Per Ben's Request

early works, posted because Ben, from Both Sides of Ben, asked to see them since I mentioned them over at his place...


These two are very understated, simplistic.
I've always loved Picasso's Femme
and because of it, I just wanted to do my version, in a sort of tribute to the great master. Not that I could ever try to compare...He wins, hands down of course. I just wanted my twist on it.

Then, still inspired by the simplicity of those lines, I did this:


all of these were my solution to some moldy, old and ugly prints from the thrift store. Back before Wifester was in my life, I had some pretty lean times. My choices would literally be either buy groceries or pay rent. But rarely could I do both. During those times, I often spent .50 -1.00 at the thrift stores on things like these that I could paint over to create art for myself, that's when I wasn't going through a dry spell of not painting at all. Paint costs money and back then, it was quite rare that I could even afford it.
When I got these, they had oriental prints that had seen much better days. I had to bleach them to kill the mold, scrub them to get the years of grime, and scrape them to slough off all of that funky combination just to get a base that I could work on.