Main Source

I've been listening to some pretty smooth rhymes tonight and working on figuring out a more concrete color scheme for my thesis project.  During critique on Tuesday it came to my attention that I had not spent any time figuring out why I had selected particular colors.  I've always prided myself on picking and choosing good color schemes, but admittedly working in a slightly more minimal color scheme has alerted me to the fact that in the past I was likely to fudge things as I went.  When painting hundreds of constituent pieces, this is probably not the optimal manner in which to work.

So while at the beach today, enjoying a "day off", I attempted to figure out a color scheme.  While staring at the shoreline across the way, I was struck by the hazy light blue, to light red, to extremely light purple.  It occurred to me that this was an analogous color scheme and that I was really drawn to it while soaking up nature.  I made a quick note to myself in my sketchbook and determined to mix a good light purple to go with the light blue and light red blocks that I had been putting together.  Tonight I mixed the purple and I think it is really going to work.  I'm going to finish ten blocks total and then stack them against the other two colors and make sure it works.  I think also that I am going to change the color of the panels.  If I skip across the color wheel from the purple that is in the middle of my analogous scheme I reach it's complement yellow.  I think that I am going to do a straight up ocher for the panels, as well as a shade and a tint, so I can have the exterior parts in gray scale essentially.

Check out the blocks.

Not too shabby of a color I don't think and the ink work really pops which was the major goal.  Pretty stoked to have a plan.  I should start doing that at the beginning like everybody else one of these days.  Though it seems unlikely so I won't dwell on it.

I also put together a promotional ad for the Bollard today.  I am really pleased to actually have advertisement in one of the local papers.  I am not very certain that this will lead to more illustration work, but I do know that if I don't try I will definitely never get any illustration work.  So here goes nothing, I suppose.

Tell me the reference is easy to catch.  Best movie ever I think, at least of the eighties.  Badgers love Peter Gabriel though.  Little known fact.

Lastly, I was putting together some sketches the other day and then started to weave two pieces into one again.  I have been really into my sketchbooks lately.  That always leads to some work that I am pleased with.  This piece of my buddy, Ben, I think I am going to make into a completed painting.  It's time to start thinking about making some paintings again.  This grad school thing is almost done.

Keep up folks.
peace
Mike

Portland Buy Local Submission

Last week I put together a potential cover for the 2012 Portland Buy Local guide.  Portland Buy Local is a sweet organization and I hope that they think the same of me and choose my illustration.  It was definitely a fun one to put together and another opportunity to push the pen and ink with digital color.  It is slowly starting to read more like my drawings.  The problem has always been that when I scan in my color illustrations I lose so much subtlety in color.  It has become so frustrating that I've just started keeping my line and coloring with Photoshop.  As the line starts to read better and better, I become more and more pleased with the new media.

This is probably the first or maybe the second illustration of this sort that seems to have completely retained the line.  The color really doesn't seem to need to be very extravagant.  It's all learning experience though.  I'm glad to have the opportunity to submit to some real projects while trying to figure it out.

I will be getting the documentation of my billboard from the Billboard Art Project printed tomorrow to submit to a show at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I am very pleased, though a bit surprised that they would want the documentation of a project that I had done in the past rather than a new piece.  I guess I'll figure out this art world eventually.  For those of you who have forgotten what that image looked like, here is a bit of a reminder.

I hope you are all doing well and that you are enjoying the very spring like weather that we seem to be having in March.  Best.

Peace
Mike

March TNT

Tonight I finished the poster for the March Thursday Night Throw Down and also was officially accepted to the Unstable Systems Exhibition at the University of Wisconsin.  I am very pleased with this months' TNT poster because it gave me the opportunity to look through a bunch of old wanted posters and replicate that sort of feel a little bit.  I also found some new sources for type which I think will come in handy when creating future posters.

The Unstable Systems show is cool because it will be my 12th state that I have exhibited in.  That makes me very excited.  I only have 38 to go now.  I want to get to 20 by the year 2013.  That may be a bit unreasonable, but you never know, do you?

Here is this months poster for the TNT.

Hope you dig it.  I also went to a dinner party tonight and realized during all of the cacophony of sound that I really don't deal well with parties.  There is always that moment where it seems that everyone is shouting at everyone else and you are trying to pay attention to four conversations at once.  I don't like it, so I whipped out the sketchbook and jotted this guy down.  I just thought I would share a quick example of what it is I do when nobody is paying attention.  :)

 I hope you all have an awesome day.  If you need a band-aid for your brain, I'll make you one.
Peace
-Mike

Down with the Sickness

Disturbed would be pleased, my mother would make me soup, and I am almost ready for bed again.  I haven't gotten much done this week.  At the beginning of the week I was busy denying the fact that I had a cold coming on, and the last couple days it has been incredibly impossible to ignore.

However, I have taken the week to do some things that I have missed out on over the past year and a half, like make friends some cd mixes ( never as cool as making mix-tapes but still pretty cool ), listening to new music and watching some old cartoons.  The break has been kind of nice, even if breathing through my mouth kind of sucks.

Here is the cover that I made for my last mix tape.

This is for my old roommate Chris.  Making mix tapes for him was always difficult because he worked in a record store forever.  It was impossible to try to find something that he hadn't heard, and so I mixed some new BB King in with some Big Business and some Ghostface Killer.  It was a lot of fun to do, and the cover was quite the nice throwback too.

Today it was so beautiful here in Maine that when my intern asked me if I'd like her to come make me soup, I said I'd rather go for a ride.  I feel a bit too sick to be driving.  The last thing I need is to run into someone because I was sneezing.  It was amazing.  Earlier in the day I had posted on google+ that I wanted to go to Twin Lights Park.  The intern doesn't follow my google+ page but low and behold, without saying a word, that is where she took me.  Thanks great spirit.

Here's a cool crest from that trip.

Hopefully I can get some work done soon.  For now I think I will be limited to watching the rest of season 1 of GI Joe.  Holla Back peeps.

Peace
-Mike

A Momentous Occasion

It's my 300th post.  Wow.  I didn't even realize that it was going to be until I read next to the new blogpost button tonight.  I'm pretty pleased to have spent this much time putting this blog out there.  I've heard from some really cool people at times and ran into other people who aren't so vocal online but who do read the blog and tell me what they think in person.  Thank you.

Today is Valentines Day, or at least once I drag myself to bed and then get up again it will be.  Though technically it is....  I've put together issue number 3 of the Pig N Pancake to pass out tomorrow as my Valentine.  I'm going to try to give one to everyone that I know.  I don't want to snub folks.  I remember in grade school, before they made the rule that you had to get a Valentine for everyone, not receiving one from a couple people.  It stung a bit.  I'm pretty much a big softie, as you already know, so to be honest, it's taken me a long time to be cool with the day.

I did my Coup de Grace in Valentine form for my old boss's 6 year old today.  I absolutely love it.  It reminds me so much of my childhood.  I suppose I must be nostalgic or something, but I'm going to take now to refuse to say that is a bad thing.  Here's an elephant for your viewing pleasure.

The third issue of Pig N Pancake will also feature a piece on the inside of the book, which is kind of an amalgam of a couple of other drawings.  The content of the rest of it is solely Valentines related, but the center is just some fun whale art.  I dig whales.

Lastly for this evening.  I was digging through an old sketchbook today and happened across this drawing of a squirrel super hero.  It is definitely ridiculous, but I think that is why I kind of like it.  I'm not that big on taking my ideas seriously, even if I am very big on carrying out said ideas as seriously as possible.

I hope you have a good holiday.  Be nice to everyone.  We are all we got.

Peace

-Mike

Ben Harper - Live From Mars 2 AM Update

I told you folks yesterday that I would give you a block update.  Apparently all kinds of folks wanted to hang out with me tonight, because several friends texted me to come out and hang out, so I obliged.  Even the hardest working man in the art world ( that was a James Brown reference, and not, I repeat not, me being cocky ) must take a break sometime, so you get an update at 2 am.  That is ok, because I get to listen to Ben Harper's live album while I do so, and it is awesome if you haven't listened to it.

I have been very busy putting together blocks, drawing pipes, painting the negative space.  It is taking a while.  I am getting quicker with the process, and the studio assistant has been a gigantic help.  She is awesome.  I can't speak well enough for her.  Hopefully she is getting as much out of the process as I am.

It is amazing for me to think about this project.  It is so big in comparison to the things that I usually put together, and I am really grateful to have both the venue that will support this type of project, and the time to be able to put together something that is so thoroughly planned.  Usually my work does not get to this level.  And so, I am incredibly excited.

Here are a couple updates of the blocks.

I have gotten so the drawing itself does not take long all.  I want to do a video of me cross-hatching one of these blocks so you can get an idea of what it is like.  On the other hand, painting the negative space takes a bit.  I have a pretty steady hand, but not that steady.  I suppose it is a learning process and a honing of skills.  It is great fun either way.

I also put together the piece in the Vertical Pipes series for my chef this week.  I have to remember to mail this out tomorrow.  I am terrible at doing things on time.  I also have to pull together a Valentine tomorrow morning because apparently I have someone dropping by to purchase a couple.  Rad.

 This second piece was just for fun.  I was cleaning my studio today and found a floppy disc that I had originally found while out taking a walk with my friend Russ.  It seemed so random and I thought to myself that I had to make a piece out of it.  I love it.  It is rare that I get to do something off the cuff and intuitive as this these days. 

I hope you dig the new stuff.  I am very pleased with it on the whole.  Let me know what you think, and have an awesome day too!!  Until then.

Peace
-Mike

Seeing Multiples

I have been working.  Recently most of the work seems to have been in sketchbooks, but I started to really get into my studio work again today.  I am getting very excited about all these multiple pipe drawings on blocks.  I think that this project in May is really going to be amazing.  I think that over the course of the next couple months that my hand skills are going to improve a bit as well.

Tomorrow when the sun is out, I will take an image of the accumulating blocks to share.  I want to see if I can't at least finish 100 in the remainder of the week.  I think it's definitely doable.  In the meantime I finished another piece in the Vertical Pipes series to mail to my Chef in New Hampshire.

I like this one a lot.  Pastel colors baby.

I'm going to be putting together issue #3 of the Pig n Pancake tomorrow or the next day, so please let me know if you are interested in getting a copy of the special Valentines Day issue.  There will be a fold out 8.5 X 11 inch V-Day image on the inside of the book, or of course you'll be able to keep the book together. 

I hope all of you are doing well and are weathering this very strange winter well.  Much love.
Peace
-Mike