SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 15SEP24
What's new pussycat?
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I’ve got flowers and lots of hours to spend with you.
WORDS
My brother and sister-in-law recently moved into a new house and I asked if I could make a painting for their living room. They asked for a colorful tree, and I was in the mood to paint a cherry blossom tree so that worked out!
I don’t do many landscape paintings, so this was way outside of where I’m comfortable working but I really enjoyed the challenge of it. The background was done with watercolor and then the tree and the hill it’s sitting on were done with acrylic paint. I think that created a nice perception of depth to the piece.
Here’s a watercolor study of the bust of Benvenuto Cellini by Raffaello Romanelli on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. DID YOU KNOW THAT I WENT TO ITALY BACK IN MAY DON’T WORRY I’LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT. This piece is a great example of how an artist needs to sometimes get out of their audience’s way. Like, I had a plan for this and didn’t execute it the way I intended, so all that I see is what I should have done differently. Which is fine, it’s all a part of the process. As long as I learn from each painting, what went right and what went wrong, then it’s ultimately a success. But I went ahead and shared it on social and you know what? Some folks liked it.
Early on I would have tried to correct them and point out everything I didn’t like about a painting. Finally, I had a buyer thankfully tell me, “I don’t know what you were trying to do. I just know that I like this so please don’t tell me I’m wrong for that.”
So, there’s some advice for young artists and people early in their professional art careers: Allow people to like your work.
Here’s a preview of Thursday’s first-ever Mark Briscoe painting. Used some red paint for it.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Mark Briscoe - SIGNED
Kamille - SIGNED
Dustin Rhodes
Deonna Purazzo
Darby Allin
Card subject to change.
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
###
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
###
Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
###
Instagram
Threads
Cara
YouTube
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
For some reason I hadn’t watched Bosch: Legacy, but I enjoyed the original series and am slowly making my way through the books so I finally gave both seasons a view. It’s a more stripped-down version of the other show, focusing on Harry and Maddie Bosch and Honey Chandler. Mimi Rogers as Chandler really stands out here and the writers gave the character a lot of depth coming out of what happened to her in the prior series. Sometimes it got a little goofy but it stayed incredibly watchable.
I went to see Alien: Romulus Sunday evening and thoroughly loved it. I’d rank it in the top three entries in the franchise, honestly. It got back to the roots of the first two movies, placed between them time-wise, while introducing some fascinating new concepts both with the synthezoids and the Xenomorphs. Some super cool zero-gravity moments, too.
It also got back to what I loved originally about the concept of Alien, which was introducing a horror element into another genre. For instance, the first was sci-fi, the second action, and the third was a prison drama. They lost sight of that after the third movie, although I’d argue Alien vs Predator: Requiem is a teen slasher film. Anyway, Romulus is a survivalist movie like The Road or even Fury Road, but with Xenomorphs in it. It’s set up as a film about a young woman and her synth brother trying to escape life in a mining colony by making a harrowing journey, which becomes even harder when the facehuggers and such show up. It worked for me.
I’m mostly through the audiobook for House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias. Normally I wait until I’ve finished a book before commenting on it, but this is wildly good. It’s sort of like a supernatural Stand By Me revenger set in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria. Iglesias’ turns of phrase are gorgeously poetic without being too much, it’s one of those rare masteries of language that I’m so jealous of when I encounter it. Definitely worth your time.
Batman/ Dylan Dog by Roberto Recchioni, Gigi Cavenago and Werther Dell’Edera is one of the goddamn prettiest comics I’ve seen in a while. What really struck me were the colors by Cavenago, Giovanna Niro and Laura Ciondolini and how they applied a lot of American pop sensibilities to such a rich palette. Like, LOOK at this:
Gorgeous, right? Dylan Dog’s never been a huge character here stateside but in Italy especially he’s an institution. There was one night in Florence where Katy and I stopped into a little bar and there was actually a bookshelf of Dylan Dog fumetti there for its patrons to flip through while they drank!
Look at that face!
YOU GOOD?
We’re all healed up now from being sick and back to the whirlwind that is ‘normal’ life. I feel like I’m also back to making the art I want to be making. I made a new AEW painting, maybe our Black Friday offering, maybe not, beats me but it turned out pretty good. My sellout streak is still going strong there too, with this week’s Mariah May selling out in under 30 minutes. It’s a trap to talk about something like a streak as they eventually end but hey, it feels good and I’m proud of the work that the team at ShopAEW and I are doing to make all of this a success.
Good things on the horizon!
Love you more,
Rob