Tug ‘O War

First, let me say to my faithful handful of readers… my apologies. It’s been a crazy long time since i’ve posted anything. I have 3 excuses for this. Two are crap. The other is pretty good. The first crap one is that i sort of got burned out after that museum show i did. I know, it’s art, not ditch-digging. Not an outlet i should tire of. But i’m not complaining… it happens. The second crap excuse is my 9 to 5 gig has been stupid busy lately. I rarely feel like making art when i get off work… I’d rather nap – which doesn’t happen – and there’s the segue to the third and final excuse. – the less crappy one – between the last post and this one… i done gone and had me a nipper. That was hayseed for, “I welcomed the birth of my second son.” His name is Trouper. He’s awesome. They tend to be awesome before they learn to talk back. Not that i don’t appreciate sarcasm or the skill it takes to be a genuine smartass… like Fletch for example. My first born, he’s a smartass. Not so much like Fletch, more like David Spade. Im getting ridiculously off track; probably the 4 hours sleep i’m on. I do need to mention that the new kid has the unmistakably rugged good-looks of his Dad. My other one, “firstborn” as he’ll now be called, looks just like the wife. God has restored the balance to the universe. Let’s move on.

So a few months ago I posted this about a guy, Mr. Duncan, who had one of my designs permanently etched into his skin. Very flattering that. Alas, tattoo tributes are not exactly profitable. However, Mr. Duncan had other plans – namely to commission a piece based on the Tug’OWar Design. Up to this point, it had only seen light of day in my book and in the background of a digital illustration i did some years back. So I gladly accepted.

Been working on metal every now and then over the last few years. Steel actually, that i adhere to wood with strong-ass gorilla glue before outfitting with hanging wire. Hard to shoot these pieces due to their reflective properties. This piece for instance – those yellow dots nearly disappear at some angles while they float off the surface at others. Speaking of those dots, an afterthought i admit… well i don’t know… my process isn’t all that well thought out… most of my methods would probably fall into the afterthought category… anyhoo, i dig the dots – ’twas  a bit risky considering the stencil did not survive and therefore i couldn’t have redone it had the dots failed to impress. That was a crazy run-on sentence.

Here’s another shot.

So luckily – i mean, naturally – Mr. Duncan liked the piece. But before he gets it, I have it on display at the Schepis Museum in Columbia, LA. I have another admission, i’m a little worried about that Schepis show. Columbia is not the biggest town nor is it exactly known for it’s appreciation of aerosol art. Hopefully there will be a mad turnout. I don’t know. If you’re reading this, show up. The opening/reception is on Thursday, the 24th of this month. I’m giving a little talk at 5:30. If you’re reading this and you’re related to me, you’re pretty much obligated to show up. That’s just physics or something.

Anyway, Thanks to Mr. Duncan for allowing me to put it in the show before it graces his own wall. Here’s another shot.

Some of you may wonder if there’s an anti-war message to this piece. The answer is an atypical “yes.” I know, i’m usually all cryptic or unsure. Thing is, i’m not personally opposed to war; I understand the idea of power and the battle against oppression, all that – still… we live in an age where geography seems to dictate morality for the shot-callers. And from my limited viewpoint, seems that death and destruction always follow war – i can’t see how anyone could be pro-death. I dont know, my firstborn might be – he loves to watch car crashes on youtube. I’m always yelling at the boy “inappropriate!” Ah, kids.

The piece is 12 X 24 if you’re wondering. I’ll be facebooking the Schepis show like crazy next week. Hopefully some of the Art Crawl regulars will come out. Until then…

10 Words

Finally… I’ve been meaning to post this for days… time is not my friend and i fear it’s about to get much worse. And there’s not that much to say really. Just a newish painting i wanted to share.  It’s the second piece I’ve done in the last year that’s inspired by/from music lyrics; Apple Pie being the first. However, unlike the Apple Pie piece, this one is not so interpretive. It is what it is. I call it “Ten Words.” And it goes a little something like this:

This one isn’t for everybody. I mean, most of my work wouldn’t make it into your average living room, i get that… who wants an average living room anyway? Thomas Kinkade I aint.  But this piece is a little… abrasive. Which is fine, because so is the song that inspired it. I’ll get to that in a second.

My intent all along was to resin the hell out of it, really thick, then smash it. I wanted it to have cracks. Or just one big, web-looking crack, really. But you know what? You can’t smash resin. I knew it wouldn’t break like glass but i figured it would splinter out a little when i hit it with a crowbar. Alas, besides nearly busting my eardrums, the only effect from hitting this thing with all my might was a slight dent. Bout the size of a big thumb. Bigger than mine, i have girl hands. So this thumb-sized, blemish looked horrible. I had ruined my painting. So with nothing to lose, i smashed the hell out of it until it literally split in two. Then three. Finally i stopped at 5 completely separate pieces of jagged wood. Why? Well… it was either try to find a way to satisfy my creative intentions (which was to have the piece physically mirror the aggression behind the lyric) or trash it. And trust me, i’ve gone the latter route many times. But this time, i thought i could save it. And I did. For my purposes anyway.

I gathered the pieces. Used  some gorilla glue – strong stuff – you can see how it expanded through the cracks in a couple of places (wish it hadn’t done that actually) – and then I doused it with more resin. Like, a lot more.  Honestly, i didn’t think it would hold. I figured i would have to bracket it together and i really didn’t think i would go through the trouble. Art is supposed to be fun and i’m one of the few men on the planet who hates going to hardware stores. The smell of those places… reminds me of doing yardwork as a kid… i hate yardwork. Anyway, the combo of glue and resin held. I’m really not sure how well it held – i hesitate to put any pressure on it – but hey, it stayed together long enough for me to hang it on the wall. What more can you ask for?

More than any of my other pieces, this one gets long, confused stares from our beloved senior citizens. I don’t know if its the lyric or the chop job. And about the lyric…

Greatest band ever. If it says embedding disabled or something… it’s worth a trip to youtube.

Until next time. Thanks for reading.

The Big Show

Nearly a year ago, the curator of Masur Museum approached me with this idea. He wanted to do a graffiti show. Of course I was very excited and flattered he would want to include me. But honestly I wasn’t overly optimistic that the show would ever happen. I mean, it’s not a terribly rare thing nowadays, a street-art themed show…alas, the town in which i live isn’t one of the great metropolises – we’re not exactly known for our graffiti culture and in reality, most people that indulge in the medium would sooner be classified as vandals than artists. Rightfully so i’m afraid. Yet, I type this having come in from the opening not 2 hours ago. And from my perspective it was a wild success. Well done, Ben. The show skewed away from it’s original roots i think; this is not a bad thing – and it might not even be true – could be a simple perspective issue – mine, being too narrow… but regardless, the show took on a life to encompass all things “mural.” Graffiti was one of those things, as was stencil-art and vinyl, as well as a chalkboard room for the kiddies to scribble on. All good.

I mentioned this show in a previous post.  See, this is the first time I’ve painted something on this scale. I’ve done big paintings before but never wall size. So I did a trial run on a smaller canvas which had a 2-fold purpose. First, it gave me a chance to work out the kinks. But secondly, since the Masur show (called “Outside In”) was to have all the artists (5 of us) actually paint directly on the wall… a wall that would eventually be painted over once the show ends, I wanted to make a version of my design that would last a little longer than 2 months. A take-home version if you will. So I did.

It’s fun working big. And I can do it a lot faster than i expected – probably took me as long to cut all those giant stencils as it did to actually paint the piece. And guess what? I taped it. Two and half days of work in under 30 seconds. Check it:

 

And if you’re still reading, here are a few shots of the final piece as well as the room that i have most of my work in.

Thanks to my friend, Ali Hijazi for helping me with the stencils as well as spelling my name right. It was difficult editing you out of that video, but you understand that it’s important people think i did it completely on my own… luckily no one reads this.

That piece there in the foreground is relatively new; other than the gorilla, it’s the only thing i’ve done in 2012 so far. I was going to go more in depth about it within this post but my eyes are getting seriously heavy. It’s the second piece I’ve done inspired by lyrics. I’ll post about it later.

Thanks for Ben and Evie for throwing the shindig, for Masur and it’s board for the follow-through, and everyone who came out tonight…and as always, thanks to my faithful readers.

Goodnight.

BROKEN DREAMS

So check this out…

So there it is. I finally decided that the publishing world was simply not ready for my genius. Y’know, since they rejected my attempts at the traditional method of publication. So I did what any struggling artist with a misplaced sense of entitlement would do, I self-published. Is it a cop-out? Sure. Am I any less excited? Maybe a little. But my pride in completing a book and actually having it sold online is still very much in check.

So now I implore you fine people, the readers of my blog, the fans of my work… go… buy my book. Buy enough that I can afford this:

It’s not much really. I need a new record player. Mine skips if I even walk near it. And if my math is correct, I’ll only have to sell 200 books to get it. Sigh. Maybe some new shoes would be a more attainable goal. I really want some new oxfords with cheery colored soles. Like these:

If you don’t think those are dope, you may still like the book… point is, don’t let my sense of fashion reflect to broadly. But really, who wouldn’t look better in lime green soles? You gotta see the blue ones. I might be getting off track.

So you can get the book HERE! 

It’s about a boy who has the perfect dream. It’s so perfect, he decides to share it with his classmates during show-n-tell the next day. Unfortunately, before he has a chance to show it off, he breaks it. And wouldn’t you know it, a broken dream is nothing more than a nightmare.

That was my synopsis. Who wouldn’t want to buy that?

And here’s a couple shots of what’s inside:

Those last 2 shots are actually one spread.

The book was written with a 5 to 10 year old audience in mind. Preschool to 5th grade or thereabouts. But honestly, and without a hint of modesty, the illustrations were designed to cater to the ageless; those that like graphic novels, cheap red wine, and instrumental hip-hop (at the same time), and all those in between (particularly those who would wear blue soled oxfords).

yours,

- jbn

IN THE MIST OF AEROSOL

Soooooo… new painting I want to share. Tis big. 36 X 48 inches. It all started when i was told i needed to come up with something new for an upcoming show. See, i had a painting already for this particular show, but i had shown it a couple times and the venue in question was beginning to feel like they were getting used goods. Or something. Understandably. So they asked for something new – and i’m glad they did, otherwise i just let laziness consume me and go with whatever is easiest.

So I had this idea. Not really able to explain it so much, alas, I can break down the process of execution for you lovely readers. Here goes… step 1: CONCEPT.

I know. It’s like what? But that’s how I work. I create a composite in photoshop first. Which just basically serves as a storyboard for my ideas, allowing me to move things around and change colors, etc. The text in the foreground will be done in a varnish. You’ll see a picture at the end of this post of the final piece, but it’s difficult to make out the text from the photo. And now it reads, “OBSERVE REACT REPEAT.”

Next I take the composite into illustrator where i design the stencil parts. That would be step 2:

I like the propaganda look. Shepard Fairey – style. Playing with that a bit here. I’m also obsessed with making my images look as if they’ve been aged and weathered as if on the streets. Hence the reason I like to use old posters within my paintings – gives it a sense of permanence I think. That’s probably not the right word. Moving on. Step 3: execution, background.

I think the pink area came out well. Probably my favorite part of the whole thing actually… or at least the one thing that matched what i had in my head. I aged the posters at the bottom with graffiti, wood stain, scratches and tears (either pronunciation is accurate).

Those planes were just annoying. I mean, they were simple enough. But cutting the same shape 4 times for 4 different sizes grew old quickly. Not that i’m complaining… so far so good. Oh, and you’re probably saying, “I only see 3 different sizes,” True. I add the 4th later. By the way, if the spacing looks off – it’s because it totally is – I just eyeball this stuff.

Alright. Step 4: foreground, the gorilla. The gorilla, including his hat/goggles is made up of 6 stencils – and 9 colors I think (including the variations i put within the goggles and the blue outline). I cut all the stencils by hand on poster board that i just taped together. Here’s the grey foundation and about half of the black.

I could tell at this point that i would need another plane near the right over his shoulder. I’m sure there’s a king kong subtext here somewhere.

Okay, big jump now. I didn’t document the process of making the hat and goggles apparently. When I did the blue outline, I went too far into the goggle on the right. I fixed that later (thankfully the stencils survived so i didn’t have to recut anything). I used a KRINK pen to add some detail to the black.

The only part of the painting i’m unsatisfied with is the strap hanging down. I never should have outlined it. Oh well. Also, on the final piece, i’ve put a couple dots of “light” in the absent pupils of the gorilla. Just to give him some life. I’m probably going to make those bigger before this thing is ever hung in a gallery. Also, I may go back and add a little more distress to the entire piece. Some graffiti elements here and there. I don’t know. Might have to do something to that strap too. Let it go. Let it go.

And here’s an angled shot of the final piece. Showing the final step, the varnished letters, which are more subtle than i originally intended but that’s cool… this isn’t science.

That’s it. Price available on request. Happy new years and thanks for reading.

 

Tug O’War Tattoo

Happy holidays, kids. I wanted to share this image that I was sent. Many of you out there have Flowers in the Attic tattoos. You send them to me. I love them. You can see a collection on my old site, here. And although I love to see them  (it really never gets old to me that someone would put my work on their skin), I have to admit that the initial surprise of seeing my work etched into someone’s body has passed. I think it’s because that particular design has gotten bigger than i will ever be. I’m removed from it now. Hell, most people think Banksy did it anyway… moving on. But occasionally a fan of my work will send me a photo of a tattoo featuring a lesser known image of mine. Exhibit A:

Cool right? See, I had these books printed up – you can find them here - that feature images of mine that never really saw the light of day. Some have made it into paintings but most are stepping stones on the way to commissioned pieces.  I sell these books but I also include them for free when someone buys a print or painting of mine. Which was the case when Mr. Duncan purchased the above-mentioned Flowers In The Attic print. In this book, on the centerfold actually, is the tank-tug-o-war illustration. Originally, I drew it up as part of this image:

You can see it very faintly at the very bottom. If you follow my work at all, you know I do a lot of stencil-style stuff. The tank illustration was done in this manner with the intention of putting it on the streets… never did. So until i got the idea of printing up the book (a bad idea i should add… i don’t have the money for these flights of fancy), the design was just sitting on my hard drive, dying a slow, obscure death. Actually, i think the hopscotch/bomb illustration was published in defish magazine a few years back, but since the tank if relatively hidden, I decided to feature it in the book. ANYWAY, i’m totally off track, all that to say that a few weeks after Mr. Duncan purchased a print, he sent me the tank tattoo photo. Thanks for that. Here’s a shot of the children:

Later this week, I’ll be posting a shot of my new painting as well as an explanation (complete with photos) of the process. Just in time for new years (i don’t know what that means). I also self-published my children’s book through amazon; more on that next week. THEN i must get started on this big show I’m involved in at Masur Museum. I’ll document that as well. Point is – this blog is alive and well, dust off the cobwebs, start your engines, all that. Until next time.

The Discarded Instruments Concept

The title for this post doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue does it? Alas, that was my idea for concept #2 for Liz Murray’s album cover. For the first attempt, I tried to convey my ideas over the phone to get approval before starting. For this one, the concept wasn’t much of a concept. All the strength of the image was in the execution and not so much the idea itself. I knew this and decided to work it up before ever mentioning the idea to Liz or her team. Luckily it paid off. She likes it. They like it. All is good with the world.

If you read the previous post, you know why I needed to do a second version. Basically the first one just didn’t compliment Liz’s sound the way it needed to. I think this one does.

I do a lot of photo-manipulation in my advertising gig but normally stick to illustration for most of my freelance work. The reason being is that advertising runs at the speed of money and rarely do I have time to do a proper illustration for a client without that time running head to head with another assignment. Understandably, clients would rather get a good piece on time than a great piece late. Anyway, it was fun doing a photo-illustration without my usual confines. I rarely take on freelance gigs that involve compromise. I figure if the client chose to seek me out, they want my personal spin on the project. Agency work is a bit different since the clients don’t usually know my work personally. Totally getting off topic. Here’s a shot of the cover design, isolated without the text elements:

I know, crows always find their way into my work. I’ve accepted it.

I think the image is peaceful. Might put it on canvas or something. I don’t know. I say that more often that I actually do it. Did you know the T is silent in “often?” Oh, you did? Yea, me too.

Bout to start working on a big piece. Has a gorilla in it. And airplanes. I’ll try to document it as I go. Until then…

The Girl with the Chair

Been a long time since I posted anything. I hit a nice creative stride a few months back; gotta few pieces out of it… but I got winded it would seem. Haven’t been in a fine-art making mood as of late. However, i have had a couple freelance, commercial gigs that have kept the juices flowing. One of which I shall share with you fine people now.

I have been commissioned to do an album cover for local singer, Liz Murray, whose album drops early next year. I’m currently in the middle of  version 2 of said album cover. The first version, while liked, didn’t really convey the vibe of the music. But I like the piece. And I plan on making a small print out of it. So I thought i would show it off here first.

Since it was designed to work as the front and back of a digipack single fold, it’s a long narrow design – and for my own purposes (since it won’t be used for the album anymore), I’ve made it even longer. Panoramic style. See…

The idea of a person, specifically a young girl, alone in this vastness with nothing but a chair was an interesting concept to me. Not sure I can explain why. Initially, that wasn’t supposed to be blood she was walking in – it was supposed to be ladybugs – but while that idea rocked in my head, i couldn’t get it to rock on the screen. So now it’s blood. Whatever. And the chair… I knew from the start i wanted the chair to be very different from everything else – tone, style, execution, etc. – all very different from the color palette and surroundings. Again, this idea was intriguing to me although I cant honestly say what it means.

Here’s a shot of the girl and the chair (which rests dead center) at 100%…

Took a while to draw that darn chair. Thanks go out to my friend, Jenifer Parker, for posing for me. She’s posed for me before. She’s willing, does what i ask, and doesn’t question how she looks or the end result… a perfect subject. Thanks again; sorry they’re not using it but if i get it printed, I’ll definitely show it at the gallery and I’ll get you a copy.

I’ll post version 2 later this week. It’s very different from this one. I like it a lot.

Thanks for reading.

Virus Girl

Newish painting, based on an old painting and an even older illustration. I did the Virus Girl design for a band back in the day – that version was a little different. Then I painted it on an old door that I found; you can find that one on my gutterpark site. That version sold a few years ago and now I’ve resurrected the stencil at the request of a potential buyer for this new version. And it goes a little something like this…

The version on the door has some varnished water drops laid over the top – i like that – might do something similar on this one – better hurry though, the show is tomorrow night. Downtown Gallery Crawl tomorrow night ya’ll. Hope to see all those within driving distance there. I’ll have 8 new pieces on display, including this one. Here’s a another angle:

You can probably tell from the photos that this version is on metal, adhered to wood. 12 X 18 inches. Been signing (stenciling) my work on the back lately – my signature is distracting i think. So… pricing this one for the budget -conscious. Contact me if you’re interested. Thanks for looking.

Butterflies and Wolves

Here’s another illustration without a home. This was initially sketched out for a client. But about half way in, i realized it wasn’t going to work for it’s original purpose – but i finished it anyway. It’s very indicative of my older, stencil-style work – with the black/red color scheme and the use of negative space (not to mention the butterflies).

If anyone has a use for it, let me know.

I’m involved in a group show come November so I started going through some of my digital illustrations to see if anything was worthy of getting reprinted. I came across a design I did about 4 years ago called STRAY – sort of a red riding hood thing. I had to resize it and move some things around for reasons I won’t bore you with, but I ended up using the pose from the illustration above as my new “Red.”

Worked out pretty good. I’m having it giclee printed on gallery-wrapped canvas – painting the sides gold. I think the final piece will be 15 X 30 inches. Here’s some detail shots.

Next week, I’ll post a small painting that I just completed as well as shots from the upcoming “Gallery Crawl.” Thanks for looking.