chrysart

On my way back from dropping off the little one to school this morning I noticed a couple of books that had been left out on one of the brownstone stoops. One in particular caught my eye because of the way it was bound, it's size and the textured edges of the pages. The title of the book is "Daughter Of Fu Manchu" and it looked worn but clean so I decided to accept the find. At the time I thought it would make a great altered book.

On 23rd street and 9th avenue, while waiting for the light to change, I opened the cover and on the third page written in pencil I saw "1st ed. As is $12.00 BPB. So then I became conflicted. It's a first edition printed in 1931 so perhaps I shouldn't alter it although I wasn't convinced yet.

Finally I got home and looked it up on the all knowing internet, and this is what I found:




DAUGHTER OF FU MANCHU - Rohmer, Sax

That is the exact copy that I found and apparently its value is $150.00! I guess I should just read it and save it as part of my valuable book collection.

C

This just cracks me up. I can't stop watching it and it has a message believe it or not.

Congratulations to Barack Hussein Obama!

Can't wait for the day when Obama and his posse will fumigate the White House from all the vermin.

Can't wait to see Michelle Obama host the HGTV Christmas special.

Can't wait to see all the ways our country will change.

It's gonna be an awesome house party!

Here's a great little trick on how to peel a pomegranate quickly and easily.

I met a scarlet Flamboyan in full bloom gracing the corner sidewalk across the street from Jose G's house. Boy, what a queen of a tree she is! Formally known as Delonix Regia, she's gorgeous, graceful and puts on quite a show with her brilliant red flowers. While efflorescing, foot long, brown hard shelled pods filled with capsule shaped hard seeds, in a double row, dangle from her branches. A joyful greeting to our arrival in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.

http://www.photosofpuertorico.com/trees/dsc_0017.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcfgunkle/569601846/in/set-72157602273438512/

So I've been on LJ for a couple of years now and I've been neglecting to post entries, mostly because I'm not used to this sort of thing. Haven't figured it out yet, but I've always had an aversion to keeping diaries, journaling my life, having scrapbooks, and all that stuff. Well I think I'm ready to start experimenting with LJ in a more interactive way. This just may become even more amusing.

So my daughter's school wants to create a haunted house for their October Winterfest party/fundraiser and they've asked me to help them creatively with the art. The house will consist of four sections, each one with it's own theme. The various vignettes are a cemetery, shrunken heads, mummies, and Day of The Dead inspired by the Mexican holiday. I decided to tackle Day of The Dead and the mummy themes since the other two don't excite me much and this is what I came up with:



This one was inspired by the old Hollywood Boris Karloff horror films which I used to love watching when I was a kid.




I fell in love with the DOD imagery as I was researching various sources for reference. I absolutely love the psychedelia and honestly I've never partaken in any peyote rituals. Hope the kiddies at P.S.11 enjoy the horror of it all.

This piece was inspired from a gross nightmare I had in 2000. Didn't spend much time on this (maybe an hour), just needed to get it out of my brain. Didn't bother to analyze but if anyone would like to give it a try be my guest :) I used Adobe PS and a Wacom.

I'm proscrastinating again!

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Got Jen's approval to show off her house and street.





It's very cozy inside...



and she has lots of cool stuff with which to play!

2007 has been a great year of travel for me. I was fortunate enough to spend 6 weeks in Greece and ended the year at NOLA with our good friends Jen and Jay. What a wonderful time we had with our gracious hosts! Every day was filled with adventure, fun and really good food! Jen had me on a diet of Bloody Maries with pickled ocra for breakfast, Retsina wine snack treats, and yummy Watermelon Mohitos for dinner. What I couldn't finish I gave to her. I'm such a wuss when it comes to drinking. I just need lots more practice so I'll be visiting her more often, that's if they'll have us again.

The whole time we were there it was cloudy and rainy but didn't mind at all. The winter colors of NOLA are spectacular with such unusual cloud formations, and since I love rain I enjoyed the sounds of the furious droplets hitting the roof and the fresh smell of wet earth, something I don't get to enjoy much in my Manhattan high rise.

I was lucky enough to witness the gold tones of the NOLA winter sunset and how the rays enhanced the Marrusgate. Here's a couple of pics I snapped on our first evening.


MarrusGate


View from Marrus' Home.

Another 6x8 acrylic.

This small 6x8 acrylic painting was inspired by Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'.

Here's a piece I drew and colored digitally using Photoshop. It was in honor of my beloved Betta Fish that passed away a few years ago. I'll eventually get another.

This past weekend the Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo was held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion in Manhattan. I showed up at 11:00 AM on Saturday to participate in the 1st Valiant Panel: "Harbinger - The Beginning: Origins" that was lead by former Valiant editor-in-chief Kevin Van Hook.

Besides myself other attendees were Bob Layton, Jorge Gonzalez, Mike Mcguire, Scott Friedlander, Andrew Covalt, Rodney Ramos, Carol Van Hook, Andrew Wendell, and Bob Hall. I have to say that Bob Hall looks as young as he did 15 years ago!

I always enjoy sharing my Valiant/Acclaim experience with the fans and we briefly discussed the latest Harbinger hardcover and announced the next Valiant Entertainments projects. I'm currently working on the Valiant Bible and the next series that will be released in a hardcover compilation will be X-O Manowar. Don't know who'll be working on X-O but I'm sure the fans are eagerly looking forward to this one.

Later on Mike Cavallero, Maria Beccari, John Hunt, and Anthony Castrillo joined the rest of us to sign some books and hang out for a bit. As I was busy autographing the Harbinger hardcover, Val Kilmer, Hayden Panattiere and Walter Koenig would pass by as they headed off to have pictures taken with fans or to do seminars. Kristen Bell was hanging out there as well but I missed her. Loved the Spartans though!

I had a great time and so did my 5 year old who sat next to me and like a real pro kept drawing without taking much of a break. She's more comfortable drawing in public than I am. She had fun searching the booths of the toy vendors until she found a Black Canary action figure that she had to have and so she did.



Cover Colors by Me!
Pencils by Bob Hall
Inks by Joe Rubenstein