Graffiti, Is it Art?

I thought that I heard someone outside on Thursday night last week.  I also thought that I heard the rattle of a spray can, but when I went to look outside nobody was there.
The next morning, I found this on the street in the middle of the intersection.
They could have tagged the buildings near by, but they chose the middle of the street.
It is an interesting compliment to the "legal" marks around the man hole.
I was going to notify the police, but since there wasn't anything offensive about the image and it was not an obvious "tag" I let it slide.
What does it mean?  I don't know.  Is it art?  I think so.
I would have tried to engage the manhole more if I had been the artist.

More Industrial Stuff

This is the finished Clearwater Trail scene at the Ross Island Sand and Gravel Plant.
It was fun to paint but did take a while because of all the stuff.
I keep looking at my work and wonder if I should be covering the line work more, but I like the graphic quality of it.  The subject matter lends itself to this technique as well.
The sky was kept simple, although I did think about adding some clouds.  I exaggerated the light blue "haze" to help focus the eye.  In the real scene the sky is a fairly constant gradation.

Ross Island Sand and Gravel and the Springwater Cooridor

Here is a start on a 3' x 3' painting of the Ross Island Sand and Gravel plant, which is just north of the Ross Island bridge.

The plant is a vertical structure that, I think, balances the composition.  

The detail below shows the line work.  It is easy to get overwhelmed with all the bits of stuff, so I try to draw the major elements with a pencil and then paint in the rest of the detail as I go.  It is best to step back and squint a lot to get just the essence of the details.

As I was scouting this scene, there was an angry voice coming from across the tracks, up on the back.  I can't remember what he said exactly, but it was something like "What are you doing?!".  I could not see him, so I imagine him to be a troll living under the bridge.

Industrial Scene

Here is the completed painting of the scene down under the Freemont bridge on the NE side of the river.  This is an industrial area that has a crazy scale to it.  The truck is a good point of reference for the scale.  The size of the wood poles is crazy.  I don't know if you can get poles that large anymore.
I do find the power lines and cables to be very interesting and a way to create an abstract field.
I love this scene, although I wonder if it pulls the eye too the left.

Fireworks

Jen had a birthday party for me on the 4th of July (my birthday is the 3rd).
One of the things that we did was have people brink some metal scraps so we could create some kind of sculpture.
I have an inexpensive arc/stick welder that is not very good, but I am getting used to it.
After a few failed attempts to get the metal to fuse, I was able to cobble this sculpture, which my kids call the "Atomic Bunny".
I like working with metal and maybe, some day, I can have an actual welding shop/studio to do big stuff.