Gardega paints a portrait

I will post progress as I go. I am a bit rusty in portraits but I am really enjoying this one. I never wanted to paint portraits but the minute I decided I wanted to do some I had numerous request. Put the thought out there and it manifests into solid reality.

Sketchy Folk: Primavera

While you were out enjoying beach and BBQ I was locked in my studio making art for three days. My Buddy and street artist Sketchy Folk came over and turned out some work as well. Here is a great one...

24 x 48 inches, acrylic on board.

$150.00

Doomsbury: by Sketchy Folk

changing channels

you can change channels but it is 6 of one half doz. of another.

1999

I found this old photo today from my art gallery opening in 1999. It is hard for me to look at this photo because it brings me back to one of the hardest times in my life. At this time I lived in the basement of an art gallery with no windows, no shower and a lot of big rats. I was so poor I had no food for days and you can see that I am about 15 pounds underweight. I cant believe I never lost my mind or gave up. The funny thing is no matter how bad things got I always found humor in the situation. Try showering with a cold hose every morning---it aint fun. On a good note I was friends with all the bartenders in the hood so I always had places to drink. I literally lived on "gallery wine" for nutrients and to numb myself for a year. I have no regrets about my bohemian days, I wouldnt trade them for 5 million dollars. I never quit, never became a drug addict, never sold out and I never stopped believing in the power of the painted image...sometimes it is all you got. I nthe end of life all you have is your stories, I talk to some people and they have all the character of a bag of wonder bread. This is worse than death to me--dead before you lived.

sketchy folk

My buddy sketchy folk came over to my studio and painted this. He is a great artist. He sells these for only $25.00. I love this piece.

bp

if I was prez I would have 10,000 troops in the gulf and the entire national guard. I would live near the spill. I would make it my priority in life, like it mattered. I would be on the beach everyday with a shovel.

bp

if I was prez I would have 10,000 troops in the gulf and the entire national guard. I would live near the spill. I would make it my priority in life, like it mattered. I would be on the beach everyday with a shovel.

the gulf

I am thinking about going to help clean up the mess in the gulf. I am so furious about it. Our prez can play all the basketball he wants while the gulf gets ruined. I am not sure I can stay here and do nothing.

mr. prez

Dear Mr. Prez, please pull out all the troops out the two endless wars you are running and get all the troops into the gulf to clean up the mess. spend the 20 billion a day the wars cost on cleanup and only cleanup. Throw away the global warming scam, the cap and trade scam and take all the money and stop the damn oil leak.

signed,

alex

words of the day

"adversity makes men, prosperity makes monsters." wise man

clearing house

Good artist's do not suckle at the teet of their own past. The milk has no nutrients. Arists must turn their collar to the cold past and to look at whats possible in the future and the now. The past is a chair stapled to your back...Remington burned his paintings as did Bacon. Gardega gives them away or sells them. Time for me to clear my house/ studio. I want the now, the new, the uncluttered present.

global economy

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I am giving my two cents here and I predicted this in 2006. 

I think there will be a total meltdown of the economy in 2010.

Too many countries have too high a debt ratio. Greece is the first domino and there will be many more (portugal, spain italy, england...etc) and each will fall harder than the next. I was laughed at by my friend for predicting this in 2006 and he still tells me the stock market is a good bet. The stock market is going to collapse in 2010. I wish it wouldnt but it will. There are conspiracy theories and there is what is in front of you, I odnt buy stock in self delusion.

How to be a famous artist

If you want to be a famous artist, the only thing you need do is to BELIEVE you are famous. I always have believed I was was famous, even when I was dirt poor. It helps to get in PAGE SIX but you can only get in PAGE SIX if you are famous. I have been in Page Six many times only because I believed I belonged in there. Getting into Page Six is impossible if you dont know someone. I didnt know anyone. I simply believed I belong in Page Six (and I do and I did and I will.) Life is an illusion  so why limit the illusion? You can create any reality you want--That is the scary part and that is why people create the context of failure. It is easier to fail than to admit that anything is possible.

Sketchy Folk

Sketchy Folk is coming over to day to paint with me in my studio. Will post results.

Life is Meaningless

Life is menaingless and this is a wonderful thing because when you stand in the place that life is meaningless it becomes your duty (or not) to give it meaning, to create your own meaning. Life is an empty canvas and an empty canvas is an empty canvas is an empty canvas from nome to rome.

New Brochure

My art brochure is printed--it looks amazing!

of anyone wants one snail mailed...email me your address

alexgardega@gmail.com

www.gardegaworld.com

I am working on links and the websites they link to. It is a long project that will grow like a gnomic spiral. Even when I have no idea where I am going I walk forward as best I can, no fruits come from laziness and a lazy artist is simply that, a lazy artist.

www.gardegaworld.com

www.gardegaworld.com

this website will be perfected soon!


http://www.gardegaworld.com/gardega%20world-final.html

prints

new gardega prints! they look great, signed and numbered post soon.

Flatscreens

I have an idea for all greenies out there. Instead of trying to force the populace to use mercury filled flourescent bulbs (which are proven to be bad for the health and eyes) start by getting rid of your 73inch flatscreen TV's. If all of hollywood and all the green finger pointers would get rid of their energy hungry idiot boxes then we could save enough energy to power a third world country every year and I can use my happy incandescent warm fuzzy lights to paint with without guilt. I am sure al gore doesnt have big flat screens and cheryl crow watches TV on a small black and white zenith. Ill bet sting doesnt even have a single tv in his castle. I am starting to see signs of hope for humanity because the hypocrisy is really starting to subside like a tide from an oilslicked beach.

utrecht art supplies

I hate to shop for stuff. To me going into a mall or a clothing store is like chewing tinfoil. I like to shop for art supplies, I can spend hours in an art store. I a regular at utrecht in nyc. They think I am crazy. shop at utrecht. avoid the big chain art stores like dick blick. dont give them your money.

gardega world

gardegaworld is relaunching today. that is what the webdesigners say. I believe webdesigners about as much as I believe in hope and change. not so much.

3,843rd post,

This is my 3,843rd post. That is a lot of hot air, almost enough to float a dirigible. (See above photo) That is a lot of OCD and ADD and any other three letter combo you can think of. I never get bored of working on my blog, I get nervous when I cant work on it. It is therapy and I never went on anti-anyhting meds and I dont have a shrink.  I have a gift for self therapy and I would never listen to a guy on a couch with a PHD who has lived about one-fifth of my life experiences. I have read more books about freud and carl jung carl rogers and the like than any shrink I ever met in a bar so what can they tell me? NADA. Keep drawing and keep laughing and drink good red wine when you can...

sketchy folk in Times Square

Rumour (british spelling) has it that my street -art- buddy, Sketchy Folk will be painting in Times Square one day this weekend. He is a cheap fame-whore but he is a good artist and a nice guy. He can draw a crowd and nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. and so on...

LEARN YOUR CRAFT, PEOPLE!

Some artist in Oklahoma has gotten some press for painting the virgin mary with a grenade. Oh, wait, he didnt even paint the pictures. They are poorly done blow up collages stolen from art reference books. I am so sick of artists who make "art" and cant draw or paint...if you cant draw or paint then go make pizza. I dont care about your conceptual art and I never will. When I painted my Fox News Last Supper it took me three long months because I couldnt look at myself in the mirror if I did some cheap collage or photoslop work. I dont do sour grapes, I just cant stand what passes for art today. If you cant paint then dont have art shows. If I didnt care about the collective soul of art I would not be bothered by hacks.

I served in vietnam..uh sorta..uh kinda...okay, I watched a show about it.

This sketchy guy above (democratic senate candidate) lied about serving in Vietnam. Even though he lied about this (which is almost like running over a puppy on purpose (as far as the LORDS OF KARMA are concerned.) but he is still way up in the polls. My point is not left right here, my point is that the US populace are so used to lying by our pols that it doesnt phase us. A forked tongue is the norm. Sad state of affairs. I used to serve this guy drinks when I was a bartender--he made me nervous--very sketchy ego-head.

Bookcover: By Gardega

I love doing the yellow page covers because it puts my art in people's kitchens next to the Campbell soup thus making me a reluctant POP ARTEEST. I had a short spell where I worked in real estate and as I went to show an apt. in NYC to a client as I turned on the light in the middle of the empty floor was one of my Phone Book covers staring back at me. I took my tie off on the spot, told the client that it wasnt for them and I walked out into the streets of NYC and promised myself it was art or nothing for me in this world. No bets would be hedged, no safety nets hung. All chips, all in.  Failure, not an option.



I have been known to hide people's initials in my covers. ahem

alex thinks so you dont have to

I was watching a show on TV about the american kids who were hiking on the border of Iran and were arrested. I was wondering what kind of conversation someone has with oneself and ones friends when such a decision was made...

"hey, Jimmy, when you are done with that taco do you want to go hiking somewhere?"

"Sure, johnny, where do you want to hike at?---Oregon coast? Seattle? Yosemite?"

"NO, Im thinking right on the border of a country where if we stray off path a few hundred feet we can sit in a dark cell for the rest of our god-given lives.."

"great idea!? lets go---can you pass the hot sauce?


a little thought goes a long way in this world...as my old art teacher used to say---think once--think twice--think three times...

my poem

we got a slick in the gulf
we got a prez playing golf
we got endless wars
we gotta bailout some more
we got too big to to fail
and a bucket to bail
a nation of sheep
we got zombies alseep
we got mercury light
and fluorescent nights
we got lots of TV
for the children to see
we got oprah and idol
I need a midol


---but we still got museums
so get out and seeums.

oil slick

Can we um, uhhhhh, uh, like stop this oil gusher before the whole gulf turns into a sewer? I am one of those who is firmly convinced that this president is as inept as the former ( a feat that is not unlike a camel through the eye of a needle). The only difference is if this was the former fool- in- chief he would have been thoroughly  crucified by the media. I think it is high time the media hold his skinny little feet to the fire and get this thing fixed. Maybe all the global warming zombies can wake up and start squawking like crazed chickens until we get this thing capped. After all,this IS ALSO the environment. James Carville--the mouth from the south is the only media puppet (and former obama zombie) who is speaking out to get obama off his golf shorts and to show some signs of life/ action. I love be a 100% independent minded person as I can make fun of anyone...Bush, obama, even you. I have no sacred cows, no brainwashed left/right kool-aid paradigm that I must drink from. I grew up near the gulf----FIX THE LEAK. If the prez takes a vacation while this thing is leaking I swear I will have a stroke and my typing will be worse than it already is.

If I was the president I would be down there every day, living in a hotel I would wake up with a shovel and go clean the damn beach--but I lean toward the extreme.  

sunshine on my shoulders

you cant beat summertime. If someone told me I could be a millionaire but I had to live in eternal winter I would tell them nyet. I need my sun and my beach.

rivendell

ronald mcdonald house

I am donating a piece of art to charity. June 15th Ronald Mcdonald house. I am looking forward to the evening.

words of the day: the camera eye--neil peart

I. Grim-faced and forbidding
Their faces closed tight
An angular mass of New Yorkers
Pacing in rhythm
Race the oncoming night
They chase through the streets of Manhattan
Head-first humanity
Pause at a light
Then flow through the streets of the city

They seem oblivious
To a soft spring rain
Like an English rain
So light, yet endless
From a leaden sky

The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride

I feel the sense of possibilities
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city

Iphones repaired!

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this is my daily plug, now back to art....

mark twain autobiography to be published

The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century. The manuscript is in a vault in Berkeley California. While all the brain dead americans wait online for ipads and Iphones (no offense to my sponsor) I will  be waiting at the bookstore to get the earliest possible copy come November. The reason we are doomed is that the lines should be around the block for this, people should be camping out for this, not for an electronic toy. I am a huge Twain fan, you may think you are a twain fan but you are not as big a fan as I am. Dont even think that you are.

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sketchy folk

My favorite street artist is Sketchy Folk. He is a crazy bugger and prefers to keep his id under wraps. He sent me a new picture today to sell for him. It is called summer time. He paints these in Times Square sometimes if you are lucky you can catch him there!

SUMMERTIME
11 x 14 acrylic on board.

$25.00

security by hunter s thompson

I read this essay at seventeen and It stuck in my  brain and soul like a hook in a striped bass. It has been my guidepost.

by Hunter S. Thompson (1955).

---

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

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ronald mcdonald house

I was asked to donate a piece to the ronald mcdonald house fundraiser that is june 13th. (must confirm date) I am really looking forward to the event. will update.

sketchy folk

My buddy is a famous street artist. He is awesome. He keeps a low profile and uses a "nome de plummy". He asked me to sell some art for him. I think he is the next banksy or shep fairey. 

This acrylic and sharpie on masonite.


16 x 24.




$25.00


alexgardega@gmail.com

This is sketchy fish: red

original shepard fairey for sale

I hate to sell this but someone close to me needs some help so I am stepping up and doing the hard thing. Shepard traded me this painting while he was doing his houston street mural. I guess he would understand that It is going to good use but it doesnt make me feel any better about it. I love this piece, it is the coolest thing in my small art collection...oh well. It is 18 x 24 and I have the photos of him making it so there is no doubt it is an original....The piece is in perfect condition, this is a bad photo. I will reshoot--there is no damage, no fading etc. It was created about a month ago.

only reasonable offers will be considered:

alexgardega@gmail.com

I feel like I am giving up a child...oh well...

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the ghost of a smile..in progress

I painted this today. it is not finished. I am experimenting with some influences from leonardo and also redon.

 I am posting this before the mouth is finished--hence the name. Painting shouldnt always be a highly detail anal rendering of photo. Painting is also a dream a thing caught out of the corner of the eye---show dont tell.



Sfumato is one of the four canonical painting modes of the Renaissance (the other three being Cangiante, Chiaroscuro, and Unione).^[1] It corresponds to the concept of 'low-contrast' in photography. The Italian word sfumato (pp. of sfumare, 'to smoke') captures the idea precisely. The finished product appears as though a veil of smoke had drifted between the subject of the painting and the viewer and had added some brightness to the pure darks and had blocked some of the pure brights of the subject.
It is not a difficult technique in practice. It requires competence in brushwork and judgement of value (brightness) but does not necessarily require a high degree of skill. It consists in painting with a translucent dark such as asphaltum and then, while wet, painting back into this dark with an opaque light (e.g., some colour based on lead white or titanium white). Some of the colour of the dark will now darken the opaque light and, simultaneously, the darks will be lightened. This operation can be repeated if necessary and, by so doing, very subtle blending effects may be achieved. It is not ipso facto a technique using translucent layers as is sometimes supposed; one will wish to draw a distinction between this technique and the straight-forward translucent painting of Titian. However the translucency of the darks, repeatedly applied and blended into the lights, does lend an enamelled character to the result which, in the hands of a competent practitioner, can be charming and can yield extremely subtle results.
The most prominent practitioner of sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci and his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits all the advantages of the technique. The historical value of this painting consists precisely in the subtle but accurate way in which emotions are expressed. This expression is due in no small part to the gentle shading that sfumato promotes. Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane."^[2]

hmmm

I just heard on the radio about people in china who work 14 hour days seven days a week..My response was like--yeah? really? is that a lot? only 14? Come step into my shoes. I usually get home after a 12 to 14 hour day then I throw in another good 3 to 5. Sometimes for weeks on end no weekends. no vacations. suck it up.

a backwards glance

its good to look back to know where you are going but you dont want to look backward too long...just a glance every once in a while so I can find my path in art.

the restless wind

has seen all things

in every kind of light

rising with the full moon

to go howling through the night

the sleepless wind

 has heard all things

between the sea and sky












in the canyons of the city

 you can hear the buildings cry

 oh the wind can carry                                              all the voices to the sea
oh the wind can carry                                                all the echoes home to me

run with wind and weather

       
  sun gives me no rest














promise offered in the east 

broken in the west

all four winds together

can't bring the world to me








shadows hide the play of light

so much I want to see

chase the wind around the world










I want to look at life----in the available light

play of light

a photograph




















the way I used to be

some half-forgotten stranger, doesnt mean that much to me

trick of light













moving picture

moments caught in flight

make the shadows darker

or the colors shine to bright

those lyrics were by neil peart..thanks neil.


now comes the random grab bag part of show