I painted this picture a couple years ago of a farm I saw in Kansas during my 2002 bike ride on the TranAm bicycle route. For this particular piece, I painted the entire canvas various shades of green and then I painted the black on top of it.

While cleaning out my basement today, I found a wooden cutout that I created several years ago of the artist Miranda July.

Miranda July is my favorite artist of all time, largely because she can not be nailed down to one specific medium. She has produced CDs, books, movies, collaborative online art projects and successful one-man shows. On top of being one of the most intelligent artists I know, she is one incredible marketer!

I first discovered Miranda after randomly picking up a copy of her Sundance award-winning film, “Me And You And Everyone We Know.” The movie was unlike anything I had ever seen previously and it instantly became one of my favorite films of all time! In fact, it still is in my top three.

Miranda’s website at www.learningtoloveyoumore.com inspired me even more. In fact, it was this website that gave me the idea for making this wooden cutout in the first place. I hand cut the wooden outline of Miranda’s body with an X-acto knife and then hand painted the image onto the block of wood. The dark black lines that separate the colors between her shirt, arm and neck are done in ballpoint pen.

While in Greece I went on a three-day cruise and took the photo above while on the Greek island of Patmos. Shortly thereafter I posted the picture to my website at BicycleTouringPro.com. easyCruise, the company that runs the cruise I was on, shortly thereafter contacted me about the picture and asked if it would be okay to use on their website. I, of course, gave them permission and now the photo is in place on their site. You can see the picture in use above or by clicking here to see it on the actual easyCruise website.

Sometime in the year 2005 I sat down and drew out the above and below images. Each one was done using a ballpoint pen inside a traditional art-store drawing pad. A couple months after completing the drawings I cut them out and glued them to black wooden frames – which I also made myself. Now, years later (2010), I re-discovered these drawings buried deep inside a box in my Park City, Utah basement.

Each drawing tells the story of some event in my life, a place I have been, or a person I know.

They’ve gotten a little beat up over the years, so I’ve decided to preserve them here, in digital form. Read the rest of this entry »