Senor Gomez

The Mary Mitchell House

I did another cover for the VC Reporter. The Art Director, Enrique Candiotti, asked me to do something different. Thanks E!

The illustration is of a historically important landmark in Ventura. It's a house called the Mary Mitchell House.

According to the San Buenaventura Conservency Website:

This house is known as the Mary Mitchell House and is part of the Mitchell Block Historic District established in 1977. The two-story brick masonry structure is a combination of Queen Anne and Eastlake Victorian with the decorative wood detail under the front gable and the spindle and spool decoration on the porch and balcony. Of unusual interest and whimsy is the square tower with the crenalated parapet, which is reminiscent of medieval Gothic towers. Built in 1890 by the Mitchell Brothers, who were bricklayers, this residence was given to Mary Mitchell, daughter of Ed. L. Mitchell. The houses at 670 and 692 are the only remaining examples of brick houses constructed prior to 1900 in the city of Ventura.

My Illustration:


















My reference photo from the day before:

New Cover: 'tis the season for stealin'

I recently completed a new cover for the VC Reporter this week and it really turned out great thanks to Christy Sisneros, the Production Manager at the paper. Concept sketch and finished cover below.

A Sandwich with a Mug of Apple Cider

An illustration for Sunset iCafe in Ventura.

Valentine's Day Illustrations

Some Valentine's Day Illustrations I did recently for a restaurant guide.

There were little categories for the different types of restaurants. Best place to impress your date, best place to don your leather and park your hog. And, best place to mangia with your mate, lady and the tramp style.

James Brown and Visual Soul

In January 2006, I was asked to participate in a visual (artistic) tribute to the great soul/ funk legend James Brown. The week long event was to take place in Augusta, Georgia and conclude with several musical tributes to Brown on the 2nd to last and last day.

I agreed to participate and went about working on some ideas for the event. Besides his hit songs, like "Pappa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "I Feel Good" I honestly wasn't too familiar with his music. To get into the mood I started downloading songs I wasn't familiar with. The 1st song that took me by surprise was "Please Please Please" which was released in 1956 and was the tune that made everyone take notice of JB. I decided to base the 1st piece on that song and used the title and some of the lyrics as text in the painting. I included the traditional draping of the cape over his shoulders but instead of a man carrying the cape I portrayed 2 Swallows done in tattoo style. To the right is the red curtain getting ready to close the show. "Please..." was usually the last song James Brown performed as an encore. That way he could throw the cape off, run back on stage and plead into the microphone "Please, don't go etc.", and the cape would be re-applied, over and over. The title is "Please Please Please"



Since the event took place 50 years after his debut, I decided to go another 50 years into the future to see what James Brown in 2056 would look like. I figured he probably wouldn't be alive (little did I know) but his music would still be played. The James Brown Estate builds James Brown Robots as Goodwill Ambassadors to other planets. The title of this piece is "James
Brown 2056.



The 3rd piece I made with my 12 year old neighbor, Amber Leftwich. An aspiring artist, I asked her if she would like to participate. She said yes and on a Sunday afternoon we spent 3 hours creating the piece shown below which we called "Funky JB". It was a fun piece to make and was a nice way to unwind after working on the other 2 which were so stylistically strict.



To learn more about the Visual Soul Festival go to the website, you can also look at the other art while visiting: Visual Soul James Brown Soul of America Music Festival, Art Exhibition