A.D. Cook is proud to be featured on Images of Eyes Gallery, the only fine art gallery focusing on images and paintings of eyes by international artists. The online exhibit features many of A.D.’s figurative paintings on canvas and some Artist Fusion™ originals on metal. This exhibit–their largest and most ambitious to date–shows Cook’s passion and appreciation for life and beauty.

above: detail of Solace by A.D. Cook - Airbrushed acrylics on canvas - © A.D. Cook 2004

Original concept gallery. The Images of Eyes Gallery is the internet’s only fine art gallery that exhibits images and paintings of eyes by international artists. There are two distinctly different and separate galleries with a connecting subject theme: each image in both galleries has one or more eyes, or at least suggests the presence of an eye!

The gallery exhibits include original, diverse, and eclectic collections of oil and watercolor paintings and portraits, lithographs and contemporary art work, nude paintings and other fine art content, by emerging, established, and master artists from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Some images are from private collections; some made their debut in this gallery with a hope that the exhibitions of artist’s works will promote, publicize, and enhance the artist’s career.

Search engine users looking for artwork often find Images of Eyes Gallery first as they’re top ranked by Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, Ask, Lycos, and others, for a myriad number of art-related search terms. Exhibits in the gallery represent artists from Algeria to Zimbabwe. The gallery is international in scope and interest — visitors from more than 180 countries have viewed more than 9.1 million gallery pages. Without your eyes to look at these pages, there would be no images of eyes. Thanks for looking. Merci! Danke! Grazie! Gracias!

Click here to access A.D.’s complete article at Images of Eyes Gallery.

By Dennis Mathewson…

Amsterdam has always been a city of mystery to me. Is it true the things they say about this historic place? On most of the cliché items - yes. Lots of tulips, windmills, wood shoes, bicycles and cheese.

But I can’t go without mentioning the pot smoke-filled coffee houses, red light districts where girls are lined up in the windows for sale - Amsterdam is a land filled with much freedom. Where pot is legal and the drinking age is 16, you would think this place would be a constant party. It’s not though, as the local law runs a pretty tight ship on all these issues so it’s quite separated from the main stream. Though these lifestyle choices are not mine it was still interesting to see.

This is the Land of Van Gogh and the flying Dutchman the local talent was up to world speed when it came to airbrushing and custom painting. All welcomed my Island and tiki style. I held a two-day workshop at the Emprix/ALSA Netherlands facility in Deventer which is about an hour outside of Amsterdam.

This Historic city was amazing and beautiful. My hosts Iwata Europe and travel companion Alberto Ferrero hooked up with Robbert van Steenwijk and his wife Irene who run the ALSA Europe facility and training center. Having all the cool stuff I need made it easy to do my magic.

Lunch was a kick with Holland’s own sushi raw herring (my style for sure) - had to try it, “yumpin yiminee”!

My good friend Stef and his wife Sandy even drove up from Belgium for the weekend making it fun event. We tried lots of cool custom painting tricks as well as many demos. I also shared many stories and tried to give some inspiration for making a living doing this stuff. I shared with them some tips on marketing their talent.

I even purchased a couple leather belts locally and airbrushed and striped them showing a quick easy way to make some money doing this stuff. Local Deventer super talent Marky even showed up to share the fun.

Margziet Spoozenberg - a very talented artist: Check out her work.

I finished up the weekend with a Pin striped Tiki on the back of the ALSA van.

Europe is very different than the U.S. when it comes to this art but I see big changes happening right in front of me. I plan to return in a few months to U.K. and other location is Europe, ‘I’ll keep you posted.

~Aloha

All images and text in this post copyright © 2008 Dennis Mathewson - Cosmic Airbrush. AirbrushTour.com extends a special thanks to Dennis - our foreign correspondent.

ANEST-Iwata’s Innovations Magazine for the Fall of 2007 is now available for download. Get it by clicking here.

This issue is not to be missed…

* The industry conversion to waterborne paints is an important one to ponder. Learn how Anest-Iwata is addressing this issue and get Craig Fraser’s expert commentary on the subject.

* Dennis Mathewson from CosmicAirbrush.com goes to the AWFS show. We also covered this event last July and you can learn about it here.

* Bob Soroka’s new DVD is out - learn about it in Innovations, then go get your copy at Coast Airbrush online.

* The 2007 Ultimate Air Affair Recap - Read about the stars and the cool projects at this year’s Ultimate Air Affair in Salt Lake City, UT. The next best thing to being there is reading about it. We’ve run stories on all the recent Air Affair events and you can get the goods on them right here. But of course you’ll want to be there at the next one. Sign up for an Air Affair event in 2008. Seats fill fast so mark your calendars early.

Previous issues of Innovations can be downloaded here.

Heavy Metal artist Michael Calandra is our current MySpace featured artist. Michael is a prolific airbrush artist and illustrator and he is also very generous with his Work in Progress articles which he routinely posts on his MySpace blog. Michael has given us permission to post one such article right here on Airbrush Tour.

“This is step one of my new painting featuring model Julie Kim (she’s in my top 40). It is just drawn out at this stage.”

“This is step two. Here I have worked with airbrush into the face and upper body. You can see how the airbrush layers color to model the skin. If you play lights and darks with colors, you can get a photographic effect.”

You can see I have worked into her body with the airbrush.
I had to mask off the whole lower body with a frisket, then cut out only the clothing.
I sprayed the clothing and replaced the pieces of frisket.
Then, I cut out the tattoos and airbrushed that area.
After I removed all the frisket, I worked at modeling her body and skin tone.
The crystal ball was masked off and slowly colored. Highlights were erased with an electric eraser.”

“Here is the next step. I have added background colors and smoke. Then I masked off the lanterns to airbrush them.
I added details to her wings, clothing, and body art.
She is getting close to being finished, but I am still working out background details.”

“Here you go folks. New art just completed! Thanks to my wonderful model Julie Kim! ”

To learn more about Michael Clandra and his art, visit him online at MySpace.com/Michael Calandra.

Other MySpace featured artists on AirbrushTour.com

All images in this post are copyright © 2007 Michael Calandra. Used by permission.

This past weekend Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas played host to ArtExpo - September 28 through 30. It was a bustling event replete with awesome new art and lots of trade and tourist attendees. We filled our eyes and souls with color and form as we walked from display to display, and got a chance to connect with artists that we haven’t seen since the New York ArtExpo event we attended last March.

Some of the usual suspects and some new ones. Abstract artists Barry Mack, David Lochtie, and A.D. Cook with Chris Palin travel the isles of Art Expo.

Stepping into Steve Barton’s booth at Art Expo is kind of like stepping barefoot onto the sandy beach at the Pacific. His art totally captures the casual, relaxed feeling of the ocean and even his unique wavy frames reflect the essence of beach. You’ve got to check out more of his work at his website BartonStudios.com. Stay tuned, because soon, we’ll be doing a special post on this fun artist - wavy frames and all.

One of the more innovative art forms we discovered was the kinetic furniture and wall art of Dale Mathis.

Scott Jacobs was available for a pic and a chat about the art biz. Scott is one of a very few licensed Harley-Davidson® artists in the world. Visit Scott Jacob Fine Art online.

You may remember that pop artist Kat was our neighbor when A.D. Cook showed his art at New York Artexpo in March, and we found her at this one as well. We did a special post on her and her work after the March show and you can read that here or you can go directly to the source - her web site is KatFineArt.com - The art and soul of Rock n’ Roll.

Local Las Vegas artists Thom Madro aka ‘Thomadro’ and partner in crime Jen Ashton were found displaying their new and unique “MadJenNation” life cast art.

And A.D. finally caught up with the one-and-only Olivia, queen of pin up art.

David Garibaldi - another local Las Vegas artist gave us a show. You see, he performs his art with a unique rhythm as he creates it. Check out how he does it at his website: GaribaldiArts.com

Always fans of beautifully executed fine art figurative works, we found ourselves lingering at Miguel Paredes booth. Treat your eyes to his gorgeous original artworks at paredesstudio.net.

Elegant and hugely imposing, the art of Dale Terbush made us stop in our tracks. Dale is as friendly and approachable as his art is beautiful. Visit his website for more on this amazing artist… MastersLight.com

We’ll be following up with more special posts on many of the artists you see here. So keep your feed fresh.

Last November while were attending ASET AIR AFFAIR we met a really talented T-Shirt artist by the name of Norm Gregg. Norm was kind enough to slip a disk in our hands that contained a very nicely written “How-To” article on painting a chrome-like effect on t-shirts.

And then we did some traveling and moving around and that precious disk got shuffled, tussled and ultimately lost, until now. In the process of unpacking, we’ve discovered lots of misplaced goodies from SEMA and Norm’s article was among them. Sorry it took so long to share this with you - our AirbrushTour family, but it’s worth the wait.

Click here to download your copy of “Color Chrome” by Norm Gregg.

This guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s been in the biz for about 15 years and has a full-time airbrush shop in Concord, CA. Check out some of his recent work…

Thanks to Norm for providing this article to you at AirbrushTour. Cheers, Norm!

Looking for some unique and well-executed textile art? Here’s how to find him…
Norm Gregg Studios
1245 Plumliegh Ln.
Concord, CA 94521
(925) 250-1288
normgreggstudios@aol.com

All images in this post are copyright of Norm Gregg - © 2006 Norm Gregg Studios. Used by permission.

We made mentioned that Dennis Mathewson would be sharing his knowledge of Alsa paints in our previous post titled Cosmic Learning with an Island Twist. His tour included several stops in Washington, Oregon and Nevada, where he passed his experience and insight to aspiring airbrush artists. We caught up with Dennis at Desert Art Supply in Las Vegas, Nevada where he played to a full house. Bob Spina, aka “Vegas”, was on hand as well, answering questions about paint and the history of old skool cool - before cool was ‘kewl’, and custom ‘kustom’.

When it comes to airbrushed tikis, Dennis is the Tiki Master with Hawaiian street cred Here he paints some of his trademark imagery.

Dennis demonstrates a variety of masking methods in his demos while demistifying paints, additives, and airbrushes.

The Iwata TH is great for background blends and solids.

Nothing beats hands-on experience with the airbrush.

Good ventilation is always important with any spray tools, including airbrushes, so large spray booths are ideal for airbrush demos.

The results of a cool dragon demo. © Dennis Mathewson / Cosmic Airbrush

Pinstriping legend Bob Spina adds some details to the Rat Fink tank, demonstrating what creativity and a few years of experience can do.

Click here to learn more about ALSA Paints & Additives.

Visit Dennis Mathewson online at CosmicAirbrush.com

Photos courtesy of Dennis Mathewson © 2007

Automotive Spraying Equipment Technology— The newest version of the ASET Air Report is now available, and Airbrush Tour readers get it first. We’ve been working hard on this issue and you’re gonna love it. Twelve cram-packed pages of wisdom and insight from four top automotive airbrush artists who are deeply involved in Southern California’s Kuston Kulture scene; Craig Frazer, Ryno Templeton, Steve Vandemon and Debra Mahon are a creative mix. Check ‘em out and then check their web sites (their links are embedded in the PDF).

This issue also showcases the hot rod eye candy from Creative Concepts, and the Craig Fraser’s ever insightful Painter’s Corner — all that and more. Get your FREE downloadable copy right now before it goes to press: It pays to get your Airbrush Tour RSS feed!

— VOLUME 3 —
• So Cal, So Kewl
• Creative Concepts; A Class Act
• The ASET Store
• Engineered Atomization
• Artool Knockout for 2006
• Badass Airbrush Cleaning Kit
• Painter’s Corner

Previous issues of the ASET Air Report (volumes 1 and 2) can be downloaded by clicking here. Here’s your chance to catch some great articles and interviews with Dean Loucks, Chris “Bones” Tolson and Dave Kindig.

Click here to visit ASET’s web site.

I mentioned a couple posts back that I work with ASET ( Automotive Spraying Equipment Technologies ) to design their ongoing newsletter… THE ASET AIR REPORT. We’ve just wrapped up Volume 2 and thought we’d share it here. Actually, I’m posting both Volume 1 and Volume 2 here. Clicking either of these will download a PDF file for your viewing.

Click to download Volume 1 = 1.5 MB

— VOLUME 1 —
• The Art of Dean Loucks
• Warehouse to Wowhouse - ASET’s new state-of-the-art-facilty
• Artool Delivers - New Freehand Airbrush Templates
• Spray Gun Technology
• Our Best Base Coat Gun - LPH-400-LVB Base Coat Gun
• Anest Iwata Mix & Spray System
• The Ultimate Air Affair 2005

Click to download Volume 2 = 1.4 MB

— VOLUME 2 —
• No Bones About It - an article featuring custom painter Chris “Bones” Tolson
• ASET’s Topp Gunn - ASET’s new chopper
• The Zen of the Kustom Kulture - The State of the Industry by Craig Fraser
• Can You Dig It? Dave Kindig - the veritable “jack of all trades”
• The Technical Advantage - Anest Iwata’s patented LV technology
• New Artool Products for 2006
• ASET’s Ultimate Air Affair 2005 - the big bash art and mayhem
• Painter’s Corner - Where you go for all your kustom painting questions

Click here to visit ASET’s web site.