I decided to give one of the oil brush options in painter a try. It is sort of similar to the acrylic one I like. It’s A’Ok.

And a close-up:

I made another thing in Painter. I enjoyed the smeary sponge enough I wanted to use it again. This guy is from a drawing I did when I was working on my John Candies painting, I think it was originally supposed to be uncle buck or something, now it looks like Freddy Krugger’s less-burned slightly fatter brother.

Good times.

You are free to imagine whatever word(s) you want in the word balloon.

Oh, and some detail because maybe you want to see that too.

I decided I should branch out and try to use some of the different brushes offered in Painter.  I really like my wet Acrylic 10 & 30 brushes, but those are two on hundred (not even getting into the custom options).  So, I set out to try some of the other varieties.  These are what I made:

First up: Oil Pastels!

These are weird. The color seems to have some dynamic nature to it, but it made nice texture and was fairly easy to blend.

Here is a detail:

Secondly: Smeary Sponge!

I kind of like these. I started out big and rough and just sort of kept dialing it in a little bit. It allowed for some subtlety and super easy blending. Might be too soft for my tastes, but I only worked on this guy for about 40 minutes, so who knows….

Here is a detail:

Maybe I will do more with more brushes. Like some of the oil brushes, or I might try and create my own…

I decided I will write about occasional travels ’round here as well as posting art stuff.

I spent the past week+ chilling (mostly working actually) in San Francisco. It was my inaugural trip out there. The main purpose was a big ol’ work conference, but the upside to those is I get to eat lots of good food. And I decided to stay on a couple extra days and play the part of tourist.

Lets get to my favorite part of travel: food.

Day 1 (or rather, night): Bourbon Steak – Fancy pants take on Chicken and Waffles along with truffle oil mac and cheese and beignets covered in some sort of bourbon sauce for dessert.  I had an appetizer also I am sure, but what that might have been is a mystery. An interesting meal, though the fancy take on the chicken was to not actually fry it. Oh well….

Day 2: Sadly we missed our reservation so ate at some generic hotel restaurant. But they had a mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwich, so not all bad.

Day 3: Heaven Dog – Had some upscale Chinese food at this place. But the highlight were they crazy ‘mixologist’ bar tenders. I did not partake in their crazy cocktail concoctions but tried sips of the ones they made for other people. Tasty stuff. And I got some fancy bourbon out of it.

Day 4: I almost opted to skip dinner this night, as I was tired. But good thing I didn’t, we went to Prospect – First off, I had 2 crazy cocktails, one bourbon based, the other was gin, strawberry and black pepper. Both tasty. But the food was what really shone. I had: Shaved pork face, Cod with an onion sauce that might be one of the best things I have tasted, and rhubarb panacotta. Hands down the best meal of the trip up to that point.

Day 5: Lulu’s – Oysters, Roast clams with butter, red snapper, Some dessert I can’t quite remember. I also finished off every one else’s desserts which I also don’t remember, it was food overload by this point. (Edit: My friend Carla was nice enough to jog my memory.  I had beignets with some gelatto-esque substance, then there was also ordered two order of profiteroles, key lime pie, and some espresso cake thing, I tried all of them, the key lime pie won the award for best dessert on the table). I liked it all.

Day 6: I had lunch at the Slanted Door, which was pork Vietnamese noodles and they were amazing. I also had my first ever macaroons from a store in the Ferry Building Marketplace, they are good. I might try to make my own now.

Day 7: Lunch was crabs at fisherman’s wharf. Dinner we went back to Prospect (see day 4), it was so good I wanted to go back and try something new. I got the quail for my starter and had the duck for my main, both amazing. I also got the rhubarb panacotta again. Tied for best meal with itself!

Day 8: Nothing of consequence, food wise.

I also did some touristy type stuff during free time and on the extra 2 days I was there. Here are some photos of stuff.

I went to Alcatraz with some friends on my first full day in the city, before the work meeting got into full swing.

We did the ‘night tour’, so we got a boat ride all the way around the island. The sky was looking quite nice I thought.

Closer to the island, you can see the birds and flowers and what not. It was much more attractive than I anticipated. The island was pretty interesting. Definitely a good time.

The next bunch of days I didn’t have any non-food fun.

Thursday was my first full free day.  Some friends and I walked from our hotels to the Ferry Building Marketplace then down along the piers to Pier 39, which is where Fisherman’s wharf is.  There were a bunch of sea lions there, but otherwise it was kind of lame.  Like some sort of mini-Disney tourist trap.  Those sea lions are crazy noisy.  We ate (crab’s) then hopped a bus to the Presidio.  We came across a big dome thing with columns, the Palace of Fine Arts apparently.

Very European feeling.

We then made our way to the beach along the bay to walk over to the Golden Gate Bridge.  I got horribly sun-burnt, but it was a jolly good time.

The bridge, bay and a bird.  Visual alliteration I guess.

The next day we took a cable car to the top of Nob Hill.  The hills and steep streets in San Francisco are no joke.

The cars all looked like they would just roll down the hill with the slightest provocation.

Lots of neat, but probably damned expensive houses all over the place.

We then decided to walk to Lombard Street, the crooked part.  the map made it out to be about 10 blocks, not too bad.  Until we hit hill, after hill.  The going up was bad.  Going down might have been worse though.

The street is cool, but I don’t know if it was worth the hike.

After that we walked to and through little Italy and China town, which, like New York, are right next to each other.

That was pretty much it really.  Good times.  If I go back I am bringing sunblock and better shoes.

I have a couple pieces in a show coming up in June based on the movie “Wet Hot American Summer” more information on the show later, but I finished the pieces so, post them I will.

This is Jo Lo Truligo’s character Neil, it is called, “You’re making a big mistake, Victor Kulak!”

and…

This is Ken Marino’s character Victor, it is called, “Wait for me Abby Bernstein!”

Both of which are 8″X8″ acrylic on maple panels.

I didn’t seal or treat the wood in anyway, as opposed to all those basswood rounds I have done. I’ve never really painted on untreated wood before, its kind of like watercolor paper that can give you splinters. I like it. Not the splinters part… (I didn’t actually get any splinters)