To go along with the post below about the second installment of the The Boxer series, you can now go to Amazon.com to buy the “lovely” theme song to the short movie.  There’s a good chance that like me and several of my friends, you will end up singing this song to yourself for days and days.  Enjoy.

A couple weeks ago my friend Shumit and I decided it was time to film the second installment of our “The Boxer” series.  We quickly came up with a rough idea of the plot and began filming.  Below is the results of that weekend.  I had an amazingly fun time writing and recording the theme song for the movie, “When The Falcon Sings” which plays in it’s entirety at the end of the movie.  I think I’ve found my true voice.  You can view the first movie here.

In this latest installment, The Boxer follows his intuition when he hears a disturbing sound coming through the air. He acts on his clairvoyant instinct and searches to end this uncomfortable feeling he has about the near future. Meanwhile, an unsuspecting musician decides he’d like to go play his music in the park. Unbeknownst to him, not everyone shares the same enthusiasm for his music.

I’ve been wanting to make some paintings where the main imagery is black, with bright colors underneath. I wanted to take the type of imagery I make when I doodle and keep that simplicity of form in a painting. So these are my first attempt at that style.  I like the immediacy of making a simple image when I spend 10 minutes drawing a doodle.  I’m attempting to blend the doodling with my meditation/intention painting process to further develop the idea of creating art (and music for that matter) in a way where I’m not getting caught up in thinking, I’m just doing.  I spend enough time thinking and stressing about such random things in my daily life, that I’m trying to take that element out of my creative endeavors.

Below each painting is a brief description of the thoughts that come when I look at each image.  If you are interested in purchasing these images as prints, on greeting cards, or as posters, please go to my RedBubble site.  If you are interested in purchasing the original paintings, please go to my Etsy Shop.  Thanks for your interest and finding my ArtBlog.

Spirit Fire

“Spirit Fire” is the energy I feel when I connect with my spirit. I’d like to say this is a continual sensation, but I feel I’m always cultivating a better relationship with my spirit. When I was a child I felt more continually connected to my spirit. When I let my mind calm down I can connect with my spirit. Most times when I make music or art, I connect with my spirit. The “Spirit Fire” is that feeling that comes over me when I know I am connected to my spirit and am able to see clearly my path.

Cyclical Strength

“Cyclical Strength” refers to the strength from experience. From learning lessons and repeating processes and actions. The strength that comes from living both the ups and downs of this life. And to know that we are meant to accept suffering as well as embrace joy. And to keep in mind that all things are cyclical, and when I feel unstable or confused at a point in my life or day, that all things come around and at that moment I may be confused or unfocused, but soon things will circle around and those feelings will soon pass.

A Part of Everything

“A Part of Everything” is a reminder that we are both individual and also a part of the whole. Today it means to me that in the bigger picture, my life is a wonderful contribution to the whole. That whatever woes I have today are very tiny in the bigger picture.

Thought I would share this little clip of my friend Jennifer Phang on Korean TV.  She was director and writer of “Half-Life”.  To learn more about the film, check out it’s Wikipedia Page, here’s an excerpt – “The film premiered in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and has since been touring the American and international film festivals circuits. It premiered internationally in the Tokyo International Film Festival in competition, and then in Europe at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, also in competition. “Half-Life” was the opening night film for the International Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, Korea. The film will make a theatrical debut in December 1 2009 in selected cities.”

While in Seoul, Jen took part in a television interview, here’s the beginning clip of the interview.  My artwork can be seen between minute 1:06 – 1:16.  A whopping 10 seconds on Korean TV:

My father would be proud……ha.  Also in addition to being able to see the film in select theatres in December, you can also get the film through NetFlix.

I got to see the film when it showed at The Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, as part of the 27th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.  I had seen parts of the film before it was finished when I was working on the artwork, but it was so cool to be in a movie theatre and see my art projected up on the big screen.  In total, including the opening credits, my art is up there for about 2 minutes.  It was a cool experience to be a part of.  You can view some the artwork used in the film here.  I still need to upload the second round of paintings onto the site, but you can see the first round.

Hello my massive amount of people who read this blog…….Ok, I think the most readers I’ve had on one day is about 21.  So since you’re reading this you should feel special.  You are one of the chosen few who found an interest in my artwork.   Ahem, alright back to the subject of the post.  I decided to give submitting to an Etsy Showcase another shot.  I’m experimenting with different ways to get people exposed to my artwork, and thought I’d pay the fee to get included in today’s “Art:Painting Showcase” on Etsy.com.

I’m really trying to figure out how I can sell my artwork online.  I recently listened to an interview between Ramit Sethi and J.D.Roth who are both people who write about personal finance.  They were talking about how they started off their sites and how long it took them to develop an audience.  They also talked about when they started to monetize their sites and how.  They both agreed on the importance of writing good content, which will then attract traffic.

So I started thinking to myself about what this blog is to me and what it is I’m trying to do with it.  It started out as a way for me to document a new painting style I began to develop, which I started calling “Meditation Paintings”.  And along the way over the past 10 months or so, I’ve included other elements of several creative endeavors.  This blog is both for me as a place of reference, and also a way for me to share my creative life with others.  Right now there are links on the right-hand side that direct you to places to buy prints and original works of art, and also a link to some of my music.  But so far, the traffic has been very low.  Which in one hand is fine, I didn’t go into expecting to draw a large audience.  Though, now I’m wanting to share my creative projects with more people.  I want this blog to help me get more recognition in the art world.  In my “Time-Lapse Painting Videos“, I put a advertisement for my blog and sites that sell my art in at the end of each video.  And I try and hand out business cards that have the blog’s address on them.  And there are a few people who have found me from searching WordPress.  In keeping with the idea that we can’t control the outcome of our actions, I can find peace with the fact that I put in a lot of time posting work on different sites, and trying to get my name out.  This past year alone has seen me create and share more artwork than possibly any year of my life.

I’m just trying to reach out and say, “hello, how does one get their art recognized online?”

Coming back to mentioning the personal finance gurus, I brought it up because they were writing about, well, personal finance, which all of us are interested in to some degree and need information on it to help us better understand our situations.  So if I were to want to find out about personal finance, I would come to find their blogs.  So how do I shape my blog so that people find it.  Not that I’m going to stop documenting my creative endeavors, but I think I need to start writing about my personal journey on becoming a professional artist.  And the questions that come up on a daily basis.  So this showcase I put my art in today cost me a whopping $7.  It’s the second time I’ve put my stuff in there.  So far it’s created a bit more traffic, but still no purchases.  Too high a price, not the right format (meaning, should I just be selling prints on Etsy?).  Anywho, that’s my post today.  Hope your day is going well.  Now back to that illustration I’m working on of a guy in a canoe going down a blueberry river…….

So, take a look around and let me know what you think.  Here’s a link to : my Etsy shop.

So a few months ago my life-long friend John Norman asks me if I have any extra prints of the image below, “New Birth New Family”.  I wasn’t sure what he needed it for, considering I was fairly certain he already had a print of it at his home.  I didn’t think a whole lot about it.  I figured one of his kids had maybe damaged it, or maybe he was going to do something with it.  Since he lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan at Ripley-Grier Studios, a place frequented by “celebrities”, I thought maybe he’s selling it to someone, or submitting it into some art show he saw.  At the same time, I thought, why is he asking for something I made back in 1996 during my senior year at The College for the Creative Studies?  Why not ask for something I’ve done recently?  So I packed up the print he asked for which was in a frame and I sent it to him.  I kept asking over the next couple months what he was doing with it and he kept telling me I had to wait and see.  I didn’t think much about it, but remained curious.

Then my friend Mike Glendinning asked if I’d design his new CD packaging.  We went over ideas, and he wanted to see a variety of artwork I had made in the past.  So I sent him to some examples of my artwork and of all the pieces he saw there and on a couple other sites, he picked the same piece my friend John had asked for.  This was so odd, that in this short time period, two people were interested in the same print that I made 13 years ago.  So as I finished designing Mike’s CD packaging, my friend John finally announced what he had done with my print.  He got it tattooed full size on his arm!  Amazing…….

Yet another example that you can’t control the outcome of your actions.  You can only put forth the effort and have an idea of the intention.  Below is the original print, then the tattoo photos, and finally the CD packaging.

So, I created the painting “Completing Circles” on a Tuesday and sold it on a Friday.  That is a first.  The painting is posted below as a photo, and also as a time-lapse video, but here is a tiny photo in case you’re coming across this post as a single post.

Here it is….enjoy.

Too see more of my “Time-Lapse Painting Videos” go to : www.youtube.com/user/joncooneymusic

My idea when I started this painting was how I’m trying to complete the circles I start in my life. Everything from calling someone I need to call, getting my artwork in different galleries, spiritual & psychological changes/cycles, achieving goals, and many other projects that get started and not completed. So I was making this as a call to myself to try and complete the circles in my life I’m still aware of.

Like most of my paintings I’ve put up here so far, it was done with a meditation/intention process I’ve been cultivating with my friend and bodyworker. It started as a way to approach loosening up my artmaking process. Our idea has been to simply to have the intention of making art, the “doing”, and to try and let go of the pressure to create something of importance and to forget about the outcome and enjoy the process of creation.

If you’re interested in purchasing any of my original paintings or prints of my artwork, pleas check out : www.JonCooneyArts.etsy.com, or www.redbubble.com/people/joncooney

And don’t forget to check out the “Time-Lapse Painting Video” I made while painting this piece which is posted right above this posting.

This is a watercolor painting I finished recently. It was the first time in awhile where I’ve painted a person. As I painted him, I felt like he was someone who has since passed, but his spirit wanted me to paint his portrait. Or that he is a manifestation of my spirit as I may look when I’m older.  This was a different approach the numerous “Meditation/Intention Paintings” I’ve been doing.  Although I did sit and meditate for a short period before I started this painting, it was a tighter painting process.  It was the first subjective painting I’ve done in awhile.  I worked on it in three different sessions over a few days.  Those are my thoughts today.