current artwork

This blog is misbehaving….i haven’t been able to successfully upload any imagery and haven’t fixed the issue but will soon. I’m not neglecting my blog, and have new work to post, there are some technical difficulties right now…I’m working on a painting of people being attacked by spaceships at Lake merritt: cathartic chaos scenery…

These are several frames from some short graphic novels I did for a class at AAU.

Oil painting on wood panel

oil painting on wood panel

oil painting on wood panel

Oil painting on wood panel

Oil painting on wood panel

Oil Painting on wood panel

this painting is a commission to be used as a CD graphic. (Afternoon of the Soul by Fred Hamilton, yes there is a relation)

This is an acrylic painting on wood I recently finished illustrating the parallel between frog and human health specifically the fungus “chytridiomycosis”‘ threatening a third of the worlds frog species with extinction and “Staphylococcus Aureus” (staph); infecting people with increasingly more virulent, antibiotic resistant strains. It’s a play on the necessity and contribution of antibiotics as it is the thing that can cure the fungus in frogs and staph in people, but also breeds more fierce versions of what it “cures”.

(I’m such a goof, I checked like 3 times, but still spelled staph wrong in the painting; I just noticed it. ugh. ha ha. get out the brushes again)

These two watercolors are meant to illustrate parts of Oscar Wilde’s childrens’ story “The Selfish Giant”. One image shows the giant kicking the children out of his garden, then winter sets in for a few years in his garden until the children return, melting his icy heart and he learns that it’s nice to share and feel love. Awwww. It was an assignment for a watercolor class taught by an incredible painter and instructor Steven Player at the Academy of Art.

This is a detail of the Rembrandt Oil Study I did for a head drawing class at the Academy of Art; Rembrandt frequently chose or was commissioned to paint Mennonites for his subject matter (perhaps explaining this incredible outfit).

Oakland Museum Natural History Room sketches.  

birds and ears

These are 3 of the better drawings I’ve done in class this semester. We spend about 5 1/2  hours in class drawing one pose. I feel sorry for the model and hope to one day be able to finish a really really really good drawing. These still feel like warm ups to maybe becoming a good artist someday.

The Panda went to China town searching for bamboo, the fox went to the Albany landfill, and the walrus and rider went up to Coit tower. Each of these creatures is no bigger than about 3-5 inches in size but all look significantly larger in photo form, but that’s just an illusion friends. Look closely at the photo below to see the actual size comparison during the art opening at Awaken Cafe.

mmmm. donuts, art, and friends.

This is a charcoal drawing done from a photo I pulled off the internet randomly; I don’t have a link to the photographer’s site anymore, if I find it, I’ll post a link, it’s probably plagiarism to use it but I promise not to publish it for any reason. I did this for a class assignment,  (for a head drawing class at the Academy of Art) chosen for the “Rembrandt lighting” on the face.  A term to denote the triangle lighting on the cheek and the nice contrast of light the dark that Rembrandt used over and over again. Our next assignment is a Rembrandt copy.

I like the spooky doll like quality of this woman’s face, her eyes really are this far apart, the spacing doesn’t quite look right, but it’s pretty right on to the photos actual proportions.

Yes, I know this painting has become a subject of a Hollywood movie although I have not seen it, and I thought about just drawing Scarlett Johansen in place of Vermeer’s girl with a pearl earring, but this is a “master study” for a class at the Academy of Art so I stuck to the real subject.

This is a charcoal drawing 18″x24″ and took me about 9 hours to complete.  Imitation is a great way to understand something when you’re at a learning mode be it art, business, music, cooking, or anything for that matter. I chose this image because it has a mystique and now also a commonality to it thanks to Hollywood.

This is a charcoal study 18″x24″of a painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, a French Neoclassical painter 1780-1867, same class, same purpose of getting to know what about a painting or drawing makes it work by doing a black and white study of it. How do you attain a full range of values in order to create the right look and a recognition of a specific art piece? From doing just these 2 studies I’ve felt that subtlety where you either have the look or you don’t and it can happen with just the slightest change in one area. One slight angle off and the eye is someone elses. I think I’m pretty close on these although they are slightly off of course, and will have one study a week for the next 8 or so weeks.

The newest additions to the family are Zia and Ahmed (the Walrus), tiny sculpted creatures from a painting I just finished in a series I’m working on of people and spirit creatures/animals. Future adventures to follow.  Here’s the painting of zia and ahmed:

This is a promotional piece I worked up for a friends band Lariat’s of Fire.

It’s an original line drawing I scanned and then painted digitally.

These are some alligator illustrations done for the Academy of Science in San Francisco. I have my own mug now with a gator on it. Coffee tastes better with a gator around.

A Florida manatee illustration done with pencil and gouache. Manatees are like the ocean cousin to an elephant and have to battle with boat propellers which account for many manatee fatalities. sad, maybe we could start supplying them with armor.

Fat and cute tomato frogs from madagascar. These gouache and pencil illustrations were done as gifts for donors of the Brooklyn Zoo madagascar exhibit in 2008.

article on pheromones and their power to attract

religion as a vice

the age of innocence and playfulness

(these are all sketches from photos, altered to an extent, but drawn just for fun, it’s the same kind of line drawings i do when staring at people on the bart or a cafe, quick, loose and simple, these are a bit more refined because they aren’t moving, but same concept)

small sweet people busy with life get distorted by my pen

This piece was a collaboration with 3 other artists, Donovan Clark, Casey Cripe, Forest Stearns and myself. It was in Humboldt at the annual fire art party out in the woods on someones property. They gave us a big wall and we each took a section to paint. I painted the giant woman and various patterns across the piece. Of course being Humboldt it rained which gave us a bit of a challenge. There was continuous live music behind us and fire balls shooting into the sky periodically and people juggling and eating fire.

seriously.

This is a series of paintings completed a couple of years ago, but they are still worth sharing. I spent 3 weeks on the road with Forest Stearns and when we got back we locked ourselves into the studio and spent a furious 7 days completing 15 or so paintings. We started with a printed black and white simplified photo as a background image on paper, glued to wood, glazed shiny and then each added one or two elements on top with acrylic paint. This is just a sampling of what we did.

Some are still available, most have sold, but it’s always great to collaborate with other artists.

I’ve been drawing and drawing and drawing, animal after animal, some with success, others just not quite right for this company I’m working for, it’s all good experience though. Since I’m not allowed to post the ones that are accepted for print, I decided I should do a post of some of the ones that haven’t worked. I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to look at sea otters, I’ve drawn 3 so far, each one getting better, still none quite right.

This sea otter illustration was the first attempt, cute-ish, but totally overworked, the feet aren’t right, and I used paint when I’m supposed to be using pencil, oops.

The next sea otter illustration was a mom and baby otter together, almost ok, but again, not quite it, the legs were too dark and the babies face wasn’t fuzzy enough.

And then the next sea otter drawing, was even closer, but still not quite the look, it’s flat on it’s stomach because it would have been illustrated with kelp across it. The arms and face were right on, but the legs were a bit overworked. One of these times, I’ll get it.

I’m on a dead hero memorial kick, 1st sadie, now Robert Rauschenberg   who left this world May the 12th, 2008. This artist is one of my all time favorites, creating his own language in art and a unique look that has since been emulated  numerous times and inspired many people. Using assemblage and paint in a profoundly symbolic and poetic manner, this artist sparked an interest in me when I was just starting out. My work doesn’t resemble his in the slightest, but it was the feeling he created from his work, the energy put into the making of his art that grabbed my attention. I first saw one of his pieces in the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1996. It was this sculptural painting object/thing on the floor of the museum with a (stuffed) goat standing on this painting turned platform, a tire around its neck, and loose paint caked on its fur that made me step back and have a moment with this strangely wonderful thought process. He contributed to the dialog of  art immensely and along with Sadie, will be missed and appreciated my many.

I was honored to have 10 years with a very special furry friend (best dog ever) named sadie who I have to do a post on because she was so great and taught me quite a bit about myself. She passed on last week after coming down with a lungtumor/cancer beast that had it’s nasty way with her. It was a difficult thing to decide the end fate of my friend, but it seemed like the right thing to do??.. still bizarre and controlling feeling for me although I feel better now that I’ve had time to reflect.

So here’s to Sadie, may she move on with grace, and enjoy where her molecules take her next, she was honorable, loyal, quiet (except when she sang to go outside), loving, and the biggest, sweetest old soul, deserving only the best.

Much love you little fur-ball of good times, I will always miss you and your tiny teeth and velvet ears.

ink, digital color, erin hamilton

acrylic painting Erin Hamilton

I might have my own gator tee soon. So far I’ve illustrated an american alligator, 2 florida manatees, monarchs, mola molas, harbor seals, and am working on a sea lion, harbor seal, sea otter trio. The name of the company I’m working for is EquesInc.

This month I connected with a gallery in SF called the artist-xchange and am part of a group show. The gallery is at 3169 16th st in the Mission district between Valencia and Guerrero. The night should be fun with DJ Black Deby playing some funky good tunes and plenty of art and people to stare at and chat with. So come on out and say hi, sip a water with me, and enjoy a friday in SF.

Here are a couple of paintings I just finished and will have in the show.

Bird on hand, Erin Hamilton

Poppys for the Mind, Erin Hamilton

painting of susie bubble by Erin Hamilton, it’s small and sweet.

I’m new to blogging, and I don’t do it very often, yet I really appreciate it and the personal touch different people contribute in their posts. One of my favorite blogs, partially due to the person writing it and her way with words, is style bubble. It’s well written and details a tasty aesthetic for fashion I really appreciate. I referenced a couple photos off her site of her and put a bird in there along with a feather headdress of sorts. The strange part is the day I finished this, I looked at her newest post and she had a link and imagery of this designer Beddug who makes bird headbands. nice and synchronized right?

This is in progress, (I still need to detail the rest of the frogs):

I’m working on a painting of frogs with the idea of frogs being like the proverbial canary in a coal mine to humans environmentally (which according to science they are). Short story, they have all kinds of problems due to pollution from pesticides, water contamination from all kinds of sources, and due to a slight raise in temperature there is this fungus killing all sorts of frogs called chytrid fungus. mmm, light hearted and pleasant right.

Well I thought so too. My goal is to make this as pretty and delicate of a painting as possible to contrast the disease, much like the delicacy of life and the gruesome and also beautiful things we go through in the process of living and dying.

A detail of the skeleton:

Blue Nose Pit Bulls In Vegas, by Erin Hamilton

This is the most recent painting I’ve finished (aside from the New Year’s collaboration), and wanted to post it’s progress and final results. It’s a commission for a person who is both an avid rock climber and an owner of 2 American blue nose terriers (beautiful silvery grey and white pitbulls).

The mountain range up front is Clark Mountain on the California/Nevada border, a well known climbing place for the people who are into climbing. This painting is about 4ftx2ft done in acrylic and took about 3 weeks of studio time= lot’s of hours of back numbing work. Also lot’s of love. (I only had to visit the chiropractor twice, I need to remember to move around more often).

Here is a series with a bit of progress detailing some changes and growth:

New year’s eve 2007 was spent with a group of artists (carmen olsen, casey cripe, forest stearns, tyler cripe and me, Erin Hamilton) making a new and exquisite art baby at the ultra opulent San Francisco Westin St. Francis Hotel. We had 5 hours to finish a piece that was 8ftx8ft. The above image is the finished painting. The Pacific Art Collective set the show up for us and it was a pleasure to spend new years eve collaborating on a strange new piece of art with friends.

Here we are at the beginning of the night, staring at the blank walls.

Our initial concept was to simply mash up as many animal parts as possible and ty to create a composite creature.

Tyler, Casey and Erin Hamilton drawing on the beast.

Casey and Tyler Cripe (monkey brothers) who worked on this painting are two artist’s I think of as naturalist explorers from another generation who just happen to live in the present day. They have a website called MonkeysWithHumanHaircuts that shows just a bit of their diverse talents. It was really great to work with them, I hope to one day be able to draw animals as good as they can.

Here is Casey working next to the lovely and extremely talented Carmen Olsen. Up until the day prior, i had only known Carmen as an aerial goddess worthy of cirque du soleil and a theater artist; now I have another reason to look up to her as she is also just as talented in the 2D art realm. I have a new admiration for my friend and hope to collaborate with her again sometime.

Here we are being glamorous artist’s in the newly arrived 2008, yeah Carmen!!!

We worked next to artist Damon Soule who started one piece, decided it needed a change, buffed it out and started over making an image of 1000 burning square’s representative of the crowd we were surrounded by.

He buffed out that piece too at the end of the night as the drunken crowd began a photo shoot around our paintings and it turned into an opportunity for group participation, someone even did a jackson pollack impression on his wall. New Year’s Eve really brings out the animal in all of us right?

Here’s a shot of the crowd that night, I think 3000 people were at the Westin in a 5 room party including live music in several rooms, a giant gold Buddha, and a fashion show and stilt walkers in our room.

All in all it was a really fun night, even if the sound system made my ears bleed and we were subjected to a painful mix from the dj that somehow allowed him to work in all of the almost hits of 1982-1992. Ha ha.

Here is our group shot at the end of the night. Much love to Forest Stearns who is as always throwing down beautiful line work, is a lovely man and super skilled artist! (check out his website draweverywhere.com)

The result was a wild assemblage of parts giving us dreams of the future when all the animals and humans have mutated into a shadow of their former self. I think we all left pleased with our new creature.