SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 15SEP24
It's got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home.
Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan.
WORDS
Continuing my apparent new fascination with making paintings of sculptures, I made one of a prominent Kansas City statue. It’s The Scout by Cyrus E Dallin, one of if not THE most famous here in town. A 1915 statue of a Sioux on horseback, it sits atop a high hill in Pen Valley Park overlooking the city. It was originally made for the World’s Fair and then was planned for a multi-city tour. It was so popular here in KC that enough money was raised to permanently display it. The Scout has become so ingrained in our city’s culture that now there’s even municipal services named after it.
Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Kamille painting. As of this writing, it looks like it will be her first AEW merchandise. It’s cool when that happens.
UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS
Kamille - SIGNED
Darby Allin
Deonna Purrazzo
Dustin Rhodes
Card subject to change.
Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Instagram
Threads
Cara
YouTube
FIGURE DRAWING SESSIONS
Sunday evening I went to a sitting with the outstanding model Joanna at Monarca Gallery. I’ve started doing all watercolor for these, even the one minute poses. Above is a 5 minute pose, and below are a couple 1 minute poses, a 15, and two 35 minute poses.
Joanna’s a lifelong professional dancer who also teaches dance, so she has an incredible sense of her physical space and how to present it to we artists to work with. Really lucky to have her in the area!
Tuesday night was the monthly get-together at Art School KC with our regular model Doug. Above is a 20 minute pose, and below are some 1 minutes, a 5, a 15 and another 20.
Coming out of my time studying in Florence, I’ve felt really liberated with the mindset that I’m not trying to make a finished painting when working with a live model, but instead doing sketches and studies. I’m focused on color, energy and movement and not on polish or accuracy.
That’s kind of fascinating, I’m putting this together right now so bear with me. My therapist recently told me about a newer study that the human brain is a prediction machine, it’s constantly trying to predict how a situation will play out, where a conversation is going, how that other car on the highway will behave, and so on. It’s equally trying to be as efficient about those predictions as possible.
And what the brain’s NOT concerned with in its predictions and efficiency of predicting? Accuracy.
The accuracy of the brain’s predictions become secondary at best because it’s already moved on to predicting the next thing. That extrapolates in a lot of ways, for instance where a politician may tell you what you want to believe is true versus what is actually true, or something outrageous on social media or in a headline that gets you to click, not concerned about the accuracy of its statement. It plays out a lot in interpersonal relationships and with PTSD, because our brains are trying to relate a current situation to how something similar played out in the past, even though we’re now in a completely new and separate situation.
And I think it even trickles down to working live with a model. I’m in the moment and concerned with how I’m going to quickly use the materials I have on hand to depict this person posing in front of me, and freeing myself from also being 100% accurate to it. Obviously, it’s completely different with my studio work, but I think there’s something here for me to explore further.
Artsy-fartsy touchy-feely stuff, yo.
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
I rewatched Excalibur for the first time in, like, a quarter century or so a few nights ago. It was my very favorite movie in my early teens, mostly because of all the fantastical elements. I wasn’t old enough to articulate why I liked it so much. Watching it now, around three decades later, I was completely swept up by the power of its visuals. It was like a moving classical painting, almost. It’s this heightened reality, paired with a bunch of then-unknown actors like Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson who were more familiar with performing the Bard’s work on stage but brought that same energy to this material, that gives it an astonishing amount of power.
I mean, directer Sir John Boorman didn’t have to go as hard as he did with these scenes, but how lucky are we that he did?
The Old Man season two is off to an incredible start. I was honestly ambivalent about the first season, but they made a dramatic swing in the second episode of this new season that rocketed the show into the stratosphere by switching the focus to Alia Shawkat’s character. Anyone who watched the underrated series Search Party knows what she’s capable of when given the opportunity and she’s definitely making the most of it. Reminds me of how Halt & Catch Fire went from a good show to a great show when they switched the focus to the female leads.
I finished up Lost Light by Michael Connelly. Written in 2003, it’s the first by Connelly to have a true reaction to how 9/11 changed American culture and especially how it transformed law enforcement. I’ll be honest, I found a lot of his books prior to this to be ‘just okay’ but this is the first with the now-retired Harry Bosch trying to do good but finding himself more antagonized by the LAPD and the FBI than those he’s trying to bring to justice. It’s a fascinating new direction for the character and Connelly’s writing that feels more like what’s presented in the show than what was in the early novels. I’m actually eager to jump into the next book because of the major character who’s finally introduced at the end of this, but I’m starting up the next of James Clavell’s Asian Saga with Gai-Jin next.
I picked up a copy of The DC Comics Art of Lee Bermejo, as I find myself regularly studying his work online and wanted something a little more permanent I can have in the studio. His Batman work is outstanding and it’s no wonder his work has become so inflential.
Important Tiger Force Update
YOU GOOD?
I had the pleasure on Wednesday morning to talk to my friend Jake Black’s writing class about how I put my newsletters together, why I do it the way that I do, and the lessons I’ve learned from it. Jake’s been so kind to ask me to do this for the past few years with his class.
There’s so many aspects to what I do with my art business that it’s nice to focus in on this area with his students and give a different perspective than they may get elsewhere.
Here’s my big takeaway from these talks, in case you’re curious: Keep it personal.
When I first started doing the newsletter, I went into it thinking about how the person on the other end of the screen interacts with it. It’s one person, scrolling through while drinking their morning coffee or in between other things. It’s not a group of people. So I treat it as a personal letter from me to you, the person reading this right now. You don’t see my live stats or subscriber count, you just see what’s here in the newsletter.
You’re the one creating a personal relationship with the art I paint and want to know about me, the person making it. So I keep everything as authentic as possible for you. Your continued support of my work allows me to keep doing it and I’m of the mind that that means I should be as real with you as possible and not just shilling about my latest print. Sure, yeah, there’s that commercial aspect, it’s how I keep the lights on, but it’s not JUST that. Like with television, there’s shows between those commercials, you know?
Anyway, thanks for doing your part. We’re making something wonderful together, you and I.
Love you more,
Rob