Gouache on canvas ~ 24" x 16" Finished in May 2006, in Los Angeles, Calif. ~ original sold

Hypothetical inanimate characters in motion... Suggestive of antique animation, with a MIRO influence.

This piece was inspired the paintings of Miro. I was looking at his images in a book of his art first thing in the morning, with a cup of coffee. This is a "good" habit I have developed, starting my day looking at art. I recommend it.

Rather than go straight to a computer, or whatever, I try to spend some time looking at books of the art of other artists. (Yeah, I know there's everything by every artist ever online - but looking at a book as a certain "quality" that is very cool. Different than a computer screen) I buy books of art by many types of artists on EBAY for almost nothing - $5.00 - $10.00. It sends my day off on the right foot to open my head up to some different kinds of art every morning before I work. Of course I mean, every morning when I can. I also subscribe to artist magazines of all sorts. Some are pretentious, but I enjoy them all ... I always get something out of these books and magazines.

I used to have a very expensive art book collection that burned in my house fire in 1995. It was a crying shame. However, perhaps even more shameful was that I seldom had, or made, the time to spend with all those expensive and marvelous books. They were almost "too valuable" to get my greasy finger prints on. You know?

However, I always spread those books around when I'd invite a girl over so I'd make an "artistic" or "intellectual' impression. How pretentious is that?!!!?

But now, I have an ever growing collection of art books that I buy for peanuts on the net, and I look at them all the time. I derive HUGE amounts of inspiration from them! Every artist has something to offer, something to teach.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, one book I recently purchased is on Joan Miro. After looking at his works for an hour or so, I went to my studio and painted this painting. It has, I think, influence from his dramatic paintings that have lots of motion in them. I don't know if you see what I see ... but I do know that I had a great time painting this, and wore a smile almost all of that day ... And that's worth a HELL of A LOT! ...

So now you can try to outbid me on all these art books on ebay ~ ~ ~