10,000 Hours: Attending Spectrum Live!

I can't believe it's been over a month since I attended SFAL. What happened to June? I had some friends request photos, and unfortunately I didn't grab as many as I wanted to. But I met a lot of wonderful people and had a very informative time. I don't say fun, necessarily. While it was enjoyable it was also a very humbling experience. I am grateful I had the opportunity to go; it made me realize how much I have to do to get my artistic act together. I highly recommend to anyone able that you go next year. It it a truly remarkable experience and the SF/F community of artists are very friendly and close knit. Omar Rayyan has officially made me an undying fan; he is incredibly kind and amazing at what he does! I now have five prints of his in my house (I spent WAY too much money while I was there, but it was all on art!). I also bought another Dinotopia book from James Gurney, who also happens to be quite nice and has the sweetest wife! She was a gem. I met a lot of other folks there, too. If you have questions, feel free to ask :)

[[a little kansas city street]]

[[hello spectrum! and jon foster. he's gotten a LOT of mileage out of crowbot (the painting)]]

[[a couple of my favorite posters from the conference. "it's not what i've already painted, but what i'm going to paint that gets me excited" -don ivan punchatz 1938-2009]]

[["if you don't love what you're doing, what the hell." -al williamson 1931-2010]]

[[view from the cocktail part-ay location]]

[[taken from SFAL! facebook page. this is the beginnings of the mix 'n mingle friday night]]

[[yay browncoats! long live mal! serenity by dan dos santos]]

[[it was too expensive or it might be gracing out living room wall right now]]

[[another dan dos santos painting. i would have bought a print but they were $40 and he had to compete with omar rayyan. dan dos santos lost (if you ever read this, i apologize friend, it's not that you aren't awesome). i ending up spending $80 at omar raayan's booth]]

[[dan dos santos himself and his booth... can you tell i was trying to be sneaky?]]

[[comics from one of the booths. they looked good]]

[[i have no idea who this it but they had a sense of humor (see below)]]

[[one of my favorite artists is donato giancola. this man has learned to paint like the old masters and is incredibly good at what he does]]

[[one of my favorite paintings of his! he told me that in order to learn to paint like the old masters, he would go into a museum, find one image he liked, then take that image a part in his head. he would pick an area, say a hand, and tell himself, "if i had to repaint this part, how would i do it?" i have done similar things but not quite in that line of thinking. wish i lived close to some awesome museums! it makes me want to try it.]]