Writing On the Canvas

Still alive

2011-12-02T11:08:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the cobwebs...sheesh it's been a while. That whole getting married thing is a time consumer, I gotta say. Anyways, wish I had a whole lot of great things to share, but just a few exciting things going on.

I am exhibiting a painting at the National Art Museum of Sport (NAMOS) in Indianapolis as part of their College Athletics and Academic Excellence: A Fine Art Exhibition. The painting is "Unstoppable" featuring Anthony Robles, and will be on display at their museum until February 2012. Then, from March 2012 through July 2012, it will actually move to the NCAA headquarters building...and potentially longer if the NCAA decides to purchase the painting and make it a part of their permanent collection.

So, that's all I've got right now I'm afraid. Hopefully with the holidays some more exciting news will come about!

Thanks for checking in.

Later,
Jason

Harper, Dempster, Robles

2011-06-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

I've been able to make some progress on the Bryce Harper painting and the Ryan Dempster painting as well -- and also hope to work on the Anthony Robles painting soon too! Here are a couple of quick pics of the Harper and Dempster paintings. If I make any progress on the Robles painting, I'll be sure to post the photos on here as soon as I do!

Thanks for dropping by! Keep it real homies.

- Jason

Moving Forward

2011-05-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

Well, as some of you may know, in addition to working on a painting of Bryce Harper, I've also been in contact with the Hagerstown Suns (Harper's current team) with hopes of working with them on prints of the painting. Despite some encouraging early discussions, the trail went cold so to speak, and I felt like it was time to stop waiting around and move forward on the piece. As wonderful as it would have been to work with another Minor League baseball team, I don't have enough free time to spend waiting to hear from someone. So, here is the updated Bryce Harper painting:

As you can see, I went with the Nats "red" uniforms for the painting. Because I am leaning towards a white background, I thought the red jersey would really make it "pop" off the paper to the viewer.

Obviously a great deal of detailing to do overall on the painting, but I really like the contrast of the red jersey so far with the blank background. I'll keep everyone up to date with new pics as I make progress!

Thanks for checking in!

Jason

Harper Road Trip, Robles Painting

2011-04-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

Harper Road Trip

As I had mentioned previously, a friend and I headed down to Lexington, KY to see a few games between the Hagerstown Suns and Lexington Legends -- mainly to see Bryce Harper, but was also rewarded with seeing Delino DeShields, Jr. as well.

And, thanks to Spring weather here in the Midwest, we were graced with seeing 3 games in 2 days. The Monday night game was rained out, so it was originally rescheduled as part of a double-headed on Tuesday (the night of the 1st game we were attending). With this new information, we decided to leave slightly earlier than planned, as the 1st game was slated to start at 5:05pm instead of 7:05pm. We arrived at around 4:30pm and were unfortunately greeted with some information over the PA...the originally scheduled DH has been rescheduled for tomorrow due to field conditions. So, essentially we were at the ballpark nearly 3 hours early. Luckily, it was .34 cent hot dog night!! They also offered 3 for a $1...which we took full advantage of.

It was a rather chilly night on Tuesday...I think it was in the 40s around gametime and felt much cooler as the wind was gusting to around 20-30 mph. Which I think may have attributed to Harper's poor performance at the plate for most of the night. He didn't look overmatched, just had an off night. His final tally on Tuesday was 0-4 with 3 K's. The 3rd strikeout resulted in free chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A for everyone at the game. Unfortunately, we were not able to locate a Chick-fil-A location in time to utilized our coupon. Still a nice touch I guess! In Bryce's final at-bat (4th of the night) he squared up a ball to left-center field for a flyout, so I knew he was getting "zeroed" in at the plate.

The weather was much more cooperative on Wednesday for the doubleheader. Harper went 1-for-2 in the first game, with a walk, and looked much more comfortable at the plate. The big moment came in the 2nd game of the "twinbill" as Harper hit his 1st "professional" home run. His first at-bat resulted in a deep flyball to right field, and then hit a laser beam to left-center in the top of the 3rd inning off of Legends pitcher, Ruben Alaniz, for his first dinger of the season. Unfortunately, my friend and I assumed the home run ball would be retrieved rather quickly, so we didn't attempt to find it initially. However, after a few minutes we decided we should at least check it out...and much to our dismay, it was retrieved just shortly before we got over there -- by a guy that sat right next to us the night before. So, good for him...not so good for us. Oh well, so it goes as I often say. Harper's stat line for the 2nd game was 1-for-4 with a home run, 2 RBIs, and 1 Run scored. And, of course, here are a few of the nearly 150 pics I took at the 3 games! Enjoy!

Robles Painting
I've also recently started a painting paying tribute to Arizona State and 2011 National Champion wrestler, Anthony Robles. This is my first ever watercolor painting on canvas, so I'm still experimenting will all of the elements as the canvas reacts much differently than that of watercolor paper. But, it's coming along nicely so far. Here's a picture:

Upcoming MiLB Road Trip

2011-04-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

As some of you may have seen me mention lately, me and a buddy of mine will be making the short trip from Cincinnati to Lexington in a few weeks to (hopefully) see Bryce Harper play in-person...up close and personal-like. I know the hype surrounded Harper is pretty much off-the-charts, so I couldn't resist seeing him play for myself.

With that said, I will try to tweet, and communicate live from the games as much as possible. I'm taking along my Canon digital SLR so I will spend a great deal of the early part of the game taking tons of photos, but will try to upload some videos live as well.

So, if you're not already, follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cincysportsart
And, if you want to see any videos I upload from the games live, you can access my videos on Qik.com via my "channel" here: http://qik.com/cincysportsart

In the meantime, I'm going to be watching as much of the free preview of MLB Extra Innings as I can as baseball season moves into full swing (pun very much intended).

Take care all,
Jason

Road Trips and baseball

2011-03-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing I love more than painting baseball...it's watching baseball in-person. Unfortunately, Major League Baseball has become entirely too expensive to watch in-person on a regular basis, so many years back I started turning my attention to the more fan-focused, Minor League Baseball. With that in mind, I've already made plans for my 1st MiLB Road Trip of the 2011 season. My buddy Joe and I will be trekking about 2 hours south on I-75 to Lexington, Kentucky...the home of the Lexington Legends. Lexington's got a really nice ballpark, but we're not going down for just the setting. We're there to see Bryce Harper. Maybe you haven't heard of him. Okay, if you haven't heard of him, how was Honduras and the jungle?...because, I'm pretty sure more people have heard of Bryce Harper than have heard of Albert Pujols. Well, that might be exaggerating slightly on my part.

Either way, we'll be taking in 2 night games between the Legends and Washington Nationals Single-A South Atlantic League affiliate, Hagerstown Suns. We've got front row seats right on the on-deck circle for both games, so we figure to be nice and close to the action all night long for both games!

If you aren't following me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/cincysportsart) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/cincysportsart) yet and want to see pics and videos as they happen for both games, I would suggest following me on both social media streams to make sure you don't miss any of the action. I will also be taking my digital SLR along for the ride, so I will more than likely take between 150-300 shots of all the action.

Anyways, that's all I've got to pass along for now, but stay tuned for any new road trips that get planned out for the summer! Happy Opening Day tomorrow baseball fans...can't wait!!

Later,
Jason

Harper update

2011-03-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

I had a chance to work on the Bryce Harper painting a little bit today and wanted to pass along the updated pic. I mainly tried to focus on toning down some shadows and picking up some highlights in the facial area. Did quite a bit of detail work as well, but also added some skin tones that I plan on lightening and darkening later on to add to the shadows and highlights as the project progresses further along.

Thanks for checking it out!

Jason

Another Artwork Donation...and my iTunes playlist

2011-02-02T20:12:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share another painting with you guys that I will be donating to charity. I'm very excited to announce that I will be creating and donating a 16"x20" original painting to the Dempster Family Foundation!

Being a life-long Cubbies fan, I'm always happy to be creating an original piece with a Cubs player as the subject matter. Ryan Dempster is the subject matter for this painting, following in a format similar to that of a previous painting I did of Matt Wieters -- which is to say that I will be applying the background entirely with a palette knife. I plan on "scoring" and "scratching" areas of the background in the 1st layer and will then repeat a similar process as I apply the 2nd layer of paint. As you can see in the pics below, I've "masked" off the areas I don't want to be painted...mainly to save time. I can thank my dad for this masking skill, as his auto body shop was a semi-playground for my brother and I, and learning how to "mask" cars and car parts for painting was something we always enjoyed learning.

Anyways, here are the early pics of the painting:

I had someone ask me about some of my favorite music and what I like to paint to. Well, here are some of my favorites songs I have on my playlist:
Cake, "Short Skirt/Long Jacket"; Saliva, "Ladies and Gentlemen"; Kid Cudi/Kanye West, "Erase Me", Young Jeezy, "Lose my Mind"; OK Go, "Get Over It"; Gang Starr & Inspectah Deck, "Above the Clouds"; and a heavy dose of Weezer, AC/DC, with sprinklings of The White Stripes, Neon Trees, 3 Days Grace, Linkin Park and many more. Just wanted to share that with you guys!

Later,
Jason

ziMS Foundation pics

2011-01-24T07:45:00.000-08:00

I knew I forgot to add something to my last post...a pic of Ryan Zimmerman with the painting I donated to the ziMS Foundation Golf & Gala last fall. So, here you go:

And, if you want to see all the pictures from their event, here's the link: ziMS Foundation Gala Photos Well, that's it...just wanted to get this pic up there. Many thanks to Cheryl and Keith and the ziMS Foundation for including me in their great cause!

Harper update

2011-01-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post a quick update on the Bryce Harper painting. Still a ton of shading to add to his face and arms, but it's coming along fairly nicely. I like how it's taking shape, so I'm optimistic about how the final piece will turn out.

Enjoy!

Happy 2011

2011-01-02T20:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all my devoted followers...that is, probably all 4-5 of you out there, haha. Either way, I remain steadfastly optimistic that this year will be the year that I start to really see my business take off. Perhaps being a life-long Cubs fan has created this optimistic outlook on my business perspectus, but either way, I remain committed to my goal of one day painting full-time. However, in the meantime, I'm going to keep plugging away and getting my name and business out there anyway I can!

With that said, I'll give you the rundown for the short term. Not a great deal of new information to report I'm afraid. I'm still working on the pre-uniform areas of the Bryce Harper painting...hoping that the MiLB team that he ends up on will have some interest in prints of the painting once finished. If not, I'm hoping to finish the painting before the season starts so I can attempt to capitalize on the hype surrounding Bryce Harper.

I did manage to finish a small painting of Tribe catcher, Carlos Santana, as part of a Christmas present for my brother. Here's a pic of the "total" project:

As you can probably see, the painting is autographed by Mr. Santana. What you might not be able to see, is that the matted frame also contains a ticket from Carlos' MLB Debut...which is also autographed. My thanks go out to Hollywood Collectibles for all their help and answering all my questions about the signing. I will be offering prints of this painting very soon...so, if you're interested, let me know and maybe you'll wind up with an artist's proof or low numbered print.

And, just in case I finish the pre-uniform portions of the Bryce Harper painting...I do have some back-up plans in the works. I'm leaning towards doing a decent size painting of the Clippers, Blake Griffin. I've found a pic that I really like, and it's just a matter of if I get to it or not. If that one doesn't strike my fancy, as a life-long Heat fan (although they weren't even established until I was in Jr. High), I'm also contemplating on doing a Big 3 (LeBron, Wade, Bosh)...or even a solo LeBron piece.

Either way, I'm sure 2011 will bring new challenges, new projects, and hopefully new clients. Best of luck to everyone, and I hope to paint something for you sometime soon!

Later,
Jason

fun times

2010-11-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I honestly had every intention of posting an update earlier today; however, was surprisingly distracted by a virus that has reeked some serious havoc on my desktop PC. Apparently, when I recently switched our 'net security program to a free service provided to Time Warner customers, I inadvertantly switched to an inferior program. So, thanks to Time Warner for that one. With that said, I am currently sitting here with my ancient laptop, waiting for a system recovery to finish up on the desktop. Whether or not this will be successful in the removal the registry errors left behind by the trojan, I am not sure. But, I am crossing my fingers, toes, legs (but not too tightly), and nosehair that it works. Plan B you ask? Well, funny you should mention that. I took the necessary 2-3 hours earlier backing up a lot of photos, documents, and the like onto multiple CD-R's, just in case, Plan B became the choice action. Plan B is the full system recovery...meaning I would essentially completely erase my hard drive and start from scratch. And, honestly, considering how computers typically react for me, I full expect to be staying up late tonight performing said Plan B.

Anyways, I wish I had more fun and entertaining news to pass along, besides my poor judgement in computer security programs. I will try and pass along better and happier news next time!

Later folks,
Jason

Update

2010-11-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

I've got a number of updates to pass along, so I'll get right to it. As promised, my latest commission is finished, so I wanted to post a quick photo of that. So, here you go:

The colors and shading in the photo are a bit "askew" because of my lighting, but overall, I thought the painting turned out pretty well, and more importantly, my clients were extremely happy with the painting...and that's what's most important to me. As I'm sure you can tell, the painting is paying tribute to the NY Islanders 4 straight Stanley Cups in the late 70's to early 80's.

In addition to the painting I donated to the ziMS Foundation at the end of October, I am also going to be donating my Andrew McCutchen watercolor painting to the Florida Collegiate Summer League's Celebrity Golf Tournament being held November 14th & 15th in Central Florida. I just finished matting and framing it, so I'll try and get some pics up of that in the next few days! Don Greinke, Zack Greinke's father, will also be donating an autographed giclee' print of the painting I did of Zack a number of years ago...so I'll actually have a couple of items in their auction. Hopefully it will help out their great cause!

If you are wondering about new projects on the horizon...well, you're in luck, because I've got a number of ideas for the end of this year and the beginning of next year. First, however, I have a few side projects I'd like to finish up: an oil/acrylic of World Series champion, Madison Bumgarner, a watercolor of Stephen Strasburg, and finish up portions of the Bryce Harper watercolor. I'm currently holding off on adding the uniform portion of the Bryce Harper painting, as the Nationals are set to release new uniforms in the next few days. There are also other reasons that I can address at a later time and when I have more information to share. And, now to some potential projects for 2011!

LeBron James (Sorry Cavs fans, I'm a life-long Heat fan, so it's been a great few months), Terrelle Pryor, Albert Pujols, Aroldis Chapman, and I'm sure more will pop up as the year progresses! So, stay tuned for all the latest!

Later,

Jason

ziMS painting scanned, Ryne home

2010-10-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

I received my scans of the ziMS Foundation painting today and couldn't be happier! Chromatics in Nashville, TN always do a great job and work in a very timely manner! If you're an artist and are looking for a very professional company to handle your artwork scans, Chromatics is the place to have it done!

Here's a small scan of the painting: (watermarked of course)

I also learned that the Ryne Sandberg commission arrived safely to its new home in Japan. So, I was relieved to find out that it survived the journey overseas for my 1st ever international shipment. And, I don't think it had to endure a cavity search, however, I'm sure the customs dept. was thorough in their inspection.

Later folks,
Jason

ziMS Foundation Painting Finished!

2010-10-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

The oil and acrylic painting of Ryan Zimmerman is currently on it's way to Nashville to be scanned, prior to it's arrival in Virginia for the ziMS Foundation Golf & Gala in Virginia Beach. So it is making a short pit stop in Nashville before hopefully helping to raise a great deal of money for MS research & treatment! The painting will be auctioned off for charity at their event. So, if you really like the painting, buy some tickets to the event Golf & Gala Info and place your bid! It's certainly a great cause!

As you might imagine, here's a picture of the "final product":

Once I get the scanned image back, I will post some "clearer" pics of the painting. There's a slight glare from my flash, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the great amount of detail that I put into each and every painting I do!

Next on the agenda you ask? Well, I'm also currently working on a private commission, which once completed I will post pictures of that as well. And, after that, I am planning on finishing up the Bryce Harper painting and the Stephen Strasburg painting. I have also been thinking of doing a Terrelle Pryor painting, but we'll see on that one. And, hopefully I will have some other commissions come in to...can always use the extra $ come holiday time!!

Take care all!

Later,

Jason

Painting Update

2010-10-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share a couple of photo updates with everyone, of the painting for the ziMS Foundation Golf & Gala. It's sort of getting down to "crunch time" as the painting is due up for auction in just over 2 weeks...so I've been very busy the past few weeks trying to get it finished as soon as possible. So, anyways, on to the pics, right?

As you can see I've touched up a lot of the background elements and have made some rather solid progress towards finishing this painting up. My checklist of things still left to finish: touch ups to his face (shading, etc.), add the remaining detail to his jersey and pants (shading, highlights, etc.), and then finally, I still need to add the "detail" in the foreground of the dirt spraying up in the air. I have a special technique for this addition, and once I've got it all finished up, I'll try and take some close-up's of this area to show you more detail. In the meantime, thanks for checkin' out the digs here on my bloggage action.

Later,
Jason

ziMS Foundation painting

2010-09-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share with you guys, the updated picture of the painting I am donating to the ziMS Foundation charity golf & gala later next month. Enjoy!

Change of address

2010-09-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well, if you are a "regular" here at my blog -- which, let's face it, you're probably not...because I'm not really either. haha Anyways, I have moved my blog to a new host, http://www.blogger.com/. I was just really sick of the ads and other distractions associated with my previous blog host, LiveJournal.

So, welcome loyal followers! I will do my best to keep you all up to date with any new goings on in my life, as a part-time sports artist.

Stay tuned for new photo updates of the ziMS Foundation painting, as well as hopefully some new projects that will be starting. I will also be posting pics of a private commission in the coming weeks as well; however, I wanted to keep that "private" for the clients until it's finished, and then I will unveil the pics to you, the public.

Thanks!

Jason