I had the pleasure of curating a show for UrbanLightStudios at the Greenwood Collective July 9th. For the show I was able to amass an extremely talented group of Seattle’s best street artists who are simply ‘killing it’ in the Pacific NW. Myself along with 14 other local artists are bringing the surreal this coming weekend.

Like a requiem of forgotten worlds, characters, and legends comes a collection of Seattle’s local street artists who bend the lightwaves of fixed reality. A mash up of styles and media that coalesce abrasive textures, demented beings, and unadulterated underground scenarios comes full throttled in a tricked out menage . This assortment of artists include some of the NW Pacific’s most prolific muralists, illustrators, cartoonists, tattooists, inkers, painters, and culture creatives who truly push through the looking glass and bring back pieces of layered dreams.

Where there is tentacles, beaks, bikers, and skulls there is an alien wonder and strange velvety familiarity. Regurgitating the links to childhood memories and make believe is merely the catalyst for propagating and producing worlds of mystery, urban mutations, and righteous nougat of the soul. Reaching into the inner depths of contemporary visual science while armed with paint cans, brushes, and warped genius this whimsical yet hard edged cartel has amassed the chimera of sub-pop underground culture. If you follow the white rabbit he will lead you right into the peculiar embrace of this eclectic exhibit.

+ Greenwood Collective

Artists Reception /Art Walk

July 9th 6-10pm

8537 Greenwood Ave Suite 1

Seattle,WA 98103

I find it important to share with you a bit of my process when it comes to putting together a themed gallery show and how I translate my original concepts into original pieces of fine artwork as well as refining them into digital graphic outputs for prints, tee shirts, and other printed products. As I put together my Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos show for February 2010 I was able to document the process and can now shed light on the toil of time, blood, sweat, and joy that goes into each character design.

For the intro to my process I am going to breakdown how I created Cascade Vagabond which was one of the first characters created from the theme. Cascade Vagabond not only was created as an original piece of art but also ended up as the winter 2009 shop deck for Snowboard Connection.

All designs begin with a light pencil sketch to define the linework that will eventually be the parameters for inking and coloring digitally:

After a sketch that defines the characters details I move on to hank inking the characters with Pigma Micron pens on vellum:

Here is a side by side view:

After inking I scan the image and vectorize it in Adobe Illustrator. Once all the character is vectorized I move on to adding colors and gradients:

Below is the final image put to product. In this case it is a pro line skateboard. See the blog archive for more close up details:

Here is a breakdown of how I created Rubix Dude who is another character from the Hobo Eaters series:

Here are some close up shots of the materials and process:

The original piece was done utilizing the sketch by projecting on wood, tracing, hand inking with brush, and painting with wood stain and finish:

The fact that the above piece is hand inked makes it the “original” and one and only. I can create variations on this design by utilizing the sketch and inked drawing, but every new edition will be different. No one version is alike since I ink by hand using brush and pen. Some versions sit on finished wood, while others are absorbed directly into the grain of the wood piece.

Below is the digital version with added hues, gradients, and tones that make it very different from the original:

Last but not least I printed up limited edition tees of Rubix Dude by printing transparencies from the vector output and screen printing to garments:

I still have a few of these limited edition tee shirts available. Printed on silver AA fashion fit tees. Please contact me if interested in purchasing!

To continue this thread the following will be most of the characters from the Hobo Eaters: Agents of Chaos series. As to not be redundant I am simply posting the details of the sketches, inked versions, originals on wood, digital versions, and any products created with the designs. Enjoy!

The Shambler:

45 Mack:

Blood Life:

Coded:

Ol Timer:

Rocket Rocker:

This design actually started in reverse. I did a digital rendering in Corel Painter which I then vectorized in Adobe Illustrator and added halftones. This design was eventually picked up by a Seattle skateboard company Nomadic.

Bummin & Runnin:

This design started as a pencil rendering which I then scanned and added a couple layers of highlights and midtones. It was originally created for soft goods production and ended up on tee shirts which are available from Portland OR based Tilteed.

As this post has become lengthy with photos of my process from concept to finals and even products I am going to put the rest of this series of characters in the following post regarding the Hobo Eaters show and series…

Working with other creative cats is my pride and joy as an illustrator and designer. It has been a real pleasure putting together stellar album covers for some extraordinary hip-hop artists who are on the up and come up on the East Coast. If you don’t know who I speak of you simply have to check out The N.O.C from South Florida. It was an honor to put together their debut album layout for Dinosaur last spring and I recently had the satisfaction of putting together some fresh artwork for members K Sos and Rams 2010 mixtape release Murphy’s Killer.

No strangers to stirring the pot of political roughness and kicking raw flavor that amplifies the generation XYZ, it was a duo blast of urban rawness and shotgun imagery from both sides. K Sos and Rams are on the pinnacle of exploiting their freedom of expression and Murphy’s Killer is no exception. In an attempt to squash Murphy’s Law, the facetious proposition that if something can go wrong, it will, these two members of The N.O.C put the clutch down on excelling into a new era of keeping it genuine and representing the buzz of the American street aficionados.

To do justice and reflect the messages broadcast on MK the cover had to be montaged in a seamlessly compact way. Depicted on the cover are members K Sos and Rams who have drug Murphy to his last rights. Murphy is satirized as the obese, greedy, white-bred politician who has been captured and brutalized by the N.O.C crew. A shotgun to his head, stab wounds, and all his dirty money on the pavement, Murphy (Murphy’s Law) is over with.

To complete the full effect of the chaos to ensue I broke into my bank of imagery to montage a masterpiece of mayhem. Surrounded by police squads, cops with guns drawn, tattooed chicks, screaming fans, and flames bursting in the air the focus of the cover (the slaughtering of Murphy) is pushed into the foreground. Photos used in the background came from my trips across the continental USA. The graffiti building on the left originates in the Mission District of San Francisco, the city skyline of Chicago, a water tower from Alcatraz, parking lot in Seattle, deco building and club from Italy, and characters who have been digitally painted and enhanced all come together to form a surreal environment that is reminiscent of a frame from Grand Theft Auto.

Every detail from the ghetto birds (police helicopters) blasting spotlights all the way down to the cracks in the concrete all spin from the depths of my inner beast that roars “make this solid…down to the core”. The effect is an insane composition that keeps the viewer coming back and finding more pieces of gooey visual elements that rock the soul. Here’s to putting the kibosh on Murphy’s Law and the giants of the Southeast…N.O.C. 4 Life!