1 is AWESOME), *you* can make this happen (because all those other people are not even half as incredible). The link for her kickstarter fund is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1835434564/the-black-ibis-project

Thank you,

Myke Amend

This new work started with a pencil drawing, and I just couldn’t stand to leave it at that. It led to many days of wakey-time and a lot of sitting at the computer… a reminder why I don’t do digital art that often…too hard to put down.

I am making ten 11×14 metallics and 5 20×16 giclees on canvas available, as I would like to hold onto a bunch of these for the World Steam Expo in May.

The Albatross – 20×16 inch Giclee On Canvas (limited edition of 25)

The Albatross – Metallic prints (11×14)

I spend a *lot* of time researching this, trying to find new ways to get better results, and to have more control over the process, especially since my move to Michigan, where high operating costs for businesses and a lack of local money have led to available services being less than stellar, if available at all. I have spent days, and days, every few weeks, just doing web searches, sending emails, making cold calls, and trying what few services I find here… and though I have managed decent results, they have come through much supervision, and the asking of many questions I would not have known to ask 10 or even 3 years ago.

Chances are, that if you do not live in a major city with a thriving art scene (if there is such a thing in this day and age), and if you are an artist trying to get prints made, you have found yourself frustrated with at least one aspect of the process.

Though printing for giclees is easy enough to find these days, in the most common of places, the imaging part is the absolute hardest to nail down, and the most important – because once you have sold the original painting, unless you have visitation rights in your seller’s agreement, you won’t get another chance.

There are a number of great digigraphic or reprographic places abroad. In Cincinnati, I had access to Queen City Reprographic, as well as the imaging person/photographer for the Cincy Art Museum, and the University of Cincinnati print lab. In Boston, I had access to Parrot Digigraphic in Billerca MA with their huge 72-inch scanner, and Ditto Editions in Salem MA with their 120MP Seitz camera setup (though they appear to have moved to New Hampshire) – but no longer living in the area, as amazing as these places were, there is the cost (and fear) involved in shipping a painting that has not yet been imaged many states away… and having to work by mail for proofing and other such services. A broken or lost painting can’t be imaged, so the fear of being forever screwed drives me to always look for local services if I can.

If you have $50,000 or more laying around for a Seitz camera setup, or $100,000 for a huge scanner (and recommended maintenance plan), you probably aren’t reading this anyway, and don’t need to. I’d think your time is worth enough that you’d rather outsource this work to a premium imaging company (as listed above) – So I am going to skip past those aspects of the process, and go directly into steps for the rest of us:

Step 1 – What Am I looking for?

This is pretty important. If you don’t know what you want, you won’t know whether you are getting it, and you’ll frustrate yourself and everyone you deal with, either in not knowing what to ask for, or finding that what you get is just not good enough.

– Actual size, in 600 DPI (preferable), 400DPI(still good), or 300DPI(acceptable). Sure, the human eye sees at 300 DPI, but consider that you might want to make prints larger than the originals, or highlight specific parts. Also consider that printers are getting better and better every day, as are papers, as are inks – and that if the result is a higher resolution, one might appreciate being able to take a magnifying glass to the print to see how great it is. Or, you may, like me: I am the sort of person who can read the microprint on a 20 dollar bill… I may not be able to see a tree at 20 years, but that is a product of being so detail-oriented. I put in details I can see that most others need a magnifier for, I even go so far as to put in details that *I* need a magnifier for, or details that I just *know* are there though I can’t see them. Most of all, the better your working file, the less fine details are lost to things like color adjustments and resampling through resizing. Don’t let people tell you that 150DPI is good because people are standing further away to view it – detail is lost, and they will not get the experience of looking at your work, but the experience of looking at a blurry version of your work. “Good enough”, is never, and will never be “Good enough”, else it need not be said at all.
– RAW or TIFF format. Jpegs don’t just lose data and detail every time they are opened and saved, the creation of a jpeg image alone is lossy. A group of eyelashes becomes a dark blotch of close colors that *look* perfect, until you campare.
– No adjustments. Every time a color adjustment is made, data is lost. A level adjustment brings you closer to the actual values, but causes colors to disappear. Every time an adjustment is made, close-to-white may become white, close-to-black may become black. Once they are gone, they are gone, and there is no processing you can do to get them back. It is always good to have an unprocessed image to start from, and always go back to that image if you need to make changes in brightness/color/levels.
– Quality. A 600DPI image makes no sense if it is 600DPI of blurry or 600DPI of blocky color.

Local Services

Calling or emailing in detail can be important here. I tried the universities first, hoping that they had for-pay services for non students, or that maybe I could put their students to work using the college’s equipment. It may work for you, but here, I couldn’t even get as far as finding out for certain what equipment they had on campus.

Then I turned to the local arts organizations, called a number of galleries, and asked what few local artists I could find what services they used. The answer was a resounding “uuuuuhhh?”.

When it comes to local artists, especially in mid-western cities, I’ve found that a lot of artists don’t even sell prints; Hell some don’t even actually produce artworks, or do anything more than sporting a goatee and adopting a highly-liberal point of view. Most functioning artists however are in the business of catering to galleries and coffee shops, who, since these places desire artists who can produce 20 or more artworks in less than a year, stick to artworks they can create in a single night… or several a night – which aren’t exactly the sorts of works that require printing. These sorts of works go to people who want an original, of certain colors or size, for $80 or less, to hang over their couch or in a closet…. or just to people who want to support budding artists… they tend not to do well as prints, especially considering that a person could just pick an original out of a bin.

Out of over 100 printing/imaging/reprographic places I contacted, only 10 said they were able to do this sort of work in house.

Of those, most were sort of scary – either for not having a grasp of the scale, or having a “sure, we’ll give anything a try” attitude about it. Not a one of them had a Seitz setup, or a large flatbed scanner (though one claimed to have a large enough flatbed). Some offered to use a 10 (or less) MP camera, some actually thought as far as to offer to take multiple photographs and piece them together (The latter, though ill-equipped I think might have actually known what they were doing, and *could* possibly have come up with passable results).

I went with the one who claimed to have a big scanner. The results were decent, save for some scan lines which I removed in photoshop, and the price was low (probably because of the scan lines). The color and brightness were the absolute best for adjustments – raw and untinkered with, with a broad range of values to be adjusted, just the way I like it… no data lost. When I walked into the back of their shop one day to see my painting being pressed against an 11×17 inch Epson scanner, I felt a bit betrayed, but continued to use them until that employee moved on (being mindful to remove my paintings from the canvas stretchers so they could scan without potential damage). After he left, the workers were less capable of getting me the results I wanted, and the new inconsistent pricing came straight from the “USS Make Shit Up”, so I started into the adventure that is….

Imaging At Home

Part I Scanning:

Scanning Smaller Works (under 11×17 inches):

I have a scanner that I bought through Sam’s club (I actually bought my membership specifically because the cost of the scanner+membership was $5 below buying the scanner elsewhere); The scanner is a Mustek A3 scanner (11×17 inches). They sell for about $199 including shipping most places you find them. I bought mine for $142+$7 S&H through Sam’s. The colors pretty much dead on, straight off the scan, and the detail is superb. It also plays nicely with photoshop and has the best import GUI I’ve had short of an Epson professional scanner ($thousands for a tinier scanner).

Until I broke it (I’ll talk about that later), I’ve always used this for any work smaller than 11×17; I have however found (in a moment of need) that Fedex/Kinkos has a flatbed 11×17, and will scan for under $2 a scan at any resolution you want. I tend to go for 600DPI for all my pieces, big or small. I know the human eye sees at 300 DPI… but I detail my paintings and other works so deeply, that printing larger than the original is sometimes desirable (plus: my tendency for quality overkill).

I think Kinkos $2 a scan is a pretty good deal. The scans come out quite well (but may vary at different places and with different employees). It is still always good to have your own scanner at home, in case your local Fedex is not staffed with adept people, or for scanning at 3AM.

Scanning Larger Works (above 11×17 inches)

As for scanning larger pieces with the A3 scanner, the biggest problem is the scanner’s “handy” beveled recess (the dip in the tray that holds papers in place). If your piece is bigger than 11×17 inches, it will sit away from the glass, and you’ll not get a good scan – it’ll be hella blurry, with colors shifting greatly from one edge to another, and utterly useless.

Is it on Canvas?

If you are so inclined, if your painting is on canvas, you can pull the staples from the back (or sides for cheaper ready-made canvas), and scan the piece in sections:

– Varnish can really help things, or really mess things up. If you have already varnished the piece, especially if it is a glossy varnish. Think of varnish as a lens. Not only does it increase the distance between the scanner glass and the actual artwork, but if your varnish has a brushed texture, you may get better scans in one direction than another, because such “polarizes” the piece. If I *have* to varnish before scanning, I brush the varnish in one constant direction, and scan in a way that the scanner arm is moving *with* the “grain” of the varnish. If I ever *have* to varnish, it is typically because I find that certain spots of paint are more flat or glossy than others, and I do so to even out the sheen painting-wide. A flat varnish is preferable, satin is a runner-up, and the thinnest coat possible.
– Keep in mind the most important thing when scanning in pieces is making sure all your scanned sections are square with the others. If they are off, when re-assembling in Photoshop, it is difficult getting that 0.02 degree tilt from one piece to another and making them all line up. If you *have* to rotate pieces in photoshop, don’t think rotating with the mouse will do it: use the numeric rotation (if you have gone to image:rotate, you’ll see a text box in the toolbar the top of your screen where you can enter numeric values). Be sure to zoom in and look it over from one corner to the next, to make sure it looks right (full view lies).
– Don’t rely on the photomerge tool, especially if your pieces are highly detailed. Photomerge is plenty good enough for assembling photographs for novelty’s sake, not for art.
– You may need to adjust levels from piece to piece to get them to match up well in color and lighting.
– Make sure each scanned section has at least an inch (or two) of overlap with the next so you can get rid of the edges, which tend to be shifted in color slightly due to the bevel.
– Turn off all lights in the room before you hit ‘scan’ (you can of course turn them on again in between scannings). Outside light can bleed in at the edges of your work, or through your work and make the pieces inconsistently colored/valued.
– A higher bit rate (8 bit color, 16 bit color, 32 bit color, etc), means more colors on the pallet, meaning smoother transitions between colors and values. Higher bit rate is good (though it greatly increases file size).
– Always save one assembled version that has no color/brightness/levels modificatons, and save it in TIFF (lossless format). You might need this if you decide the prints are too light or too dark.
– Always make adjustments from the original lossless and unmodified source. Every time you make color adjustments, data is lost, and your work drifts farther and farther from the original. Also, every time you open and save a Jpeg, it decays (loses resolution).

Is it on a Wood Panel?

If your painting is on a wood panel (or similar surface), this gets tougher (you’ll still want to read much of the above about varnish and whatnot). There is no amount of strength you can apply to put the board flat on the scanner, and you’ll break the scanner long before that. Even with an un-beveled scanner (like some Epson models), you need to be mindful that the board is probably not perfectly straight – press accordingly (but try not to break your scanner in the process).

I modified my 11×17 inch scanner so I could scan paintings on wood panels. I did so by

(0) **read this entire thing before you decide whether it is a good idea**
(1) carefully removing the glass. It isn’t easy. It is held on by some *very* sticky stuff. I used an old iron on the glass side to make the glue “melty” enough so I could pry the glass loose. I thought I was going to keep the glass, so I put cloth between the iron and the glass to keep from scratching it.
(2) carefully removing the calibration strip from the glass (it looks like a bar code, and lines up with the scanner arm’s starting position)
(3) built a wooden box to hold the glass nice and level.
(4) taped down the calibration strip (face down, tape on the blank side, calibration strip on the top of the glass)
(5) repositioned the box with the glass until the calibration strip was being read properly

it isn’t as much rocket science as it would seem, except for the last part (so read this in full before taking your scanner apart):
– The scanner arm has a bit of spring to it so it always meets the glass, so getting the glass “close enough” to touch the arm, is good enough… no microns of distance/precision to worry about.
– The calibration strip needs to line up pretty perfectly, but if you make it so the glass/box is just loose with the scanner body sitting below, you can move it around until you get a good scan – then secure the box in that position with tape/nails/screws.. whatever.
– The glass *has* to be the same thickness, optical quality (normal glass has a greenish tinge that can throw off the color calibration), and *tempered*. In most cases, the only way you’ll get a 1/8th inch sheet of glass tempered is for it to be chemically tempered. Why not use the sheet that came with it? Well, *that* glass is made to be secured by sticky stuff, and is typically just microscopically wider than the scan arm that needs to move against it. So, making a support for the glass that won’t get in the way of the arm is difficult to impossible.

.. That last part is what got me. Though I *have* found places that will make the glass, it is around $100 to $200 #realartistsdonthavemuchmoney, so I am making due with the original sheet… which teeters delicately on .01 millimeters of metal bracket edge, which the scan arm occasionally gets hung up on.

The FrankenScanner (above). It works… but that is all that can be said about it. The glass, which I secured with two-sided tape, after a year, is pulling away from the remaining plastic bit. So, now anything with any weight causes the scan arm to freeze. I’ll need a new scanner… but I’ll probably rebuild this one as originally planned (diagram below) once I get the chemically tempered glass I need.

Frankenscanner 2 (Bride of Frankenscanner),waiting on a sheet of tempered glass. The nice thing about this way of doing it, is that the glass and box can be as big as I want them to be – lending to a better support area for large paintings. I’ll probably make some brass bars on hinges up top for reference/alignment… something I can swing down to match up with lines I’ve drawn on the back of the piece, for better squaring (not included in diagram).

(yay!) Out-of-the-Box For Wood or Canvas: The Scanjet 4670
(boo!) Discontinued

For scanning large items, especially if on a wood panel, you might be better off finding an HP Scanjet 4670. Unfortunately they are discontinued, because marketing gurus and management are typically idiots, and don’t know *who* to market a good thing to in order to make it a good thing.

I found out about this 4670 scanner, which can be laid with its nice flush surface down on a large object, through my friend and colleague Brigid Ashwood. I just ordered one days ago, but from what she has told me, it does a pretty damned good job and is a godsend (for all of the reasons outlined above). You can typically only find them used – try Ebay. This week, I’ve seen three in box sell for $103 (plus $36 shipping).

I plan to buy another of these as a backup BTW… so please don’t buy all of them.

Photography

Long have I waited for digital cameras to be good enough for this. I waited for cameras to get up to 7 MP, then found out that was not good enough, then 10MP… still not good enough… then 14MP… Now Nikon and Sony have 24 MP cameras out – which are good enough for 18×12 inches at 300 DPI… which really, is still not good enough.

I realized this lately, when I got an incredible photographer, both in skill and in talent, to photograph my pieces for print. The images are amazingly crisp and perfect in color, but at 12 MP, they will never be so crisp that they can be printed at 36×24, especially with all of the detail I put into my works.

It takes 25MP to equal 35MM film, 100MP to equal medium format film, 500MP to equal large format film.

If you are waiting to be able to do this in one single shot, you might want to just give up on digital for now, and try to find yourself a good medium-format film camera, or a photographer who has one. Just be sure you also have the means to scan the negatives (or a photo lab who will scan them *for* you).

For the rest of us, taking multiple shots in order to make one image.

It *can* be done, no matter how few MegaPixels you have – just how many individual pieces/shots you need depends on how great the resolution is.  Another important part is realizing that moving the camera is bad, and why (outlined in the list of caveats below).

– Don’t let *just* MegaPixels dictate your decision though. Recently I found an amazing 14.5 MP camera with a great lens, and true SLR format for $149. The downside is that it saves all images as Jpegs, which are instantly lossy with bits of detail and nearly matching colors blurred together in chunks.
– Make sure your camera saves in either TIFF or RAW format. This is more important than MegaPixels. I switched back from the 14MP to the Canon 10MP because of the Jpeg thing.
– Don’t use a point and shoot. Don’t use a macro lens. *All* lenses round out at the sides (meaning a square will be “bowed” at the edges), and the best you’ll possibly get is a “true vision” or 50MM lens.
– Don’t use digital zoom. That just uses computer logic to try to translate an image more crisply from smaller pixels. A computer cannot know to make a row of eyelashes from a black blotch – all it does is to crisp up the edges. Make sure your zooming in or out is all optical.
– Use a Tripod! This should be a given, but I am saying it. Camera shudder is your enemy.
– Use the timer, or a remote, or a cable release. If you click the button by hand, your camera will move and shake, no matter how good your tripod is.
– No on-camera flash! Seriously… flash for any photo subject is best as a last resort, and terrible for capturing a painting. This isn’t a sporting event or a party, you don’t need to be mobile. You’ll get hot spots, color shifts, and maybe glare out your image altogether if you use a flash. Use stationary lighting. It isn’t like you need actual 200 watt or 500 watt lights anymore, there are low-wattage equivalents everywhere. Stationary lighting allows you to see your shot exactly as it will shoot.
– Lighting: You need a natural daylight spectrum. *but* you want it to be controlled and constant, since you’ll be trying to put multiple shots together, and you want them to be identical in lighting, distance, and angle. You can buy a 200-watt equivalent (40 watt actual) daylight spectrum bulb for $6 to $9 most anywhere online (try google shopping). You’ll need several of them.
– Lighting stands/reflectors are highly recommended. It’ll save you the frustration of gathering lamps from the household and propping them up on books and moved furniture. You can use extra photo tripods or tall lamp posts and utility light reflectors, or pie plates if you need to improvise.
– Put one light on each side of the camera, at 45 degree angles, and slightly higher than your painting. If the lights are in front of you, keep them far enough away from the camera that the light isn’t bleeding through from the sides of your shot. Also make sure there are no hot spots/glows/reflections on the portion of the painting you are shooting. Move the lights around until the *portion* of the painting you are shooting has just the right amount of light. Indirect lighting is absolute best for avoiding hot spots, so don’t point the lights *at* the painting. Try moving them higher, lower, more outward, more in – maybe even experiment with bouncing them off white surfaces (walls, ceilings, tacked up sheets) to soften them up and spread them out. Bouncing the light is of course best. If you have reflectors (umbrellas) made for this, even better.
– If you have a camera with light metering and related controls, and can set your white balance manually, do it. A *lot* of the fine-tuning can be done through just adjusting these levels.
– Set your camera’s ISO to its lowest setting for best image quality.
– Set your aperture to between f/5.6 and f/11 – this allows you the best sharpness, while still allowing some room for minor adjustments.
– Shoot each portion without moving the camera. If you move the camera, you will never have the lights and painting the same distance and angle from shot to shot, and you’ll lose all consistency. Instead, move the painting a foot or two to the left/right/up/down until you have all parts photographed.
– If you are good with building things – for this, I’d highly recommend making something where the painting can be mounted securely to a flat and straight board, and where that board can easily be shifted up/down/left/right. You can use drawer slides, or brackets, or just screws (screwing board A to board B, unscrewing it and re-screwing it for each move), or you can go more advances and use gears and cranks. I am using the low-tech boards and screws method (but on the lookout for old window cranks and worm gears so I can do the latter). Paintings on boards, or on canvas, when unframed, tend to be slightly bent or bowed.. so just hanging it in different places on the wall might not do.
– Make sure (as with scanning) your photos have a bit of overlap – not just so you can crop off the edges and keep the center (which will be slightly rounded), but so you can more easily line up one piece with another.
– do not pack up your lights and painting and camera. Leave it where it is for now. You may need to come back to it later.
– Again, do NOT use photomerge.
– Put each piece in its own layer, move them into place, crop away some of the edges of each (but leave yourself some overlap), make minor color adjustments to each piece if needed. Once all pieces are properly aligned, use your eraser on the edges of each overlying piece to ensure an extra smooth transition. Once you are certain everything is going to meet up perfectly, merge them all together. If there are any parts you aren’t altogether happy with, go back to your camera setup and re-photograph that piece or section.

I’ve found that at 12 megapixels, I can get a 36×24 inch painting with 15 photos (5 photos wide, 3 photos tall). If yours needs to be printed smaller, you can of course get away with less photos.

If however your painting is less that 11×17 inches – this is silly. Take it to Kinkos and scan it, or buy an A3 scanner.

Some Last Little Tips:

– Calibrate your monitor. There are free apps for this such as Calibrize. I have mine calibrated for perfect colors and perfect web brightness/contrast, and then have my *mind* calibrated for perfect print. I *know* how much lighter the images need to look in order to get them to print as they are seen on my screen, for each and every printer I use, and I know this through trial and error.
– Don’t use “Image:Adjust:Brightness/Contrast”, use “Image:Adjust:Levels”. Move the triangle on the left over a few points so it is nearest to the first spike (black values), slide the middle slider right a bit to make the mid tones richer, do not slide the white point (far right), ever if you can avoid it unless you want to forever wash out your near-whites. Don’t take this as law though: Experiment, and always do what is best for that individual piece. Most importantly, do not save over your original file, or you’ll be sorry when you need to adjust these levels for a new printer or printing medium.

Conclusion

1) Scan small stuff at Kinkos, or buy a Mustek A3 scanner.

2) For large works, if you can get one, grab the scanJet 4670 from Ebay or elsewhere – or go the photography route and (recommended) build a rig for photographing paintings in pieces. Also, don’t forget that you can (carefully) remove canvas paintings from their stretchers if you must scan on a standard scanner.

3) If you can, pay the man (time is money) – If you are not hell-bent on full control, and have the money, and can find a good local service: Use them. This stuff is a huge headache, and you can use all the hours you’d spend on research, practice, fine tuning, and execution on making works that would be worth whatever you are trying to get out of paying. Reasonable imaging for a painting is $300 for something in the 36×24 to 48×24 ballpark.

I’d recommend against proofing ($200 or more additional) – do the color adjustments at home, make crops of your image (saves money) with different color adjustments, and get those printed. I have several versions of the most crucial 8×10 section of a painting printed in my first try. Be sure to label each try, so you know which was the one that looked bright on your screen, which was the one that looked dark, etc… Hold these printed bits up to the original and compare.

Once you have this down, use the same printing company for as long as you possibly can… Once your prints are perfect, buy all 20,30, or 50 limited editions of that print that you plan to offer – and store them in a flat file or a large flat box. Why? Because a printing company’s printing profiles can change, or maybe the day you order print #27 of 50, some nose-picker replaces the worker who used to print your works perfectly. Maybe they change inks, or canvas type… either way, that Limited run you thought you could run one at a time (the benefit of digital offset world), is screwed… and by the time you make adjustments to account for the variation, you are sitting on three or four prints you can’t (in good conscience) sell.

I’d go into recommended printing companies,things about color profiles and other such things here, but that would make my summary/conclusion long. That will have to wait for another post. Stay tuned.

This piece took me 2 + 2 days of no sleep, painting from waking till crashing.

“Break time” for me is a matter of choosing 2 or 3 days in which to do art other than the art I *should* be doing, and I tend to cram as much art into that time frame as I possibly can. This time around, I decided rather than several engravings or several small paintings, that I would do one painting, break far away from my typical American Art Movement or Luminist style, and delve into something more Art Nouveau or cartoony (I chose somewhere between ‘both’).

If you’d like to see the fine details (minuscule scales, blood vessels in the eyes, variegated petals, and all the fine lines which hold them in), you’ll probably need to buy the original (here), or buy one of the 20 available full sized giclees (here), *or* buy one of the 10 by 20 inch metallics (here)

Reign in Purple: 12 inches by 12 inches in acrylic on wood panel.

Detail 1 (click to view)

Detail 2 (click to view)

The original is 32×24 inches, painted in acrylic on canvas.

14×11 inch hand-signed giclees are here: http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/all-products/slave-1881-steampunk-boba-11×14-inch-giclee/

10×8 inch metallic prints are here:  http://www.mykeamend.com/new/products-page/all-products/slave-1881-steampunk-boba-10×8-inch-metallic/

Most importantly, those people would be able to be here during Artprize, Late September through early October, or at least be able to transport their part of the project before the event begins. Preferably, they would live in the region and be able to work on the project right here – that work period being from May through September.

This would be a collaborative project, with winnings split evenly between collaborators, should we win. Expenses would be covered by whatever sponsors we can find, and I’ll be seeking space to work in, in addition to the perfect venue for our work – hopefully one that will yield the most visitors.

The types of artists/artisans I need are as follows:

A plumber, or preferably someone who has experience and tools to weld brass, and feels they can do so imaginatively. Bonus points if you have some experience with functional structure and moving parts.

An Architectural design/engineering student (or preferably certified structural engineer), because venues and insurers are very happy when there is paperwork ensuring them our work won’t fall down and go “Boom! Squish! Aaaagh!”

Someone who works with electronics and electrical might also be nice to have, as we probably won’t be able to use coal power our device.

A co-painter might also be desired… preferably one who works in the pop-surrealism vein and does not mind putting down paint with other people’s paint.

Someone who works in alternative energy would be a plus. Electrical is the fall-back, but I would *like* to see this thing powered by green or alternative energy sources – anything from solar power, to sterling engines, to just a bio-diesel powered generator… or otherwise.

Persons experienced in grant writing and/or press releases. I’d be happy to count you as a collaborator as well – as long as you are willing to pitch in on driving, organizing, and/or some physical work in the process.

Of course the fewer people we have, the bigger the share, so people skilled in multiple areas outline above would be preferable – but I feel our team should not be so slim that it presents difficulty. That perfect balance is what I am looking for.

Creative Freedom:

I’ll put in ideas, thoughts, and designs where/if *wanted*, but want you to have as much creative freedom as you desire. I want this to be a collaborative project, not an artist as an overseer project. You can put in equal input on what I am bringing to the table, wood working, painting, promotional ability, web site skills, programming skills, graphic design skills, and a broad knowledge of most everything practical, to make a huge and impressive piece that is *ours* collectively and equally.

What is to gain?

Aside from participating in the nations largest open-entry art competition, which spans an entire downtown area:

$250,000 is the first prize,  $10,000 is the second prize, $50,000 is the third, and fourth through tenth prize are $7,000.

I am confident that if we do not win, we should be able to find a home for the finished work pretty easily, because we are that awesome. Interested parties can contact me through my contact form (hit the little envelope on the pipe at the top of the page).

Sponsors needed:

Right now, I would love to hear from suppliers of fabric and canvas, art paper, lumber, brass tubing/piping/hardware, tool companies, transportation/logistics companies, hobby shops (gears, cogs, shafts, servos), salvage yards (much of the same), art supply companies (paint, gesso, acrylic medium, pencils, markers, brushes, etc..), and anyone who has a hangar, industrial space, or large garage for us to build in.

Progress to date:

I’ve already grabbed a domain and hosting for the project, in trying to be more pro-active than last year. I will be using my “spare* time to build the site for this project over the next month or so. Details will be on that will be posted here once the site is up. Everything from there will be rather “hush hush” and done via groups, phone, email, or in-person, aside from press releases, until the ArtPrize bidding process begins.