NY Night Train Presents Swamp Dogg

   

Including 2 versions of my new poster for the Swamp Dogg show at Knockdown Center on July 22nd. At the last minute, Brooklyn-based, Mighty Fine was added to the bill so, you'll notice on the 2nd version I added a little extra piece to the roadside sign with Eli "Paperboy" Reed's name on it.

Even though the source material for this drawing was a desert landscape, I am really enjoying my client's letting me bring more of my neon sign and landscape work that populates the majority of my personal work into my collaborative projects.

Anyways, you should not miss this show. Swamp Dogg is a true musical cult figure and most times we don't get the chance to experience them while they are still out on the road doing their thing. Process pics below.

Virtual Workshop Time

Touchstone Center for Crafts has just released their schedule for the Spring/Summer 2021 virtual workshops and I'm there in the mix with my class "Creating Narratives in Portraiture". The class will be on April 20th from 6:30-8:30pm and there is a complete list of materials for anyone that would like to work along with me as I explain how I create my pieces and some techniques that I use. Link below to view entire class schedule.

https://touchstonecrafts.wordpress.com/virtual-workshops/

 

Soul Clapping, Dancing, and Sweating into 2020

Jonathan Toubin's Soul Clap & Dance-Off rolls on into a new year and it's coming at you quick this Saturday, January 18th at the Market Hotel with Patti Smith Group guitarist, historian, and producer Lenny Kaye guest DJing alongside Jonathan. We went with the iconic Otis Redding red suit look from his Live in Europe album to kick things off this year. Did this one under a very tight deadline but had a lot of fun doing it and it may be one of my new favorites. Sometimes the quick ones end up being that way due to the lack of time to dwell on decisions so you tend to lean more on your intuition. Process pics and link to tickets below. 

TICKETS

Soul Clap & Dance-Off with Sheer Mag

Painting it black this month for thee Soul Clap & Dance-Off at Brooklyn Bazaar featuring Sheer Mag. Sometimes coloring can become so daunting to me that it's nice when something like this comes along. Back in my early RISD days I was so apprehensive about coloring my work because I felt like I was just going to ruin the piece and I still somewhat feel like that, even though I try to just charge ahead in an attempt to keep learning. But, pieces like this can be a nice reminder that I can pump the brakes a little and don't need to force myself to color every piece.

Soul Clap & Dance-Off at SXSW!

Right after I finished the Soul Clap & Dance-Off 11th anniversary poster I immediately got to work on this one for the 7th annual SXSW Soul Clap & Dance-Off closing party. Woof! Some marathon studio time this past week. Miss Lavelle White gracing this new one and she'll be doing a live performance at the closing party. When I was wrapping this up I almost put some bats carrying off the records on this one but after I ate a whole bag of chips and thought about it, I decided to hold off. Maybe I should have but it's almost comical how many posters for the city of Austin, TX have bats on them. Also, for the fans out there, I hope you'll notice we chose the yellow and brown color scheme from the Duke Records labels. 

New York Night Train Day

New poster for a special curated day of music from the amazing Jonathan Toubin. New York Night Train Day will be taking place on September 10th at the 15th annual South Street Seaport Music Festival. The recently reformed The Make-Up will be headlining so, of course none other than Ian Svenonious is gracing the poster. Thanks again to Jonathan Toubin.

Singin' in the Rain

I was house sitting a few years ago and was messin around in my sketchbook one day, just doing some portraits of people I'm interested in, and there was one Tom Waits portrait I did that I was particularly happy with. Fast forward a few years and now that I'm messing around with all these night scenes and neon lights I figured I'd push the sketch into new territory. I'm trying to find a balance between all the neon paintings and my detailed line work and this piece seemed like it'd be a good exercise for this. I also visited New Orleans while I was working on this piece and I felt like the vibe of the nightlife there helped me create a more specific mood here. 

My sketches/color studies sometimes feel like they come dangerously close to being better than the finished piece. This was one of those times.

Thomas Rinaldi's book on the history of neon lights in NYC has been an endless source of inspiration and great for reference material.

Soul Clap and Dance off Poster Bash!

Alright you glorious people, you, Jonathan Toubin and I are throwing a lil' bash at the GIMME! COFFEE on LORIMER ST. in Williamsburg and we have some treats for YOU! I'll have a group of select original Soul Clap illustrations hanging for you to gaze at and while you do that, you can sip on some FREE BEER and and chomp down on some FREE PIZZA! And, last but not least, I'm gonna have a mean grip of new prints on sale there in case you fall in love with one of these posters and wanna get something on your wall that night! Below are the details. Hope to see y'all there!!

SOUL CLAP AND DANCE OFF POSTER SHOW EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!!!!!!!

GIMME! COFFEE - 495 Lorimer St. Williamsburg (btwn Powers and Grand St.)

FRIDAY, MARCH 31st, 2017

7 - 10PM

FREE BEER!

FREE PIZZA!!

PRINTS FOR SALE!!!

Sneak peek at some of the new prints that I'll have there. If you miss the show and really were hoping to score a print or two, no worries, the prints will be available for web purchase after March 31st.

Thee Soul Clap Poster Show

In un-related Bathhouse news: I have some of my Soul Clap and Dance Off illustrations hanging up at the Gimme! Coffee on Lorimer St. in Brooklyn. It's the big Soul Clap 10 year anniversary bash this Friday, March 3rd so we are prepping everyone with a showing of some of my poster work. It's kind of a best of/ the hits so far assortment. Stop in and check them out all neatly placed in a row before they return to the dark corner of my studio where no one ever looks at them, or shows them any love.

The Soul Clap Returns to Brooklyn Bowl!

New Soul Clap & Dance Off poster for January 21st at Brooklyn Bowl. I really felt like I had to shake up the color scheme this time around. Yellow still got in there but it was really commanding some attention the last few months and it had to take a back seat this time around. We thought it'd be good to shake it up with the sexes and Jonathan really wanted to use a strong black female since the party is right after the inauguration day from hell. So, after looking through some photos it seemed like Sugar Pie DeSanto was the right fit. Come dance the blues away on Saturday, January 21st! Party starts at midnight! Thanks again to Jonathan Toubin. Always happy to do these projects.

We both tried to work with this intense pose of her really emoting and maybe we could have broken through with something, but at the time it seemed like it was gonna be a hard one, compositionally and especially for recognizability.