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Desert Shadows – Now Available (in my store)

I reached the point where I *wanted* to add “just a little bit more”, but typically, as one learns over thousands of years of banishment to Earth, this is the point where one more brush stroke equals “overworked”. I waited about fifteen minutes just staring at the thing, and was happy with my decision.

Taking photos of paintings in artificial light don’t tend to yield the most spectacular results – there is a slight color shift seen from one edge to another (especially visible on the full shot). I’ll be getting it professionally scanned while I am away, proofing it when I return on the 29th, and since my printers are local – I’ll be able to start shipping these around January 11th.

They are however available now, in large limied edition metallics, limited edition giclees on canvas, and medium-sized open edition metallics (18×12 inches).

A bit about the painting:

I wanted the sphynx to be foreboding forgotten monolith, but I also wanted it to look “alive”, so I decided to put the tentacles emanating from the portal in the sphynx, putting the one winding around the back in the position a cat’s tail would be in were it thinkiing about ‘pouncing’.

In the shadows of this painting, are a night sky – something to dress up the dark spots, and to fulfill the need I had to make a starry sky out of my cloudy lightning-filled sky.

Desert Shadows (photograph of painting)

These weird shell things- I wanted rocks, but did not want them to be boring old rocks, I also wanted the desert to look almost as if it were a dried out ocean… so these fossil-like shell-like patterns in the stone served to fill these needs.

The lightning field – The way I wanted everything to be lit, required that lighting was coming in varying levels from many angles. I also love lightning. The floaty cages are a throwback to back when I did purely surreal artwork… and I thought they would add a nice ‘living’ touch to the landscape without ruining my desolate scene with actual plants.

ert Shadows (photograph of painting)

Lanterns everywhere – this one in the netting and reflecting off the portal window. A view of the coal bin, lightning field, floating cages, and propellers as well.

Oh… the nautilus. The nautilus-like submarine from “the Rescue”, now beached in the middle of the desert. Why??? … umm… Don’t tell me how to run my painting! It was a whim!

ert Shadows (photograph of painting)

Gondola – and lots of netting. More fishnet than a goth club on a Summer night. It serves well as extra cargo space. Ladders and doors for a sense of scale.

ert Shadows (photograph of painting)

The whole painting. Please forgive the obvious color shift from right to left, it is the result of uneven lighting on the painting when I took the shot.

ert Shadows (photograph of painting)

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The Rescue Limited Edition Giclees current count

Cropped image from "The Rescue"
Cropped image from "The Rescue"

I was asked earlier today what the status (particularly current remaining count) of the 32×22 (full sized) giclees are, and since I feel it may interest repeat visitors and new visitors alike, I thought it would be good to repeat the information given here:

Of 50 to be made, ever (no “Second Editions”, no “Bonus Editions”, no “Super-duper Extra Golden Millennium Editions Plus!!!”), minus the one I am keeping for myself, 10 remain.

Of those 50 “the Rescue” giclees, 2 have been stolen (1 disappeared in shipping and was replaced with the next print, 1 was stolen from an owner), 2 have been destroyed (1 accidentally, 1 purposefully).

That leaves 46 existing, meaning only one in 139,417,298 people planet-wide will have one of these things when they are gone.

I am saving 3 for upcoming gallery shows, 1 for myself, and I keep 1 print on hand for every print that is in transit (to have a replacement on hand for those who order, just in case something goes wrong).

So, when another 5 of these have sold, they’ll be out of stock online, and I think they’ll have pretty much seen their last Holiday season here.

I say these things not to pressure anyone into buying, but as a heads up. And my refusal to release future separate editions, is to protect and ensure the value of those prints purchased from me.

I do 1 set of full-sized limited editions from each of the three support types (metallic, canvas, and fine art rag paper), and any open editions of any of those support types are at a reduced size – and of course un-numbered and un-certified.

Thank you for visiting – thank you everyone who has purchased prints here (and enabled me to make artworks for a living) – and thank you everyone else who has made this possible – for every blog, every article, every friendly link or friendly mention, for every url scrawled out on a bathroom wall, and every child named “MykeAmend.com” – You people are incredible, even those of you which don’t exist but might.

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Happy Accident – new print available

I love the printer I work with. They are not only fantastic at what they do, but wonderful to deal with

When I mess up the lines of communication, sometimes some really nice things can happen, such as this new 24×12 inch giclee of “the Machine”

camera phone pic of the thing stretched and mounted
camera phone pic of the thing stretched and mounted

I switched this order over to them because the last printer took forever (months) getting the artist’s prints from this batch to me.

I could not make up my mind if I wanted a new proof or not, first I did want one at half size, then I didn’t.

The reason being was that I already had their color profiles, and they matched up perfectly with those of the printer I had used to make the artist’s prints for this series.

Even though I did not need one, my first impression was to get a proof anyway, just to be thorough – but I decided instead to go ahead and print full-size, just in case it came out right. Choosing a different printer to run the series meant another artist print was called for – and this would be one of them.

Well, in my back and forth, I ended up with a 24 x 12 inch print instead of the 48 x 12. I thought I would sell this smaller artists print as just that… but when I stretched and mounted it, I realized it was the perfect size:

At 24 inches wide, it fills a decent amount of wall space. It looks great at this size, and is probably the smallest this wide-format image could be printed and still show all the detail and give the same feel. Most importantly – it offers a cheaper alternative to the huge 48 x 24 prints, which are a bear to stretch, mount, and ship (finding 48″ stretcher bars is tough, finding a 52x28x3 inch box is tough, shipping it out is very expensive).

On the 48×24 inch machine print in particular – I have had a lot of people tell me they really want one, but, as no surprise, things are too tight at the moment for large purchases. It does sadden me a bit that I cannot go any lower on the big ones, but I can offer alternate sizes.

Stretched and mounted, these are $165, but are reduced through this week to $125 (my typical introductory price thing). I do this because I know that seeing my art on the walls of people’s homes, makes people want one for themselves.

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Flying Puppets: The Jules Verne

Carl Rankin makes these planes from everyday materials such as straws, trash bags, tape, thread, and offers on his site rather inexpensive books and Cd guides to creating these doubly-inexpensive works of wonder.

His gossamer-winged “Jules Verne”  can be seen in greater detail at Flying Puppets, and can be seen in action at BoingBoing.

*Story Lead Credit: Thank you Travis Fessler of the brilliant and talented Anachronistic Entertainment Troupe: The Pickled Brothers

The Jules Verne Taking Flight
The Jules Verne Taking Flight

The Jules Verne

* 56″ wingspan
* 14 ounces flying weight, 1.7 oz/ square foot wingloading.
* Made of drinking straws, tape, thread and yellow Reynolds sandwich wrap.
* This plane flew at the 2007 AMA convention.
* Carl Rankin’s picture is in the May 2007 Model Aviation Magazine, pg. 20 (holding the Jules Verne and wearing a Transmitter Tray by Jeff Sandler (rctraymanusa.com).

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Free WallPaper: Thanks for the Ether (Antarctic Experiment in sepia)

New Steampunk Wallpaper: “The Antarctic Experiment” (Sepia antiqued variant of the original image), 1280 x 1024, from the series “Airships and Tentacles” – a Jules Verne and Hp Lovecraft Inspired series of explorers in dirigibles in precarious situations.

Click image below to download or view:

A color version of this, in 1280×1024 and in 1600×1200 is available at Ettadiem.com

Antarctic Experiment in Sepia (Thanks for the Ether)
Antarctic Experiment in Sepia (Thanks for the Ether)