Teaching Girl Scout Troop to Draw

Here I am in the classroom I teach art  to middle school students, but here I am doing a special session with a group of Girl Scouts, 17 nine year olds, to earn their Art badge. They did a great job learning how to draw Mickey Mouse. 

National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame

I indicated in a previous post that the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago changed their plans for the latest cover of their official publication, Red, White and Green. Due to the timing of this change I ended up creating the image in Photoshop, using high resolution photography provided by Team USA Basketball to honor Jerry Colangelo for his contribution to the teams success in winning the Olympic Gold medal for basketball. I hope to get back to Chicago soon and see some of the new exhibits at the museum.

Air and Space hall of fame

Saturday night October 25th at the San Diego Air and Space Museum their annual induction into the International Aviation Hall of Fame took place. I completed the two paintings which I indicted in a previous post of Brigadier General Robert Cardenas, USAF ret. and Astronaut Scott Carpenter, who was one of the original seven astronauts of NASA. Some changes have taken place for next year that will allow my fellow hall of fame artist, Stan Stokes (http://www.stanstokesart.com) and I to have a more hands on approach in the timing and the research for the paintings. I was able to speak to the two inductees I did and get them to autograph 8" x 10" copies of their respective paintings. It also gave me an opportunity to personally thank them for their service and contribution to our great country and world community as well. Now onto the next of my hall of fame clients, the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Musem and Washington University, St. Louis Athletic Hall of Fame, with this years inductions of new members.

San Diego Air and Space Museum Hall of Fame

I am thrilled to report I have been asked again to contribute to the Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air and Space Museum which will make numbers five and six in paintings I have done. It would take a lot to catch up with their neighbor two hundred yards away with one hundred and fifteen art pieces for the Brietbard Hall of Fame at the San Diego Hall of Champions Sports Museum I have done since 1983. (At that time I had to redo the fifty-six members of the hall of fame in the new format). 

This years paintings for the Air and Space will be astronaut Scott Carpenter; one of the original seven astronauts, and Brigadier General Robert Cardenas who was part of the Air Force's test pilot group and flew the B-29 that carried Chuck Yeager in his X-1 on its way to being the first to break the sound barrier. The Induction ceremony will take place October 25th at the Museum.

Change of plans.

Well every now in then the world of commercial art will send a curve your way. It has happened with the project for the next cover of Red White and Green Magazine the publication for the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. They have moved the Joe Torre cover back and replaced it with well deserved acknowledgment of Jerry Colangelo with his work over the last three years helping to bring back gold to the US Olympic Basketball program. I will enjoy creating this cover for sure. USA! USA! USA!

Yankee Greats

I indicated in a previous post that I grew up watching the Yankees play some other team on Saturday mornings. So a lot of my baseball art has been of  Yankees greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig,  Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Bill Dickey, and more. The image here has a nice story attached to it as it gave me an opportunity to speak on the phone with the Yankee Clipper himself. A thrill to say the least. It came about during my time with Sports Collectors Warehouse and I had completed a painting that was not this one of Mr. Di Maggio. His agent indicated he wanted something different to be done of him so he set it up for me to call him over the weekend. I was to call at a specific time and to expect to talk no longer than ten minutes. Upon making connection my conversation started out with a fact that my wife was related to him. It seems her Mother's  Father and Joe's Dad were first cousins from the same town somewhere in Sicily. That set the tone for the conversation in which he paid me a compliment about my art he had seen. He indicated he had played with or against a lot of the players I had done for SCW up to that point and that I had nailed their likeness. That took us to the problem at hand and we discussed the changes he would like to see in the next attempt at the painting. The conversation ended after not ten minutes but thirty. I will always look fondly on that with pride. Long story short, I never did the painting for SCW as Mr. DiMaggio called me to tell me he did not trust the publisher and stopped the project. How did this painting end up getting done you ask? A collector contacted me to help him get some lithos he had paid for and I was able to take care of his request. After a couple of years he commissioned me to do a private painting for his collection of Mr. DiMaggio and gave me complete control of how it would look. We settled on the design that Mr. DiMaggio and I had discussed in our first conversation and that he wanted to be shown as the complete ballplayer. The rest of the story is that I complete the painting and a few years later get asked by the National Italian Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago to have them use it on the Official Publication for the museum. I did and six months before he passed away, Mr. DiMaggio gets to see the painting done the way we had discussed. Two years ago the owner of the original asked if it would be possible to produce a small number of prints of the painting that he could sell to some friends who admired the painting. We produced just 56 prints and to have a remarque drawn on each one. A true limited edition giclee. There are just a handful left and anyone interested in purchasing can contact me through this blog.

Fellow artist

Today I met with artist Dan Bois in my studio talking about working the Comic-Con Convention next year. I hope to have some designs up that will be made into bookmarks, buttons, and cards. You can see Dan's work at his blog at http://danboisgraphics.blogspot.com/

Last Legends cover for the Tocco era

As promised in the previous post here is the last cover I did for Paul Tocco. I liked the composition of this one and was glad it was the 50th cover and was of Mickey Mantle. As a boy growing up in San Diego in the 50's and 60's we watched baseball on TV on Saturday after Dad had us five boys (no sisters, my poor Mom was out numbered) doing yard work. It always seemed the Yankees were playing some other team and the announcers were former players Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. Mantle was who all of us kids dreamed of becoming playing the baseball games in the street out in front of the house. And yes there were a few broken windows. Ultimately that is what Paul and I wanted to accomplish with the covers. After all most collect to capture a portion of ones past.

First Legends cover

This is the first in a series of postings I am calling "A Look Back" to help fill in the back story of projects or clients I have had. This of course is the first cover I did for my friend Paul Tocco who decided it would be a good idea to publish a guide for the sports memorabilia collector in articles and price guide. We started it at his kitchen table and I even did the logo by hand. We thought it would be cool to show some of the biggest Yankees through some era's in their history whose memorabilia was very sought after. Thus the reason for including the signed baseballs. The print run was only 2500 copies and today has become a collectible in itself. In a span of 54 months I created 46 paintings of which 40 were used as the cover. I will post the last cover I did for the Tocco era and follow with some recent covers for a individual who was attempting to restart the magazine.

This is my latest painting for the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. It is of Capt. Eugene Cernan and he was the last astronaut to walk on the surface of the Moon. I got to meet him and get his autograph the night of the induction dinner for the Hall of Fame. Proud to be a part of this portion of the museum.

Just getting started

After a lot of thought I have decided to create a blog for people to come and see some of my creations as well as new ventures in my art career. Any suggestions or comments are always welcomed. Keep watching!