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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I'm a member of a growing populace, we enforce our popularity.

At first I thought that this new Brody King painting would be a straightforward affair but it’s actually deceptively complex. First, it’s a pretty simple composition so that means that what IS shown I needed to try to get right. First, he has intricate tattoos and I needed to be as accurate as possible on those while also not making them TOO defined, as that would draw attention from the rest of the piece. Then, his coat is more complex than it looks but it also creates a nice alternative pattern in contrast to the tats. Finally, I wanted to make sure I got that orange glow from being backlit that also creeps around his mask.

A challenging piece but a fun challenge nonetheless!

Card subject to change.

Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Rob’s gallery site Schamberger Art
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Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

Alphonse Mucha’s most famous works were his commercial projects, doing posters, magazine covers and advertisements. Wild to think about, right? His passion was actually for a series of 20 immense paintings called The Slave Epic, where he told the history of the Slavic people through each.

It wasn’t until the Timeless Mucha exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum that I even learned about these paintings, only knowing his commercial art deco works. The paintings speak to a much broader skill level to Mucha, bridging a stylistic gap between his own distinctive style and the likes of NC Wyeth. They’re truly breathtaking and I can only imagine what it’s like to see them in person.

The paintings had to be hidden during the rise of fascism and the onslaught of World War II, as they didn’t match the Nazis’ distorted accounting of history (WOW THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR) and so for several decades they fell from not just visibility but from public conscousness. It’s an unfortunate trend for a lot of European artists of that time.

You can learn more about the paintings and see all 20 of them thanks to the Mucha Foundation.

These glorious paintings are now on display in Prague and are for sure on my bucket list to see some day. I also hope that over time they make their way back into public knowledge and art history circles as they’re very important works.

And thus ends my several weeks of talking about Alphonse Mucha! I’m a huge fan of his work and I can’t recommend this exhibition enough. It runs through August 30th and its well worth your time experiencing in person.

Last Sunday I did my first wave of planting for the season, starting off with 20 bell pepper plants. I’ve had good luck the last couple of years with them and I’m excited for this new batch. I compost in these two beds over the cool months so the soil’s super-organic by now and the plants take to it wholeheartedly.

It dipped into the 40’s the last two nights so I covered them overnight but they’re doing fine. It looks like we’re in the 50’s minimum overnight going forward so it’s smooth-sailing ahead.

I also got a few perennials for choice spots around the back yard (which we affectionately call High Garden) as I slowly build that up, including these gorgeous Asiatic lilies. I started that last year and about half of them survived the winter, so I’m getting a better feel for what makes it here. I tried some yellow cone flowers last year but the rabbits were merciless to them and they didn’t come back. So it goes.

In case you’ve been anxiously awaiting news about whether the grass seed I put down last month took, it mostly did! We’ve had a very wet spring so far. We’ll see how it does over the summer months.

In a couple weeks I’ll hopefully start moving the houseplants outside and start populating some flowers into our window box. That’s when $#!+ gets real.

Love you more,
Rob

PS: Trans rights are human rights. Abolish and prosecute ICE.