50th Annual Summer Solstice Celebration Coloring Entry

This 14" x 8.5" colored print is from the black & white invitations the artist sends out for the Summer Solstice celebration held at the Potato Patch, near Old Harris, in the remote forests of Humboldt County. Every year there is a coloring contest of the invitation (now in its 54th year) with prizes for every entry (one year the artist won a 12 string guitar!). You can see other invitations by clicking Gallery at the lower left of the page. The artist hosted the party through the first 40 years, and his oldest son Aaron has hosted it since. The original was colored by pencil. An edition of 7 of these were printed.

As part of my Fall Close-Out Sale, price has been reduced over over 25% from $195 for the holidays. Beginning in January, 2025, price will return to normal. Buy some art, help me clean out my studio so I can produce MORE!

Robert (Bob) Filbey (1946- ) grew up in Pomona California, won 2nd place for his clay model of the One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater contest from a LA radio station at the age of 12, losing to a commercial artist. He illustrated his grammar school and Junior High School newspaper mastheads, and designed his high school mascot while writing and illustrating a book detailing the origin of the moon from the Pacific Ocean. He attended Pomona College, practiced painting and sculpture under Salvatore Grippi and John Mason with fellow classmates Chris Burden, Michael Brewster, James Turrell, Robin Rector Krupp, Charles Plotkin, Mary Bennett, and Mark Wilson. He undertook more painting studies at UCSB graduate school while illustrating college text books there and at NYU graduate school before moving off the grid to a remote forest in Northern California (near Old Harris). He produced an X-rated comic book, and when a friend colored their copy, he got the idea for a coloring contest using his Summer Solstice invitations which has been going on for 52 years. He also did a series of greeting cards, continued illustrating college textbooks, mostly medical, and took on commercial illustration work of logos, T-shirts, ads, political cartoons, and magazine articles written for the Whole Earth Catalogue and other art periodicals along with occasional fine art. When Apple Corp offered grants for artists, he wrote and received a reply from Neil Aspinall just as Apple suspended the grants. He also dabbled in animation, doing some ads for Estes Rockets and Concept Films and his own experimental animated films. He practiced life drawing and painting with Peter Holbrook, Frank Cieciorka, Karen Horn, Jim McVicker, and George Van Hook during the early 1980's. He produced and illustrated the BIGFOOT Country Touring Map of Northern California before moving to Blue Lake, CA. There he did more logos, posters, political cartoons, T-shirts, murals, and commercial illustration for magazine and newspaper ads, Sun Frost, Tomas Jewelry, and record and CD covers while doing fine art on the side. He attended HSU graduate art school and learned photography from Ellen Land-Weber and printmaking under Bill Anderson and Michael Bravo. He has worked in various media (pencil and conte crayon, ink, oil, acrylic, gouche, and watercolor painting, lithography, serigraphy, etching, monoprinting, collage, assemblages, and sculpture) and still produces an occasional piece today. He has only had 3 shows during his career, the first in Eureka with champagne sold out in the 1980's, the next in Arcata in the 1990's was well attended but only sold 2 works. Sadly, most of his work from the 1990's, as well as some of his earlier work was destroyed when his house burned to the ground. His last show was in 2014 in Eureka, The Cartoon Show, where beer was served and he sold nothing. His work is represented in many private collections in this country and England. It is eclectic in subject matter, some demonstrating his love for drawing, his wry sense of humor, others are dreamlike fantasy visions or loose free liquid strokes, and many are experimental. His artwork is frequently on eBay auctions, and you can see samples of his fine art portfolio and cartooning here at filbeyart.store.