Words on Wheels

Words on Wheels is a program that puts poems by Baltimore school children on city buses to promote literacy and the arts. Students at MICA were asked to illustrate the poems. A committee will decide which students' work gets put on a bus in the next couple weeks.

I was assigned a poem called "Blessed Tears" by a Courtney Wilson, a 7th grader at Mount Royal Elementary and Middle School. It's a decidedly dark poem, much more than many of the others. Some of my initial sketches involved lots of arms surrounding a figure. I guess this was the first thing many people thought of... a couple other students assigned to this poem did something similar. I was encouraged to take one of my stranger sketches to final.



I used a brush and ink to create the drawing on different layers of tracing paper, then I scanned in the layers, and arranged and colored them with Photoshop. Here is how it might look with the text and Words on Wheels banner beside it:



Not sure how the Maryland Transit Authority will feel about this one, but I'm pretty pleased. Unfortunately there is not much room to be creative with the type. Also, as usual, Flickr took all of the oomph out of the color in the original file... so use your imagination!

Carcass Week!

What a hectic month I've had! First of all, my boy and I've moved into a new apartment, and moving commanded most of my time these past couple weeks. The apartment came with an adorable cat who was left there (hrmph) by her previous owner. I re-named her Bird... she chirps sometimes.



Last week I completed a t-shirt design based on a news article. The article can be viewed here. What's believed to be the world's oldest cemetery was found in Jordan, and archaeologists found fox remains buried next to the human remains, and were treated similarly. This led scientists to believe that the foxes may have been kept as pets.


Larger View

Based on this project and the items we moved into her apartment, Bird probably noticed our fascination with skeletons, oddities and the like. The day after Valentine's Day she gave us a gift: a tiny dead mouse!



She must have known it was the perfect size for the piece I am currently working on for Thesis. I've never tried taxidermy before, but the internet gives you pretty easy step-by-step instructions. I've been a vegetarian for several years now, so it took about an hour to muster up the courage to make the first cut... but after that it was surprisingly easy.





i've spared you the gory details. the second one is for scale... I'd have to say it would probably be easier to stuff a bigger mouse, but I took what I was given. In a future post, I'll show you what this little guy gets used for.

Scooter and Carl Do Cincinnati

 Last Spring semester I had the pleasure of doing an independent study with Ted McGrath, and he helped me to make these "action figures." They are more like sculptures, or mock-ups for vinyl toys that will likely never be.  They are based on a series of ten collage sketches I did earlier in the year... other characters like "Dr. Singh, Male Gynocologist" and "Ben the Lonely Spaceman" never made it to the third dimension. Scooter and Carl started like this:

And by the end of the semester, they became who they are today:



read the Carl's comic!



read Scooter's comic!


The figures and accessories are clay over wire armatures, with hand-sewn little shirts and clothes. The boxes were constructed of mat board and painted with goache and ink.


Scooter and Carl are currently en route to Cincinnati to see my friends at Static Age! They will be in a show called "Pairs," so if you are in the area, go check it out! Scooter and Carl are just for looks, but I'll have things for sale there too.

I'll leave you with this GIF I made when I was sculpting Scooter's skinny nude body:

Gallery-quality giclée prints fom inPRNT!

I've decided to try to sell some things on inPRINT! Only one print up now, but more to come very soon!

The Perk got slimed.

I hung up some illustrations and other things at Patterson Perk earlier this week.  They should be up at least through the end of January.



I also just recently made this fun wall sculpture with a couple antlers I found at the flea market and some wooden beads.




Extinct now, obviously.

If you're in Baltimore, it's cold and awful outside.  So what the hell are you doing at Patterson Park? Come by Patterson Perk at 2501 Eastern Avenue and get a cup of coffee to warm up.

Flappy New Year!

One year closer to the Apocalypse. Can't wait!

So far I've had a pretty productive break. I finally started and finished the portrait of my grandparents that I'd been promising them I'd do for a while.

...I tried.  I shaved a couple years off 'em.

Then I decided I'd do a couple little pieces for fun. These are going to be hanging up in Patterson Perk on Eastern Avenue, along with some framed collages, the Wanderin' mind, some wacky wall sculpture I'm finishing now, and more!

Kit Gloves. Collage and acrylic on two 6" wood panels.

And for good measure, here's a peek at my thesis as of the end of fall semester.

Next semester I'll be making four more box constructions, and then documenting all of the pieces and putting them into a hand-bound book.

Thanks to Janna Morton for taking pictures, I was so sleep deprived on the last day of class that I forgot my camera!

Necromantic

My final assigment in Concepts was a "Secret Santa" assignment. I was given "Draw a romantic scene using corpses. Make sure the scene adds to the romance."

It's ink and acrylic on paper, 22"x 30." Click here to see it larger, though I definitely need to scan it in for a better image. Many hours went into this... I'm sure I could put many more in, but for now, it's done.

Egor the Brave, page 5

This is my last box construction of the semester. While I definitely had a good time... I'll be glad to have a month-long break from whittlin' little horses and the smell of wood glue.

I might try to add another layer in front of the trees on the left to add a little more depth, and put a few more highlights around the house frame shape at the top.

I also tried using a new technique that I found here to put text on wood panels that will accompany the box constructions.  So far I've made five, one for each of the boxes I've made so far.

And to close, as always: 

better, updated photos of everything will be posted when I complete this project in May!

Art Market!

The semester is finally over, and I could not be more excited to be sitting around and relaxing today. I have been super busy these past couple weeks.  Art market went incredibly well!  I am officially sold out of ewok shirts. I got screenprints of the Wanderin' Mind from Chris at Apothem Prints, and my new friends at Southpaw Prints!  People were surprised to find out they were screenprinted because they said they looked too perfect!

I still have several left, so feel free to email me if you want one. Five color screenprint, $30!

I also sold some zines, and the wrestler cards from my previous post! They went over way better than I expected. I still have a couple packs of these left as well (but just a couple) so get them while you can!

Hand scored and folded, and cropped. Oof!

The cards also got a mention on Public School, and they definitely said some nice things about them! So overall, Art Market was a big success. I'm glad alumni can participate... I might have to do it again next year!

Words of Wisdom

So, I've been working on these cards for weeks now. They are just for fun, not class, but I'm selling them at school. Packs of greeting cards, five in each pack! The cards will be banded together with a little cardstock belt:















Pretty excited about how they turned out! The colors are a good bit more acidic on the screen than they will be once I get them printed tomorrow.  I'll have them ready for MICA Art Market on the 8th.

Time for bed. I think I've driven myself insane looking at nothing but these screaming men for the past 48 hours.