Game Room (A) Available 16″x20″, 24″ x 30″, 30″x40″

This was the one that started it all. FantaSigns are unique art prints where you can customize the final piece. “Game Room” was our first print we produced over two years ago.

I started FantaSigns as a way to provide my collectors with art that resembled my original acrylic on canvas paintings but without me painting the same image over and over (artists hate repeating things). I had received interest in signs with people’s names but finding actual signs with these names was going to be nearly impossible.

So using state-of-the-art computer graphics software from Strata Corporation I recreated elements of these cool neon signs to create the final FantaSign print. Most people think this is mostly done in Photoshop however there is actually very little photoshop involved, and none of it having to to with creating the customized portion of the print. As this blog continues I will go into how FantaSigns are created.

To purchase “Game Room” please click here

The city by the bay has an eclectic arts scene, everything from the Arts Institute to it’s variety of galleries. Here are a couple of sites where you just might find that perfect painting or sculpture for your living room or office. Get out this weekend and see some art!
Hang Art on Sutter Street

San Francisco Museum of Art

and here is a Gallery Guide to San Francisco

Big Boy, Acrylic on Canvas, 48″ x 60″

Location: Burbank, CA

Big Boy is one of the icons of Americana. Next to Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald, practically everyone knows the Big Boy (those of a certain age, of course). There was a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant near my home where I grew up. As we walked up to the restaurant there was a huge statue of Big Boy holding up the famous double decker burger on a plate. I remember as a child wanting to be like one of the chefs, with those tall stovepipe hats they wore. And those chocolate shakes, so thick you had to used a spoon to “drink” it. And talk about brain freeze!

The big boy chain has dwindled over the years yet if you know where to find them you can still see a few of the restaurants with the statues in front. One of these is the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, California, the oldest surviving original Big Boy restaurant. This is where I found the “model” for my painting of “Big Boy”. I wanted to do something different than show the whole image of the statue. I decided to focus on the face of the statue.

The painting is probably the most airbrushing I have done on a painting. I first created the solid base colors of each part of the painting, which is how I begin most of my works. While this looks very stark in the beginning it forms the basis for the transition to come later using the airbrush. Airbrushing is not straightforward; there is much going back and forth to get just the right colors, shading, and transitions. Masking off areas and painting order are important in order to complete the work without having to redo parts. Unfortunately I do not have photos of the work in progress (which I will later this year as I complete my Route 66 series. Each painting will be shown in progress with notes).

When the painting was completed I was astonished how Big Boy almost was scary looking. The original is quite large (48″ x 60″) so it gave an extra dimension to the feel of the work. The painted image reminded people of “Chucky” from the “Child’s Play” horror movies. There was almost a universal comment made by viewers at the exhibits this painting was displayed that went something like “could you imagine waking up in the middle of the night with him looking at you?”

But Big Boy is always going to be the gentle, pudgy statue that adorned one of my favorite childhood restaurants.

To purchase a poster of Big Boy from Anthony Ross Studio please visit the studio web site.

Breaking News: New Big Boy Restaurants are being franchised!! Here is the Link to the company Web site. We are on a business trip in Las Vegas this week and on the way there was a HUGE Big Boy statue on top of one of the new restaurants. I will photograph it on the way back to the studio.

Artists are not the fastest on the block when it comes to migrating to new technologies. Many have resisted using the internet for promotion or commerce. I’ve talked to many fellow artists and found out many don’t even own a computer! Well, things are changing, albeit slowly, and here is a story from USA Today about a few artists who (besides your humble blogger) are using the internet to showcase their work. Click here for the link to the story.

(Note: This is part II of a series about Thomas Kinkade and the Art Print Market)

To my knowledge limited edition art prints are supposed to be, well, limited. Over the last few years this definition has changed, much in part due to artists like Thomas Kinkade, Bev Doolittle, and other popular artists found in many galleries today.

Art buyers who purchase “limited edition” prints from Kinkade are not receiving the true limited edition of the past. Limited editions created pre-computer were often created at one size, at a specific edition number – usually a low number of around 500 – and signed by the artist themselves. The plates used were then destroyed never to be used again. The edition size was fixed. Now Kinkade, and many other artists, now produce a “limited edition” of an image at a variety of sizes, from small 8″ x 10″ up to 30″ x 40″. The new formula for a determination of a limited edition is now by size, not image. Vary the image by even as little as an inch in each direction and you have a new edition! In my humble opinion this is a sham.

And that’s not all. There is also the substrate differences. A canvas print is different than a paper print. But now a 16″ x 20″ print can be put on paper, call it a limited edition, then put on a 16″ x 20″ canvas and it’s a different edition. This, to me, is pure deception. It makes fools out of unsuspecting art buyers.

But wait, there’s more.

Kinkade’s prints are often “embellished”, which means that someone has taken paint to the print and put highlights over the print, making them seem at times like actual paintings. It is assumed by most buyers that Kinkade himself does the embellishing whereas, as the “60 Minutes” segment showed (to my surprise that they did) art students applying the embellishments. A sort of paint-by-numbers process. The print is also signed by, not Kinkade, but by a computer.

With the technology of today, and to a greater extent the ignorance of art buyers perpetuated by the greed of some gallery owners, the rules have changed. But the problem is the art buyer was not informed of this change.

Most likely the print that is purchased at the local Kinkade Signature Gallery is what is called a “Canvas Transfer”. Now for the layman this may not mean much but for the company creating the piece is means profit. Now there is nothing wrong with profit, I try to continue in business by creating profit in my work, however this profit was, in my opinion, at the expense of truth.

Next week part three: What is a Canvas Transfer?

Our FantaSigns® are unique fine art prints where the buyer becomes part of the picture. Each print comes with a customizable marquee and, in addition, some FantaSigns have a special place to add a name, for example in our “Deco Theater” print above the name “Burns” can be changed to any name you choose. There are over 20 different Fantasign images to choose from on our FantaSigns web site.

In addition, we have partnered with the Walt Disney Company and provide six additional FantaSigns available exclusively Disney Company’s official web shopping site DisneyShopping.com.

In future posts I will provide some insight into how these unusual images originated and how they are created. I can’t tell you everything (company secrets, you know) but I can give you some interesting background into the creation of a FantaSign. If you have any questions please post them and I will be happy to answer them.