Bob Boze Bell Art Blog

February 27, 2009
Went home for lunch and brushed in another pass at the big Billy painting:

Laid in some Indian Red to give the shadows some warmth against the adobe:

Also, gave Garrett’s face some shadows as well. The Kid seems to be floating a bit. Was hoping the shadows would pull him down, but it didn’t. May kill the highlight on his spur because I think that is pulling the attention down into that space and throwing his leg off a bit.

When I had finished, one of the cleaning ladies came in and I asked her, “Habla Ingles?” (Do you speak English?) And she shook her head no. After saying, “Soy estudiante de Espanol” (I am a student of Spanish), I made a pantomine gesture like I was grabbing spit from my mouth and I said as I pointed at the painting, “Como se dice este?” (How do you say this, or, how do you say wet?)

She said, “Basura.”

I shook my head and smiled, then I showed her my wet easel and warned her, “Esta es basura,” and she said, “No, es fresca.” Then she pointed at the trash can. “Esta es basura.”

Garbage. Oh, I get it. The painting is garbage. Thankyou very much, I mean Muchas Gracias, Latina Diabla!

“The background is more air than it is anything. It is the place in which the model moves. It is the air he breathes.”
—Robert Henri

February 27, 2009
Got this from the United Kingdom this morning:

“Hey, painter, I thought this page from my morning paper might interest (astonish?) you.

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: ; and that is an idea whose time has come.” (Anon)

Love to Kathy,

—Fred Nolan

Yes, the motiff is quite close to, oh, say, this:

Not sure I have a court case, considering the motiff is quite common from Captain America to Easy Rider. But, it is interesting. I have long believed that ideas are combustionable and that if anyone is thinking of an idea or a concept, there are at least a hundred others on the planet with the same germ of an idea. Fortunately, most people never act on the idea, but invariably a few do, and when they hit the street at the same time, it appears they copied each other (pity the poor sap whose art, book or movie gets delayed).

Meanwhile, here’s yesterday’s sketches done at Barros’ Pizza Parlor on Cave Creek Road:

The colored face of anguish at lower right was done the night before along with the other faces from the day before.

Yes, pizza is way off my diet. My truck was getting new tires (I went in to fix a flat and ended up buying four new tires for $550), so while the truck was in the shop I walked west from the office at noon and, on an impulse went into Barros’. Had the lunch special: two slices of peperoni and an iced tea, $4, and felt very guilty eating it. My heart doctor would have a cow, which is something he told me to stay away from (“If it comes from a cow I don’t want you to go near it.”) Anyway, the sketches, done for a Mickey Free sequence, reflect a guy who has just eaten pizza. Ha.

“The big artist…keeps an eye on nature and steals her tools.”
—Thomas Eakins

February 26, 2009
Got a slow leak in my left front tire on the Ranger. Lugged out the air compressor and aired it up yesterday, but this morning it was way down again. So aired it up and then drove up to Tobias Automotive on Cave Creek Road. Left it, and hitched a ride from there with Chuck up to our offices. We’re about a mile away.

Got a snotty letter from a reader of this blog. Scrawled on a printout of the “Music Is The Doctor” poster-posting were these words: “Yes, it is hard to believe that a bunch of old men could act like fools. Time to grow up fellas! It’s 2009—nobody cares about your pathetic band.”

I would only disagree with one point: it’s not time to grow up just yet. Maybe next year or after the next heart attack, whichever comes first.

Here’s yesterday’s sketches:

These are Faces of Anguish, which will run in the opening sequence of the Mickey Free book.

“A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose.”
—Old Vaquero Saying

February 25, 2009
Lots of image and design issues this morning. Good feedback and questions. Everyone working together to do more with less.

Went home for lunch and worked on a Mickey Free sequence (Faces of Anguish) and then worked on the sky in the Big Billy painting:

Worked quickly to lay in the entire sky before I came back into the office:

Got some good nocturnal effects (the alizarin crimson underpainting gives everything a night time glow). Felt very successful. The design still has a perspective problem with the buildings in lower right. May pop them up closer to the clouds. Seems like they want to go there.

My goal is to finish this sucker by March 14. Lots to do, although I’ve worked out quite a few of the problems in advance.

“A good review from the critics is just another stay of execution.”
—Dustin Hoffman

February 25, 2009
Finished “Call Me Ted” last night. The book got less interesting after the AOL-Time Warner collapse. Turner rides off into the sunset, so to speak, with several hundred million dollars (as opposed to the $8 billion he had at the height of his empire in 1999, when he calculated his stock value was increasing by $10 million a week!), but the heady swashbuckling of the early years gives way to saving the planet stuff, which isn’t nearly as exciting or interesting.

But the warning tale, to me at least, is his merger with Time-Warner and why he did it. He had been an outsider all his life, fighting the northern elites in prep school, all the way through his broadcasting forays as he built, brick by brick, an alternative universe on cable (which at that time was considered a ghetto by the snobs in New York). At every turn the elite underestimated his tenacity to win and he overcame almost every obstacle they threw at him. Yet, ultimately he craved their legitimacy and he was driven to own one of the original networks (in the eighties, CBS took a poison pill to avoid a hostile takeover by Turner), so when he finally brokered a merger with Time-Warner, even though he was the largest stockholder, he was also part of a big, corporate viper’s nest of egos and manipulative office politics. And when the head of Time-Warner, Jerry Levin (allegedly Turner’s “best friend”), secretly brokered a partnership with AOL, Turner was cut out of the loop, isolated and demoted. He was of course devastated, suffered from anxiety (both his marriage to Jane Fonda and his business coup de grace happened in January of 2000). He had bested the elite in almost every battle, and yet when he finally joined them, they cut him off at the kneecaps.

The two guys who betrayed him, Levin and Steve Case of AOL, eventually were knee-capped as well, but essentially, Turner, the rogue knight, slashed his way to the top, handed over his sword, only to have his head handed back to him (and detached with HIS OWN sword!). Scary stuff to anyone with ambition to build a media empire, no matter how modest.

His greatest strength turned out to be his greatest weakness.

Yikes!

Did three more sketches after I got home last night:

That’s an Ed Mell poach at bottom (off of his March 7 art show catalogue which came in the mail yesterday), Rosario Dawson on the cover of the Style section in The New York Times) and a certain cowboy—John Wayne—looking through a window from an early movie still)

“Nobody gets it how they want it to be.”
—Jackson Browne, “Running On Empty”

February 24, 2009
Another beautiful day in sunny Arizona. Got on a short-sleeved shirt and used the AC coming back to the office from my home studio. Supposed to hit 83 today.

Kathy met me at the house at 2:30 to move out a big desk in my studio so I can bring in the big oil painting of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. While I waited for her I whipped out a trio of landscape studies:

I guess you could collectively call these the Tree Line. FYI: these are sketches 8,217 thru 8,219. Just this week I passed 2,500 blog posts. Not sure what all this means, but let’s just say I’m not doing either for the money, which is a good thing because I’ve never made a dime off of either endeavor.

Speaking of money and endeavors, Bob Brink lent me his copy of “Call Me Ted,” which is the incredible tall-tale (but-true) about The Mouth of The South, Captain Outrageous, father of TCM, CNN and the Comedy Channel and The Super Station. It’s a blow by blow story of his rise and fall in the media world, and it is just breathtaking.

First of all, his huevos grandes when gambling on business and projects is truly outrageous. Talk about a river boat gambler.

I’ve often thought of myself as a risk taker and a gambler: when we bought this magazine we started losing $30K a month and because two of my wealthy partners wouldn’t put up any more money, I had to go get, what my wife lovingly refers to as “a Mafia loan” against the equity of our house, just to meet payroll at a critical juncture. I think the interest was compounded and capped at 10%, or 15%, but I may be wrong.) We survived this and many other timultuous trials (see BBB blog archives for the blow by blow). Anyway, I thought this was high stakes brinkmanship in the art of wheeling and dealing. But, as my friend Wonderful Russ would say, “It wasn’t a pimple on the ass of wheeling and dealing.”

No. In the book, Ted Turner, tells how he had leveraged all his holdings to create the Super Station, no bank would lend him money so he had to get high interest loans (24% interest!) with $400,000 a month payments and he was still losing a “couple million a year” on the Super Station when he decided to create an all news channel. He sold one of his radio stations in Charlotte for $20 million, but before the deal cleared, the general manager at the station snotted off a group of African Americans who filed a complaint with the FCC, stopping the sale dead in its tracks. Desperate for cash to save his entire company, Ted flew to Charlotte bringing along Hank Aaron, who told the group, while pointing at Ted, “He’s not a racist.” Then he begs them to help him make the sale. (He’s notorious for getting down on the floor in high level meetings and crawling around the table saying, “Who’s feet do I have to kiss to make this deal happen?”). He ended up contributing an unknown amount to the Negro College Fund and various other promises and he gets the deal, then RCA won’t give him a satellite hookup. The obstacles just keep coming and he just keeps swinging at them.

Anyway, the guy is a total phenom, a dynamic, relentless American, in the best sense of that phrase. And he’s wayyyyyy beyond anything I could even dream of attempting, much less do it.

His downfall is a warning tale for us all, and quite interesting and I’ll give my take on that tomorrow.

“Your greatest strength is your greatest weakness.”
—Old Vaquero Saying

February 23, 2009
Had a staff meeting at lunch today. Carole got a big Subway hoagie for everyone, along with Sprite and Cokes. Gave a little pep talk about staying positive in this very negative time.

Esquire magazine Editor, David Granger, wrote a wonderful editorial in the current issue on how this is the best of times because gas is under $2, the best restaurants have open seats, as do airplanes, and you want to buy a car? Zero down, half off! In this doom and gloom climate it was a joy to read.

I also showed the staff a very clever promotion which came with the Sunday paper yesterday:

So simple and direct. This morning in Kathy’s step class all the women were talking about it and then they were talking about the closest Chipolte and how to get there. I could almost hear the Chipolte ad agency staff grinning from ear to ear.

Sometimes we get nasty calls and letters. Sheri Riley has to put up with them. Here is an actual email:

“I do not know how you got my address. I do not know why you are sending me your magazine. And I do not care. I am not paying for your magazine. I do not want your magazine. I do not want to pay the trash man to take it to the dump. As soon as I finish this email I will be tossing your magazine in the trash. Please remove my name from your mailing list. Save the tree you are destroying.”
—D. Round, Cheyenne, Wyoming

And here’s Sheri’s reply:

“According to our records, you were a ‘Cowboy’ magazine subscriber. Unfortunately, ‘Cowboy’ magazine has gone out of business and they asked us here at True West to honor the remainder of your subscription with our magazine. We are only sending it to you because they wanted to make sure that you received a quality publication for the remainder of your subscription.

“We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and sincerely hope that you might give our magazine a chance. We here at True West are dedicated to preserving our Western heritage and have many writers/contributors that feel the same way. We have been in business for over 56 years and have many great stories to tell.

“Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance or it you have any additional questions or comments.

“Please have a wonderful week and stay warm up there in beautiful Wyoming.”

—Sheri Riley

Now, THAT is customer service with a smile!

After lunch we had a big, design meeting with our Art Director Dan Harshberger (who drove out from the Beast), Designer Abby Goodrich, Managing Editor Meghan Saar and our intern, Ashley Briggs.

Went over art issues and upcoming cover ideas (Custer Ride, Wyatt Earp’s Vendetta Ride, The Ongoing Fight Over The Alamo and Native American Art Issue images). A redesign on our new ghost town sidebar feature. Plus, long range plans for next year.

Still banging away on sketches:

And these:

“Ain’t this dirt fierce? You can watch the world go by in the sky.”
—Barney Rucker, the captain’s son, in “The Wonderful Country”

February 23, 2009
Finally got the underpainting on the big Billy the Kid oil laid in. Started Friday and used a secret crimson utilized by Frank Tenney Johnson on his nocturnes:

Saturday morning I bailed in early and blocked in more of the big shapes:

By nine I had it covered (with the exception of a distant roofline at the bottom:

Finished covering the canvas in the afternoon. Now to let it dry for several days so I can over paint the subtle facial tones and nocturne sky and adobe.

Yes, Billy’s hat is the one from the photo. I’ll track the progress for the next two weeks when I plan to ship it to the Ruidoso museum in New Mexico.

“The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. But to win it requires total dedication and a total break with the world of your past, with the doctrine that man is a sacrificial animal who exists for the pleasure of others. Fight for the value of your person. Fight for the virtue of your pride. Fight for the essence, which is man, for his sovereign rational mind. Fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and yours is the battle for any achievement, any value, any grandeur, any goodness, any joy that has ever existed on this earth.”
—Ayn Rand

February 20, 2009
A running boy, a worried mother and a sharpshooting Rurale. . .

“Managers help people to see themselves as they are. Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.”
—Jim Rohn

February 20, 2009
Finally started the underpainting for the big oil painting of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. I’ll post the progress later.

Meanwhile, our April travel issue went to the printer yesterday. Tweaked a couple designs, caught a couple corrections. Always a massive undertaking towards the end with the operative metaphor being a six-lane freeway exiting through a garden gate. Ha.

I’ve missed a few postings on my daily sketches, so here are the last several meanderings:

I seem to gravitate between harsh linear illustrations, loosey goosey landscapes and abstract rorschach ink blot tests:

Here’s more last light studies (from Feb. 15 sketches):

And then back to the rorschach test:

Still having trouble applying all of this to concise and clear storyboarding for the graphic novels I want to do. I feel confident I can do it, but a successful process, so far, eludes me. Gee, I wonder what the creator of Mickey Mouse has to say about all this?

“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. . .They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence.”
—Walt Disney