Nasty, Great movie, and Jester Spikes

Its nasty outside today. Really rainy that will be drizzling at one point then gully washer the next. But, it usually works that way. Feet stayed dry due to my nice pair of Hi-techs, which is very beneficial through out all the classes.

This song is amazing but this (unofficial) video for the song just brings it off the awesome scale. It's a very dry video in more ways than one which I thought appropriate for the weather. (BTW) The video features main parts from the end of the movie "Once Upon a Time in the West" so don't watch i f you haven't seen the film, which is a great movie.

Here is some charcoal work I did for high school in 2007. I was having fun with it and was going for a surrealistic image. I used my buddy and classmate at the time Q to model his open mouth for me. He sat next to me a held his mouth like the image for a good 45 minutes. I added all the other imagery after that, like the jester spikes, the tubes, and the eye. I have this hanging in my room, sometimes if you stare at the mouth long enough the eye will blink at you. 

TECHNO!, Barbra Streisand and shacks

TECHNO! Yes I'm a fan. Always had a little thing for the electronic. Here is a cool jam but the video will send you a curve ball. As it end everyone I had show this to has said something along the lines of "Haha, No way!" or "Totally didn't see that coming". Either way its a fun time or at least looked like one. 

Plus...a little Duck Sauce....Barbra Streisand, this is awesome!

Here is another pen & ink from 2006, about two months after my tractor guy. It won the Russell County Fair Art Contest pen & ink for my age group that year. I was really proud of this one because it was done outside of school and didn't need a teacher to get it done. I went out to where the new CGI build is today, there used to be just farm land up there and it was where I played as a kid all the time. But when developing started to begin they cleared a lot of the land. You began to start to see into the woods and there was a few old shacks still standing back there. They are everywhere around Lebanon. But this one was like a gem, it really stood out to me and I grabbed a picture with my dad's camera and did this. Everything was overgrown, you could really tell how the forest gobbled up these little houses over the years. Really cool back there, during the XC years up to 08, I would run back there but now the shacks have been torn down. Bums me out a bit seems like a bit of history to me but just trash to others.

Pepto, Free Translator, and the Farmer

I ate so much last night. I came back home and I guess I didn't realize how much food is always in my parents house. As soon as I got here I got a hold of some homemade fried rice which I ate like 2 plates of. My mom decided to buy like 4 or 5 boxes of girl scout cookies which I got through 2 of those boxes last night. Plus They gave me 20 bucks which my brother and I quickly spent on pizza and lasagna. I went to sleep with a crazy full belly which was kind of awesome, but pepto was definitely in order this morning.

Here is a nice wholesome tune to start your day. The Books are definitely out there and they are probably one of the most interesting groups I've had the privilege of listening to. This song is just nice, that's the only way I can put it, really nice. Free Translator by the The Books

Taking it back to 2006 with this pen and ink. I think I started thinking on an artist level long before I started pursuing art as a career. I grew up in Lebanon which is a tiny southwestern Virginia town and I definitely had a feel for what the town enjoyed to look at. My art teacher wasn't very different. So in 10th grade I pound out this pen and ink of a farmer, featuring a tractor and everyone kind of went ape shit about it. I did work hard on it and I like it myself but shew-wee, the high school and town really bought into it. It was entered into the county art contest which included art from Lebanon High, Castlewood High, and Honaker High. I hated how the contest was ran though, only one entry per student and only one work per medium. So I got entered with my pen and ink, but this meant no one else from my school could be entered for their pen and ink which I thought was ridiculous considering we had some great work that was just excluded. But this piece won the pen and ink medium, overall winner for LHS and the county. I was pretty stoked about all that but who knows if I still would have won with all the other work in the contest. But I really base a lot the success of this work on content, my area really likes farming( which is funny considering the image depicts a farmer in the midwest, I didn't tell them that back then though). Also this piece really opened the door for my work with stencils 2 years later. I really played with the 2 values here and it does have a stencil feel to it until you look at the rough texture of the fields.

pen & ink, 8 1/2" x 11", 2006

Waking up, Oi Ju and Splatter Painting!

 I just woke up and its 7 am right now. I feel like I should start being a little more specific because I noticed I had a hit from Germany yesterday. I feel if I'm going to talk about the time and what not, I'll add the details for my new friends in completely different time zones. So whoever you are you win a prize for being my first European. Hopefully you liked what you saw and will eventually be back to read this but you could have accidentally stumbled upon this blog never to return again, if so I'm whateves about it. I've got another couple hits from Brazil, but I know who that is..Oi Ju, manter as coisas frio no Brasil. cerveja é boa! And then 2 hits from Canada, I really hope its Wayne Gretzky. 

Feeling deep, me too. This is a great song and it is very deep, you may recognize it as being in the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Which, by the way, is a great movie. This song always makes me think, and therefore its a great one in my book. DeVotchka is a great band I recommend checking out their other stuff.

This is my attempted at splatter painting at the request of my mother in 2009. She got me this huge canvas that is around 5 X 3 ft and asked for something that would match the furniture in the living room. I'm not much of a painter and after staring at this thing for about a year and started throwing paint on it. I wasn't completely reckless and can honestly say that I placed certain splatters and most of the work was not an accident. My mom loved the piece and it is still in their living room so that makes this a success for me. 

5x3ft, Acrylic, 2009

REMIX!, Dreams, and Tattoos

RRREEEMMMIIIIXXXXX!!!!!! Let it seep in to your ears. Then its going to proceed to walk, prance and frolic all over your brain, only to curl into a comfortable yet adorably cute position right up  against your forehead. And its going to take a nap, while this song vibrates your pleasure chords. Empire of the Sun- Walking on a Dream (Johan Baath Remix)!

Here be some tattoo sketches I had drawn for a friend of mine. Now the images from the sketches are tattooed on to my buddies rib cage, one on either side. I do have some rough pics I'll post but unfortunately lack any photos of the actual tattoos, which look great and exactly as I drew them. Hopefully next time he comes by JC way I'll snap a couple.

TomCat came to me one day in 2009 and asked for a tattoo design. He asked for it to include eyeballs, zombies, skulls, shrooms, tentacles, and peace signs. And with this to go on, this is what my brain conjured up. I really enjoy the shroom clouds but the tattoo artist left out the spots on the caps/clouds but it still looked great finished. 

                            

Then in 2010 he came to me again for another tattoo. This one on the other side of the rib cage. Yet this time he had his own idea and a very awesome one at that. He asked for an octopus attacking a whale, and I gave him just that. The image itself is as straightforward as the delivery in which TomCat told me " I want an octopus attacking a whale." Tattooed ended up great as well kudos to the tattoo artists, fo sho.

All the Places and Color Skull

Another interesting song discovered through KEXP Song of the Day Podcast. MADE IN HEIGHTS - All the Places is original and very soft yet with a strong beat, I really enjoyed it and will continue to do so.

This a drawing I did in 2009 simply for fun. I had to draw a skull for my drawing class while at SWCC and used the same skull in this work but just drew lines of color within. The skull itself is flawed and not drawn perfectly as you can tell by the eye sockets and the nose but I felt this made it my own. I left the skull the way it was originally drawn and I started with the color on the right temple and then bounced all over the skull trying to produce a some what symmetrical pattern. I was extremely pleased with the out come and piece is displayed on my living room wall. It is a work I just enjoy looking at and is probably the most colorful of all my work thus far.

"Color Skull", Colored Pencils, 8 1/2" x 11"

Of Oceans, Banksy and Tank Hearts

Of Oceans, a band I recently stumbled upon and very glad I did. Their EP is on sell here for $1. Not bad if you ask me. Only two songs but both are just beautiful. This is my favorite of the two, has such a gentle vibe about it, hope you enjoy.

During my semester at UVA-Wise in 2008, I had an assignment were I was to "collaborate" with a famous artist who was still alive. The professor had a list of of artists with some picture of their work. This was the first time I was introduced to the famous yet unknown street artist Banksy. I've been a huge fan ever since. The assignment was to imagine yourself collaborating with the artist to produce a work through some method of printmaking taught in the class. I knew for a fact I was going to work with stencils to make a screen print. After studying Banksy's website, fan blogs along with anti-Banksy/graffiti sites. I learned that Banksy works are political, in many cases humorous and always carry a strong message. Here are some of the works that I referenced in creating my piece.

And here is my piece.

I felt like this embodied the essence of Banksy while I was still able to make it my own. This was the last screen print that I have done since. Now I work the same way only with spray paint, as you can tell from some older posts below.