That Man From Ventura

A Norman Mallory self-portrait and a watercolor of his sweet wife Mary's garden.

  For this week I thought I would do a dual post of some of the recent paintings that I've been working on and also some of the work of my friend Norman Mallory, who's been a great inspiration and better friend over the past few years. I first met Norman when he wrote to me about the Robert Fawcett illustrations I had on my website. Discovering we lived close to each other, we decided to get together. "You met this guy on the internet- what if he is a psycho killer? " asked my lovely wife. Norman's wife was even more caustic: "What if this guy is a Bushy?"

Portraits of Neil Gaiman and Miles Davis

 Well, Norman was no psycho killer, though like all good artists he is a bit mad. And no one has ever accused me of being a Republican, let alone a Bush supporter. So we hit it off fine. Here are just of a few of the goodies that Mr. Mallory has turned out recently. You can see a ton more of his work at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/7511675@N06/

Pencil drawing of Ralph Steadman and watercolor of Irish coast

   Norman was gracious enough to give me lots of helping (for free) editing the Retrowood material and offering me lots of sage advice on that project. What really astounds me are Norman's portraits and his command of the water color media. His self portraits would probably get a second look from Rembrandt. He's motivated me to try my hand at a couple which I've included below. I am also an influence on Norman as he has recently started painting some cat portraits, and they do have a definite psychotic look to them.

A couple of my kitty cat pictures, a couple self-portraits, and a self-indulgent pinup