You have to put some miles on top of that book learnin

You Don't Know Until You Go

The website is updated with six new images. Later tonight or tomorrow I will be updating the PDF and later on as well upload some of my sketchbook pages. I have reached 24 images on the main page so it looks like I am going to have to re-design the layout alittle soon so you art directors, art buyers, ect.... dont have to scroll up and down the page to get to my thumbnails.

The image above is also the mailer image I sent out this month. If your on my mailing list, you'll get it sometime this week, if not, email me I'll send ya one. I have plenty left over.

The image above was inspired by the movie "Henry Rollins: Uncut from South Africa". I am really inspired by Rollins, not only because he played in one of my favorite 80's hardcore punk bands, Black Flag, but because of the way he lives his life. Clear minded, Self-reliant and a thrust for knowledge beyond what a book can give. In the movie he talked about reading about townships in South Africa and made a ton of arrangements to go down there to go beyond the book to really see what is going on down there. I hope that I will be able to travel more internationally in the coming years to do just the same, but until then I will tackle New York City.

SVA MFA classes start in almost a month from now!

Change is Hard. I Should Know.

Dreamer

20x30 Acrylic, Charcoal, Conte on Cream Stonehedge paper.

Sorry I don't have a better photo. This was shown at the New Kids on the block show. I gave it to a friend as a gift for all of her help in the past year. Working on this piece was refreshing because I often put in alot of time to make the images I create look organic and traditional when really it is all digital. So to put in random mark making like Cy Twombly, and painting with acrylic to paper was something I felt I needed to do.

The piece is part of an on going exploration I am looking into. Not really sure what, but thats the difference between fine art and illustration. In fine art, you take your time and try to figure out the meaning of something and show it to everyone in hopes of some form of understanding. The viewer than can take their time to understand or enjoy the image as it sits on a gallery wall. While that is true of fine art, illustration, for me is more about creating an image in a short amount of time, to help the viewer quickly understand or help supplement whatever the image goes with. This could be an editorial piece on an abstract issue, a record cover to attract and give alittle bit about the bands vision, or even a picture book to challenge and inspire ideas. While a sketchbook is a good breeding ground to become more refreshed with new idea's and exploration, I also feel that fine art for the gallery wall is a more focused way of exploring just that.

Below are detail images...

Handguns - MMIX

Last week I finished doing the entire packaging design for Handguns new six song ep, "MMIX". Three of the six songs are on their myspace right now.

When I got a call from Jake, their guitar player, he said they were doing really well on their two or three week tour and wanted to get this packaging done before they go on Warp tour, but push came to shove and now it's going to be released in August. When I asked what the packaging should be of or a concept to run on, all he said was....

1.Use Bright Colors
2.Make it fun.
3.Nothing negative (inverted crosses, ect)
4. Make it like no other pop punk bands record.

So when I looked over the lyrics and heard the new songs, all of them had to do with some sort of internal/external conflict. Cheating Girlfriends, disappointing friends..... standard pop punk songs. So I had to use abstract symbols to show internal conflict and used an octopus as the external. Why use an octopus you may ask? Why not!

Back Cover

Outer Tray

Inner Tray

CD image

Heres a few old videos of the band before their new singer Brandon....

Hipster Girls

"So I don't know what it is about hipster girls that I am so into."