Morning Rush

Another painting completed from Mount Rushmore. Our last visit to Rushmore (and we DID go every day we were in the Black Hills) caught the early morning light and gave us our best reference photos. The model is from a photo shoot we did in Minneapolis, experimenting with different gel combinations on the lights. 18" x 22".

Eric

Mount Shasta

On our drive up to Oregon we drove near Mount Shasta...cool mountain. Bet it's refreshing too.

Eric's paintings on his website

Hey guys I just uploaded some of the finished paintings from the trip on my website. Check 'em out here: www.ericdiehlpaintings.com

The Show!

After 7 weeks on the road we had our first showing of "Auto-Paint, USA" - the culmination of most of a summer of hot, dusty roads and places. From factories in Detroit to casinos in Las Vegas, almost every location was represented in some way. This was the first experiment, though. Many paintings are unfinished and will be worked on over the next couple months. But thanks to so many friends and family that supported us we did it! Exhaustion had been creeping into our bodies over the last two weeks, but we managed to complete everything we set-out to do. Thank you, Local Tourist, for hosting us, and thank you to Scott Ward for DJing the event, as well as Devin Ruffner for bartending. And special thanks to my brother, Nathan for helping us get our van back to working order. We love you all.

Setting up for the Show

Friday night. What better way to spend the evening than by building a box mountain, printing photos, and hanging paintings? We even rented a drill from Home Depot (I know, fancy) so we could hang paintings on the concrete wall in the shop. Upstairs, we used the remaining bottles of spray paint to use as a background for "Box-Mountain" and selected 76 highlight photos of the journey to hang on the wall. Everything went smoothly, except that our van decided to act up when we were finished. I accidentally hit the "alarm on" button on the battery-weak remote, and therefore we couldn't disarm the alarm (or start the car for that matter). My brother, Nate, happened to be there and drove us to a nearby CVS where we ended up buying 1) a tool to break open the remote, and 2) a new battery once we new what kind it needed. After literally breaking it open and shoving a fresh battery into it, Nate drove us back to the van and we were able to disarm the alarm! excellent. we had our van back. Journey on!

In Honor of Cheyenne, Wyoming

This video is to commemorate our 2 hour stay in Cheyenne and the wild west folks we met. Ride 'em Cowboy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34sqrLWF_tQ

We made it to LA!

After a hot, dusty drive skirting around Death Valley and the Mojave desert, we made it to Los Angeles. The next few days entailed serious work days on preparing for our show. It's funny we didn't really get to "see" LA for almost a week because we were locked away in Koreatown painting and not leaving the apartment except to get food. We're almost done though - time to kick-in our 27th wind!

Great Ideas in Las Vegas....

Las Vegas took a lot of energy out of us, but it was well-worth it for the people we met and ridiculous sights we saw. My expectations were surpassed as to how contemporary and NICE all of the Casinos are, but the smell of cigarette smoke pervades any indoor space and the heat (when walking outside) wraps around you like a warm blanket. It wasn't until 1 AM that it actually cooled down to 95 degrees. After a full 5 weeks on the road, we fearlessly ventured out to the strip to seek our fortunes at the roulette wheel and blackjack table (but mostly to have a good time, drink for free, and NOT lose any money in the process). Mission Accomplished. We quit the gambling business at 5:30 AM with extra money in our pockets and new friends from England, Russia, the Ukraine, and exotic Arkansas. We even managed not to lose it the next day before our trek to Los Angeles.