Woodstock

Title: Portrait of Woodstock
Medium: Acrylic & canvas
Date: Early 80's
Category: Art
Current status: On loan to the Louvre

Remember my painting of Snoopy? Sure you do! How could you forget something so awful! Well, as an added treat, here's the companion piece that I did around the same time... it's Snoopy's little bird pal, Woodstock! Doesn't it look just like him? Absolutely.... not in the slightest!

My wife, when seeing this for the first time, had absolutely no idea who this was supposed to be. When I told her, she just laughed. I bet Rembrandt didn't have to deal with such indignities.

It's pretty ironic that I took the time to actually paint "Snoopy" above the picture of Snoopy which is, pretty obviously, Snoopy. And yet, where it certainly could have used an identifying label, this Baylor University color scheme inspired atrocity, has no helpful clue whatsoever.

I sit here, staring at this thing and I realize first off that whatever this avian nightmare is, it is assuredly something evil. Look at it's horrible, horrible face... it's sinister grin and malevolent eye staring at you in a sideways glance, plotting your gruesome demise in ways that only an apocalyptic fowl can achieve. You'll think twice about feeding pigeons in the park and perhaps that bird feeder so close to the house isn't such a good idea. This canary of Hell shall have your soul...

For whatever reason, while I do find this thing to be disturbing the more I study it, I can't help but think that if Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" was inspired by the San Diego Chicken, this is what it would look like.

You'll note that here, as with Snoopy, Woodstock has no arm (or wing) that is noticeable. Also notice that one foot is disconnected from the rest of the body. Is it simply the clumsy brush stroke error of a child learning to paint? Or is it something far more sinister? I'll let you decide for yourself...