Chosen Winner AI 42 Annual Book

Received a nice bit of news the other day that the poster I made for the annual NY Night Train New Years Ball was chosen to appear in the AI 42 book. This poster was a lot of fun because I was trying to play around a little more with the mixed media technique I had started to use a little more frequently on the Soul Clap posters and it was also a bit stressful due to an entire re-working of the poster with a whole new central figure after the headliner had to pull out. So, it feels good to know this was the judges choice out of my submissions. A big thank you to American Illustration and all of this year's judges.

 

Couldn't resist that lizard on a bike!

This was a quick little gig for a friend's Dad who retired just a couple weeks ago. She reached out and mentioned she wanted to have a little poster for everyone to sign at the party and gave me some ideas on what she had in mind for the look of the poster. I looked over some photos she sent me of his office and I immediately latched onto the toy lizard on a bike. I knew exactly how I wanted it to look and that was about it. Had a good time playing around a little and trying some stuff out I don't normally do with my regular client work.

 

Parade of Delusion

First completed piece of 2022 is here, depicting some version of an event that occurred over a year ago in 2021. This event has obviously been at the forefront of the news lately and, unlike most news these days, has actually kept our attention longer than a week after it was reported. After a whole year passed I felt like I had spent enough time thinking about the events that took place on Jan. 6th, 2021 and some of the motives that pushed people to do what they did, that I could condense my thoughts into an illustration about it. 

A lot of the narrative around this day has been getting twisted over the last year and there is a big attempt by certain news outlets and people to rewrite this day as a peaceful demonstration. A lot of this has made me think about how much of our history is distorted and altered and how a lot of this can be found in iconic works of art. The first image that immediately popped into my head was Jacques-Louis David's painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps and I think it lent itself perfectly as a reference for this to display a false sense of bravery and heroics. Plus, after I read about the horse made of 5G energy appearing on a family's lawn I knew I had to illustrate that in some way.

This piece is me jumping back into a series I started working on during 2020 and have wanted to add to since these days are feeling very similar to the first year of the pandemic before the vaccine became readily available. the uncertainty, anxiety, and confusion is still very much a part of our daily lives and I feel like I have more to add to the series I first started as a way to process my feelings around the pandemic.

 

Return to Touchstone Teen Week

Felt so good to return to Touchstone Center for Crafts and teach drawing/painting at this years Teen Week. I did this gig 2 years ago and I've been looking forward to getting back ever since. We had a smaller student body this year due to the covid concerns for everyone but it felt just as inspiring and full of energy as my previous time. We got some still-life and life drawing in, a collaborative project with the ceramics class and a couple illustration-based projects towards the end, which all the students did great on. I'm always a little sad when the week wraps because it seems to just blow by but everyone is pretty exhausted by the end and probably looking to their own bed and regular internet service again. Thanks again to everyone for the great time and hope to return again sooner next time. 

 

Missing my Food Spots

Here's a little group of food paintings I worked on back in April/May when I was going through some major withdrawal thinking about all the places I liked to eat/drink at before the pandemic shut them down. I'm glad that some places are able to start to reopen but I'm gonna need some time I think before I can comfortably revisit my old spots. At least the corner stores/bodegas/delis don't seem to have a shortage of ice cream sandwiches.

HOT DONUTS

"HOT DONUTS" is a collaborative piece between Travis Winters and I for the group show "Character and Narrative" which is currently on display at the Foothills Art Center in Golden, CO. We had originally planned to have this done a couple years back for our show "Bathhouse" but we ran out of time with all the other pieces we were working on. We managed to get it all wrapped up this time around though and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. Seeing it all now with the backing, I honestly don't think we would have executed the piece as well if we had rushed it for the first show. 

Some process pics below detailing most of the backboard progress. You can catch this piece along with a ton of other work from Tom Sarmo, John Van Horn, Travis Winters and myself until October 20th at Foothills Art Center. 

"Character and Narrative" Aug16th-Oct 20th

Welp, after a solid year of preparation and toiling in the studio "Character and Narrative" is finally here and I can't believe the opening has already come and gone. The show will be up at the Foothills Art Center in Golden, CO until October 20th and features the work of Travis Winters, Tom Sarmo, John Van Horn and myself. Big thanks again to Eriq Hochuli and everyone at Foothills.

There are some photos below of the whole grand adventure leading up to the opening.