Good afternoon everyone, I hope you’ve all had a great week. You’ve finally made it to Friday, which is awesome, because that means that you get to see a ‘new’ painting of mine: Awesome!, of Vancouver Canucks goalie Curt Ridley. I hope you go to the Goalie Masks (60’s, 70’s) Gallery to see a larger image of it and read it’s brief description.

I’ve got some other news as well. As I mentioned in a quick other post a few days ago, I’m just about to wrap up painting this first part to my Hockey’s Masked Men series. After next week I’m going to take a hiatus from painting them (unless I receive any commissions to do more) and will avert my attention onto other works. There’s a few reasons for this.

One, I’m staring at a board for 8-12 hours a day 5 days a week for a couple months now… and you can only assume that it becomes less and less interesting to do. As the thrill begins to lessen, I feel that I’m just turning one after another out to ‘get it done’, and that is no way to work. That doesn’t mean I’m bringing the quality of my craft down by any means… In all actuality, I believe the last bunch have been my absolute best! They may not be your favourite of the lot, but technically they are the best I’ve done. With cleaner strokes, faster production, and a great 3-Dimensional ~Pop~ I’m still quite satisfied with how they are turning out. But,  I feel the tension in my mind as I build each new stretcher and begin to prepare the gesso and begin to draw ‘another’ mask over top… I want to have a break before I do fall fate to bad quality.

Secondly, I am so much more than a goaltender painter. This was just the start of something beyond what I’ve ever pushed myself to do before. Prior to beginning this series of goalie masks two and a half months ago I hadn’t painted anything in well over a year and a half… and even then it was grudgingly done for school work and assignments I had no passion for. But now, oh boy, the excitement of sitting down with a blank page and canvas and thinking: “boy oh boy, I’ve spent half of my life inspired to be able to draw anything I want, and now I can! Anything at all!” I want to dive deep into this urge of mine and discover how far I can take my abilities and see what I’m able to create. First up, I’m thinking of doing a Banff landscape. I fell in love with landscapes a long time ago, and I have never given it it’s real due that I owe it. Two summers ago I spent my time away working at the Chateau Lake Louise and climbed all over the place. It’s a stunning place to see, and I can’t think of any other place I’d want to paint before taking a stab at the scenery I saw there.

Thirdly, I also run my other website www.finniganmulligan.com for my golf cartoons. I had been drawing these watercolour illustrations during the summer and gave halt to them to start these goalie masks. So, as you can see, I give each project a certain amount of attention for so long and take breaks from here and there to refuel my inspiration. Well it’s time I jump back into these cartoons of mine – which in all actuality is what I hope to become most famous for. I see Finnigan Mulligan going way beyond his current incarnation. Time and production is the only way that this can be realised. I’ve slowly been uploading new images of his cartoons parallel to this sites updates, but these are just cartoons that I held back from peoples views while I painted these goalie masks. It’s time now to give my focus back to this character. Believe me, most of the funniest cartoons haven’t even been inked yet. Don’t you love it when you enjoy something and then learn that the best is yet to come? Well, I’m always full of surprises, and I hope you continue to follow my work.

And finally, I’m not giving up on this site. The last of the goalie masks still has to be posted next week. As well, like I said above, I’m still going to be painting other things. I can’t promise that I’ll be able to finish a new painting each week as I could these goalie masks – but I’m certainly going to give it my best try. And if ever I can’t live up to that promise I can still guarantee that I’ll still have new content to post anyways… even if it isn’t a new work. I have a large archive of other things that I can post. So always check out this blog. I’ll be posting way more than just these ‘update’ posts. I’ve been thinking about making fun videos, mock-interviews with myself, and insightful posts about challenges I face with each painting.

PS, I guess I should also mention that I’m working on a tour for my artwork. But, that’s still in its infancy – but things are a brewing, and I think things are going to turn out great. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.