Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Michael Jackson (jackson five)



I sculpted this little 8-1/2 " Michael Jackson figure 23 years ago. When I first started at Will Vinton studios in 1986 I was into Michael's music and thought this would be a cool sculpt to do. It's made from Avalon oil based clay over a wire and brass armature and even the Mickey mouse is done using a clay inlay. I did it on my own time and it was never used in a commercial or anything but the odd thing was that about a year after I sculpted this, Michael called the studio and said "I wanna be a raisin". From there we began work on the MJ California raisin commercial and later speed demon music video.
It's in rough shape after all these years but I thought people would like to see it.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Michael Jackson RIP



I'd been working on a life sized sculpture of Michael Jackson and was actually filming the process for a youtube clip that I was going to show on one of the MJ fan club websites. This is Michael from the 1980's about the time he would have done the Thriller video.
When I had the facial features a little further along I was going to splice the head onto the torso and finish that out with buckles and shoulder epaulets. Once finished I intended to cast it as a bronze statue (bronze sculpture) of Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson's magnetism, dance moves and artistic charisma have changed the musical landscape forever. One of the most widely beloved and influential artists of all-time.
RIP~
Monday, June 01, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Claymation history exhibit


Coming to the Oregon his
to
rical society next week (Thursday the 14th) through September of 09. Will Vinton gave a talk to a couple hundred people on RSVP night and has presented lots of images, props and artwork that he's saved and tracked down from over the years. They're running ten small monitors and one huge monitor with various DVD animation compilations of films, TV specials and commercials as well as the creative process from the 70's through the 90's and there's fifteen sections with four thousand square feet of exhibit space. I was asked to come in for a couple of weeks to clean up and repair characters as well as "Recreate" my old workspace from the 1980's, so that's been quite a walk down memory lane. I'll try to post some pictures later but it's a pretty cool exhibit and something worth seeing in person at http://www.ohs.org/
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Shipping out artwork

This is a bronze that I did a couple of years ago called "Preserving the legends" and there's only a few left in the addition. I recently got an order for this one so I have it boxed up and almost ready to ship out to the customer. This has a polychrome patina which basically means more color than a traditional bronze finish. In this case I used hard brown wax so I could sculpt fine detail in the beadwork and feathers.29" tall X 23" long.
Original wax sculpture.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
More Coraline artwork/sculpts

This is a very early version of Wybie done in the traditional Claymation type Van Aken clay. I did a lot of early exploratory head sculptures searching for what the director wanted to see out of this character. This is the only one I actually remembered to take a picture of.

"Other dad", rear view.
This was kind of a difficult pose to sculpt. The angle of the arms, legs and back all had to be accurate and the body had to have the correct sense of weight.



I don't know if this character actually made it into the film, maybe in the background somewhere. It was a fun sculpt to do and it came together very quickly.

Baby in a pouch.
As far as I know this little guy was in the movie.

Bobinsky's chicken
Yes it appears to be a simple sculpt but it had to be done using the shape language that the director wanted.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
More Coraline art

Another scrappy Rat from Coraline.

These are more drawings that I did during the production to get a handle on the style of the movie and to think of the characters in terms of clay sculpts.
These drawings (or sketches) are my interpretation of original character design created by the concept artists on Coraline.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Big Stratocatser Guitar

This is another one of my 30" X 40" oil paintings in a series to be shown at a gallery in Portland Oregon.
30" X 40" oil on canvas with 1-1/2 gallery edge.
If "Slash" Sal Hudson Lead guitarist for "Guns and Roses" would ever return my phone call I'd make him a great deal on this piece! He's the original guitar hero.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
The snapshot
This was a sentimental study of various family memorabilia that I found in my attic. War letters, old photos, a diary and a postcard.This is way more photographic detail than I like to paint but it was a great exercise.
Artist William Harnett might have appreciated this trompe l'oeil style painting.
18 X 24 Oil on canvas






































