Travis Conrad

Holy crap, the year is 1.6% over already! Mannn does time fly.

Today I’m gonna share the Christmas painting I did for one of my closest friends, Smuck (aka Sean Kelly). The subject of the painting is the one and only Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, the San Francisco opera rival of Sweeney Todd, many of my late night fantasies), specifically it’s him as Dr. Horrible from the incredibly popular web musical. The painting is oil on a deep 16 x 20 inch canvas.

The first background layer.

The second background layer.

Dr. Horrible’s foundation.

The finished Dr. Horrible.

This painting  was a dream to paint. I’m not entirely sure the mechanics behind it, but it was one of the smoothest pieces I’ve ever done. It also came remarkably close to what I envisioned/used as a guideline. Everything just came together perfectly, and it was as tho I wasn’t applying the paint, but the paint was apply itself.….   -cues X-files music-

I apologize for the fuzziness of the camera, it hasn’t been focusing properly. Also, the colour’s a little off. It’s not as royal blue as it looks there, it’s more of a dirty grey-blue. Steel-blue. Cloudy midnight-blue. Mercurious sludge seeping into the river delta-blue.

My second order of business that I wanted to share was what I’ve been doing with the musical now that the holidays are wrapped up for another year THANK GOD. I’m full scale back in business working on the last couple songs, and Dysfunction should be close to done by the end of the month. The part I’m working on now is the first real solo song in the show. After Charlotte and Cameron’s business dinner, Cam asks her on a real date. The scene pauses and Charlotte takes a moment to reflect and sort out the situation. We decided to do it this way because A) Charlotte becomes more important as the show progresses and she doesn’t really get a chance to reveal who she is, and B) This is a rather large decision, accepting/denying a date so soon. Having her just answer yes or no would probably leave audiences unclear on her reasoning. This working towards a decision in her head should really make clear her route to the answer she decides upon.

Every so often I listen to the work I’ve already finished on the musical, and it reminds slash inspires me that I can accomplish something of value. It’s not rare that I forget that I’ve actually written songs, impressive songs (IMHO) for someone who hasn’t had any formal training . As I listened I realized I didn’t have many rhymes I was proud of yet. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but they lacked the complexity I know I’m capable of. With Charlotte’s inner dialogue I aim to work-out my metaphorical rhyme muscle. The rhymecep brachii if you will. Internal rhymes that’ll make your head spin….. Ok maybe not quite. Here’s a look:

On the one hand we have yes.
Rushing in’s not bad I guess
if you’re cautious and you assess the situation.

On the other we have no.
It begins, when I say so,
and this nauseous feeling is growing. I need to run.

The melody for this song is inspired by Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. I’ll share that another day tho.

Lastly, I stumbled across a website that transcends modern vernacular, and thusly, must be shown rather than told about. Go there, and learn.

-TCR

Now that the big ol’ C-mas is over, I can post some pictures I took of myDecember paintings without ruining anyone’s surprise. I’m going to start with the biggest piece I worked on, a pointillism piece. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, pointillism is done using dots of paint instead of brush strokes. What you get is a completely different type of colour and texture to your painting. Ideally it’s done using a finite number of basic colours and those colours combine in the brain to create more complex colours but I decided to start slow and use a wide palette of paints. If you really want to learn more about pointillism I’d suggest research Seurat, the more or less father of the technique.

In the next couple of pictures you’ll see a timeline of different layers over the same spot in the picture (on the full canvas its about half-way up and too the right).

That should give you some idea of how the painting process goes for pointillism. I always work in layers A) because I used oil paint and it takes a while to dry and B) it keeps the brush cleaner so your dots stay truer to the intended colour without mixing with other colours when you switches between paints.

Expect the final post about this painting within a week’s time. There you’ll be able to see the final painting in full and with some close up shots. Hope your holidays have been enjoyable!

-Travis Conrad

I was fooling around with, wait that sounds kinda dirty, let me rephrase that taking pictures with my camera the other day and snapped up a good picture of my desk, thought I would share my workspace with you. I thought it looked lovely anyway.

You can see my monitor and laptop set up. The laptop is closed here, precious little Acer One, innit so damn cute! Also in this picture; my beloved Santa hat and some painting, for lack of a better word, stuff.

As I’ve said, I’m doing a set of paintings for people for Christmas, and for the biggest one I’m using a technique very similar to pointillism. With traditional pointillism, only basic colours are used, and the eye is meant to blend them which is suppose to make a more brilliant secondary colour. For this painting however, I’m using a wide selection of shades and colours. The main reason is this is my first attempt at using dots instead of strokes, and I had some doubt about whether or not I could successfully pull off the effect. It’s turning out great so far, I’m really happy with it. I’ll upload a picture of it once I’m finished (don’t want to ruin the Christmas surprise).

I’ve taken a couple photos of one very small section of the picture after each layer of colour was added, just so you can get an idea about how the technique is pulled off. Actually apparently the server doesn’t want to upload the pictures right now, so that will have to wait. HRMPH!

Lastly I heard this amazing song at a Sondheim Cabaret that the UWO Music department put on a couple weeks ago. It’s called The Glamorous Life and it’s from A Little Night Music. The girl singing it is the daughter of a famous actress, it’s really rich and a brilliant example of how Sondheim gets into the heads of the characters he writes for. Here’s a clip of Audra McDonald singing it. Breath-taking. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Ordinary mothers lead ordinary lives,
mop the floors and chop the parsley,
mend the clothes and tend the children.
Ordinary mothers, like ordinary wives,
make the beds and bake the pies and wither on the vine.
Not mine!

Dying by inches, every night, what a glamorous life!
Pulled on by winches, to recite, what a glamorous life!
Ordinary mothers never get the flowers, and
Ordinary mothers never know the joys,
But ordinary mothers couldn’t cough for hours
maintaining their poise.

Sandwiches only, but she eats what she wants when she wants
Sometimes it’s lonely but she meets many handsome gallants
Ordinary mothers don’t live out of cases,
but ordinary mothers don’t go different places,
which ordinary mothers can’t do, being mothers all day.
Mine’s away in a play, and she’s realer than they.

What if her broach is only glass, and her costumes unravel?
What if her coach is second class, she at least gets to travel.
And sometime this summer, meaning soon, she’ll come traveling to me!
Sometime this summer, maybe June, I’m the new place she’ll see!

Ordinary daughters may think life is better
with ordinary mothers near them when they choose,
But ordinary daughters seldom get a letter
enclosing reviews.

Gay and resilient, with applause, what a glamorous life!
Speeches are brilliant, if they’re Shauss, what a glamorous life!

Ordinary mothers needn’t meet committees,
but ordinary mothers don’t get keys to cities
Ordinary mothers merely see their children all year,
which is lovely, I hear,
But it does interfere with the glamorous . . .

I am the princess guarded by dragons,
snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons.
She’s in her kingdom wearing disguises,
living a life that’s full of surprises.
And sometime this summer, she’ll come galloping over the green.
Sometime this summer, to my rescue, my mother the queen!

Ordinary mothers thrive on being private,
but ordinary mothers somehow, can survive it.
And ordinary mothers never know they’re just standing still,
with the kettles to fill,
While they’re missing the thrill
of the glamorous life.

I fucking loves his rhymes. They roll off the tongue like Sondheim lyrics off the tongue. Wait a minute…………..

Aaaaaaaand anyway it’s 1:11 AM. Great. I have 5 paintings to finish in the next 48 hours (2 are almost done, 1 is about fifty percent and 2 have yet to be started). Why do I do these things to myself? OH RIGHT! Because I’m crazy.

Hope your holiday season is going smoothly!

-Travis Conrad

Christmas is coming up at record speeds this year. I’m sure it’s because of global warming. God-damned CO2. Where was I? Right, Christmas. This year I’m doing up everyone a personalized painting. I’m gonna have to bust a nut to finish them in time but Rome wasn’t built in a day. No, it was built in 13 days. Then left to dry for 4. And then wrapped hastily on Christmas Eve. That’s how it goes and don’t even THINK about questioning it.

I’m super excited about these paintings. You have no idea. We’re talking super excited. Maybe even SUPER excited.
That’s right, we’re talking capital letters heading bitches.

Well anyway, here are a couple shots I took of them.

A Cat Named Gary

Center of the Universe

Serenity Field

This one doesn’t really have a name yet. I’ve been working on it on and off for the past couple of weeks months and I’ve really learned a lot about light while working on it. Probably one of my favourites so far. Not that that’s saying a lot.

-Travis Conrad