Filed under: illustration | Tags: chuck palahniuk, diary, eden, garden of eden illustration, illustration
Eden
20″x28″ Acrylic and Ink on Birch Panel $500I have sat on this piece for a while, waiting for what I felt was the right time to post it to the blog. Then I remembered, there is never a “right time” and I could well be sitting on it for a century before I got it out the door.
My friend and fellow artist Miss Ashley Will posted a quote on her bloggedy-blog by author Chuck Palahniuk that reads:
“When they were in school, Peter used to say that everything you do is a self-portrait. It might look like Saint George and the Dragon or The Rape of the Sabine Women, but the angle you use, the lighting, the composition, the technique, they’re all you. Even the reason why you chose this scene, it’s you. You are every color and brushstroke.
Peter used to say, “The only thing an artist can do is describe his own face.”You’re doomed to being you.This, he says, leaves us free to draw anything, since we’re only drawing ourselves.Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand.Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary.”
Filed under: Design, illustration | Tags: Alfons Mucha, E.B. white, nautical, paper cut, papercut, psychadelic, samson, velveteen rabbit, woodcut, woodcut print, zazzle, zazzle.com
So I haven’t posted in a while due to being busy with shows and the holidays. Now it is a new year and I think my dear audience is ready to be subjected to a DELUGE of new work. Even if I refrain from posting to the bloggy-blog-o’sphere I still make lots o’ stuff while I am operating in lo-fi time. But pictures or it didn’t happen right?
P.S. My friend alerted me today to the website Zazzle.com where supposedly artists can make money selling their designs to be put on T-shirts and mouse pads and coffee mugs etc. Selling out or good opportunity? Please advise.
From my hand cut paper series for the Light and Dark show:
Samson 12×12 SOLD
All I Ever Meant to Say is that I Love the World 12×12 $90
The Message 12×12 $40
A-side/B-side 12×12 SOLD
Contrarywise 12×12 SOLD
A two year old piece I rediscovered while digging around in the closet:
The Velveteen Rabbit
And some works in progress:
6 O’Clock Hawk woodcut
Trapdoor Spider Papercut
Sketch for It’s Just a Pipe
Cheers.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Who are YOU? (Redux)
I have been busy cranking out some Dark and Light themed artwork for a fun show on November 20th at On the Corner Music in Campbell. Come if you are in the area and bring a six pack or some cheezy-poofs or the desire to dance and see some great art. I will be showing some brand spanking new pieces and getting my boogie on in the spirit of revelry.
I started this blog off with a drawing, and I find it appropriate now to revisit it in a different form, to illustrate the constant revising, remaking, and recycling of imagery, themes, and thoughts in art. I think a lot of artists find themselves dwelling on a particular story, form, note, chord, or aesthetic that seems to stir up those inspiration bugs inside us all. Even non artists (or those that haven’t yet found their medium) are inexplicably drawn to the same patterns when sizing up clothing, beer labels, or book covers.
In form I am constantly drawn to the art of the poster. I find the synthesis of information and imagery to be musical, like they were made to interact with each other. I salivate when I find posters with simple, clever imagery, good use of negative space, and thoughtful typography (although the last is not always necessary). Here are a couple that seem to sing of genius:
Dan Stiles
Dan McCarthy
And last but not least here is the information for the Dark and Light show in November 20th. Cheers!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Victory! Also known as a Chanterelle.
Some of the spoilage from my first mushroom hunt of the season, and the happy result of a day of bushwacking through the Santa Cruz foothills.
Yum.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cantharellus californicus illustration, chanterelle, chanterelle illustration, mushroom hunting, mushrooms, mycology
The Call
Mushroom season has barely started here in Northern California and I can hardly contain my excitement! Mushrooms are on my mind, like the above Cantharellus Californicus, or Chanterelle. The forest is an ample provider of deliciousness.
My critique group and I came up with a fun idea for a silly children’s book entitled “Good Mushroom, Bad Mushroom.” As you could probably guess, it is a picture book alternating prints of poisonous mushrooms with delicious ones. Lawsuits and hilarity ensue. Speaking of lawsuits, that idea is copyrighted RATTarts 2009. Steal and you will suffer a terrible blight of boils.
Cheers.
Filed under: Off Topic | Tags: christo, edina tokodi, jeanne-claude, lawrence argent, los angeles, moss graffiti, olafur eliasson, public art
It’s Time, Los Angeles.
I LOVE public art. I think it is one of the most exciting things, and it makes my little heart go pitter patter. But why is there so much sterile public art out there? I guess people who give grants have some qualms about funding art that might border on the absurd, entertaining, or (heaven forbid!) humorous! The above was my was my semi-serious proposal for a public art piece entitled “It’s Time, Los Angeles.” Imagine a giant (about 10 ft. in diameter) hamster tube winding through downtown Los Angeles containing several large brightly colored balls. It passes above intersections, through office building, past parks and runs along sidewalks. The awesome thing about it is that the different colored balls represent different times of day and there are certain markings along the tube indicating what time it is when a certain ball passes that point. Don’t you think it would be cool to be sitting in your cubicle tapping away on your keyboard, pretending your not checking your facebook or Perezhilton.com and all of a sudden the 10 foot tall, bright red ball comes slowly rolling through the atrium of your office building? Hey, it must be 12:34pm, lunch time!
Some public art I find anti-sterile.
small scale:
Edina Tokodi/JÓzsef VÁlyi-TÓth Polar Bears, 2007
Large Scale:
Lawrence Argent I See What You Mean, 2009
Ginormo Scale:
Olafur Eliasson Waterfalls, 2008
Holy Shnikes How Did They Do That Scale
Christo and Jeanne-Claude Surrounded Islands in Miami, Florida, 1983
Cheers!
Filed under: Design | Tags: letterpress, love, painted tongue, painted tongue studios, valentines day
This short article was written for the Painted Tongue Studios blog. More images and info about PTS can be found here. Photos courtesy of Benjamin Chan and Painted Tongue Studios.
I have always been a cynic when it comes to love. Whipping up a batch of Valentines cards in October at Painted Tongue Studios did nothing to change that. . .
Color is essential in portraying emotions and when you couple that with a very loaded word like “love,” you find yourself examining details with a psychological microscope. That icy blue that resulted from a less than clean press seemed too cold, like that one Valentines Day in elementary school when no candy hearts ended up on my desk. Wipe off the ink, clean the press, take two. The next one came out a nauseating baby pink, like the Valentines Day I was hopelessly in love. I just knew I would spend every second of my teenage existence with that certain someone, or maybe that was just the sugar rush from the excess of candy hearts I consumed that year. Wipe, clean, take three. The next one turns out a jealous green, like the Valentines Day when the candy heart I wanted ended up on someone else’s desk. Wipe, clean, take four. This time I add just the smallest touches of all those past valentines days, and then I dilute it with wisdom, experience and lots of transparent white. Now I get a warm and subtle color, not too imposing. That one is just right.
Tory Van Wey (Apprentice at PTS)
October 12, 2009
Filed under: Design, Off Topic, illustration | Tags: centralia, centralia pensylvania, chimera, Chimney mountain, eternal flame, illustration, mountain illustration, turkey
Chimney Mountains
Another excerpt from The Walk. These are the Chimney Mountains. They have been burning for thousands of years, ever since some careless creature dropped a match while lighting his pipe.
As strange as it is, this illustration for The Walk was actually inspired by a real place.
Welcome to Centralia, Pennsylvania! Pop. 9
“In May of 1962, a fire was started in the town landfill, next to the Odd Fellows Cemetary in order to clean up the area before a Memorial Day Celebration. What the members of the town did not realise was that there was an un-sealed abandoned coal mine shaft beneath the pile. The trash fire ignited a coal seam beneath the earth, and it continues burning to this day…Beneath Centralia and surrounding areas lies a rich deposit of anthracite coal; very hard and compact, which burns slowly at a high temperature. Since the initial fire in 1962, the underground mine fires have spread some 400 acres”
Another wonderful burning mountain came into my life recently via my parents and their whirlwind tour of Turkey.
Fires of Chimaera
These are the Turkish fires of Chimera, thought to be the origin of the myth of the Chimera. The Chimera is a fire breathing Lion-Goat-Snake of ancient Greek mythology. Um, can you say badass? These methane fueled fires have been burning for thousands of years. When it rains they simply recede deep into the mountains waiting for it to be dry enough to make their way back to the surface.
Excellent examples of truth being stranger than fiction, and inspiring fiction. Cheers.
Six O’clock Hawk
This was drawn while I was watching the news, marveling at the new heights of paranoia one can achieve when staring at the idiot box at Six O’clock. I took a brief hiatus from posting/arting to attend my first Hootenanny at Devil’s Canyon Brewery a couple nights ago. It was slightly lacking in the hooting department but the beer was delicious (as always) and the fire was warm. The best part was random people ambling up to me asking to use my breathalyzer (better safe than sorry right?).
Only after we passed the breathalyzer around a few times did I remember that it’s flu season…and half my social circle either has or knows someone who has H1N1.
Even my attempt to be the responsible twenty some inevitably ends in carelessness. Cheers to that.
Filed under: Design, Off Topic, illustration | Tags: alice in wonderland, authority, card, games, illustration, red queen, white queen
Queen of Hearts
I find I have many queens in my life. Be it literal or figurative. Actually all of the characters from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” tend to pop up in my life quite a bit, as I am sure they do in your life. I think that the Lewis Carroll story does a brilliant job drawing caricatures of some of the more animated personalities we all come across in our day to day existence.
I was always a little dubious of authority but I think I have finally come come to a peaceful coexistence with the mere idea of authority figures and their role in my life. Be it teachers, parents, bosses or mentors, they are all queens and sometimes it seems only natural to challenge them. The real challenge for me it to sit back and listen to what they have to say, but when I do it is usually to my benefit. So here’s to the teachers, parents, bosses and mentors in my life, you make me a better and more humble person everyday. Cheers.
