KILLER CAT EYES

My cat has eyeballs that produce death beams.
That is all.

ICT WINTER BAZAAR

This weekend on Sunday the 8th is the ICT Winter Bazaar. It runs from 3-7 and it's held at Century II. Why am I promoting this event? Well because I'm going to be there peddling some of my prints and handmade wares! I'll be representing Tornado Alley Press, WSU's printmaking guild along with my fellow printers.

I've never been to this event so I have no idea what to expect. I've heard though that last year there were about 60 local vendors and this year there should be 75-100. They say it’s not going to feel at all like a convention hall but more like a party. There should be a cash bar, live music and local art. There also will be food trucks in Kennedy Plaza. Best of all, it's totally free!

So come on out, buy some dope Christmas presents and support all these fine local peeps.

INTERNATIONAL TYPE FIGHT

I've officially entered into an International Type Fight. Basically tons of other designers, art schools and people from all over the world are submitting their designs of a few letters into the arena to be voted on. Nothing is won other that the respect you get when you trounce your competition. I ended up making 3 out of the 4 we had to choose from since they were so much fun to play with. For reference, here are the original letters:

Since I don't know much, well... anything about these alphabets or the cultures behind their letters, I wanted to stay pretty true to the original letter form. I made the Hebrew letter feel like it could be on the side of a fighter jet, the Sanskrit letter I made more old world scroll-esque and the Arabic letter I went with a snake simply because that's what I saw first when I looked at it.

There might be others of mine chosen tomorrow for voting (I'll be sure to update and post about them if they are) but my Arabic snake has been chosen for the first round of votes. Vote as you please of course, but mine is the snake similar to the one above. I ended up changing the background at the last minute so what's on the type fight site is a little different than this one.

Mine for today is Arabic Round 1, Fight 4
Check it out and cast your votes!
http://typethrowdown.wordpress.com/arabic-round-1/

BALINESE TRIBAL MASK POP UP

I know I barf up plenty of posts that have to do with my schooling but what can I say, it's a full time job. Besides, I treat every art project that I'm assigned as something that I would want to present to a client or art gallery. I invest a ton of time and effort so why not showcase my hard work? Anyways, enough with the disclaimers and on with the show.

In my Graphics Materials and Processes class I was tasked with making a pop up based on a tribal mask from any society that I wanted. Obviously I'm going to do something monster-like and creepy. I just so happen to have quite a few real masks from various cultures from around the world. One of my favorites is my Balinese Rangda, the demon queen. So I decided to base my pop up off of her yet stylize it more my own way.

I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted her to look but I did one of my half and half sketches. This is where I start with the one idea I like on one side and then experiment on the other. I take elements I like from the one side and transport them to the other. Once I drag it into Photoshop I then only have to illustrate one half, duplicate it and then flip it. Work smarter not harder right? The left side in the sketch below is the more traditional version of the demon queen but I really liked the big-ole eye concept. 

Then it was on to the physical creation of this beast. Let me tell you what, making anything in 3-d is a bitch. I actually had to remember how to do geometry, degrees, measurements, angles and shit like that. I mean really? I'm an damn art dork not a math or drafting geek! But I guess all my teachers were right, math sometimes comes in handy. Once I got past all that super awesome fun stuff, I had to wrestle with paper types, cutting methods and gluing. It took 3 prototypes before I got it all perfected. 

I also made the hard back cover for my evil baby. I used a iridescent paper for the cover with colors that related to the mask inside and type that flowed kind of like Balinese script. Notice the band-aid wrapped finger in the animated image below. I damn near cut the edge of my finger off with an exact knife cutting this bad boy out. 

This was hard work but the final piece I'm pretty proud of. I actually inspired my brother and I to try and do a full pop up book. But that, my friends, is another tale.

CARDBOARD RACE TRACK

What does one do on a Sunday when you're board and don't want to spend any dough? Get crafty! So I made Paladin a race track out of an old box. Needless to say, we had fun for hours.

NO FUTURE

I was tasked with creating another font recently but based off an existing typeface. My first instinct was to work with Futura as it's my favorite. When thinking of the future I tend to think that it's going to be bleak so I figured a more deconstructed version of Futura was in order. Unlike most projects where I brainstorm and sketch five billion ideas, I immediately knew how I wanted it to look and I jumped right in head first. At the same time that I was working on this project, the ass hat U.S. government was officially shut down. Our leaders are running this country into the ground which inspired me to relate it to that event, hence the image behind. No future was only fitting for the name of the type.

DROP YOUR PANTS HERE

Uh huh huh huh... drop your pants...

Undies required?

DEVIANT GOLFER

So I tried golfing for the first  time the other day. I pounded a couple balls (uh huh huh huh) pretty damn far but the rest of the time... all in the rough baby. All I really want to do is whack the shit out of the damn ball as hard as I can like it kicked my momma in the face. I didn't do so hot and golfing isn't something I plan on taking seriously or doing again anytime soon but it was amusing none the less.

SERIGRAPH: PIERCING

This is my newest serigraph work titled "Piercing." Since I unveiled this print at the Bombshelter Show, I've been asked quite a few times about its meaning and why the name Piercing. I typically don't reveal the entire back story or reasoning behind all my pieces. I do this because I don't want to skew how this art speaks to the individual viewer. Plus the meaning I attach to the work might make turn off some viewers. It's not that I'm trying to please anyone but I like an uncontrolled destiny for my work. Wow that sounded pretentious. Any-who...

The name of this piece is Piercing due to this lost souls intense and penetrating gaze and the symbol behind him. I believe that there is a faint unsettling feeling that creeps over the viewer as those somewhat eerie yet sorrowful eyes leer back. The sharp-tipped foreboding black triangle behind the face also subconsciously pierces the psyche of the onlooker. Triangles in general have a lot of connotations but more specifically to this work, it's a subtle reference to the badges that were forced upon inmates at Nazi concentration camps. Those that were deemed "asocial" got the black triangle. There are also three dimensional recessed lines or what I like to call "bars," that I hand pressed into the paper to also liken back to Nazi incarceration. 

This piece is a four layer, three color, 9 edition limited series screen print. The triangle and face were printed with Eco-friendly, water based inks which I meticulously hand mix. The drips oozing from the dreaded triangle were hand painted with oil based lithograph ink. The drips are all slightly different and thus unique for each piece as can be seen in the 2nd image below. As mentioned earlier, this lightweight linter paper was hand pressed in certain areas with "bars" to give the work more physical depth and a deeper, more visceral story, which can be seen in the 3rd image below. I also intentionally "rough handled" this delicate fibrous cotton paper to give each piece more character. 

Let me know what you think and there are editions of this for sale in my newly reopened lastdeviant Etsy shop. Check it out!

"Piercing"

Drying of the triangle badges

Recessed "bars"

The ooze

Face detail

Full size

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN AND VETERANS SCHOOLING

For VA Education Benefits users out there, we should still get paid even with our ass hat government being shut down. Veterans are more protected than other parts of the federal government, but vets and their families should still be concerned and not be surprised if payments get delayed or even stopped if the shutdown is prolonged for a long stint.

Note: This comes directly from the Veteran's Field Guild to Government Shutdown.