Another CityLife illo for the Thanksgiving ish - still catching up on my posts, butIm getting there:). Plus, I got two pieces into the Society of Illustrators which is bo-gnarly and right around the corner, opening on January 8th! Here are the big winners. . .
So, I finally got around to updating the site. God bless wi-fi in hospitals.:) Lots of the new stuff I've been posting on the blog.
Finished this guy up to submit to Society. I've been wanting to do a football image for while and had the chance to finish it up the day before my Ma's car crash.
Another gouache experiment . . . Trying to learn some lessons from the Batman. And hoping the Batman will start telling me about beating people instead of gouache, but for now, just gouache.
Got inspired walking back from Pratt. Well, half inspired by the kids playing handball, and half inspired by that great Ben Shahn painting.
I couldn't help myself with this one. I was abhorred by Wilson's outburst, and amazed that the response to the discussion is whether the statement of "You lie!" held some sort of racial undercurrent. I for one have a hard time believing this would ever happen with a white president (to my knowledge it hasn't). Even the context of the outburst also was right after the President's statement about not giving health coverage to undocumented immigrants. He wasn't moved to rage during all of the other things he disagreed with, only after this specific statement. I'm just going to call it like I see it: Joe Wilson, I believe you have revealed yourself to be a racist, no matter what you say or even think about your own ideas and preferences.
Got to spend a night at the Durham Bull swanky new park downtown while I was housesitting for my brother. Had a great time! Bulls pulled out a come from behind win, had good beer, and almost got tatooed by a rocket foul ball!
While we were headed upstate last week, Michelle and I stopped at the Plattekill rest stop to eat some road food, which turned out to be the infamous Roy Rogers, along with it's Fixins Bar. Generally I abhor the idea the of a "Fixin's Bar" but we were feeling frisky, and starved to the point of Fixin's. As we sat there, Michelle said,"Is that who I think it is?". I turned to look at a nerdy, but kinda hip dressed guy and thought it must be someone from Pratt. . . some other teacher, or former student. I turned back around thinking no, but then I heard the voice, a birdy thin but emotive voice. And realized it was Ira Glass. I am nerdy enough to consider myself a total NPR Dweeb, and in fact got jumped a year or two ago wearing my pledge drive t-shirt. Whether this was the cause of the beating I will never know, but suffice to say, I was a little blown away by the celebrity sighting. Whenever we see the overblown, fat, Wal-mart saturated world outside the city, we always say one thing - with both love and disdain - "America." And there we were. America. And there was Ira Glass, right where he's supposed to be. So it was fun to hear the episode which was out last week, all taking place at the rest stop.
After a wonderful birthday-day where we went to the planetarium (last year was the aquarium!) and saw the space show and looked at sweet rocks, and moon photos, we spent a great night on the roof of our friends' apartment and ate burgers and drank beers. They even put up a tarp which allowed us to stay up there in the rain, which was great - made for more of a campfire atmosphere. Anywho, on Saturday, it was beautiful out, but we stayed in to enjoy a day home with the discovery channel, bad movies, and sketchbooks in an apartment that finally stopped roasting. It was amazing.
This is the back of the newsletter going out with JR Beer this week - and yes, it's a game board. The game is played with bottlecaps to have a little "stay at home night". I've got to admit, there were some challenges with this feller: a pretty tight deadline, a crazy scale to work on, and many, many things to include. All in all, it was worth 2 all nighters and a slight carpal tunnel flare up! But what better cause than beer?:)
In the year 1988 a team of two astronauts embarked on a mission to the moon Zambroopa to investigate it's mysterious properties. These are the chronicles of their experiments.
You are my Space-Cat,
A cover for Maureen at LasVegas CityLife. The finish design is a bit different, but you can get an ideer of the style. This was a gaggle of giggles to do. Andrew DeGraff - Pro-Doodler - Living the Dream. Actually, to ammend that, I found it kind of hard to try to make this look authentic, i.e. have it drawn poorly, but well . . . Hard to describe, but I think you get it. It was sort of like method acting - I put on some Journey, Rush, Queen, and the Cars and watched NewsRadio on Hulu - and I was back procrastinating on my homework all over again. It was great to rework the CITYLIFE text a bit, too. And make it bleed a little.
Seattle artist Gala Bent has some really beautiful work. Michelle sent me the link, and I was transfixed for a half-hour going through all the images on her site.
While last year I had to clean the rest of my family's catch to make the stained T-Shirts for the Dirty Laundry show in Honolulu, this year my lucky Mets shirt and, well I'll just say it, D-Bag sunglasses came through with a slew of good size bass, and nice selection of trout. I do love fishing in Northern Vermont - catch some crayfish, grab a cup of coffee, a book or crossword, and lounge in a boat for three hours. I love sports.
Jordin Isip, illustrator extraordinaire and one of the curators (along with Rodger Stevens) of the Dime Bag 3 Show at Giant Robot NY was nice enough to send around post from the NY Magazine culture blog, which included a nice write up of the show and "30 slides of the best works", of which I was very flattered to be included. My guess is the writer, Emma Pearse, is either also a Mets fan, or also a fan of tiny stadium billboards that say "Keyspan". I do miss my stadium. The show closes on August 12th, so if you haven't seen it, your window is closing!!
I was going through my archives and found this image I did for my friend Laurin (aka the dj - Sleazy McQueen) Prince vs Michael Jackson Party a few years ago. Thought I'd throw it up as a little memorial. I have to admit, the man was amazing. I'm still a bigger Prince fan, but the world was better with the both of them in it.
A few drawings from my time in Vermont this summer. Some pics to follow. Galactus came up for a few days.
One of my favorite paintings from my time in NC (2004). It's a weird one, but I still dig it. Home Depot square birch ply panel. Can't beat 'em with a stick.
A little haunted house that's one of about 15 buildings that are part of a new advertising job I'm working on . . . More to come later!
Well, the internet works pretty fast. After the "completed heroes" post on Wednesday, which I also posted on WFOF, fellow contributor Jashar posted it on a few comic blogs and a few people picked it up on my blog, and weezoo - on Friday I get a call from Daniel Franzese - the actor who most notably played "Damian" in Mean Girls. Along with being a nice fellow, he also curates shows, and is curating a show based on superhero art which opens on this Friday at Royal/T, owned by Susan Hancock, who is a big contemporary Japanese Pop collector as well as being on the board or patron of major contemporary art museums from the Guggenheim to the New Museum, to MoCA in Miami and seems to run a pretty great space in Culver City.
How do I spend my time sometimes? Why .. . Nerding, of course. This is a little piece Im working on inspired by a T-shirt I got in Walmart.
A cover and interior spread for the great Maureen Adamo at Las Vegas CityLife. It's fun doing a story about sexual indiscretion!
LA based artist Adam Janes has some super work. I always like people who have a good control over vibrant color. He's got a very nice manic, but tempered feel.
