TMKZ

I am kind of in a band with my friend Troy, called This Machine Kills Zombies. Sometimes Robert,  Donnie, or Gibbons plays in the band, and sometimes more of our friends. Here is a poster I made Troy for x-mas. This is the black & white version, I gave him the colored version.

Here is a piece also inspired by TMKZ, which I'm going to make an edition of screen prints of to put in the Printed Matter 10 show at GR2 on January 11.

Royal-T

Merit Badges

Styrofoam printed x-mas cards

Bike tube bow clips

Styrofoam printed SS paper lunch bags

Pencil pouches

Satanic and columbian jewelry 

Screen printed patches!

Squirrel Scouts booth at Royal-T's Holiday Bazaar

Friends, Art, and Life in Cell Phone photos from the Last 3 Months

dumpstered veggies in santa cruz

festive stockings at work

west side mosey

best living room ever

our artcycle booth

TMKZ projector art

PAINT <b>ALL</b> THE THINGS!

my tallbike, she doesn't have a name yet

this is what i do for a living

killradio.org

new mural at the casa

modular shelving unit in my room/studio, made from cardboard and hot glue

shakra at the broom factory

renning shoots a revolver

4evar

halloween banners at work

adroable pumpkin illustrations at work!

October

We Are All Animals MMXI was a success!! Hundreds of amazing people came out for the show and many talented artists contributed. Many thanks to give! I don't have many pictures of the night, but I promise you, this show is a force to be reckoned with. Next installment will be in Los Angeles.

Check out more pictures from the opening on the flickr page, where you can also see photos from March's show: We Are All Animals Flickr

Nowadays, I've been pretty bogged down by a 40 hour work week at my new art store job. When I'm not clocked in, I'm usually with my Squirrel Scouts burning screens or making dresses or running booths at festivals. We are beginning to establish ourselves in Los Angeles and soon we'll have our very own store front, live/work warehouse and community space! Check out some of the things we've been working on and like our Facebook page!

handmade fabric Squirrel Scout merit badges (made by me).

Also, I finally got to finish drawing out that mural I was talking about a few months ago. I call it "Flower Pickers". Hopefully it will be approved for production and become a mural at LA Guild!

close-up of a black blob man.

click for a full size image (not hi-res)!

That is all for now!

Robots and Animals

Robots and animals are two awesome things that should go together like peanut butter and honey. You don't normally hear about it in the mainstream, but you know it's good and you enjoy it at home or with friends.

I was part of a benefit show last weekend at GR2, which included some really amazing artists (including but not limited to, James Jean, Kozyndan, James Kochalka, Saelee Oh, Souther Salazaar, Luke Chueh, Deth P. Sun, Gary Baseman, Matt Furie, Aiyana Udesen, Rob Sato, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Hellen Jo, Ferris Plock, etc, etc I could go on but I'm getting dizzy from the awesome).

The sales go towards Giant Robot and all other GR related projects, and they need all the help that they can get. Myself and so many other artists owe so much to them for everything they've done for us over the years. Exposure, connections, new experiences, inspiration; I (we) love them so dearly and can't possibly bear to see another GR store close.

Here was my little contribution:

"Gallant" Linocut on Rives BFK, edition of 9!

Stop by and check out the work for yourself! giantrobot.com

Also, I'm curating a show called "We Are All Animals MMXI", it's the second installment to the first, which was called "We Are All Animals" and was held at BAMM.tv in San Francisco. This time, it will be at Felix Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz. Lots of awesome folks and ideas, can't wait!!

Here's the lineup so far:

Roxanne Olivia Abell

Ann Altstatt

Olivia Bagdade

Paul Barron

Deena Brabant

Alexis Branger

Louise Chen

Olias Ben El

Justin Jernigan

William Leach

Spencer Harding

Sanaa Kaan

 Lily Nishita

Max Stadnik

Nikita Sorokin

Nuclear Winter

Jack Rabbitt

Wes Modes

Tony Bones

Tom Blanchard

Melody Overstreet

Annelise Kinney

Tim Shriver

Julie Orlick

and more...

With performances by:

Gibbons and the Sluts

This Machine Kills Zombies

more TBA

www.FelixKulpa.com

we are all animals mmxi

Eastern Medicine

I recently vacationed to the other side of the world (Shanghai, China) for my cousin's wedding. I've been a few times before since I have a huge family there, but this time I actually felt like I really embraced the city and the lifestyle. I made extra effort this time to find the parts of Shanghai with the most genuine history. It's becoming harder and harder to find old buildings that haven't been renovated into shopping malls and tourist traps.

Fortunately, my cousin Eddie is into the same stuff as I am, and speaks fluent english, so he took me to his favorite spots around town. We went to a polaroid cafe, the arts district, the french concession, the local fixie kid watering hole, an underground flea/hobby market, and a bike shop (where I bought a sick early 90's "Forever" road frame). He even took me on a late night group bike ride, where I was the only one not riding a fixed gear. After this trip, I feel more connected to Shanghai and my family than ever. Time to seriously learn chinese!

Enough of that sappy shit, here are some instant photos I took while exploring the outskirts of the arts district.

Time Flies

I forgot to mention this little mention of my wood block about the Man on Wire, Philip Petit. I made this print after watching the movie. It's good, you should go watch it too!

Line weight test

Here's what the image might look like as a finished product, perhaps with a bit less detail, but the weight of the lines is about right.

Inking

Starting the process of inking the image for the mural. This is going to be a fun day!

Everyday is the best day ever

Hey, so after a week long spell of not making hardly anything at all, I've finally gotten the courage to break my artist block. After having some pretty enlightening conversations about creativity and productivity, I realized that I'm thinking too much about my art and art in general and trying to achieve too many impossible goals. I remembered that all I really needed to do was just enjoy the process of creation. Just stay positive! Easy. One of my favorite mantras:

It really was!

Now that I got that out of the way, I'm able to start working on projects stress free! Currently, I'm drafting up a mural for this place that I freelance at. I just started drawing it out tonight. Here are some grainy previews. Enjoy!

It's easy to get distracted when you live in a place like this and have friends like these

Custom Letters

I recently drew up a pair of letters for a custom wedding present, here are some photos. Forgot to snap some after it was framed but it looked really pretty, I promise!

 Graphite, gouache, and water color on tea-dyed paper. Before framing.

Detail of the "E"