Upcoming show

This is the add for my upcoming show. Pretty excited/nervous. It will be the first time an audience will see my plein air pieces. As much as love painting custom works ie. masks and helmets I consider it my job, so when I'm not 'working' I put down the airbrush and head outside and oil paint.

One for Me!

Well being that we are on the verge of summer means that I get a bit of a break from painting other people's goalie masks. So I did what any smart custom painter would do and rewarded myself by designing a mask of my own. It hasn't stopped raining here for the last two weeks so I really had nothing else to do.

The mask is a Bauer 960, the same one I have worn the last 14 yrs so it was time for an new one. The 960 is also my favourite mask to paint, it has a great shape to it and all you have to do is sand and and your ready to go. No stripping of factory logos and re-basing.

I new that the design was going to be in Black and White and stay neutral so that it would match most of the jerseys that I wear during a season being a spare goalie and all. I also wanted the theme to incorporate my minor hockey logo, The Bearcat, which pays homage to my home town of Jasper AB. T0E 1E0 REPRESENT! Ha! Should have put that on the mask. And of course like most traditional layouts my nickname 'Jbart' is located across the chin. That seemed to be the obvious choice's but I was then stumped on what the main theme was going to be. After a few days of brainstorming and researching on the net I came across a small image of a Sugar Skull Girl Tattoo. It was too small to reproduce but I thought it was pretty cool so I decided to modify and redraw it and run with the Latin America's Day of the Dead theme. Hope you like.

Progression

2011

1998

Just recently finished a helmet for my brother which features a tigers head on the back. I have painted a few tigers over the years both Siberian and Bengal, all looking to seek their revenge on Siegfried and Roy. I always get a kick seeing my work that dates back to the years before attending art college. It allows me to grasp the progression of my painting over thirteen years.

Chad Johnson rockin his lid

Here are some pics of Chad Johnson in action with the mask I painted for him last spring. Pretty excited about how it came out.

Sketch

Here's a little bit of the process of how things go when I set out to do a mask. In this case the client through out an amusement park idea. My first step after I collect reference is to do a small, loose sketch of what I am thinking. Not only do these sketches show the client what I am planning on doing but it also helps me work out placement, scale and color. It really saves me a lot of time and frustration.

The completed mask (with clear-coat) can be viewed at www.myspace.com/jbpaint

The Last Four Days

Well the last four days have been spent working on Chad Johnson's New York Ranger mask. This is actually the 5th mask I have painted for Chad, his first one going back to when he was playing with the Brooks Bandits of the AJHL. He is a client that definatley knows what he wants, and asks that I send step by step photo's of the process to his BlackBerry.