One of the things I’m commissioned to do the most are pet portraits. People want to offer their friends a kind memorial of their lost furry loved one, or maybe someone just loves having paintings of their pets around their house. Whatever the case, I’ve done a lot of these and it’s always a fun challenge to not only capture a likeness, but to capture the unique personality of a particular critter. I offer affordable rates and quick turnarounds. If you’re interested in getting a quote please contact me at marcoseridoartist@gmail.com
SPB Tribute Show
This past week I was asked to be part of a virtual show, streamed over Zoom and Facebook as a tribute to the Indian Musician, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, who is recovering from Covid-19. The live stream would include a number of local Indian musicians performing medleys of SPB’s songs while I painted a portrait of the artist. The event is unique for me in the musical material that I would be accompanying, but it’s always great fun to expose yourself to new genres of music and branch outside your cultural norms. I was not familiar with his music despite holding the world record for the most amount of songs recorded by a singer, which is over 40,000 songs in 16 different languages. That’s just an insane amount of singing. It would take about 100 days to sing through his entire catalog if you were to do it non-stop. I painted a couple preparatory pieces for the event, and then one final piece the day of the event. The show was a success with all of the musicians getting through their sets glitch free which is all too common in the virtual setting, and my painting turned out great! A big thank you to the sponsors of the event PDXA1 Realty for asking be to come on their PDXA1 Spotlight program, and to the musicians and technicians who helped make the night such a huge success!
Super Secret Studio Session
I was invited to join Shane Brown and Matt Sulikowski as they recorded their upcoming album at The Super Secret Studio. Having never been in a recording studio before I was very excited to be a part of the session. I was called upon to once again record some musical mastery visually. I got to wear the fancy headphones and everything. Look for the album dropping soon!
Back To Al’s Den
Was another night of art, music, drinks, and revelry at Al’s Den. I joined Stephanie Scelza, Katelyn Convery, and Tim Karplus as they did their fantastic singer/songwriter, super talented, awesome performer thing. Blown away every time by the talent these folks possess. If you ever get a chance, and see a show of theirs coming up, do yourself a favor and get there.
An Evening With Sarah Kwak and Friends
I recently had the honor of painting live alongside Sarah Kwak, The Principal Soloist and Concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony. She was joined by Vali Philipps and Cary Lewis for a concert benefitting the Hillsboro Arts & Cultural Endowment. I prepped as I usually do, photographing the set-up and busting out some rough studies of the people I’d be painting. Included below are some of the preparatory works along with the painting I created that night. The evening was a success and I look forward to doing more work with Chamber Music of Hillsboro group.
Mousai Remix
I’ve been struggling and procrastinating for months on how to build this website, how to promote some stuff I’ve been working on, a project or two, working the day job, etc… The same shit every artist trying to artist does before the desperation kicks in. We perform this act of procrastination right up until the time we question our ability to do for life, whatever shit ass job we currently find ourselves occupying.
So yeah, onto…. the stuff. I’ll just start with a recent thing. Just over a month ago through a chance encounter, I ended up teaming together with the Portland based string quartet Mousai Remix to do live painting with them during a performance. I prepared my color scheme, researched the musicians, practiced sketching them, and even went to the venue to plan for the set-up.
As all things go however, the inevitable is an inevitability and those plans went out the window the second I showed up at the venue. There had been a change in the set up where the band would be below me, and I’d be up on the stage… solo. The following photos are what had been planned for.
This is what we ended up with.
You have to just go with the flow sometimes, adjust and adapt to developing challenges, and carry on in a positive fashion. The performance by the group was stellar, I had a great time painting, and a pretty cool piece came out of it. Success all around.
The Vault
Tucked away in a typical new vertical suburban development in Beaverton (La Scala) is a food hall that will occasionally feature the musical stylings of Shane Brown. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to accompany the bearded fella’. Here, Shane and I have the opportunity to work out some of our ideas in a public forum. The most recent project we’ve been working on has been projecting live art onto a screen via an Apple TV hooked up to an IPad, then printing out postcard sized prints of the works for the fans.