Houdini Eyes Painting

For those interested, I have another blog I'm doing strictly devoted to my artwork. As many of you know I do paintings of magicians. There are a LOT of paintings and in various styles. In fact, I'll be putting up some new ones in the next few days. The paintings are not just Houdini, though there are quite a few of those. The site is www.artistofmystery.blogspot.com

The above painting of Houdini's eyes was done about 10 years ago. I wanted to capture the hypnotic effect of his eyes, so the only real detail in the painting is within the eyes. The rest is purposely left rather plain. And what you see in this painting is all there is, I didn't paint the rest of the face only what you see.
The only thing I'd do differently if I had to paint it again is paint it in a different color as the original is in GREEN and often the first thought people have is 'Incredible Hulk', lol. You can see the original over at my other blog.

Houdini on iBooks

For those Apple folks who have an iPad, iPhone or Mac and you use iBooks, there are a few Houdini titles available.

First you'll find "Miracle Mongers and Their Methods" by Harry Houdini. Next you might enjoy the Kalush Biography, "The Secret Life of Houdini". Next we have two titles by Tom Lalicki, "Danger In The Dark" and "Shots at Sea". Another book comes up under Houdini which is "The Haunting of America" by Joel Martin and William Birnes. Not a bad start, let's hope they add more of the biographies to the mix.

When He Was Still A Weiss Boy

The Weiss family spent a lot of time moving. First Appleton Wisconsin, then Milwaukee, then NY and various places around town. One of the places the Weiss family lived in NYC was at 227 E. 75th St. According the Kenneth Silverman it was their first home here. He should know, he used to live right across the street! Though it would appear that the Silverman place is gone and tennis courts are now there.

If I have this correct it's the second floor of the orange building. However, I'm not 100% sure these are the original buildings. The structures look very similar but the original buildings each had sets of 4 windows across and these buildings have three. It could be that the outside of the buildings have been painted and this is what is causing the visual discrepancy.

I can tell you for sure this is the SPOT though, so this is where the Houdini family first lived when they were together in NY.