Posted November 26, 2024
Showing posts with label Apparel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apparel. Show all posts
Frederick Douglass
Available from the Billis Williams Gallery.
Posted September 28, 2024
Zinke's
20"x 16" oil on canvas ••• This shoe repair store was just up the street from, what was, my favorite deli, Billy's Delicatessen. That deli spoiled me for life. You could not find a sandwich on the menu that was not at least four inches thick. The kreplach soup was divine—especially when I was feeling under the weather— and the knishes were to die for. (Great, now I am hungry.) • Let's move away from knishes (smothered in gravy*) and get back to the piece you see here. This place was not on my "to do list" of paintings for my cityscape show, but there was this blank 20x16 canvas menacingly staring at me from across the studio. So, here it is in gooey oil paint. It also seemed like a good idea to document the place since it is also no longer there. • If you are wondering why I did not do a painting of Billy's, it is because the place is long gone, taking the only good knishes in town with it.
*Sorry to all you New Yorkers out there, but I like my knishes smothered in gravy.
See Raymond's Work at George Billis Gallery/LA
Posted January 22, 2022
The Big Boy
56"x 44" oil on canvas ••• The original "Bob's" was located in Glendale, California—my hometown. It went from being a 10-stool hamburger stand to a drive-in restaurant. I would not say that my family went there on a regular basis, but we went enough to lodge memories of the young waitresses coming out and hanging food trays on the doors of our huge family station wagon. • That restaurant is long gone, but the statue in my painting is still out in front of the oldest remaining Bob’s Big Boy in America. It is located in Burbank, California and is still open for business.
See Raymond's Work at George Billis Gallery/LA
Posted November 15, 2021
sold • private collection
John Marshall
8"x 8" oil on panel ••• I present to you in gooey resplendence the fourth, and arguably, the most important of our Chief Justices. It dawned on me that I may not have shared this diminutive piece with you—at least not close up—and this seems like an appropriate time. • The Honorable John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States was really the modeler of the court, it being in its infancy and desperately needing to be molded.
Posted April 6, 2021
sold • private collection
Saddle Shoe
Posted October 19, 2020
Nunzilla!
4"x6" oil on panel ••• Nunzilla seems like such an easy topic for discussion, but all I can tell you is that The Spousal Unit was against Nunzilla from the start. What's not to like? You wind her up (the toy, not the Wife) and she walks at you (a creepy walk, more like a swampthing crawl) with sparks coming out of her mouth. Simply wonderful! • Let's move on to a much more important topic. There is a technical term frequently used in oil painting studios around the globe and it goes like this: Where the $%&@# did that smudge of paint come from?!?!? (Etymologists have been able to trace its usage as far back as the reign of Ramsses II—circa 1250 B.C.—give or take.) • A smudge of oil paint can travel around a studio like, well... hellfire, so finding its origin can be quite difficult. One minute your fine and the next you have smudges all over the place. You stand there dumbfounded, terrified to move and mumbling, "Where the $%&@# did that nefarious smudge of paint come from?!?!?" As you can probably deduce, this just happened to me. The culprit this time is alizarin crimson and its origin still eludes me. Alizarin crimson is a wicked pigment that you do not want loose in the studio*. So far, it has been located on several of my digits, my trusty 12 ft. tape measure, and my not-so-trusty keyboard. Yikes, I just found it up and down my right sleeve, damn you smudge! God forbid it finds its way into the family manse. Which brings to mind another of my personal mantras: Do not wind up The Spousal Unit and have Her start shooting sparks out of Her mouth! • The hunt goes on.
*I
was going to say that alizarin crimson is a pigment that should be used
sparingly, but I do not use any pigment sparingly, so that would be a
bit hypocritical of me.
Posted September 17, 2020
sold • private collection washington, dc
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