THE RUDEST AND THE NUDIST

My transient bloggin' ass has returned, with a painting to show y'all. There's a ghost of a chance I may return soon with a better photograph taken of this painting under better lighting conditions, but here's the REALLY CRAPPY PHOTO of it. This is actually a piece collaborated upon by Lindsey Wiseman and me, which we originally started one night back in 2010. It sat for nearly two years until a couple weeks ago when Lindsey and I decided to dust it off. It's neat to see how you have changed, as an artist and as just a person, when you re-visit old works like this. Anyways, I'm not going to wax sentimental all up on this, so here's the pic .

Untitled 2010-2012

26" x 46" 

Chris Hecht and Lindsey Wiseman

OCTOBER

Holy cow, you guys. It's been almost another whole year since my last blog post. Are blogs a thing of the past anyway? Tumblr's kinda where it's at right now. I do have a Tumblr, though I really just use it as a portfolio instead of the more informal atmosphere of a blog. If you want to see either Tumblr, I have two--

This one's for Art with a capital A
http://ChrisHecht.tumblr.com

and this one's for cartoons n doodling
http://CJH-doodles.tumblr.com

Okay, enough advertising for STUPID CRAP. In recent news, I am currently working on a new portrait, which I intend to submit for consideration in the 94th Toledo Area Artist's Exhibition, for which the deadline is the 22nd of this month. Didn't I post something to this effect for last year's TAA? Yeah, well, this year I think I have a better chance of getting accepted. It's not that I believe I've grown much more as an artist, per se, so much as I think I've gotten a little more clever. The unfortunate truth is that the TAA exhibition seems to lean significantly in favor towards artists dealing with the figure, at least as far as 2-dimensional work goes. Last year's exhibition saw a heavy saturation of outstanding portraiture and other figurative work. One of this year's two jurors is Joe Fig-- noted figurative artist and recent participant in the 'Small Worlds' exhibition. If I had to bet, I'd say a figurative piece stands a better chance than large-scaled landscapes in this limited space. So anyway, here's a couple shots in-progress of one of the abstracted portrait pieces I'm submitting!

Not really much to see yet, huh? I'll post again when it's done, man!

Also, listen to this, ya dorks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63A3jBtSkk

2011 has been a shit year, you guys. I haven't hardly painted anything. Here's a couple for ya.

This one was completed a couple days ago. I referenced a photograph I took of Illinois Avenue in Maumee for this. I'm halfway satisfied with it, though I think the composition could have benefited greatly from more untouched canvas than I left.

This second composition here is actually a smaller painting that I made early in this year. I was never crazy about it, thus I didn't think to document it sooner than now.

As for news and such, you can take your ass to downtown Toledo right now and see 3 of my paintings on display on the first floor of the Secor Building (425 Jefferson Ave) through the rest of this year, as part of the Reclaiming Toledo exhibition. Or go down to 1700 Canton avenue a few blocks over, to Bella's Art and see a couple more of my paintings on display.

I gotta get out of this little town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFyv6Y2J9Lw

Gallery Loop 2011

Once again, I've managed to not update this blog for a few months! It's been an eventful few months, though; mostly good! Anyway, to address stuff from my last entry-- No, I didn't get into this year's Toledo Area Artists Exhibition at the TMA. Space was limited and entries were very, very numerous, so naturally more established/skilled (lol) artists than I made it in. Anyways, I'm mostly updating about yesterday's Gallery Loop in Downtown/Uptown Toledo. Over 20 venues participated and the event was a real humdinger! One gallery in uptown actually opened for the first time last night-- Bella's Art in the District (1700 Canton ave) -- and that's actually where some of my paintings are on display. The place is small, but the turnout has been pretty great! To top it off, one of my large paintings has a potential buyer! Anyway, the place is mentioned in the current issue of Toledo City Paper, page 18:

Don't know why my name is in bold, but that's cool. And, check it out, 1 and 1/2 of my paintings are in that photo, haha!

As for current stuff I'm working on-- I've got 3 more landscapes I've been doing, hopefully I can get at least one done by tomorrow, because there's yet another exhibition here in Toledo that I'm trying to submit work to. More details on that later! Other than that, Jory and I are really making good progress on our cartoon! We finished our first little clip, though it's not uploaded to the internet yet, as the file size is huge; but I'll post a link once it's up. Anyway kids, thanks for reading and I'll post again with some work before too long!

More things

Heya kids. Here's a couple things I did! This first one is a painting I finished yesterday. It's along the same lines as most my landscapes, but this one is actually...watercolor. I know, right? I thought I'd try working smaller and on paper, and since watercolor is so easy to dispense with, this was the most convenient option. This measures something like 9"x16"-- really small compared to my normal landscape sizes. I am pretty satisfied with it, and plan on doing many more small ones like this on paper, just to see where it takes me.

This is a bad photograph of a bad painting I did of and for my father around Christmas time. It's a little shameful that I'm posting it just now, but I thought it wasn't bad, especially given that it's a portrait done by me (lol).

That's all the work I have for now. Tomorrow I find out whether or not my work was accepted to be in the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition, which opens later this summer, at the Toledo Museum of Art! I'll be back with the results soon, follower(s?)!

5/29/11

Hey boys and girls, you gettin' excited for the new Transformers movie coming out this summer? That's a Michael Bay film, you know? Well shucks kids. I, without any explanation or pretense, happen to have INSIDER INFO on the new movie, slated for late June!! Here it is, gang!

Gee whiz, what a sizzler!!

Drawin' Creeps Again

Alright, here's a couple of drawings that have a level of quality disproportionate to the long amount of time between now and the last time I updated this blog! Haha! This first one here is actually an older drawing I made, like a year ago.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time in motorcycle parts stores with my dad. This illustration is of one such place, called "Banzai Cycle Supply." It was owned by the guy on the left, who went by the nickname "Banzai" from his career as a drag racer. The other guy I only knew by his nickname, simply "Biker Bob" and was a common sight at the shop. They were a couple of decidedly-hardass old guys, but were real soft-hearted, and I miss them greatly.

Whereas the above illustration depicts a sentiment on my part, the following one certainly does not. This one is more recent, done a couple of weeks ago. This one isn't anyone in particular, but it is my visual depiction of the Internet, personified. Maybe it's a little based off of someone I know, ha ha ha!