Comic Con

As usual, the plethora of small press artists making somewhat of a living selling pins, stickers, small zines and so on, left me feeling incredibly inspired and in reality, showed me how complacent I have been. The problem with this momentary feeling of inspiration, is that it is, in fact, more fleeting than I would like. If I don't produce something of value in these moments of artistic 'fullness', then it is back to the drawing board per se, without a thing to push me on except for my own encouragement. But alas! My head is swimming and I believe this event will not go unnoticed. I am very inspired and my brain is going a million miles an hour......

Labels

When thinking about the labels, which really came to me last minute, I was initially stumped. I didn't want to type up the labels on a computer and make them overly sterile and serious, nor did I want to get too artsy on everyone. I also figured that the labels were simply bearing the title and the price, so I should keep it simple. The final product came together as a result of a pile of old coin wrappers that I had kept for years because I simply thought they looked cool (and I never had any coins to wrap because I always use them on the stupid parking meters). I pulled out a typewriter for the sake of not having to pick a font on the computer (once again trying to avoid the overly sterile image of a label), and, it just looked great too.

a few more..

More goodies from the Gubba bag of art. The last one is titled "Suspicious Vegetables", and this seemed to receive the most positive response from the most varied amount of people. I really thought about this afterward to try to pinpoint what it is that makes it better to people than say, the Miserable HotDog (which is my favorite). My conclusion is that most likely, the fact that there are more characters in one picture to look at, and also, that a picture of vegetables seems more like a practical thing to buy than a miserable looking hot dog, if we're talking 'house' art. Meaning, everyone who liked the Suspicious Vegetables piece kept telling me how "it would look SO cute in my kitchen!". Not that that isn't understandable, but I think my point, if I'm even getting to one, is that vegetables are 'easier' to like if you are not 'into' art, as opposed to something supposedly abstract like a giant hot dog looking character, that doesn't really look that much like a hot dog.

And as another side note, the original Suspicious Vegetables was not colored, as you can see in the picture above the colored one, but the person who bought it asked me to color it. So I made a copy of the original, and colored it using a mix of cheap watercolors and fancy guoche ink, which, I'll admit, made me feel a bit bothered, since the whole point of the show was a bunch of black and white images of "super inky" stuff.

Super Inky Paper Pop!

The following are four pieces from my last solo show appropriatly titled "Super Inky Paper Pop!"at the Red Lantern Tattoo Gallery in Hillcrest. There was a total of 19 pieces shown, and among my very favorites are these. The process was a bit tedious, but a completely new medium with which I had ventured.

Each drawing was taken from different sketchbooks from the past year, and blown up at Kinkos by about 400%, if not more. I flipped the image during this process, and laid down the freshly printed copies onto heavier bristol board vellum finished paper. I then transferred the image by pretty much soaking the paper (thus, "super inky") with Chartpak Colorless Blender markers (which are Xylene based markers, making the process quite odorous), and rubbing the print onto the bristol board with a bone burnisher. After the whole piece had been burnished, I removed the photocopy (now reeking of xylene chemicals). The finished piece was adhered to simple foam core with art store spray adhesive and mounted with one little sawtooth hanger.

The lessons learned from this method were many. For one, using xylene based markers is a bit mesmerizing on the brain cells, and requires a much ventilated area and a gas mask. Second, a simple ten dollar spray adhesive doesn't keep the stiff bristol board glued very well to the glossy foam core, and results in minor (but annoying and noticeable) bubbling and rippling. On the broccoli piece, the sides of the paper began completely lifting off the foam core in a matter of weeks. I have been suggested the use of wheat paste in the future, but for now I believe this medium has run its 'course' for me. I am ready to venture into new areas of oversized sketches.

There Comes A Time

It is time to devulge the secrets of my curious mental wanderings throughout these past three years. I drew robots in the beginning, when I was younger, to match those of a friend, because I lacked both individualism and a sense for the Original. Now I only wish to produce the best of Gubba, and include the oddities and mistakes and strangely placed accessories...