Saturday, December 29, 2007

My Original Painting A Day


August 1986
ink & marker on bristol board
7'' x 7"

I've been laid up for the last eight days with a terrible cold, and as such haven't been able to put in any time on my Cherry Can painting. This has really put me behind on the work I need to do for the show at Twinhouse in February, but what can you do.

Rather than let my blog languish un-updated I thought I'd post something fun from my past. I recently received an email from someone who used to frequent our type/design shop Pace Typography in the late 80's. In his letter he mentioned how much he had enjoyed my calenders. I hadn't thought about them in a long time, so I got them out, and looked them over for old time sake.

Each month for one year I created a calendar shell, and in each square I'd draw a little picture representing the most significant event of the previous day. Then, I'd color them with markers. Each square was about 3/4 of an inch in size. A lot of these days had no event more significant than working, and maybe watching television that night.


March 1987
ink on bristol board
7'' x 7"

March of 1987 was the last month I did this, and as you can see I never found the time to color that month in. The images are rather cryptic, and I've forgotten what a lot of them are supposed to mean. We did go to a lot of movies in those days. A lot of movies. I was also spending a great deal of time building scale aircraft models. Both of which are heavily represented above.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to post my first "painting a day" effort. I have a lot of fond memories of Pace Typography. It was a wonderful experience working everyday with my best friend Michel Valin. He and I worked really hard, never made any money, but for nearly eight years I looked forward to going in to work each day. Many of our clients would come to pick up their jobs, and then would just stay and hang out. People didn't want to leave, even occasionally joining us for lunch. A number of those clients have become very close friends.

I'm back at work now on the cherries, so I should have a new progressive image up soon.

Happy New Year - you all!

6 comments:

  1. These are wonderful! What a great, creative idea.

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  2. Hello James, hope you are feeling better. Well, I'm writing to tell you that you have been tagged! Yet again! You don't have to do this again if you don't want to, thought I let you know that I tagged you and put a link to your blog on my post. Take care and get well.

    Luis

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  3. These calendars are so different from your other work, but I like them a lot! They're charming and fun, and it's a neat idea! Do you still remember what each little drawing represented from the past?

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  4. Very cool idea, and fun to pour over the little pictures and try and piece together what you did that day...

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