Paintings by CANO profile picture

Paintings by CANO

You choose your leaders and place your trust, as their lies wash you down and their promises rust. Y

About Me


JOHN LENNON- OIL ON CANVAS- 36X36
SOME RECENT PAINTINGS> ALL IMAGES OIL ON PAPER 18"x24"
Hello. How are you? I trust all is well. My name is Michael Cano and I created all of the work here on my page. I am primarily an oil painter, but I also love to work in various black and white mediums. Here are my latest ink drawings/illustrations. I thank you for stopping by to have a look at my work, I appreciate it very much.
Here are a whole bunch of slightly older ink drawings, including a batch of self-portraits.
These ink drawings are part of a graphic novel I am working on. There is a chapter in that GN called Punk Rock and these are from that. The folks depicted are: Thurston Moore, Peter Garrett, Mr. Joe Strummer, Some dude, Mr. Joe Strummer, Sportin' Greg Norton and Mr. Joe Strummer.
These pencil drawings are studies that I have taken from various comic books and adapted for an upcoming series of oil paintings that will be completed soon. The name of the series will be: Primates Do Battle.
This is another portion from the graphic novel. This is an illustrated writing called; Agreement. A CD cover for Mr. Richard Thompson.I did this drawing in jail, actually.Some ink drawings. I like to do ink drawings.
Pencil renderings and anatomy studies.
Charcoal figure drawings.
A CD cover for Mr. Jake La Botz, local bad-ass.More ink drawings.
Woodblock prints of Jazz Geniuses. Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus.

My Interests



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I'd like to meet:

I want to meet you! Let's have lunch and drinks, whaddaya say?I also want to meet other painters, writers, artists and musicians of all types and temperaments, gallery owners interested in showing my work, and people who want to buy my paintings or commission me to do new work. Would that I could have met: David Alfaro Siquerios, Mexican Muralist and artist supreme. If not for him, I would probably still be doing ink drawings of dead rock stars. He showed me there was magic to be created, and I have been trying ever since to create some of my own.................... Alexander Calder, because he loved what he did so very, very much and he made others love it, as well. True joy leaps and bounds about in his work. He always makes me smile all the way through my being.................... Charles Mingus, just to be in the same room as him would have been enough and too much at the same time. I would have liked very much to have had a bunch of drinks with that man, that genius.................... Eric Dolphy, it would have been like being in the same space as God's favorite child. I would have just wanted to see his hands in person, to witness where all of the unbelievable beauty came from....................... Kathe Kollwitz, if she would have let me watch her draw, if I could have seen her face as she created................... John Steinbeck, we could have walked through the hillsides and he could have described them to me and I would have been completely entranced forever.................... Jean Michael-Basquiat, so I could have told him to stop worrying about being famous so damn much and concentrate on his painting. He was on his way to being a true great, a lifelong wonder. Instead, he threw so much away. A shame, a damn shame.......................... John Coltrane, to feel the glow that must have emanated from that man and to see his eyes that seemed to know so much while at the same time to be asking so many questions......................... John Lennon, both to thank him and to tell him to stay home that horrible evening back in 1980........................... There are so many, many more..........................

Music:

Trouble Funk, Minutemen, Eric Dolphy, REM, Replacements, The Clash, Public Enemy, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Molotov, Three Bean Salad, Jake La Botz,Jimi Hendrix, Thelonious Monk, The Jam, Alejandro Escovedo, Duke Ellington, Los Lobos, Black Uhuru, Heptones, Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Culture, Toots and the Maytals, Tito and Tarantula, Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, Emmylou Harris, Blue Aeroplanes, The Birthday Party, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, Meat Puppets, Kukuruza, Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, Iris DeMent, Eminem, Del Tha Funky Homosapien, Run DMC, KRS-One, N.W.A., Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Jeff Beck, Ten Years After, Allman Brothers, Yardbirds, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Jackson 5, Four Tops, Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, King Crimson, Stooges, Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers, Pete Yorn, Dream Syndicate, That Petrol Emotion, Ice Cube, Paris, Kemo the Blaxican, Husker Du, Firehose, Sonic Youth, Tar Babies, SST Records, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, Butthole Surfers, Jesus and Mary Chain, Manic Hispanic, Screaming Trees, Motocaster, Elvis Costello, Elvis Presley, Thelonious Monster, Gun Club, X, The Blasters, Dave Alvin, Graham Parker, Mano Negra, Cafe Tacuba, The Picketts, Mike Watt, The Geraldine Fibbers, Terence Trent D'Arby, Leonard Cohen, Public Image Ltd., Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Gustav Mahler, Talking Heads, James Brown, Ministry, Pantera, Skinny Puppy, Captain Beefheart, Wire, David Bowie, Radwaste, Echo and the Bunnymen, Big Audio Dynamite, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Cream, Donovan, Fairport Convention, The Figgs, The Plimsouls, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Joe Ely, King Sunny Ade, Loketo, Remy Ongala, Jack Johnson, Sonny Sharrock, Angel City, Desmond Dekker, Moby, Fatboy Slim, Tenderloin, TOM WAITS, and so many more.......

Movies:

Angels With Dirty Faces, Manhattan, Deconstructing Harry, Broadway Danny Rose, Play It Again Sam, The Front, Sleeper, Love And Death, Annie Hall, Stardust Memories, Radio Days, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, Basquiat, Fargo, Defending Your Life, 25th Hour, Clockers, Crooklyn, Malcolm X, Do The Right Thing, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Down By Law, Donnie Brasco, About Schmidt, Narc, The Cooler, Stranger Than Paradise, Mystery Train, The Godfather, The Godfather Part Two, Goodfellas, Dominick and Eugene, Life of Brian, Jackie Brown, Wild Bunch, Gridlock'd, Stuart Saves His Family, Ed Wood, Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo, Diner, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Punch Drunk Love, The World According To Garp, Up In Smoke, Casablanca, Raging Bull, It Happened One Night, In The Heat Of The Night, The Pawnbroker, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Barfly, Bukowski: Born Into This, Paths Of Glory, The Party, My Left Foot, Track 29, Sin City, Pulp Fiction, 12 Angry Men, Being There, Bonnie and Clyde, A Christmas Story, The Ref, El Norte, M, On The Waterfront, Paris, Texas, Repo Man, Raging Bull, This Is Spinal Tap, House Of Fools, Dirty Pretty Things, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Stalag 13, Seven Year Itch, Dead End, The Roaring 20's, White Heat, Raising Arizona, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There, O Brother Where Art Thou, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Warriors, Love At First Bite, Lone Star, Field Of Dreams, American Me, Blood In Blood Out, Kill Bill, Kill Bill Voulme Two, Melvin And Howard, Harold And Maude, Scarecrow, Finding Nemo

Television:

I like shows about the law, moral ambiguities and questionable redemptions. And good basketball games.

Books:

Jailbird, Fates Worse Than Death, Bluebeard, Galapagos, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, The Complete Stories, Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, Tortilla Flat, Of Mice And Men, Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Neon Wilderness by Nelson Algren, Machineries of Joy by Ray Bradbury, The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende, The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Watchmen by Alan Moore, Ham on Rye, War All the Time, Factotum, Women, Post Office, Hot Water Music, Bone Palace Ballet, South Of No North, Hollywood, by Charles Bukowski, Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, Enormous Changes At The Last Minute by Grace Paley and many others......

Heroes:

I have a great animosity towards the word "Hero". It is overused and placed into contexts where it simply does not belong. However, I have simply scads of people whom I admire and respect. Among them: Chick Hearn. Joe Strummer. Mel Blanc. Kathe Kollwitz. David Alfaro Siqueiros. Jose Clemente Orozco. Otto Dix. George Grosz. Jean Michel Basquiat. Jack Kirby. Flannery O'Connor. Mike Watt. Charles Bukowski. John Steinbeck. Kurt Vonnegut. Grace Paley. Nelson Algren. My Dad. My Mom. Simply scads of others.

My Blog

Part two of the rhyming thing.

It may be time to standAnd fight this nowIt may be time to simplySlaughter this cowPerhaps we need to Strike back with forceOr accept this fateAs a matter of courseThe universeDoes not know how to car...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Wed, 21 May 2008 12:41:00 PST

Nocturnal activities.

Last night   I had the Most amazing Wonderful Romantic Sensual Dream   I have had In many Many Moons   Oh It was Fabulous Marvelous   Filled with wonder Is what it was   ...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:36:00 PST

Wrinkles, grey hair and gas.

I am now According to the clock Forty Seven Years Old   I have no wife I have no children I have no home of my own   I have very little money Bordering on negative They tell me my net wor...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:33:00 PST

Hope is the thing with feathers. I am featherless.

A few weeks ago I ran into a woman I have known For a while now It is always good To see her This time However She expressed an interest In seeing me In another way Other than just by chance And s...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:30:00 PST

A general overview.

There are indeed Worse things Than being alone One of the largest of these things that are worse Is the realization That what you are That what you will be That what you will most definitely remain F...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:39:00 PST

A tad experimental for me.

So I'm starting to think Wonder what would be Wonder if it was If I was documentary   If I was on a film If I was on a film If I was on a film   What would flickering images be?   Go...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:59:00 PST

An old one but a good one.

I will sit   Sometimes   I will wonder   Oftentimes   About what could have happened to the ones that   Went away   This I wonder;   The one with the habit...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:22:00 PST

I went to the movies again.

So I'm thinking That there are large And beautiful Parallels Between No Country For Old Men And The Wild Bunch Both End up lamenting The passing of one era Into the next Here is the rub: One (The Wi...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Fri, 28 Dec 2007 02:01:00 PST

A new style for me. You like?

The moral lapses   Of men gone mad   The sharpened axes   Of men gone bad   The little things   That can drive you there   The screaming crowd   The vacant stare...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:43:00 PST

Mr. Eric Dolphy is a beautiful man.

JAZZ, MAN, JAZZ Back in 1981, I was working at this place called the Magnum One Lounge and Disco in Altadena as a bartender. I was only 20 years old, but the owners didn't bother asking me for ID wh...
Posted by Paintings by CANO on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:44:00 PST