Animal Parameters at Valkarie Gallery!

http://www.tomsarmo.com

For the third year in a row, I'm excited to be part of a fall show at Valkarie Gallery!

Animal Parameters is coming soon, and my works will join the amazing art of

http://karrieyorkart.com/

Karrie York

http://www.mikiharderart.com/

and Miki Harder 

Please click on their names for links to their sites and more of their art!

Here's a little preview of a few of my works which will be in the show:

http://www.tomsarmo.com

For folks who like fantastic creatures, here's a Lava Monster! A few illustrators and I were discussing how to create a stone creature who oozed lava from cracks in its hide, so I tried my hand at this fellow.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

I love owning sketches by artists, so I make many of mine available to collectors. And I gotta have a few Cranky Birds in every show.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

My animal works are most often images that spring from real animals but end up imaginary creatures.

http://www.tomsarmo.com

And dragons are animals, right?

http://www.tomsarmo.com

So I hope you will join us for Animal Parameters!

Here are the particulars:

 And be sure to check out Valkarie Gallery's current show Elements and Curiosities, featuring the works of Valerie Savarie and Sharon Eisley!

http://www.tomsarmo.com

Also, Innate Tapestries: The Endless Stage--a 96 page book full of my paintings and sketches--will be available for purchase at Animal Parameters. I hope you will grab a copy!

 Thanks for reading, and for supporting us artists!

From Mice to Poultry

Working with roosters and chickens, as well as mice. The roosters are prep work for a piece that'll be in an upcoming show at Valkarie Gallery called Cock of the Walk. It's a show celebrating the Year of the Rooster.

I don't know quite what the end artwork will be, but preliminaries are never a waste of time;

I'm learning with each sketch, and the ideas will be useful down the road. Even if I don't use any of these ideas for the show, they will probably turn up in a finished work at some point.

Been working on tan and gray toned papers, with pencil, blue and crimson Colerase pencils, and white Signo pens for the highlights.

In the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Rooster is the unluckiest year in the 12 year cycle, but the Rooster is confident, courageous, and best of all, honest--all three are badly needed in these times of ignorance, cowardice, and propaganda.

Hope this coming Year of the Rooster is filled with love, courage, and compassion for you and all people of the world. I will not give up hope, even in this darkness.

Thank you for reading

Five Hundred and Forty

The Cranky Bird Theatre Production of The Old Curiosity Shop (detail).

This is my 540th blog post.  I want to sincerely thank everyone who has followed and read this blog over the past 8 years. Writing an online journal can seem like navel-gazing at times, and trying to avoid that is challenging when posting at least once a week. Still, it's been helpful to me to keep a record of my art-life, so thanks for sticking with me!

The painting detail above is from my latest work for an upcoming show at Valkarie Gallery in October. The finished size of the piece is 18" x 24", and it's exciting to be showing this and other large pieces along with works by artists I admire.

 Soliloquy, ca. 2010

I was pretty happy with this theater-themed piece done 6 years ago, but am pleased by the evolution and improvement in my newest works.

I'll be posting details about the Valkarie show in the near future, and hope you can come and see all the works. In the meantime, check out Valkarie Gallery --they have fantastic new shows every month!

This month's show features the fine work of Hallie Packard

Don't miss it!

Thanks for supporting the arts, and again for staying with my blog all these years!

SaveSave

A Lot of Monkey Business!

 My piece and Valerie Savarie's art for Monkey Business!  The show opens tomorrow night at 6:00 pm and runs through February 21st.

Here's the info direct from Valkarie Gallery:

valkarie
gallery

presents:

Monkey Business: Invitational Group Exhibition

January 27 - February 21, 2016
Opening Reception, Friday, January 28, 6 - 9pm
  2016 brings us the Year of the Monkey in the Chinese calendar and to celebrate, our kick off show is an invitational titled "Monkey Business". Each artist was given an 8" square panel to create their interpretation of the theme but need not include an actual monkey. There is sure to be a great variety of art including paintings, photography, drawings, mixed media and digital art.

Artists include: Jared David Paul Anderson, Adrianne Tamar Arachne, Aria ~ She Paints With Blood, Clay Brooks, Hannah Conlisk, Danyl Cook, Kalindi DeFrancis, Dorothy DePaulo, MJ Dowling, Kayla Edgar, Sharon Eisley, Corrina Espinosa, Erin Hagle, Christy Lynne Harris, Rob Jordan, JxRxKx, Doug Kacena, Lisa Luree, Bernadette Lusk, Pat Marek, Frank Martinez, Eric Matelski, Ryan Morse, Ray Muñoz, Robert Newman, Nixi, Penny & Alex Oliver, Hallie Packard, David Perea, Zachary Reece, Sammilo, Tom Sarmo, Valerie Savarie, Heather Sims, Heidi Snyder, Dane "Colfax" Stephenson, Melanie Steinway, Michael Vacchiano, John Van Horn, Jesse Van Horne, Brian Wall, Emily Wilcox and Zaitlin Ziesmer.

Here are more photos of only some of the cool works:

Adrienne Tamar Arachne

Kayla Edgar

Aria She Paints with Blood

Ryan Morse

Raymundo Munoz

Rob Jordan

Clay Brooks

Lisa Luree

John Van Horn

Pat Marek

Hallie Packard

There, you have a tiny preview of the show. Check out all of the pieces and prices by clicking on this link, then scrolling down to Monkey Business:

Monkey Business

And if you're in Denver, come to the opening, meet the artists, and add to your collection!

Thanks for reading--and supporting the arts (and the artists who contribute to them)!

Top-Hatted Bird with a Mouse

http://tomsarmo.com/

This is a detail from a piece just completed--no title yet.

Wanted to do a painting in the style I used for my spiritual works a few years back, but was curious both about how the goofy subject would look with looser paint and also curious about how acrylic gouache would handle as opposed to acrylic paint. The fluidity, matte finish, and opacity of the gouache was a good change from acrylic paint.

http://tomsarmo.com/

Here's a shot of the bird's head at about the halfway completed stage. I drew the piece freehand on the board after priming it with a burnt sienna acrylic primer. After outlining it with a brush and india ink, I sealed it with matte spray and then started whacking in the color.

http://tomsarmo.com/

Here's the bottom half of the pic at near completion.

http://tomsarmo.com/

The old bird completed.  Hard to tell maybe, but I lightened pretty much everything on the bird. It's on a pine plaque, about 6" wide by 23" tall, and was painted for an upcoming show at Valkarie Gallery.  I'm pleased to be showing Fresh Works along with two super-accomplished artists; Karrie York and Kayla Edgar!

Karrie's site: Karrie York  Kayla's site: Kayla Edgar

Valkarie Gallery is a fantastic place with unusual and fascinating shows. If you are in the Denver area, please stop by and check out the show and gallery! Here's the link:

Valkarie Gallery

And thank you, as always, for reading!