Vegas baby! For a second year, Ari Lankin and yours truly, this year joined by Paul Zepeda, shipped off to Vegas for nine days of painting madness. I’m starting off with my Welcome to Las Vegas Redux painting… here is last year’s.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqdfxi_welcome-to-las-vegas-sign-painting_creation

Enjoy the entire video, set to a stellar, custom soundtrack created by frequent collaborators — the talented Nelson R. Downend, Jr. and Ahmed Mahmoud.

And here is the set-up! And now, enough Welcome to Las Vegas action to last you… until 2013.

From the start, I decided to go gonzo on this bad boy, so I started out with an unusual grey wash.

It’s all about a mix of classic and contemporary Vegas. They used to host A-Bomb parties around Vegas…. as a testing site was right close. Of course, you can’t think Vegas without Sinatra…

Back to a traditional primary triad first round, red, yellow, blue.

Here’s Ari Lankin getting his Welcome to Vegas painting on… look familiar? You might have seen it in the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Starting to bring things together with some out-of-the-tube white, because, why not?

Focusing on the circle shadows on the sign… bringing explosive colors to the sky.

Check Paul Zepeda in-action well before he gold leafed that bad boy.

Starting to get there… adding the bulbs around the sign.

Going over the surface with a flurry of china marker hashes.

I like to focus pretty hard, as you can tell. So many people asked me if I was Jason Mraz this trip… they had the first name right anyway.

A step back to see where I am at… making my final notes.

And William Kearney showed-up out of nowhere with his trusty companion Eko… and here’s a shout on Purina’s Petcentric blog for good measure.

The scene… for the record, the sign is usually mad packed with Elvises and weddings and such… but this year was relatively quiet.

OK, there is Elvis performing a wedding right behind my easel! Elvis was like, “and now I pronounce *points finger at man* and *points finger at woman* as husband and wife, uh-huh!”

 

Done! Redux! Vegas!

A close-up of Blue Eyes, and the 2012 atop the nuke-cloud — a shout to the Mayans.

We stayed at the Luxor last year, hence the shout…

Howard Hughes comes back to Vegas and drops big bucks… but alas, all things come to an end (see cloud). See you in 2013 Sign. And, a big shout to JP Carmona for being such a huge help… and a great friend.