I don't live here anymore. Visit my new blog in a new location!

Pictures I took

My dear friend Laura Davis is moving to LA at the end of the month and taking a job with Yahoo. She currently resides in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, so I went last weekend to visit her. We tried unsuccessfully to go to the Brooklyn Flea Market, which was in Dumbo. Because of the rain, it closed early. But, I really enjoyed walking around the area (and had some delicious sushi). I took a pictures of some architecture I liked.



This is pretty modern, but I enjoyed this building. It reminded me of Legos.


A big fan of the colums on the Brooklyn Bridge.

And, me in Kid Robot in SoHo. I love toys!


Yesterday I briefly traveled to DC to meet a mystery man on a motorcycle (he was buying my Fleet Foxes tickets from me). The traffic was insane, so I decided to park my car and walk for a bit. I parked across the street from these dilapidated houses:

Bits

Here is a recent page from my sketchbook, plus a small cut out I did this week:



I have been interested in drawing houses lately. I am currently trying to draw a tiger. Much harder than I thought.

A better blogger

I have nothing new to show (yet) but am keeping myself pretty busy these days. To add to the hustle-bustle, I am working on a new blog with Steph. Hopefully it will be launched later this summer! Exciting stuff.


I walk to work. I like architecture and shapes. One of the perks of walking to work is that I get to walk by old architecture nearly everyday. Here is a door that I'm rather fond of:

Love the color and the shape. Quatrefoils FTW.

Something I finally finished up.

I grew tired as I waited for lady luck

Something I worked on this weekend. A bit more involved than a sketch, but no real plans for what to do with this next.

Writing a small article for The South Wing about a facet of the Baltimore art scene. I met with a couple of guys at the Current Gallery tonight and plan on writing about the gallery/studio. Stay tuned.

Reunited (and it feels so good)

Slowly having time to work on my own work. Feels good, man. Real good.
Here's something that should have been posted weeks and weeks ago, but I am just finishing it tonight:

Mother's Day

The front of a card I made for my mom for mother's day. She is currently out of town on a roadtrip with my dad + their golden retrievers.

Speaking of dogs... I love these guys:

It's over and done with

April has, for the last three years, been the shittiest month of my year. I noticed the trend last year. I won't bore the blogosphere with the details, but April 2009 has since ended and I came out (happy to report) fairly unscathed.

I, unfortunately, have nothing new to post, but I am doing work. I am not being lazy. I will be posting new things hopefully later in the month or so.

Mutiny, I Promise You

It's been a little bit. I don't really have a lot to show, but I will post this:


More collaboration with Steph.

Also, I've started using Twitter and have become a bit obsessed. I downloaded an app on my phone so I can check it when I'm out and about. I like feeling connected. Also, I follow Shaq on Twitter. That guy is crazy and writes like a middle schooler.

Some progress. It's been a busy week. I had hardly got to work on this at all until tonight. I redid the hippo/water creature all together because I wasn't happy with my previous paper choices. I began fiddling with the background a bit and like where it's going.

Wilson Hsu:


I really like his work. One day I will own some of his prints for my walls. One day I will own prints of all the artists I like!

Going out of town for a long weekend.

I started on this tonight. It was something I had in my sketchbook.

EDIT:
I found some paper I liked and redid the hippo/water creature. I am not sure which one I prefer.

Behance.net

I'm usually really lazy about joining networking sites and often lack the motivation to really set one up. After receiving an invitation to join behance.net, I made myself sit down and do it. You can post projects on there, so it's a good way to showcase your work. Also, it's a good way for others to stumble upon your page, since you tag not only your profile, but portfolio as well.

Mine mine MINE.

Also: I went on a lovely date to the BMA last week and caught their exhibit, A Circus Family: Picasso to Léger. Overall, I thought it to be a great exhibit and especially enjoyed looking at the work of Fernand Leger. He was a French painter and doing a little bit of research on him brought up a portfolio of not only simple line drawings, but very considered cubist works.

Colorbloods

At a creative lull at the moment, so I thought I would take the surprise away from Steph and post a picture of our collaboration in progress. Get ready, Steph! This baby should be in your hands by the end of the week.

It seems I have come full circle and started to read The Something Awful Forums again. Often times I go months without reading them, but I have recently become interested again. Talking to my brother tonight, he also mentioned how he's been reading as well. Must be a twin thing!

An update of the piece I posted yesterday. I digg the idea of a "rising out of the rubbish" sort of theme, which was my inspiration. I also have really been enjoying drawing on top of cutouts I have created. I am not sure I am going to stick with the black lines, but that's all I can do for tonight.


While in the boonies, I watched a lot of television. Almost an embarrassing amount I'd say, considering what I was surrounded by (trees! I love those things!). I won't go into detail about how much I enjoyed Cops, but I did manage to catch a little bit of I Dream of Jeannie. I used to watch A LOT of Nick at Nite when I was younger, which aired an ample amount of the sitcom. Rewatching the show reminded me of what a great intro it has - great shape design to the Jeannie character and the genie bottle. It reminded me some of Mary Blair. It is no wonder that I am drawn to work like this in my adulthood. I grew up on watching old shows from the 60's and 70's. My childhood nostalgia helps to inspire my art-making.

it was so clear to me that it was almost invisible

I started working on this while away, it's in the prelim stages for now.

So the saying says..

I assembled this together yesterday and am going to take it into Illustrator soon.

I leave for vaycay on Friday for ~6 days. I am, however, bringing my laptop complete with a scanner + wacom tablet so I don't fall too far behind on projects. I'll be in the boonies of West Virgina, ya'll!

I assembled some of these guys today:
To be used in a piece soon.

this tornado loves you!

Just scanned this baby in. Note the black background, making it easy to trace around the image with the magnetic tracing tool in Photoshop. I'll do something with it this weekend.


I got me (+Ryan) some tickets to see the Avett Brothers in May in Philadelphia. It seems I have stopped spending money on clothes and have replaced it with buying concert tickets.

More progress

More progress. From what I posted yesterday. I don't really like tedious things, but for some reason I find it very cathartic to make things like these.


As I have mentioned in my blog before, I do a collaboration with Stephanie Leung that involves stamps, paper, paint, among other things. Steph lives in Oakland, on the other side of the country. A collaboration begins with one of us creating a piece of work (so far using collage) and then sends it in the mail to the other. The other person then works on top/with/in response to what the other one did and mails it back. We stop when we feel like the piece is complete. The one went through a lot of stages, but I like it. It's a dialouge between the both of us.

Steph sends the best mail. All of her packaging is so thoughtful and well considered! She recently decorated a Munny that I had and didn't like how it looked. I'll post a picture of what she did. It was great!

Deep Red Bells

More than one person has now commented on the fact that I need an update, so here it is:

I just started working on this yesterday. There's some process for you! Other than that, I've been doing sketches and stuff for other projects, in addition to trying to find a decent job amidst this horrible, horrible economy.



On a completely unrelated note, I'm sure many blog readers know about my deep love for Neko Case. I love everything about her*- her unconventional song structure, her song lyrics, her blog... hell, even her fiery red hair. She's alternative country with punk rock roots. Anyways... she has a new album coming out March 3rd, which I will get the day it comes out. I've been reading the buzz on the album and it's been very positive, only fueling my enthusiasm of the album. And to top it off, further proof that I have a really swell boyfriend - he bought tickets for us to the April 8th Neko Case show in WDC. I've heard that she gives amazing performances, so I'm in for a treat.

*NYT Magazine article writes, "...along with a growing cadre of intense, often lovesick fans"

digital get down

I posted this the other day, but drew on top of it this weekend. I'm not sure how well the two elements work together, seeing as are pretty different. I did very much enjoy drawing the patterns on top of the hand-assembled stuff though.

Not really a fan of Forever 21, but I liked this wallpaper they had.

A little thing I've been working on recently.

Yesterday:
The weather was bad, so I took the shuttle to work.

Today's photo still to come.

Pictures from Tuesday:

I was riding in an elevator and thought the sign was sorta cool. The graphic of the fire, along with the colors and text looked a bit retro to me. I dug.

The other day, Steph asked me if I had any plants in my bedroom. Yes, I do:

This was taken when I was walking to work today. It was snowing... sadly, not anymore.

sunday sunday SUNDAY!

my favorite part of my bedroom

Illustration and Photos

First, an illo that was added to the childrens section of my site yesterday:


Second, a picture from Friday. It was Sara's birthday on Wednesday, so we went to a drag show at our local gay bar. Too bad I was too far away to get a decent picture, but this queen was awesome. She had a giant pink mohawk and danced around to some Pink songs. My favorite.


EDIT:

Here's a picture for Saturday as well. There is a groccery store that I like to go that's about a 15 min walk from my apartment. I often dislike driving, so this is perfect me. It's a name brand store, but it is very compact because it's downtown. I like that about it. Products are everywhere.

four days behind

So you might think I have been lacking in my promise of 365 photolog, but alas, I have not been home the past few days (and unable to upload). Faithful viewers, here are four photos from the past four days of my life:

Monday:
Monday night after work I went to DC to meet up with some friends and watch the Presidential Inauguration the next day. After being ~2 hrs late (sorry Laura), I met up with my friends at a place called Pharmacy Bar, in the Adams Morgan area of DC. The bar was just right: a dive, dark, and cheap drinks. Cool decor as well. Also, it was the first time I donned my new MD drivers license to a bouncer.

Tuesday:Tuesday I went to join the hoards of people in seeing Obama become the next president. The whole deal worked out pretty well for me - I comfortably watched the parade from a terrace ~ a block away from Pennsylvania Ave., where I could go inside and get warm and drink free hot chocolate. I also had a really great view and got to see the president and first lady walking down Pennsylvania Ave! My digital camera died before I could get any pictures though, so I was taking pictures with my iphone. No great pictures came of that... but I loved this sign. I love little acts of vandalism like that sometimes.

Wednesday:

Nothing exciting happened on Wednesday. I worked. This is a poster printer that I used yesterday.

Thursday (today):


I have a pretty great view from my apartment (about half a mile from the heart of downtown Baltimore), but I also like this view every once and a while. Ryan technically lives in the city, but his view is much more senic. He lives up in the hills surrounded by old houses and trees. This is what I saw when I looked out the window this morning.

I will upload art-related stuff tonight and post!

so it begins

Upon reading Stephanie Leung's blog today, she wrote about how she was going to do a 365 photolog. I post a new photo each day. It will be an interesting way to show how I live and work. I thought it would seem like fun, so I'll give it a shot.

I'll be uploading all the photo to a Piscasa web album as well.

Here's the first image. Supplies on my desk:

lately

I made this recently, it's the moon.

This is the front of birthday card that I made for my dad. It's so belated! My parents like their golden retrievers, so I included the dogs.

I am officially a Marylander, leaving my KC roots behind- I got a MD drivers license last week, and this week I get MD license plates for my car! But, having to get my car ready for the safety inspection (which included getting all new tires for my car) actually makes me resent having a car in the first place...

new look

After repeatedly making excuses, I finally revamped my website. It took a lot less time than I thought! I think it's simple, yet effective. I feel much better about this version of my site, so I am going to attempt to delve back into self-promo.

In other news, I started my training for a triathlon. I sort of thought it as a new years resolution and something I've been wanting to do for years. At this point, I think I'd get bored running a long race. I believe my attention span will be just right for this sort of race: half a mile swimming, 15-18 miles biking, and 3.1 miles running. The only thing I really need to work on is swimming, which I had not done in years, most likely since high school. I had my first swimming session on Monday, and it was a killer. It will prove to be more difficult than I thought. Still, I intend to persevere!