2011 in Pictures

I'm sitting here in a huge, empty, Viennesse apartment feeling reflective. It's odd finishing out the year in another country, so far from friends and family. 2011 been the most eventful year on record for me and, for posterity's sake, here are some of the highlights:

Winter-Spring

• Chase No Face's owner sent me a pic of Chase with my art!
• I got a tour of Lucasfilm from Bonnie Burton (then we proceeded to become shrimp addicts)
• Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle was incredible
• My folks came to visit and we got to hang out with Kitten on the Keys in Japantown

Summer

• This lady brought me a cake at Wondcon with my art on it!
• Warhol Reimagined at Project 1 happened 
• Photobooth fun at Attaboy and Annie's wedding
• Maker Fair with robot friends
• I crashed an anime show with DJ Bardot
• Too much fun at Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in Las Vegas
• Epic outdoor adventures in Michigan with family
• I worked the Hi-Fructose booth at Comic Con Int'l
• Portraits by Purebred, Wednesday Kirwan, and Sharie's Craft World
• I stayed pickled for an entire weekend at Tiki Oasis in San Diego

Fall-Winter

• New York City trip featuring Kaiju Big Battel, New York Comic Con, and Buzz Aldrin!
• Lucasfilm Halloween Party with Bonnie Burton and friends
• Roboexotica 2011
• Winter art residency at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, Austria
• Guest lecturer in Graz, Austria
• Minotaur obsession 

There you have it. What's in store for 2012? Definitely more artwork, more adventures, and more fun! I hope that you are part of it. Happy New Year to you and yours. 

11/5-6 LA Designer Con and Comikaze

This weekend I'll be in Los Angeles for two incredible events! Saturday is Designer Con at the Pasadena Convention Center. I'll be attempting to take up as much space as possible in my 10x10' booth with lots of new prints and rarities. I hear the collectors like those rarities. On Sunday I'll be doubling up with Chamanvision at the downtown Los Angeles Convention Center for Comikaze Expo 2011. It's sure to be a fun-filled weekend, so please stop by and say hello. Here's all the infos:

Designer Con
Table #430
Saturday, November 5th, 2011
10 am to 5 pm
Admission: $5 online / $7 at the door (free after 3 pm!)
Pasadena Convention Center
300 East Green Street
Pasadena, CA 91101

Comikaze Expo 2011
Table #122 (I'll only be there on Sunday)
Sat 10am-6pm
Sun 11am-6pm
Los Angeles Convention Center

Bad Dads at Spoke Art, Oct 29th

"Bad Dads", a tribute to the films of Wes Anderson is happening on Halloween in San Francisco at Spoke Art Gallery. The group show will feature numerous interpretations of Anderson's films from The Royal Tenenbaums to The Fantastic Mr. Fox. My piece, "Kumar" is based on a scene from Bottle Rocket. Here's a clip from the film:

"Bad Dads", an art show tribute the the films of Wes Anderson
Opening October 29th
On view until November 25th
Spoke Art Gallery
816 Sutter St. - San Francisco
http://www.spoke-art.com

APE 2011, Oct 1-2 San Francisco

Photo from APE '10 by Mike Yoshioka

It's time once again for the Alternative Press Expo at the Concourse Center in San Francisco. If you know me, you know that APE is my favorite convention. There are a few reasons for that. The first reason is that it's mere blocks from where I live! The second reason is that all my favorite comics and art folk come to town exhibit or attend. Lastly, there's a bar in the beautiful wood and skylit convention center. Let me repeat that...THERE'S A BAR IN THE BUILDING! So, really there's no excuse for you not to come out and support your favorite artist/writer/creatives from all over the world. I will have new artwork on display and for sale as prints. Please come by and say hello.

APE
Saturday,October 1
11am - 7pm

Sunday,October 2
11am - 6pm

The Concourse
635 8th Street
San Francisco, CA
Directions

Aldrin After Andy

In April 2011, Project One Gallery in San Francisco held an event called "Warhol Reimagined". The group exhibition was organized by art/culture website, Warholian.com. According to their website:

For Warhol Reimagined, Warholian asked some of the best talent in the art community today to come forward and rework Warhol’s classic imagery. The group of fifty-nine artists were divided into two groups- the “Factory Artists” and the “Soup Can Artists”. Each artist was assigned an image and panel and given the directive to reinterpret the selected Warhol image into their own unique aesthetic.....

...The Warholian Factory Artists were given a 20″x24″ panel, and asked to pick from a selection of over 60 of Warhol’s works. The works were chosen based on their importance in Warhol’s lifetime body of art and prominence. These included his most classic portraits of celebrities, early body of illustrations, self-portraits and his most classic iconic pieces.

I chose "Moonwalk 405", featuring a pink Buzz Aldrin on the Moon as my starting point for re-interpretation. Here's the original image:

Moonwalk 405, Andy WarholI wanted to see how Warhol made this image, so I started looking at the source material for print. NASA has a great public record photo library and there plenty of hi-resolution photos from the Apollo missions. I was surprised to learn that Moonwalk 405 is actually made of of two different photos composited together. In addition, the photograph of Buzz Aldrin is flipped so that his right arm is bent instead of his left. I assume that because of the image reversal, Warhol chose to eliminate the American flag patch since it would appear reversed in the finished print.

Once I had the original source material, I decided that I wanted to change the composition so that it was more of a portrait. I would "fix" the flip and add back in some of the details of the Apollo-era space suit. The flag would still be there, but instead of a composited-in flag, I would re-add the flag patch to Buzz's left shoulder. I decided that I definitely wanted to keep the color scheme and screenprinted graphic quality of the original print. I brought the source material onto my computer and started laying in the basic shapes and lines in Adobe Illustrator. Here are a few shots of the process:

Once I had a digital draft of what I wanted to create, it was time to transfer the design to the 20"x24" panel for paint. 

After a few days of painting, the finished artwork looked pretty close to the digital version.

The opening reception for the event was a success. I was blown away by the presentation and quality of the work and the enthusiasm of the crowd. Warholian.com has a great slideshow of the opening here. My piece, "Aldrin After Andy" sold at the event but I have prints available for sale here.

NYC, LA, SF, and Vienna!

"The Stranger", for Quentin vs. Coen Round 3What a terrific year so far! In summary: AOL.com hired me to create some arachnid themed poster art. Manifold, the firm behind the AOL gig, commissioned a custom piece for their office. I worked with Bolt Creative on their "Battle of the Gods" game. Then, SyFy's DVICE contracted me for some superhero themed art. I did lots of traveling back to Michigan, to Las Vegas for Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend, to San Jose for Fanime 2011, and then to San Diego for Comic Con to assist Hi-Fructose Magazine at their booth. THEN, I went back to San Diego for Tiki Oasis, "South of the Border" where I got to show off my Miss Piggy velvet painting. I've just finished website artwork for monochrom's upcoming "Sierra Zulu" feature film project and Purebred's short film, "Lucifer's Crewcut".

Now that you're all caught up, here's what's next!

10/1-10/2 APE, The Alternative Press Expo, The Concourse, San Francisco

10/1-10/2 Quentin vs. Coen Round 3, Beyond Eden Art Fair, Los Angeles

10/13 Celestial Matters, benefiting the Challenger Research Center, Charles Bank Gallery, NYC

10/30 Bad Dads - A Tribute to the Films of Wes Anderson, Spoke Art Gallery, San Francisco

12/1-12/31 Winter Artist in Residence at MuseumsQuartier, Vienna Austria

Seattle, and Warhol!

This weekend, March 4th-6th 2011, I'll be tabling at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle! Please find me at booth #313 at the Washington State Convention Center. I'll have plenty of new prints to check out. Last year was fantastic so I can't wait to get back. If you're out of state, start driving now and don't shave til you get there. You'll fit right in!

Emerald City Comic Con
March 4th-6th, 2011
Washington State Convention Center
Seattle, WA
www.emeraldcitycomiccon.com

On Thursday March 10th, I'll be back in San Francisco for "Warhol Reimagined" at Project One Gallery. I've got a brand new Warhol tribute painting in the show and I'm proud ot be in the line up with so many great artists. You don't want to miss this show. Here's the information:

Warhol Reimagined Project One Gallery
March 10th, 2011 – 7pm-2am
251 Rhode Island, San Francisco, CA 94103
www.warholreimagined.com
http://p1sf.com

I, ROBOPRIEST.

Last weekend I made a guest appearance as a "ROBOPRIEST" in Selene Luna's one-woman show, "Sweating the Small Stuff" at The Dark Room theatre in San Francisco. The whole concept came from a discussion on Twitter in which @seleneluna and I were trying to figure out how to tag-team wedding gigs. Selene is a brilliant actress/comedienne in Los Angeles but it's a little known fact that she's also an ordained minister. Here's the original brainstorming tweet that started it all:

Selene seemed to like the robot idea, and I really only needed an excuse to make a two-person robot costume, so I got to work sketching out ideas. I had a lot of help from my pal Adam Davis, who sported an inspiring robot costume at the Automatic Art Show last year. Adam and I worked through some sketches and I came up with these loose ideas:

Once I had a solid idea for the costume, I started buying supplies and bugging all my friends for help. Jim Coursey from "Ants Climb Tree" made great robotic audio for ROBOPRIEST's speaker-eyes. Here's an initial test of that:

The skeleton of ROBOPRIEST was made out of hula-hoops and chipboard. I then covered the whole thing in 1" low-density foam and fabric. A few weeks and a dozen hot-glue sticks later I had a workable costume. The robot is designed so that Selene can "pilot" it from atop when the hatch is open. We used a Piggyback Rider harness to attain the proper combination of height and destructive authority.

ROBOPRIEST's appearance at the show was a great success. I had a lot of fun building this thing and being half of ROBOPRIEST. There are lots more photos of ROBO's construction in my Flickr set.

Huge thanks to Selene Luna, Jim Coursey, Adam Davis, Merin McDonell, Rusty Hodge, Simone Davalos, David Calkins, The Dark Room, Gary and Susan at Cushion Works, Eidelyn Gonzales, and all my friends for putting up with me while I obsessed over this.

Fall '10- APE, NYCC, Dinosaurs and More!

It's been a crazy year so far! Last month my artwork went public in the BART system. Around that same time I got weirdly internet-famous for drawing cute animals on YouTube. And THEN I did the 15th Anniversary poster for Laughing Squid which spawned a great interview on PsPrint.com. But that's just the primer for Fall 2010!

NYCC and APE

Things are really going to get nuts next week as I appear at the New York Comic Con in Artist Alley. It's been a while since I've been back to New York and I'm excited for the trip. I'll be selling art prints and making sketches for the masses so please come by and say hello. If you catch me early you can get in on my NYCC exclusive print, a chubby Wonder Woman pin-up titled, "BBWW". I'm only going to bring a few, so if you really want one, you can pre-order it on my web-store and pick it up at the show. I'm also pumped because I can finally accept credit cards on-site at NYCC thanks to the fine people at Square (it's the future).

New York Comic Con '10
Javits Center
655 West 34th Street, New York
Friday, October 8th, 1-7pm
Saturday, October 9th 10am-7pm
Sunday, October 10th 10am-5pm

The following weekend is the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco, my home turf. I look forward to APE every year and I hear that it's even bigger than it was last year. They've expanded the hall, so I think it's a completely different layout. Come find me and artwork. I think I'm going to open up the archives and bring some one-of-a-kind items.

APE
The Concourse
635 8th Street, San Francisco CA
Saturday, October 16 - 11am - 7pm
Sunday, Oct. 17 - 11am - 6pm

Dinosaurs and Art for Sale

Also, on the Friday before APE, I've got some artwork in THE DINO SHOW, a dinosaur-centric art show at Double Punch Gallery in San Francisco. It's bound to be a hoot, so come get Jurassic with all your favorite local artists.

THE DINO SHOW
Double Punch Gallery
1821 Powell St. (@ Filbert)
San Francisco, CA
Opening Reception Friday, Oct. 15th 7pm-Late
Show runs through Nov. 7th

In case you've missed out on NYCC and APE, you can still get my artwork online at my web store. I'm happy to announce that you can now choose from three different sizes of prints in my "Featured Items" section. I also have a "Sale Items" section where you can take advantage of my overstock prints at great prices. If you are looking for original artwork, I have an Etsy store with one-of-a-kind paintings for sale. Soon I'll be offering limited edition and oversized prints as well.

Case Study - BART Poster Series

Photo by Dan Rosenstrauch for the Contra Costa Times

Beginning in September 2010, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system featured my artwork for their annual Featured Artist poster series. The name of the series is "The First Ride" and consists of  three different images that explore children's imagination in the BART system. In each drawing, a young rider sees something unusual going on but the adults around aren't aware. The artwork is displayed in BART stations throughout the Bay Area until the end of October 2010.Here are the three images for the series:

The direction from BART was very open ended. They were interested in something that explored a narrative in the BART system. I chose a child's point-of-view because it best describes a sense of wonder, and it's inclusive to all ages. Each scenario is a window into a passing moment of imagination with the unusual architecture of the BART system interiors. Here's a process shot of one of the poster designs:

Here's a photo of the artwork in place at 12th St. Station in Oakland:

There's been a bit of press about the series. In addition to being featured on BART's website and blog, the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune ran stories about the series. BART has also started a "First Ride" story contest, where riders can submit stories about their first experience on BART. The winner gets a set of signed posters. It's been a great project and I love hearing feedback from BART riders about the artwork.