Master Magicians of Mythological Metal!

Leeches of Lore join forces with Gnossurrus to rain down the Apocalypse on Evangelo's
Friday night!



I wanted this poster to be epic since both of these bands rock so hard, and I would love to see them together again in Santa Fe. Plus, I love doing posters and want to do more; maybe even get to do some for pay. I've done a few for Gnossurrus now, but this is my chance to make an impression on the Leeches and their fans.

I also wanted to get this poster out there for people to see. So, I employed a slightly different workflow from my norm. I scanned pencil sketches of the art and used Adobe Illustrator to digitally "finish" the art. I still prefer to have a more traditional, finished artifact. But, I'm happy with this piece. Even though my shortcut process took me not less than a week and a half from conception to completion.

The Horror, the Horror...

Gnossurrus strikes fear into your heart, then blasts your head off with sonic DOOM at Meow Wolf, this Friday night!

I wanted a classic, hand-drawn, metal feel for this one. Something spooky for October. The background tone I created in Photoshop. Then, I applied it and the font to a vector-trace of the the scanned drawing in Illustrator.

Reborn Gnossurrus Returns to Evangelo's

And I got to do the poster for the show! If you're in Fanta Se that night there is no reason good enough to miss it.

Introduction to Printmaking - Part the Second

Right then, the semester's been over for a week or two; except for the dreaded Flash final that wouldn't die... Time I updated the great, empty sucking sound that is my presence on the www.

LINOCUTS

Absolutely, this is my interface with the world of making marks on surfaces using a press. Austrian and German Expressionist Woodcut prints, along with Ukiyo-e are what made me want to learn about handmade prints. I owe every bit of my current drawing style to the Expressionists' prints. Linoleum, of course, is a lot easier to carve than wood but I'm told that the approach is very similar.

SKETCHING THE SUICIDE GIRLS

For this post, I had to add the "View Adult Content, Tipper Sticker" to my blog. Watch out folks; boobies and other girly bits below.

It's been on my mind lately that one of the finest, old traditions in art is getting people to take off their clothes and sit for you render their form in whatever your media of choice is.

I got a swell little book, maybe a month ago, of 108 drawings by various contemporary artists represented by Allen Spiegel Fine Arts. Cats I dig, like Scott Morse, Dave McKean, and Jon J. Muth got me to pick up the little treasure. Kent Williams kinda stole the show, and keeps me flipping through the book again. He does some loose, open drawings so loaded with sex, they make me want to be an artist just to capture that.

I have a mini portfolio of serigraphs Craig Thompson did of one of his exes that has the same frisson.

There is a snotty, avant-garde, little voice that I don't remember inviting to the party in my head, who still won't shut up with: "Figure study is sketchbook, masturbation stuff/ It's so been done/ It has nothing to say to the modern era of ART." Whatever. It's not actually hard to grok why in thousands of years of art history, humankind hasn't finished drawing each other naked.

Makes me regret that of the few young ladies I've talked out of their clothes, not to a one did I then say; "Hold still while I draw you." You'd think I got distracted by something.

Now I've had to resort to drawing models out of porn magazines and Suicide Girls.

Introduction to Printmaking - Part the First

SPRING BREAK!!!
With the Flash mid-term in the can; perhaps I will take some time to post a little of what I've been up to. This semester, I am taking an intro to hand-made printmaking class. Best thing I've done for myself since I don't know when. Which has nothing to do with my graphic design certificate; at least from a credits standpoint. From my point of view, reproduction of images is the beginnings of separating design from fine arts. Why there needs to be a hard delineation between the two is something none of my design classes so far have taught me. Seems like the fine arts these days could only benefit from reabsorbing design. I'm not even sure I want a graphic design certificate. I find many designers to be pretty irritating. But, I'll be dipped if I'm doing all of this schooling to merely learn new things. I want my piece of paper!
But, hey, how 'bout them tangents! On to prints:

MONOPRINTS:
I had a pretty rocky relationship with Monotypes, since long before I tried to make them. Fanta Se had a huge orgasm with the form starting sometime in the '80s. I have seen so much mediocrity and sloppiness done in the name of monotype, it is forever tainted for me. One of the only good things I have to say for monotypes is: William Blake. That man could could monoprint! Having attempted the form for myself; I can say that I'm no William Blake. I'm really not much of a painter, I realize only now after having been away from painting for a few years. And, monoprinting is a very painterly form. These are three of the least cringe-inducing for me:



COLLAGRAPHS:

This very modern seeming form of mark making got along a lot better with me, in spite of my expectations to the contrary. I've been telling people lately that I am the most uncomfortable collage artist in most any room. I admire the form tremendously as practiced by those I see as having a gift for it, such as Gail Rieke, ShRiek, or Dave McKean. If I try to collage, it always comes off as macaroni art. But, collagraphs are a little different. The collage is not the final artistic product, but a plate from which to produce your prints. Visual interest, therefore, is derived second generation by assembling interesting textures. Those same interesting textures provided me with a bit of a learning curve to climb, in terms of how to effectively apply ink in what quantity to achieve an image transfer. After some trial and error, I produced some work I'm a little bit proud of:

My very first Flash animation!

To any readers who might have worked in Flash; I am acutely aware of how much this looks like someone's first attempt at animating in Flash. But, we all must get our start somewhere. Also, I only had two weeks to complete this for my mid-term; which actually amounted to one, very sleepless, weekend.
The text is taken from a translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's poem, "The Bride of Corinth".
Won't know 'til Monday what my grade will be for the mid-term.

Birthday Suits

This was a quickie for a birthday card for my boss's girlfriend. Inside the card I wrote: "I didn't know what you would like for your birthday so, this is just a little something I know I like!" The sketch was completed in one sitting, (pretty rare for me) while I was working in the projection booth. The following day, I took it to school, scanned it and added the letters in Photoshop. Viola!
It went over very well, which was a relief. Giving a girl you don't know very well a drawing you did of two hot, mostly naked chicks making out might not always be a hit.

HAPPY VD!

Seems likely that this will be the last Valentine I make for ShRiek. It is also the very first, entirely digital artwork I've done for her. Go ahead and tell me one thing doesn't have to do with the other, but for all of the neat possibilities this new epoch of communication opens to us it takes something away. Just read the fights ShRiek has posted on her blog, rubberjellyfish; held entirely via text messages between she and I. Rereading them, I feel I have attained a new level of "omg, r u 4 rl?" eloquence. And, of course, it's handy that they are preserved for posterity. Somehow, they lack the gut-punched immediacy of the good old fashioned screaming matches. Maybe I'm just getting old. "The world I growed up in is gone."

Hit me with your best shot, Flier away

Up and coming Gods of Fantasy Metal, Gnossurrus,are reincarnated and having their first official gig Saturday, February 23rd at the CCA. Psyched as I could be for that fact alone; I am honored to have been asked to design a flier image to advertise the show.

This was a first treatment that I pulled together with pieces I'd originally developed for a fictional cd cover project for one of my classes.

Riffing on a theme, trying to keep the image basic for easy, (and cheap) reproduction. I like these for the wholly inappropriate sporting apparel evocation, (think izod Gnossurrus).

I was and, frankly, am delighted with this version, particularly with the happy accident in the lettering. But, with any luck the finished design might end up in the paper and this probably would not reproduce favorably on newsprint. So:

In a lot of ways, this is the most finished version. I'm happy to have revised it until I could get to this point.

Our Pal Schmoopie

It occurs to me that I never tipped my hand after my defeat in last summer's FACA Rumble Royale. Schmoopie, The Hell-Belching Corgi was my boy. I loved him like an idiot step-child and I threw everything I had into training him but, in the end, he met a superior opponent in Cat O' Nine Tails O' Doom.
To help me begin the healing process; Down-to-Earth Danny Green created the following brilliantly wrong collage, God love him.

Majick

Sigils are keen. My initiation into the theory of sigil magick came from Grant Morrison addressing the 2000 Disinformation Conference in New York. I wasn't there but, bless their black hearts, Richard Metzger and his merry band included highlights from the conference on the second disc of the Disinformation Television Series.
Mr. Morrison was self-admittedly, at the time; "pissed, (that's drunk; he's Scottish) and in about half an hour I'm going to come up on drugs", therefore I thoroughly trust the that he passively and electronicly taught me something about the secret workings of the universe. I may have read something more following the same ideas, I don't know.
The idea, as I understand it, is to fashion a vessel for one's will out of the expression of a desire. One transforms the written expression of said desire from a universal symbol into a personal symbol. In "The Invisibles", Mr. Morrison offers the postulate that written language is a spell created to control people and contain their possibilities. It could be then, that sigil making de-constructs the written word and liberates personal potentiality. However it works, Grant Morrison believes that it does work and he emphatically urges everyone to create their own sigils in order to remake the world in their own image. Because, he argues forces are already using sigils to make a world some of us might not enjoy living in. When you understand the logo as a sigil, suddenly Mr. Morrison's "wacky" notions manifest in a context of practical significance. Corporate branding is transforming the landscape of our daily lives. Whatever you believe, these ideas made sense of a fascination I have with logo design. This is one of my first logos as such and still one of my favorite designs. It's for my own use; "Master of N0ne Studio" is one of my creative alias. I devised this originally by hand but it's a born vector image. This is for a Santa Fe based, start up, drum manufacturer. I did the design for this one and Deadly Danny Green created the vector art (this was before I learned how to turn on a computer). Now I am entering the digital age. I did this for my best, (and sexiest) friend ShRiek as an attempt to encapsulate all of the creative hats she wears in one identity. It is possibly an impossible assignment. She wasn't totally happy with what I came up with. I'm still working on it. As far as this attempt; ct. I love the octopus. I will find a home for the octopus in some future project.

Diggin' out all my old crap now

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In the ground over a year now

Goodnight, Little Buster

Takun was my girlfriend's hedgehog. He was just a little guy, but he had the soul of a Viking and he is storming Valhalla.