JANUARY
I finished my art residency at Planet Labs. Later that month, I showed artwork with Michael Wertz at Mule Gallery in San Francisco. I also became addicted to Lacroix soda water.
FEBRUARY
Someone called me a "classic weirdo". I thought it would make a good button, so I made a whole series of weirdo buttons. I also was contracted by my friend Rusty Blazenhoff to illustrate a San Francisco themed coloring sheet for a marijuana dispensary. I then attended a ladybug picnic in the woods with my motorcycle gang, The Elsewhere Philatelic Society.
MARCH
I painted some little kaiju puppies for my friend The Shanghai Pearl. I also put together a tutorial online that shows how I make art in Adobe Illustrator. I also started bringing home lots of vintage rubber stamps from the thrift store. This unleashed a whole renewed thrift store obsession that would become a theme for the rest of 2016.
APRIL
April was a slow month for work but I managed to fill it up with half-cocked ideas, thrift shopping, and accidentally murdering an innocent fish. I made "link reminder cards" because I'm always promising to send someone a link to something online. They looked great but I think I only handed out two and didn't get any follow ups. I found a couple of boxes of slides at Community Thrift and found them highly entertaining. Later in the month, I adopted a puffer fish from the disco aquarium in San Francisco's Richmond district. I was ill-prepared to take care of it and he immediately (and violently) died. RIP Jerome K. Jerome.
MAY
I guess drawing tiny dogs was a recurring theme because I made some tiny pug paintings. I also collected some classic pin designs from my favorite shop in San Francisco's Inner Sunset district "Oriental Art Gallery". I also finished up an illustration gig creating comic strips about the native plants of the Presidio. The strips were displayed in the Presidio Officers' Club as part of an educational exhibition later in the year.
JUNE
In June, I experimented with color-changing pigments to create a MOODY button. Then, I was commissioned to customize a Kidrobot Dunny with a squid design concept from a decade ago! I rounded out June 2016 by making a custom patch for all the artists that have managed to stick around San Francisco. The patch features 1906-famous dog "Francis The Terrier".
JULY
Things got busy in July! I made an octopus drawing for the computer hardware geniuses at Sensel. I made another Kidrobot vinyl figure with a space theme. I also worked on a funk-themed piece for "The Mothership Returns" show at Meltdown Comics in LA.
AUGUST
I illustrated a coloring sheet for Wren's Mermaid Day event in Portland. Then, I took a trip home to visit family in Davison, Michigan. Later in the month, I announced my web comic "ABSURDUM" about a guy who is haunted by his dead goldfish and adopts a platypus. I haven't made much headway into the comic, but it's a start.
SEPTEMBER
In September, I started teaching at California College of the Arts (CCA). It's just one day a week but it really took over the Fall for me. It's an intro to Photoshop and Illustrator for illustration students. I had a lot of help putting the class together but it was still tons of work. I'll be doing it again in the Spring. I also exhibited at the brand new San Francisco Comic Con. It was unexpectedly busy and awesome! In addition to teaching, I continued taking on illustration work including more covers for No Starch Press.
OCTOBER
In addition to creating my class at CCA, I made a custom Munny figure in the form of my favorite Sesame Street muppet, "Mr. Johnson" (aka "Fat Blue"). I taught reluctant 20-somethings how to make vector lines in Illustrator and later in the month I found a sweet purple knife on the sidewalk in the rain. Discarded murder weapon? Who can say?
NOVEMBER
I started November at the Santa Clara Convention Center for AlienCon! It was highly entertaining to exhibit at AlienCon and I even got to meet Dee Wallace, Elliott's mom from "E.T.". I battled and lost in an ongoing war with my airbrush. We will try this again someday but for now I'm defeated. Also, I started making enamel pins! Seen here is my Chase No Face hard-enamel pin and my crossbones logo pin.
DECEMBER
This year ends almost the way it started, with more tiny paintings. Class ended at CCA. Hopefully they learned something. I made more Chase No Face art, this time in the style of vintage tattoos. As I type this, I'm wrapped in blankets in Michigan. On Christmas, I helped co-produce the annual Santa Show at the Ellingson family gathering. New Years' promises to be laid-back and I'll be back in San Francisco early in January for more teaching and arting and thrifting. Oh, and I'm turning 40. So there's that.
Happy New Year, friends.
