The Electron Mover, my last piece for the Reno show

I'm not 100% satisfied with this piece, but I am not sure what is lacking with it. If it don't sell I'll probably either fix it or repaint the whole canvass

The Biggest (and Wildest) Little City in the World

My man Lopan called me last weeks monday to get me on another show in Reno, at club Wurk. It is much appreciated when your friends keep you in mind for events. Here are the first three complete paintings I have done for the exhibit, I might do one or two more.

I was exploring the idea of LA Noir with this painting. It is much smoother, more blended and less sloppy that my usual garbage. The painting missed the mark a bit, I think, but thanks to that I might attempt exploring the subject again.  

I recently found these pictures online that looked like they were taken by a digital camera gone bad. Only part of the picture was realistic, the rest was a rainbow of digital chaos. I knew trying to paint that would be difficult, due to the differing nature between pictures and paintings but since it will be club kids that look at the paintings I figured why not see where the road takes me. I'm not sure what I think of the finished piece, I think hearing others oppinion of it might help.

This painting was derived from a photograph I saw on Church of Choppers. The picture aroused such a timeless West Coast flavor that I had to paint my interpretation of it. The face was omitted because I wasn't trying to capture a person but an attitude.

Through the archives

Here is an old painting of mine, I have done several owl paintings in my day, I like painting birds and owls are so unique and majestic, that present a lot to capture in a canvass, leaving plenty for other pieces. I didn't think I had a picture of any of my owls, I am glad I found this one.

The Sandlot Collaboration

My boy Hernan had a collaboration in mind between me and him. He was having a show coming up and wanted a joint piece in the exhibit. I was stoked, he does great work and his style is so opposite of mine it just made sense that it come out looking nicely, like a plane crashing into the sea.
He proposed we do our version of the scene from The Sandlot where the baseball goes over the fence.
He painted his part, than I added mine and lastly he put finishing touches on his selection.

This is what Hernan originally painted and brought to me

As soon as I got it I masked his work, I did that because 60-70% of my work is done with spray-paint so techniques like masking are a big part of my craft, especially when I want to avoid getting overspray on things

    

This is what my paintings start out like, masked off areas, blue tape and splatters of color

De-masked canvass prior to details added and brush work

Work in progress

My part of the painting is done in this photo



Finished Product

The Dog in the Fight

I painted this a few years ago for my boy Cold Chris, but since he's a rolling stone, it is "on loan" decorating Cool Hands living room. I am horrible with documentation and I never bothered to take a picture of it, finally my boy Jammal too this one on his iphone and sent it to me, it is much appreciated

Work Table

Here is a table i wood-burned for a friend of mine. He is a classical musician, plays the Oboe and this is his work table-what he makes his reeds on etc-so I wanted to decorate it in a fitting manner

Burnout

 I wanted to take pictures as I worked on this piece, as it was my first watercolor painting. I did not achieve exactly what I was hoping for but here is the result.The last one is framed behind plastic so to avoid glare the picture needed a steep angle view.

Motorcycle Diaries

I originally painted this painting earlier in the year. I got the canvas at a farmers market, it was one of those awful motel room paintings. I prefer used canvases and this one was big (for me) I believe 3' by 4'. Before I could paint it I had to sand down the texture that made up the abstract splatter bullshit. That was a mission in itself because it was not paint but what seemed like some kind of plastic material. It took a Dremel, elbow wax and 4 hours of work, and the finished job still left a lot to be desired. I liked the original version but when I got a call from my boy about a exhibit show in Reno I decided to change it up a bit, add some color cause the spot was a live club and I did not want to have to bring it back home. In the end the painting did not go to Reno because it didn't fit, but a few weeks later a guy contacted me about purchasing a painting. This one happened to be the only one I had at home that I thought was finished, but after staring at it for a bit I decided the guy deserved a better version of the canvas, so I added the apparition, leaving it to the viewer to add a story or meaning to it. 
Here are the three versions, excuse the color change, blame clouds and my inability to take good pictures.

Remixes

I showed my cartoon character pieces a few times and never got much of a reaction for them. Part of the problem is that subject matter is way in currently with the lowbrow crowd and part is probably because my paintings were devoid of color. So instead of throwing the paintings away I've decided to remix them. Redoing old canvasses has become by far my favorite way to paint. I hunt for old canvasses, my favorite are the kind one sees in hotel rooms. I have even gone as far as painting over paintings at my house, my own and ones my friends gave me, not at all out of disrespect, but more out of my twisted version of Buddhist teachings of impermanence.
This is (a bit) different however, for my cartoon characters canvasses I originally wanted to keep the image but mix it with another in a way that made sense to me.
My first attempt was this:

I call it the Downtownian. It is my comment on the folks I see around town, riding their fixed gears to their hipster bars, getting that adventuresome street life out of the way before they return to the suburbs they hail from and begin their wine collections.

The following three canvasses took a bit of an alteration. Instead of mixing images I wanted to portray in canvass electronic music. More specifically the mixing of old music with new blurps or beats, or the addition of  samples or mixing of songs or melodies. I like the results, I hope others will too.

Some More From the Archives

 

Soul's for sale if I still have the desired piece of it pieces

Trucker Hats

 My boy asked me to make some trucker hats for him to sell at Break dancing events. I spent about half a day making these and they came out OK, but its probably the last time I dabble in hipster lids.

Along with the hats I was asked to design a logo for the breaking crew, I came up with two design styles and did six versions of each design. I  kept the colors the same thinking that the crew can choose what they like and alter the colors themselves or have the person they hire to print their shirts do that. Well that seemed to confuse them. as of now they haven't used any of the designs because they don't like the colors. I could care less.

A Little Piece of Cali

Last year I took a trip to this place called glass beach in Nor Cal. There used to be a factory there whose aftermath is a beach that's covered with old glass, spark-plugs and other goodies re-shaped by decades spent underwater. The place was crawling with people attempting to collect memories, which intrigued me, watching how natural it is for people to want their own personal piece of magic. I wondered how many of these folks socially espouse ideologies that are dynamically counter to their true nature, which they were expressing with their excited picking of shiny ocean pearls. I picked some and made this piece out of it, which I then shipped to my uncle in Europe. He will never travel to this continent, so I wanted a piece of it to come to him.

Its composed of a shell, driftwood, and remnants of glass beach tastefully laid out and covered with fiberglass resin. This isn't the finished product, after it dried I cut got it out of the paper plate and got rid of most of the resin, shaping it as a tiny "island" which the stuff is laying on.

Who Cares

The group Who Cares asked me to do a few sketches for them, some were done for shirt designs and the later stuff was for their new album, Ego Trip, including the canvas. Well not really, the canvass was done for fun but they thought it worked well as the back cover of the CD.

My First Wood Burning

I tried woodburning recently. I have vague memories of either my dad or brother using one when I was a little lad. My intention is to woodburn my friends table, which he uses to make his oboe reeds on. Here is my trial run, I took my cheap, particleboard easel and freestyled a quick something on it, it came out OK I think