New Work, Part II

More new stuff, hooray. Most of this stuff is hung up several floors above me getting judged by other people as I currently type. I'm excited to see how my review goes over this time around, because over all, I think that I definitely had one of the most consistent and productive semesters of my whole college experience. We'll see if my professors agree with me in just a few minutes.
/out

Laughing is Good for Your Health, 2009. Mixed media

Untitled, 2009. Acrylic, collage and transfer on board
A little experiment with layering and texture applications.

Shreddin', 2009. Acrylic, collage and transfer on board
This is the piece that the Boston Phoenix chose for the
cover of its annual Ski & Snowboard Guide.

Awesome

My friend Max just made this video montage of pictures he took at my my birthday get-together a few weeks back. Things like this are the reason why I am friends with Max.

Happy looming holidays

New Work, Part I

Here's some new and some new-ish pieces that I have been working on as of late. More to come as soon as I get around to posting them.

Snakephone, 2009. Acrylic & collage on board

Under the Dragon, 2009. Acrylic & collage on board

The Holy See, 2009 Acrylic, transfer and collage on board

Robots Leave No Fingerprints

I'm finished with my degree project. It was a long road getting up to this point, but here's everything as it stands right now.

My series of images is based around a visual marriage of film noir and retro science fiction. I picked the two because they both have strong roots in the post-WWII 1940s and 50s, and they play well off of each other in terms of aesthetic style. The actual look of the pieces is a bit of a departure from my usual work, but it matches the subject material well and it was fun and kind of nostalgic to revisit charcoal for a while. The images are designed to loosely follow some sequence of events which can be left up to the viewer's imagination:

"A single shot rang out in the dark."

"A dead suit in a shady part of town.
Bad news for him, good business for me."

"I may be a detective, but you sure didn't
need one to see that this guy got taken
out with steadier hands than a human's."

"When she looked you over, you
felt like the Sunday paper."

"Guys with pockets this deep always have
more than just safes in their closets."

"I hate being chased by guys
with nicer cars than mine."

"We both knew we were lying to each other,
but for now, none of that mattered."

Wowiee

So this weekend was pretty successful. The setup and reception for the MassArt students traveling abroad show that I am a part of on Friday went great, and my Abominable Snowman Phoenix Ski & Snowboard guide cover came out! There is a slideshow on the Phoenix website with all of the submissions from my class here.

The description they wrote for my piece is pure awesome. I realize in retrospect that the contrast in the image is a little too high (blame the school monitors), but it looks pretty great in print anyways. Funnnn times.

I draw things that actually exist sometimes

Here's a 'best of' collection from my spring/summer '09 observational sketchbook. Earlier this year I started using bic pens and prismacolor markers together, and have discovered that they are best bros for quick and non-crappy observation sketching. Cool.

Roooooooooooosh

Jeremiah's distinctive nose, and Jeremiah

Monkeys, Pt. I

Monkeys, Pt. II. I want to be friends with this one.

Apteryx Australis=Kiwi

People doing stuff

Hey, elephant

I can't remember what this bird was

Andrew

My friend, the label maker

Ben, deep in thought

My friends in VT: one awful portrait and one amazing portrait

Christian Science Center: it looks like it's sunny out, but it was actually the middle of the night and so windy I couldn't hold my sketchbook open...

David, looking wistfully towards the horizon, dreaming of a better day

Dave, Pt. IIBPL

All in all, I think this is my best sketchbook series yet, and I'm really satisfied with the style and volume of stuff that I've put into it, especially in such a relatively short time and without any kind of school supervision or prodding. Speaking of which, that starts next week...

Back in Boston

Vermont was cool, but I'm happy to be back with my apartment, guitar amp and friends. The gallery opening I had was pretty awesome. I got a warm reception from everyone and a lot of positive reactions to my man-climbing-through-mirror piece in particular. Here's the junk that I entered in:

It'd be cool if I sell at least one and make back the cost of framing them all, but I'm not on the edge of my seat waiting. Sketchbook stuff to come soon. Peace.

Summertime

So, since the family computer here back in Vermont would die a horrible death if I tried to run photoshop on it, this page is going to be boring for a while. I'll fix that later. On the bright side, I'm getting ready to show some of my art in a little gallery in town for a couple of months starting in July. It's my first time actually showing/attempting to sell anything legitimately on my own, so hopefully that goes over well. At the very least, I discovered that framing is like recess for me. I have no life.

Ta da

I finally made some sort of webpage to post art to. Hooray. Someday I'll post art on it.