Chris Simonite's Cubo-Weirdism Blog! A Blog about Chris Simonite's Art by Chris Simonite. Who the Hell else?

Okay, so that is a very misleading blog title right there! It's true that I live in a province called Manitoba, wherein a town called Churchill is known as the "Polar Bear Capital of the World." But I live the capital city of Winnipeg which is approximately 1,004.54 kms or 624.19 miles southwest of Churchill. Okay, so that number seems pretty exact so forget that "approximately" thing! Anyway, the point is, while the city that I live in is a frozen wasteland for 5 months of the year–don't you dare tell me it's 6 months (a common refrain, even from life-long Winnipeggers), cuz that ain't true–in fact on average I believe we're snow covered for roughly 4 and a half months a year. Okay, I looked it up. We're snow covered on average for 128 day. That's actually less than 4 and a half months. Take that haters! I digress. My point is, Polar Bears are not native to an area anywhere near where I live. And I've never been to Churchill, mainly because it's actually pretty expensive to get there by plane or train. The point of this blog post though, is that in spite of Churchill being pretty far away, the Polar Bear is a symbol of the province I live in, so it was inevitable that I do a painting of one. And yeah, those bears don't live Winnipeg, but there is an excellent attraction at our zoo called Journey to Churchill where you can see these amazing creatures in person. And I know a lot of people have problems with zoos but I won't get into my opinions here except to say that the Assiniboine Park Zoo does some excellent work in rehabilitating orphaned bears. So I highly recommend the Journey to Churchill. You can also see them swimming right all around you if you're there at the right time! In fact here is a kind of terrible photo I took myself. [...]

As 2021 draws to a close it's time for me to look back on my year, assess my work and start to think about what I am going to do in 2022. One thing I know I'll be doing for sure is making work for a group show I'm in with my artist's collective, The Frost Shield Kerfuffle. That show is called Damaged Landscapes. I still don't know what I'll be doing for that exhibition but you can probably guess that I'm thinking about it a lot. The show is next summer, but even as a long Winnipeg winter (there's a reason people call this city "Winterpeg") sets in and might feel endless, I know that the deadline for this work will sneak up on me pretty fast. But I suppose that also means the warm weather will come back, but I digress… If you're familiar with my work you're aware that landscape painting is not my typical subject matter. I'm so used to doing portraits, and so confident with that genre that I wonder if there is something I can do with portraiture that could fit into the category of "damaged landscapes". Not that I'm not interested in learning a new skill and pushing myself, but only time will tell if landscape painting can become a "thing" for me. We shall see. [...]

As a few of you know, last week I asked the advice of my artist friends whether I should continue this blog or use the time I spend writing it towards putting out a weekly newsletter. And the answer was overwhelming! Keep the blog going. Well, when I say overwhelming, I believe I got responses from three people. And that particular blog-post was one of my least read posts. But what the hell, three people want me to continue so I will! And there are probably more who were just to busy to read a Cubo-Weird blog post last week who normally would have. Anyway, decision made and it's not the focus of this week's post. This week I've decided to talk about Marvin the Martian. A few months ago someone suggested that I should create a Cubo-Weirdist portrait of that iconic character. And I thought to myself, "that sounds like a challenge, what the hell I'll give it a shot!" Why you ask did I immediately think of it as a challenge? Well the character design of Marvin is very very simple. I mean, he doesn't even have a nose! And fewer facial features to move around and play with make Cubo-Weirdism rather difficult. But I did one that I thought was okay. I haven't posted it to social media mainly because I just thought I could do better. [...]

I have continued to write this blog for almost two years now. As some of you may know writing a weekly blog post is not that easy and to me it often seems a little narcissistic, and a challenge to keep it interesting to my reader(s). But, I keep it going as a means to market my work. I'm not a business guy, so that aspect of being an independent artist is tough for me. So doing this on a weekly basis counts as something, which definitely makes it seem worthwhile. I started the current iteration of my website earlier this year when I switched to a company called FASO–Fine Art Studio Online. Not only does FASO offer rather good artist website templates, they also offer marketing advice to go along with their already top-notch product. There are all kinds of people offering art marketing advice to independent artists online, always at a premium. And from what I've seen, for fifty dollars US a month I can get very similar (but not identical, as you'll see below) advice to what I'm getting from FASO for 15 dollars a month, which includes this very website! So it's a no-brainer to stick with them. And if you're an artist reading this, I do recommend them, highly. [...]

After my last blog post, I know you’re all dying to know how Comic Con went, so I decided to dedicate this post to answering that very question. And the answer is: people loved the work and it was the best con I've done as far as print sales are concerned. But my original paintings, while receiving lots of praise and feedback, did not sell. These events are definitely worthwhile if I sell some of the originals, and it has happened in the past. The good thing is, I've also sold paintings to people I've met at Comic Cons, so I still may make a sale or two, which will have made the weekend very worthwhile. [...]