THE RED LIGHT 3

Today's painting still drying ........

THE RED LIGHT 2

A new painting for the "red light " series .Two drinkin' buddies on their way to "the house"typically French isn't it !??

CHERI-BIBI

Cheri-bibi i declare you.......
Guilty ........ FATALITAS !!!!

This new painting was inspired by:" The adventures of Cheri-bibi"Created & Written by: Gaston Leroux (1868-1927)"father" of Rouletabille, Erik (a.k.a. The Phantom of the Opera), and Balaoo.

Cheri-Bibi is the nickname of a young butcher's apprentice gifted with extraordinary strength. In the first novel, Cheri-Bibi is framed for the murder of his boss, Mr. Bourrelier, who is also the father of his fiancée, the beautiful Cecily. The hapless hero is sent to Devil's Island while Cecily marries Maxime du Touchais. With the help of fellow convict La Ficelle, Cheri-Bibi takes over the prison ship. Later, they come across Maxime, whose yacht was shipwrecked. Thanks to Dr. Kanak, a prodigious surgeon, Cheri-Bibi literally swaps faces with the dead Maxime and hopes to start a new life in France. However, fatality strikes when Cheri-Bibi (who now looks like Maxime) discovers upon his return that Maxime was the real murderer! So he now wears the face of the assassin for whose crime he was convicted! He is caught and sent back to Devil's Island.

THE RED LIGHT

Monsieur le baron.......
Sgt. Pinot a regular ........
La grande Zoe.....

First post of the new decade, hopping for many more .I've decided to regroup under the "red light "banner,drawings and paintings inspired by the early 20th century brothels .Bordellos were perhaps the only place where all classes of the society were mixing ,willingly or not.It might have been an interesting place to "study characters"for sure as so many artists in the past, seem to have been inspired by such places.

LA RUE #7

Close-up.....
Is this the cold or cheap wine......!!?
A 1930's street hobo ala Bofa. I'm just having fun to end this year......

This is the last painting for 2009 and it's still drying .......

LE CIRQUE

"I've always been inspired by the wordless novels,a genre made famous by early 20th century artists such as Frans Masereel and Otto Nuckel just to name a few. So, I've decided to give that lost art a try. But also decided to give it a twist by first, not imposing a particular "order" to the paintings but rather let the viewer choose and make its own story with the given elements. The other self imposed constraints were:13 paintings ,no freaks or clowns and only 4 colors [the circus colors ] red ,yellow, white and black.

Wordless picture stories have a unique and especially intimate relationship to their readers. In order to follow the narrative these works ask the viewer to guess what's taken place, then connect the dots from one image to the other and get the full story unfold. Nothing is up front but rather suggested and sometimes demands repeated viewing and lots of guessing."

EDWARDIAN TIMES

Gotta love that bowler .......
Jekyll & Hyde style....

Two drawings made for the 2009 edwardian ball in San Francisco....as studies for a diorama box.