Monday, June 28, 2010

What's up Mr. Fox ?


The Fantastic Mr. Fox
8 x 10 inches, acrylic on canvas, framed
$100.00
Easily one of my favourite films of the past year and a DVD that cheers me up every time I feel a little stressed, I decided to pay tribute to Mr.Fox by painting his portrait .
Just wanted to show you that it hasn't been all posters around the studio, the way my time has been working out is that I've been painting Deep Sea Divers during the day and warming up for them by starting a smaller piece like the above Mr. Fox, which is then finished over a couple of days.
I've been using this method for a couple of weeks and it seems to work. So, the day is something like this, get up for 8 AM or so, do "warm up" paintings until about 12 Noon and then paint through until 6 PM, break for dinner go to the Press Club and draw posters for two hours and do notes for paintings for the next day. I am also currently designing an album cover / back cover / T Shirt concept that is actually a photo based project which is a nice change and involves some computer button pushing, had a meeting with the client during last night's tsunami and they are very happy with the work, can't post anything yet, but when the album comes out I'll let you know about it. Not only is it a great concept, the music is really good.
I also have two smaller commissions that have come from doing the above, Mr.Fox piece, I'm meeting with another client this evening to discuss a large scale commission and I am going to the shop all day to build frames.
If you would like to see me working live and in person and you have nothing to do on Canada's Birthday or the day after Canada's birthday you can come and visit me at the FRINGE Festival where myself and five other painter's will be working in the alley beside Honest Ed's for the Fesival event "Pretty Things". The FRINGE is now in partnership with Mirvish Productions and they have moved the Fringe tent from it's usual home at the Tranzac Club to the Parking Lot of Honest Ed's to make people aware of the switch they have hired some painters ( The actor's had to hire the painter's to get attention, that cracks me up )to do some large scale work, 4' x 8' to be exact, to catch the eye and guide folks down the alley to the tent. We'll be there from 6PM to about 9PM on Thurs. and Fri. I'll be the guy sitting down guzzling Vitamin water.
I love the Fringe, lots of friends work for the event, run the event, perform in the event but I just have to say this and I'm not stepping on any toes here, I am getting paid to "perform" but I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to finish a Four Foot by Eight Foot painting in 6 to 8 hours. I'm fast, everyone knows that, you can see it by how much work I post here, but man, I'm not that fast. I do detail work, it takes me over four hours to paint a whale that is 8 x 12 INCHES. Whatever I paint becomes the property of the Fringe or Mirvish and can be used in promotional materials/fundraising, but this painting is too big for me, give me a 4 x 4 or something. I also think that a vertical 4 x 8 painting won't fit in most homes and a horizontal 4 x 8 painting is longer than the average couch. 4 x 8 is the size of a standard theatre "flat" or "wall" so really, that's what we're using, probably because they were free, and the idea of scale appealed to the organizers, but really, I won't be finished. I'll post photos of my progress, I'll probably bring a bag of muppets to sell on the side too.
So things are really busy around here.
A.Shay Hahn

Press Fest Poster

This is just straight up functional, Press Fest is three days of music with anywhere between five and eight bands playing through the day, no room to get cutesy here. Not the most exciting work, but you can see it from a distance, which is the most important aspect, and everything is spelled correctly, which is also important.
I'll be posting a reminder about this event as I may have a SALE/ SPECIAL DISCOUNT EVENT during the three days of music, there are an awful lot of older paintings in the studio and it's time for them to move on to new homes. So mark those dates in your calendar and come back here to see what I come up with.
A.S.Hahn

Between the Hammer and the Anvil finished


Here are two variants for the "Between the Hammer and the Anvil" DJ night at the Press Club, Burke Broadway and I figured that if I just focused the poster on what kinds of music was being played we could skip the name of the night and instead replace it with a six armed female bodybuilder in a luchadore mask. I'll probably do a variant poster at some point that has the name of the event stencilled over the stamps, but this is good for now. Come to think of it, this event is tonight at the Press Club.
I like both of them, while the top image benefits as it is easy to read the music styles which is most important, the one that is upside down would grab you're attention while you're peeing, I mean I have to be honest, most of these posters get hung above the urinals , so you may as well have something interesting to look at. This week if you're in the city and finished being detained by the police and having tea with the Queen keep an eye out for my "Dodge Fiasco" poster, it should be appearing beside or above urinals all over town.
A.S.Hahn