Las Vegas Chronicles: Portraits From The Strip

I saw him standing on the corner giving out flyers for a strip club. He was wearing super tight bright red pants, a loud Hawaiian shirt, a thick gold Italian horn necklace and a cartoonish pair of bright red Dolce and Gabbana sun glasses. He glanced around nervously, seemed jumpy and suspicious and kept moving locations as to not draw attention to the fact he was giving out flyers for a strip club. Medium: charcoal, acrylic, gouache on paper, digital color.

At first it was his mirrored sunglasses that caught my eye, but within seconds, I noticed the huge tuft of wild gray chest hair escaping from his shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest. He stood under a shady spot and enjoyed his cigarette while eyeballing packs of giggling young women who passed him by without notice. A reasonably handsome man, I surmised he must have been quite the hairy-chested womanizer back in the 70's and likely drove a Corvette. Medium: watercolor, ink on paper, digital color.

She sat slumped in front of a gigantic plate of bottomless steak fries and looked off into the distance as she picked up one after the other and shoved them in her mouth. She appeared as a Mechanized French Fry Zombie and I felt really sorry for her. Medium: keno crayon on old scrap paper.

I obsessively take a photo of my work space every day and here's what it looked like last night.

Comments

[ChaosbyDesign]

Thank you for that little insight

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[ChaosbyDesign]

Forgot to say the drawings/paintings are fantastic......great captures......with your command of being able to capture the subjects essence...a whole book would be great
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[Karin]

Incredible portraits! You really captured the sadness, broken dreams, and desperation that IS Las Vegas. I can see these portraits as part of a larger collection that could be called "Vegas Style". I visited Vegas some years ago and, finding myself bored in my hotel room after midnight, decided to walk to the hotel lobby where I was completely BURIED in a sea of Japanese tourists who were ALL wearing Gilligan hats. WTF?
Enjoyed these immensely!!!!

[Darron]

Reminds me a bit of Ron Slatterly's pix of Wolff's flea market people @ slats.org !!

[Vern]

Wow! I would have expected flames or halos or puppy dogs' tails from the workspace where you conjure such magic!

[mandy]

I LOVE your stuff and am so happy about this website. I was wondering if you've ever considered showing us a step by step process of your work. Like, hairy guy with the mirro glasses for example. I'm curious, which parts are ink, which are watercolor, how much digital. I just think it would be fun if you felt inspired. I dunno, maybe it would ruin the creative process?

Thanks for the nice compliment, Mandy.

Sure, I'll show the process in an upcoming post - thanks for the suggestion!

xoxo
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[Kipling]

I love this so much. I was talking to a friend who is in Vegas right now and had to send him a link, and then I got lost once again in all the glistening flesh...