Archive for September, 2011

For today’s Flashback we are looking at Sketchbook #9, which I drew in from June 2002 – May 2003.

(page 15)

(page 17)

(page 24)

(page 25)

(page 26)

Enjoy!
- Jeff

Riding my bike this morning I turned onto a quiet little side street to stay away from the 8am traffic. It didn’t work though. I heard a motorcycle behind me and for some reason it wasn’t passing me. Wanting to be alone on the road I was getting perturbed, so I turned around to see what all the fuss was about. You know what it was? That dude from Big Trouble In Little China was following me!

I was honored. And scared! I mean, the last thing I need is the ghost of Egg Shen following me around all creepy like.

I finally put my intervalometer to use so I could make this time lapse video of stocking spray paint.

Enjoy!
- Jeff

What is up with all the spider webs? I mean, seriously! Everywhere I go there seems to be a pesky spider web waiting to greet my pretty face with a kiss. And it’s never a happy greeting, like when a stranger hands you a $100 bill and says, “Buy yourself something you don’t need.” It’s much more of the unwanted variety. The type of greeting that shocks you, like when an obese self proclaimed “detective” hands you a sealed envelope and says, “You’ve been served. Good luck in court.” Nothing makes a person embody obsessive compulsion more than feeling a web envelop their face. You start rubbing your hands sporadically over your head and face as if you’re brushing sand off your body after a day at the beach. Except for this sand might contain an eight legged creature with a thirst for blood. In some cases you even take your shirt off and shake it out like it’s a dirty rug. The uneasy feeling doesn’t go away until your next shower and you’ll swear that you can feel a spider crawling all over you, despite the crazy impromptu Aboriginal rain dance you did in an effort to shake the little arachnid off your person.

A few nights ago I went for a little bike ride and a block away from my house I found myself frantically doing the “get the fuck off me, spider!” dance. I even did that bit where I remove my shirt and wave it around “rah rah” style, like I was head cheerleader rooting for my hot quarterback boyfriend at the big game. A few minutes later what should smack me in the face? Another spider web! Only a few more minutes passed before I was greeted with yet another, but this one I felt wrapped around my arms. Had I been riding naked I surely would have felt the webs all over my legs and the you know where area too. Could I be such an unlucky person that every spider web in town wanted to hug my face? That just wasn’t possible. And at that point I had a revelation. The spider was on me. Yes, on me! And spinning webs all over me! That had to be it. There is still a slim chance that I’m paying off bad deeds from my youth in the form of karmic retribution. You know what though, I doubt that the whole rubbing Carmex down the side of a Scantron test actually confused the machine into not marking all my incorrect answers. So, perhaps this spider thing is simply retribution for me being a dumbass. Or better yet, it’s most likely payback from the Spider Gods for all the spiders that have met their demise due to my ruthless murdering of the little beasts.

My latest song addiction.

If you want to avoid the you tube ads I’d suggest visiting http://mattcosta.com/video and watching “Mr. Pitiful”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out a way to link directly to the video on his site.

Enjoy.

I decided to enter this photo of Elliott into the Hipstamatic contest too. They say you can enter as many photos as you like so I figured I would enter at least two. The theme is “Portraits and Accessories”. This is my “Portrait” entry.

This photo recently broke into the top 100 of the contest. The official ranking at the time of this writing is #98. Breaking 100 made me feel pretty awesome. With about 3 days left of voting I’m hoping to break into the top 10.

Please vote!
All you have to do to vote for this photo is go to this link:
http://community.hipstamatic.com/submissions/161496

Scroll to the bottom of that page and choose the “Like” on Facebook option. That’s it!

Thanks so much for looking! Let’s get Elliott to the top!

- Jeff

Thanks for looking!
- Jeff

Hey Guys & Dolls!

As you know I’ve been obsessed with iPhone photos as of late and it’s a trend I don’t see giving up anytime soon. One of the apps I’ve been using is Hipstamatic and I found out they host photo contests for people using their app, so I thought I’d give it a try. The theme this month is “Portraits And Accessories”. I went with the “accessories” route and submitted this photo of my bike, which happens to be one of my most favorite accessories. I aptly titled it “The Only Accessory I Put Between My Legs”.

To vote please visit this page (and scroll to the bottom). You’ll be given the option to “tweet” your vote on twitter or “like” the photo on Facebook.

Voting is only good for five days, so please do it soon. Also, this is totally just for fun. I’m not trying to further my iphoneography career or anything like that. Do people even make careers out of taking pictures with their iPhone? Probably.

Thanks for voting!
- Jeff

Here are the newest pieces in my ongoing “Blockhead Series”.

“Fateful Friend”
approx. 3.75″ x 6.25″ – mixed media on wood
$65, plus shipping.
Buy now.

“Basketball Star”
approx. 2.5″ x 4.25″ – mixed media on wood
$45, plus shipping
Buy now.

The Undertaker
sold

My Happy Mask
approx. 3″ x 5″ – mixed media on wood
$65, plus shipping
Buy now.

I currently have three more of these in the works that I hope to finish this weekend. If all goes as planned they will be in the etsy shop by the end of next week.

Thanks for looking!
- Jeff

I was recently asked to collaborate on a surfboard for a Ballet Auction. Doing a hand painted original on the board wasn’t going to work out so Carol Paquet, friend and fellow artist, as well as the woman behind this fund raising event, fired up her super awesome printer and made a giclee print of my painting, “Taco“.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be involved in every step of the process. It would have been fun to see this project every step of the way, from the board getting shaped to Carol printing the artwork to applying the print to the board to the board getting glassed. All of that fun stuff. Although I wasn’t involved in every step it is very much an honor to have been invited to be a part of this project.

This surfboard was shaped by Pat Flecky for Vitruvian Surfboards.

The board is 8’1″ long, 22 5/8″ wide (at it’s widest point) and 2.5″ thick (at it’s most thick point, I believe).

Tickets for this event are available by contacting BT-SLO Assistant Director Blair London at 805.440.1439.

Also, if you are unable to attend and would like to bid on this board you might be able to. You’ll have to contact Paula Fryer at 805.704.7392 to set that up.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to do with the actual auction so if you have any questions at all please visit Ballet Theatre San Luis Obispo.

If you want to check out the board in person before bidding you might be able to schedule an appointment at Cork Stop Studios, call 805.550.6399. I said “might”. In other words, I didn’t check with them before writing this, but give them a call and you might get lucky.

Thanks for looking!
- Jeff

Freaking procrastinator…or maybe just an inability to focus. This is the back of a chair I’ve been working on for about 9 months. Obviously, I don’t work on it all the time or it would be done by now. Sadly, I’ve only been able to work on it during random fleeting moments. However, now that I have an extra day off I’ve been able to get back at it. This is a collaboration with my friend, Collin Sprenkle, who is an amazing furniture designer. He is also a man of unbelievable patience having put up with me taking so long on this project. As soon as I finish painting this I will post photos of the entire chair.

So close to finishing! I know it doesn’t look unfinished, but there are a few empty spaces I need to fill. Like the chair above, this painting has been sitting around in various states of incompletion for months. I think I actually started this before the chair. Also, I have a confession to make. This photo was taken on Monday and the painting has since been completed. I still need to apply a coat of epoxy resin to finish it off, but the painting part is totally done.

These are some mini paintings I started a few days ago. They should all be done by the end of the week.

Limited edition prints in production! These prints were a big factor in me taking an extra day off and closing the gallery on Tuesdays. I’ve been fortunate to find a couple of galleries that sell these on a regular basis, which is super awesome. The problem is that I have never been able to keep these places fully stocked. They would sell a print and I wouldn’t be able to replace it with a new one for a couple of weeks or a month, depending on my schedule. Now that I have Tuesday as an extra day to be productive and make art I’ve been able to supply these galleries with more prints to hang on their walls. It’s really hard to sell artwork when you don’t have any on display.

There you have it. My most current projects that I’m working on at the moment. I am going to try and make this “Projects In The Works” thing an ongoing topic. Weekly would be nice, but I’m not sure if I can pull that off. We’ll just have to wait and see.

As always, thanks for looking!
- Jeff