BURROUGHS-ing IN...............

After all the festivities and good times with family and friends, yesterday I got to go back into the studio and spend most of the day working and I must admit it felt GREAT!! I got 90% of the background done in the Earth's Core painting and started to work a bit on the figures. Today I am starting on some of the foreground as well as more of the figures and tightening a few things up, so the whole thing is coming along and there is another ink that I have started to pencil in sitting on the drawing table.

I will update a bit more later and maybe let a few images sneak out soon, but until then I am keeping them to me. There might be a rough pop up in a week or so.

Thanks

Tracy

MERRY CHRISTMAS

My wife and I were at the annual Christmas party that we go to last night, and somehow during all the fun I managed to find my bag of stuff that I carry everywhere I go and whilst we were sitting around talking and having a good time...............I accidently did this drawing.

I was just sitting there on the couch and talking and making comments and yet at the end of the evening I had this sitting on my lap. I don't really remember doing it, but there it was and so here it is.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY

Tracy

KEEPING SPIRITS BRIGHT.......

Just a few Christmas cards that I had done in the past.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, I wish you PEACE , LOVE, and HAPPINESS in the new year and hope everyone has a safe and blessed Christmas and holliday season.

See you all next year.

Tracy

POP

Here it is, the special painting I was talking about in the COMING SOON post a week or so ago. As the title says "POP", its my dad. This is a special image as it is the first real portrait I have ever done, but even more so........this is for my mom. Today is her birthday and this is her present. As of the writing of this she has not seen it, but will open it later today, I truly wish I could be there for it, but in some small way I am.

In this painting, I just wanted to pay tribute to my dad, whom I love and respect more than anyone I have ever met. When I grow up, I would like to be the man he is.

Through this painting I also wanted to say thanks to my mom, for all the encouragement, advice and love she gave us growing up and still does. She is my number one supporter and "fan", so this painting is for her. In some small way with this image I can start paying back some of what they ( mom and dad ) have done for me. I know I can never repay all they have done for me, but I can try and the first step is to say thank you. I would not be who I am without their efforts or help.

So thanks to both and HAPPY BIRTHDAY mom.

I love y'all.

Tracy

ON SALE ON E-BAY

Starting tonight......November 24, 2008 at 9:00 p.m. EST. There will be 2 origianl works on sale on E-bay for 7 days.

Both of these paintings are in oils and measure 16" X 20", and are painted on gessoed masonite.


So from Nov. 24, 2008 until Dec. 1, 2008, there is an open opportunity for anyone who wishes to buy one of these paintings:

(Just click on the painting title and the link will take you there)

HEADLESS III







PTERODACTYL PTROUBLE

Thanks

Tracy

COMING SOON.....

Come November 27th, Thanksgiving day I will be posting a very special painting that I have been working on. It is a thanks as well as a gift.

MAHAR

Here is a quick little post of a Mahar for the Earth's Core portfolio.

Now that the special personal project I was working on is finished, I have gotten back to the EC folio, sketching and roughing out the inks, and the oil is back on the easel.

At The Earth's Core

There is a rumor going around that I am working on creating a limited edition portfolio of images from the ERB book, "AT THE EARH'S CORE".

I want to say that yes this is TRUE!!

I want to say this........because yes it is, I am the one who started the rumor as well ( smiley face goes here). The folio will consist of 1 colour image, and 6 black and white brush and ink images. It will be in a very limited quantity of only 300 pieces, with an additional run of 50 in a "collectors edition" which will include pages that consist of my sketches, doodles, roughs and notes for the project.

The price and packaging are as yet to be determined, since it is still in the very early stages, but I have started on the painting for this, and have all but one of the roughs for the inks worked out.

I would hope that it is all done and ready to put out in the spring of 2009. I will post more on this later as it progresses, but for now...it is in the works.

Thanks

Tracy

King Kong Solidario........

Well the Auction is over for my piece..........I odn't know the actual figures, but I am quite happy to say that I in some small way got to help out a good cause. Maybe in 25 years I can do something for the 100th anniversery of the 'ol boy and help out someone esle as well.

I do want to thank all those who participated, art wise, production wise, bidder wiser, buyer wise and other wise. So thanks to all.

Tracy

AUCTION FOR CHARITY...KING KONG SOLIDARIO

Ok here is the link to the Kong Auction for DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS I spoke of in a previous post. Here you can bid on ORIGINAL works by SANJULIAN, DAVE DORMAN, SERGIO ARAGONES......and even one of mine. Please take the time to look and check them out. Good cause great works.

http://shop.ebay.es/merchant/scifiworldmagazine_W0QQQ5ftrkparmsZ72Q253A895Q257C39Q253A1Q257C66Q253A2Q257C65Q253A12QQ_trksidZp3911Q2ec0Q2em14QQ_pgnZ1?_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

and just because this is my blog, here is a direct link to the image I did as well:

http://cgi.ebay.es/King-Kong-Solidario-Tracy-Flynn_W0QQitemZ270286565501QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item270286565501&_trkparms=72%3A895%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14

Thanks for stopping by.

Tracy

RUSH FEST 2008

Just last week I recieved an E-mail from the Executive Director of the Rush County Chamber of Commerce :

"Tracy,

RushFest is having an art show as part of our festival this year. I wondered if you would be our featured artist for the show. The festivalis on September 27th from 11-3. The art show will be in the newlyrestored 201 building.

Thanks!"

Of course I accepted, it will be good for the community as well as good publicity for me........we all win :)

If you are in the area stop by and take a peak at some of the works in person.

King Kong Charity show and auction

Back in July I recieved an E-mail from Luis M. Rosales, editor in chief for Scifiworld, the onlymagazine dedicated to fantastic cinema in Spain. In his letter he asked me if I would like to take part in a solidarity action that they were organizing. In October, later this year, we are going to carry out anexhibition on the 75th anniversary of King Kong. The name of the event is King Kong Solidary. For this occasion we are inviting several celebritiesrelated to the world of cinema, illustration and cartoons. It consists ofsending us an original art related to King Kong which will be displayedduring the Sitges Film Festival. Later it will be auctioned on eBay,donating all the obtained money to Doctors Without Borders.

The answer was of cousre YES! it is for a good cause, and it is KING KONG.

I will post more about this as the date gets closer. I hope some of ya'll out there will check it out, maybe even bid on some of the works in the auction.

Thanks

Tract

Its not what you got but HOW you use it.

Just recently I was talking with a friend, and he stated how he used to love to draw, but just didn't have the time,the space, or the right stuff to do it anymore. Now I just recently talked about the whole time thing in WAIT A MINUTE, so now I think I will talk about STUFF. I work on an extremely tight budget, but I do work and do get some things done.....not as fast or as much as I would like, but I do draw, and paint. I am using the drawing table that my parents bought for me 30 years ago.........no problem with that, its a good table. I have an easel........one I built out of 2 X 4's and some masonite and screws and such.......it works for me., and yes I do have a studio space in our home, but even when I didn't..........I still drew, and did some watercolours.......not really painted, as I have stated, I took a few years (20) off to pay bills and all that sort of stuff........ I still work 2 jobs and still take care of the house, cook ,clean and all that...........but still make the time to draw and paint.

Ok...enough on time...............the statement "the right stuff" got to me. I actually got up, walked over to their computer, pulled a sheet of paper out of the printer, picked an ol' yellow pencil up from the desk and said " there now you have the right stuff".

My point being..........you really don't need a lot to do this with if you really want to. Space not really an issue.......got a house, apt ....whatever...........I sort of use my whole house as a studio, I do only paint in the "studio" tho, but if I didn't have that, I honestly think I would be set up in the kitchen or laundry room..........somewhere I will find the room, because I really want to tdo this............to coin a phrase " its in me and has to come out"(thanks to John Lee Hooker).

Here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

these are my drawing pads, drawing board, sketch book and such, I carry a toothbrush holder around to hold some pencils, a sharpener and an eraser, the "palm pilot" is a small moleskin notebook that I sketch in when I am supposed to be payint attention at a function........concert, school thing, or church.

This is as it says.....my nite stand, the pencils and erasure and sharpener are right there for when I have that idea in the middle of the night.....,or for when we are just sitting watchin the tube and I want to sketch.

this is my home made easel, for when I decided to get back into painting.............it was originally a tripod thing, but went to this format to hold extra boards and such.

Basically all I am saying is that if you want to do it.......just do it, you don't need all sorts of fancy stuff to make the art, just the drive and the ability. A yellow school pencil is basically a 2B........ I have all this stuff lying about because it is what I want to do. I do make the time for it, but I would do that even if all I had was a yellow pencil and some computer paper. I wanted to paint, so I built an easel to do it. You don't have to do that, but you can sit at the kitchen table and draw and paint just as easily.

When I handed my friend his own pencil and his own paper, he started to say something about "its not" .......I just asked him....

" do you want to draw or not?"

WAIT A MINUTE

IT'S ONLY A MINUTE

One minute.......not long when you think about it all by its lonesome, but added up they become a long time, an hour a day.....a year.

Now I am going to back track for a minute.

Earlier today I walked with my wife while she went to work. We live on 8th street and she works on 1st. I had some dealings to do with the post office and since it is on the way.....3rd street, I decided to walk with her......it was only a few minutes of my time, but it was extra time with her and that is always a good thing. We had a nice talk while we walked and it was fun. On my way back home I stopped at the library, since it would only take a minute, and I wanted something to read....I checked oout Jules Vernes 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. All in all my few minutes added up to 48 minutes.

Now a bit further back.

There was a statement made by one of our kids friends which basically said " How did you get to be so good(not my thoughts or words), I wish I could do that " I really didn't think about it much and said I have been doing it for awhile.....I am about 30 years older than the you are.

Now, on my walk home for some reason I began to think about time and all this sort of thing. There are billions of people younger than I am who draw and paint MUCH better than I do....so it is not the years they spent doing it. It is the MINUTES........and that thing called talent, but how many minutes DID they spend working on their craft to get to where they are now?

How many minutes a day do we spend working on our craft to improve what we do, or for that matter doing what we do?

Now, math is not my forte`, but the way I have figured it there are apoximately 1,440 minutes in a day, so if we take out roughly 480 minutes , 8 hours for sleeping ( I know that is a joke...who gets a full 8 hours ) that leaves us with 960 minutes. Now if we take out 180 minutes ( breakfast, lunch and dinner ) that leaves us with 780 minutes or 13 hours. I am going to take 2 hours out or 120 minutes for the other little things that happen throughout the day. Now that is 660 minutes ( 11 hours). As an artist...........how many of those 660 minutes do we spend working? .

Now I know that I am not full-time in this, I have 2 jobs that I do work so that I can spend my minutes on the art, but even when I am at one of my jobs, I get 2, 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch......that is roughly 60 minutes that I get to draw. I sit in my car during those breaks and work on my craft. In the evening time after work, I like to spend time with the family as we all do, but in the roughly 240 minutes ( 4 hours ) of family time.......usually with the tv on, I will sit and draw while we watch tv and talk and visit with each other. So that is 300 minutes of drawing in a day.......still need another 330 to make it to 660.

I wish I could say that this was an everyday thing, but it is not. There are some days that I am just not into it, or I am just too tired from the days work that I don't feel like it, or my favourite one.....I want to devote all my after work minutes to my wife and family.

I do make up for some of those minutes by drawing when I am not supposed to....in church during the sermon ( I do portraits of the preachers ), I tell my wife that I can listen while I draw, or at one of the school functions, or some other thing that we go to. So the time is there if you want to make use of it. I will draw on anything if I get an idea, I worked inpackage stores for a while and that is where my whole "bag art" stuff came into play.








I guess my basic point is that if you want to get better at something you have to put the time in to do it. There is no secret in that. You have to work at what you want to achieve it. Today is sort of my day off from the other jobs, but I still have work that needs to be done....cut the grass and do dishes, cook dinner, and a few other things, but it is still early and I am shooting for at least a minimum of 360 minutes ( 6 hours )of drawing....even with taking the time to write this down.

Just thought I would take a minute to say all this.......I do think it is important.

It is not the years spent doing sometihng but the minutes you actually INVEST in doing it. Of course this is true in most cases but there is still a little something like ability that does have to come in as well. No matter how much I try to sing.......it doesn't work and the dogs bark way too much, which leaves me hoping I am not waisting my minutes in the art department ( sorry IG )

BARNUM!!

Friday night my wife and I went to the opening.......wonderful show. A few opening night gliches in the tech department, but that was no real bother. The kids new their stuff and were amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! I was totally impressed with the staging, the preformances and the whole she-bang!! Miss Hathaway the director knows her staging and allher stuff!! My duaughter B:) was always in character and was amazing as always ( and that is not just a proud adopted dad speaking ) the kid ( Josh ) who played Barnum was made for the role........his final role in the school as it was his senior year and he nailed the preformances that I saw...Friday night and Sunday after noon.

On a sort of cool note for me............ not sure if it was added after seeing the poster or what, but the show ended with the Barnum character standing in the pose that I drew for the poster, as well as some of the staging mimicking the poster. ...........i.e. the two love interests being above someof the stage in the same corners as the poster......... All in all I was completely proud and honoured to be a small part of the production and even more so of those who worked so hard to pull it off! The cast and crew rocked!!!!!!!!!

Tacy

BARNUM

OK,

It seems that every year I get to do something special and fun for some friends of mine at the Connersville High School Theatre Department, this year was no different. I have to say it is an honour and privilege to be associated with this fine group of young folks and their teacher.

I would like to invite anyone who reads this and is in the area to come on by and check out what a great group of young thespians these kids are, what a great coach and director they have and sit down for an evening of great fun and enjoyable theatre. I know you won't be dissapointed.

The dates are on the poster but here they are again:

April 25th & 26th
CHS Spring Theatrical Performance of "Barnum" in the R.E.W Center* @7:30PM
April 27th
CHS Spring Theatrical Performance of "Barnum" in the R.E.W Center* @2:30PM

*R.E.W Center....Robert E. Wise Center for Perfoming Arts

Robert E. Wise was one of the greatest directors we have ever had. He attended the Connersville High School. Some of his credits include: The Day the Earth Stood Still..the greatest sci/fi movie ever made Westside Story The Andromeda Strain The Sound of Music Run Silent Run Deep The Hindenburg Star Trek.....the motion picture ......these are just a few