Time Travel Art Machine: WWE Champions!

We'll keep on fighting, 'til the end.

Here’s a fun painting from ten(!?!) years ago of every WWWF/WWF/WWE Champion up to that point, from “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers through CM Punk. This was an ambitious project from shortly before I worked with WWE that I still think about from time to time.

There’s a lot about it I would do differently now, but that’s the nature/blessing/curse of a long career in the arts as one grows and evolves as an artist. I’m impressed by Rob of 10 years ago trying something this ambitious and I can look at it and see how things I learned in the process of doing this helped me to evolve into the artist I am now. I like to think that my craft has improved a ton in the course of the past decade, but I couldn’t have gotten to where I am now without having made this and every other piece, right?

As artists, we’re the sum of everything we’ve learned from everything we’ve made. What went right, what went wrong, what happened accidentally that we can replicate on purpose, all of that. The next painting I make is the sum of everything else I’ve ever made, as is the piece after that, and so on.

So yeah, I’ve grown as an artist and I see everything I could do better/differently with the point of view I have now. I’ve also grown as a person through therapy to also see the things I like about it. For instance, I like how I used different colors throughout to break up the composition. I used to do that more often and haven’t in a long time. Might be something worth revisiting!

Love you more,

Rob