Inspiration: Strange Brew?

I'm certainly not above any idea. Especially when it comes to taking inspiration from the screwball comedy Strange Brew. This idea was brewed up (sorry for the pun) while I was working on photo color correcting a picture taken of the old Schmidt's/Landmark Brewery on West 7th in St. Paul.

It happened to be late one night when my wife was scrolling through instant stream Netflix and came upon Strange Brew. I had seen snippets of it before, but never in it's entirety. Not only was the film good, it was also educational. I never knew you could grow a mouse inside an empty bottle of beer and get a full refund.

So earlier that day I went over to St. Paul to shoot some pictures. While I was driving down West 7th, it hit me. I absolutely have to take a picture of this amazing brewery. It happened to be in the middle of the day with an overcast sky which didn't make for a very exciting shot. So I knew I had to work my Photoshop magic to whip this picture into something dramatic. All it took was a little dose of Bob and Doug McKenzie to pull this off.

Anyway, this old Schmidt's Brewery had a similar architectural feel as the fictional Elsinore Brewery. In the movie, the brewery was always dark and ominous. And that's just what I needed to do to the photo I took. Make a daylight overcast picture look dark and ominous.

This West 7th "brew castle" is truly a thing of beauty. When I dug deeper into it's history, I discovered insightful information that could make this photo montage even more rich. By adding an old Schmidt's beer truck making it's way eastward, it tells a little story about our St. Paul neighborhoods history, eh.

A Cowboy plus Benton

I guess I have thrown all the rules out the window with these particular montages. In the top picture, I have featured three Americanic figures standing in front of a bizarre gun store right in St. Louis Park called The Frontiersman Gun Shop. I have driven by this place many times and each time I have said to myself, "I gotta paint that". The "three armed amigos" are a cowboy, a Daniel Boone type character, and a retro mid-20th century hunter.

The bottom picture features the early 20th century regional artist Thomas Hart Benton painting a picture of Lake Calhoun. The narrative here is, I wasn't sure if I could do justice to painting a Lake Calhoun scene, but I new that Benton could. You can see for yourself.

New Photomontage Prints

Due to the overwhelming reception of the New York City photomontage prints at the last spring show, I have decided to do more of them. This time the subject matter will be the Twin Cities.
Here is just a taste of what is to come at the December show.

Orchestra Sketch

Here is a sketch that I have been working on with the Minnesota Orchestra. There will be a couple corrections to this drawing, but the bulk of it will remain. It will later be made into a 4ft x 5ft acrylic painting (flat).

The overall theme is to capture a summer evening at the Hall displaying a whimsical feel of orchestral musicians, school fieldtrip kids, jazz ensemble, and street performers all standing outside of Peevey Plaza. Should be a really fun piece!

NYC . . . Done!

This has been a week of running around trying to get stuff ready for next months holiday show. With the completion of my new painting titled The Brooklyn Bridge - New York City, I have made it my top priority to get it photographed and color corrected so we can have posters and prints ready by this month.

NYC is the latest installment of my coast to coast U.S. city skyline series. It now joins the ranks of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Chicago, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington DC. There is some consideration for the next city I paint to be Boston, Miami, or maybe New Orleans. I think each city has it's own unique feel. Creatively, I don't think I can miss on any of these.

Coming up next
I am currently working on more photomontage work. Except, this time it will be all local scenes. These too will be limited edition prints in which I'm hoping to have 10 different montages that represent different spots of the Twin Cities.

Additionally, I will be working on a commission for the Minnesota Orchestra which will be finished sometime in early January 2011.