What's In A Name

[The current state of my painting.]

While crunching on my bowl of sprinkles with a side of ice cream and listening to my favorite band of fightin' Scottish rockers, Glasvegas, I was struck by a brilliant idea: for my series "The Beatniks, The Bastards, and The Saints," instead of wearying my brain and fully exhausting my limited vault of wit (which I need to save for these ramblingly endless witterings I call blogs) trying to come up with interesting and smart titles for each of my pieces - I've decided to take a cue from one of my favorite filmmakers, Guy Ritchie. I love his films because they always involve a colorful cast of characters with the greatest nicknames you wish your schoolyard friends had been clever enough to give you. Bullet Tooth Tony, Barry The Baptist, Gorgeous George (which I named my pet plant after) - who wouldn't want a nickname like that? Seeing as my subjects for this series very much resemble the ruffians, variants, and miscreants that Guy Ritchie seems to share my affinity for, I am going to take a page out of his book and give each painting it's own colorful nickname. Whether or not these names will be based on the real life subjects in the paintings - well, that's for me to know and you to wonder about.

All ideas and submissions for bad ass, underworld-worthy, hooligan nicknames are readily and heartily accepted! Here's a little something to get your creative juices flowing my friends. Ole' Statham at his best. "This is an unlicensed boxing match, not a tickling competition." I also included a few pictures of my progress on Matt's portrait. Still haven't decided his moniker yet.

-Amy

Listening to: Glasvegas' "It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry"

[My trusty coke can in the bottom left corner. I can't seem to kick the "juice."]

[A closeup of the unfinished hand. It looks crazy now, but I'll keep layering the colors now that I have a general base laid down and it will eventually end up looking like a hand.]

[My paint palette for the skin tones. I do cheat and premix an empty 35mm film containers worth of a skin tone color so I don't have to keep mixing more up mid-paint. Then I use that and add and mix the other colors (burnt sienna, yellow ochre, titanium white, quinacridone crimson, and ultramarine blue). Check out my amazing skeleton head clock on the table too.]

[My painting teacher that I had for all of the two days it took me to drop the second rate IVC class said that brush cleaner was a sham. I bought this the other day mostly because I liked the graphics on the label, but it is the BEST. Saves so much time cleaning brushes.]