
Hot off the press, check out the new website.
http://www.samcarterart.com/
I'll still be updating this ol' blog along the way now. I like being able to link the new paintings to a write up on each. Check it out, let me know what you think!!
toodles.
Original Art by Southern California Pop Surrealism Artist Sam Carter.



I've always noticed a connection to Buzz & Woody to The Tin Man & Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz. I thought it would be fun to do a little something based on that. This was painted on a wooden panel to give it a different look. Not sure if it's a direction I want to go in with all pieces but it felt good for this one. It was a good time nerding out with some buddies on Facebook on what to call this painting. Honorable mention for a title also was " Surrender Jessie ". Maybe I will add it in cloud writing like it was written by the Wicked Witch's broom. Thoughts?


"Are you not aware that I get farty and bloated with a foamy latte?"



Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Here we have the leader of the club, Mickey Mouse, an agent of chaos. Toontown needs a better class of criminal and he's gonna give it to them. His operation is small, but there's a lot of potential for Disneyland "aggressive" expansion.
Needless to say, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is one of my favorite movies, I am pretty religious about this flick. When I started this series of Nerd/Cult movie babes, Sloane Peterson was one of the must haves on the top of this list. The basic idea for these paintings is to pick my favorite ladies from my favorite movies and to do a stylized pin up, slutty version of their character. Just like Jennifer from BTTF, I try to capture their character more than doing a portrait of the actress playing her. Once I get that I cram the painting with as many references from the movie I can fit in. And there are plenty of things from this movie. If you catch them, great. If not, that's ok, just enjoy the sluttiness I guess. But I think most of the items in this are pretty basic to anyone who has seen it. It is no doubt a classic.
Right after watching Ferris Bueller this week to get some inspiration for this (and the painting of Sloane) I heard the sad news of the passing of John Hughes. His movies definitely had a real vibe to each of them. You could tell a John Hughes right away when you saw it, they all had a lot of heart. They all just made sense and felt good. Quite the legacy left behind by that guy.


Taking a break from the Cult Cinema paintings but still in the Pop Vein, I felt like doing something to bring out the "Itchy& Scratchy" in me. The thought being what if Yogi actually snapped and made sure he got the picnic basket. I mean seriously, who the hell does the Ranger think he is anyway? He's dealing with a wild bear in the forest for cryin' out loud! I think Yogi's natural bear instincts have kicked in and what you see is what happens when you mess with bears. It's not good. Boo Boo on the other hand is still a little unsure because his murdering instincts haven't kicked in yet. His huge purple bow tie cracks me up for some reason though. So maybe consider this a public service message of sort, if you see a bear in Jellystone National Park, just let him have the Picnic Basket. Time to get off your high horse ranger, should have let him have the f'ing picnic basket. Were you even going to eat it? Jerk.
I've been meaning to paint this one ever since I heard Conan O'Brien was moving to LA to do his show. I felt it was appropriate to have some fun with the Masturbating Bear on our CA Flag. It kind of just made sense. My hidden agenda with this one is to somehow get it to him and maybe score some tickets for me and my friends. And if I knew it would actually get to him, I would give him the original. I mean, he is only one of the funniest people on the planet. If you are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, you have been missing out on some funny stuff. Time to start catching up on some Conan.

It's been rough trying to find time to get some more canvas painted this year. May has been crazy busy. But I was able to crank this out this week. I actually started it in Feb and did the bottom half, but let it sit for a few months. Having the OC Fair around the corner will always set a fire under my ass. So this will hopefully be showing in the Visual Arts area of this years fair. I need to drop it off on June 19th.
I knew I always wanted to do a piece based on the Beatles but wasn't sure how to do it. After seeing "Love" in Vegas I was inspired to pump this one out. I wanted something that tried to capture a little bit of each era of this band. It's based on some famous shots of them on the roof of their Apple Records in London performing "Get Back". Which also happens to be the last time they all played together as the Beatles. Lot's of references in this one... there is the black birds flying above, war torn Liverpool in the back, the early days of "help" jumping in front, line art from Yellow Submarine, Ringo's drum has the faint left over art from Sgt. Peppers. Fun stuff. As far as bands go, I'd love to someday do a DMB, Sublime or U2 painting. Someday.
I painted this one when I lived in Huntington, it is kind of the second in a series. The first one being Dorothy, and the next one is a yet to be painted Sleeping Beauty. I plan on doing that one with our famous princess in silk sheets and a bottle of sleeping pills. That one is on deck. But this piece I am a fan of. The model is Joanna Krupa, one of my favorites if you couldn't tell. Lot's of little things about this one, you have the pervy Mad Hatter whispering nothing but bad ideas in her ear. You have the Tweedles holding hands, they were always a little gay to me. The huka was a must, now that i think about it I wish I painted a catipillar on it. And I think when I show this at a gallery I want to get a real bottle of Jack and recreat this label for it. I just know one of my alcohalic friends will take it. Oh well.
Ever since my trip to Japan in 05 and o6 I really wanted to paint the Hokusai woodblock print of the great wave. I thought... why WOULDN'T a samurai surf that thing? When I was out there with Sarah and Phil we stumbled upon this surfer town, Kamakura. It's where that huge Buddha is. It was basically the Japanese San Clemente. That city was the main influence in this painting. The Hello Kitty surfboard is a little tribute to my old boss Dave Earick. Plus I wanted to add a modern touch to it so I added the Tokyo Tower next to Fuji. Japan Rocks, I want to go back.
This was my first painting that I feel really got a lot of recognition. It won Jurors Choice at the OC Fair in 2004. Even while I was drawing it out, a lot of the old ladies in my Art Class at CSUF were getting nervous because they knew I was doing some sort of spoof to a religious painting. It was about the time I painted the face on Jesus in white, and put clown make up on when they finally had their heart attack. To me this has nothing to do with Christianity, it's more about the Religion of Fast Food. I painted it because I has almost no money and always needed to grab a bite around campus. I felt that these commercial icons were my disciples. Plus I was listening to Jason Mraz Fast Food Nation song a lot while making this one. When people see this, there is usually at least one character they don't recognize, which blows me away because sadly I feel like these bums raised me. There have been about a million spoofs of the Last Supper, but I felt I had to throw mine in the mix. This piece was bid on by a few people, but I ended up hanging onto this one. I have sold quite a few reproductions of this one tho, it's one of my favorites.
This was my first painting that I sold. I painted it while at CSUF, like most of my older pieces. I really miss having those 6 hour studio classes everyday. I was cranking out paintings like crazy. The model was based from a pose in Maxim Magazine, some hotty that stood out to me. The original was sold to an awesome guy who put it up at his store in the Arty area of Long Beach. I don't think they are in business any more. But when I sell a piece I make sure to get a high res picture of it, so I can reproduce it whenever. I'd still like to show it when I have another Gallery, it's one of my favorites.