going to an art college in the early- 90′s how could i not hear the Pixies all the time? being a farm kid the Pixies were as new to me as the girls kissing each other in the halls… it was quite an eye opener. i admit that i never new the right words to the Pixies songs but they sure helped keep me up during the many all-nighters. when i was asked by the curator Kevin Titzer to be a part of the show, it gave me a chance to really look into the lyrics of the band. I am still amazed at the emotions and energy their songs have, even when they make less sense even after you know the words. it’s a gift this farm kid doesnt have.

the show opens tonight at C.A.V.E. Gallery at 1108 Abbot Kinney Blvd, Venice CA

i picked Bailey’s Walk as inspiration for my image/ character.

Bailey on set:

this is the final image and the sculpture that are in the show.

if you are in LA come by and take a walk with Bailey and enjoy the show (lots of monkeys)

i am delighted to be part of the exhibit: Circle of Champions at Primary Gallery in Fountain Square.

the show is a gathering of past champs of Art vs. Art. if you are not familiar with the annual Indianapolis event Art vs. Art, you should check it out here. Notorious from coast to coast, a painting contest with a twist. Artists have just four hours to paint with provided materials. Audiences determine the winner, but beware the Wheel of Death.
although no work will be destroyed at this show, there should be quite a knock out of work on display from the 6 artists. i heard tell of one piece that weighs in a 600 lbs….

Join us this Friday, First Friday, August 5 from 6-11 p.m., at the Primary Gallery in the Murphy Arts Center, Studio 217.

hope to see you there.

every once in a while i get a request by the terrific art director Irene Gallo at TOR books to illustrate one of the short stories showcased on TOR.COM.

this time it was for a short story called The Cockroach Hat : A literary love story written by Terry Bisson

it is quite a fun little read that crack you up on your most ironic day.

here are some of the submitted sketches and the final piece.

it’s always a delight to work with Irene.

i am happy to announce that i was asked to submit a piece for the show  EARTH: FRAGILE PLANET that opens this friday June 4th at the Society of Illustrators. the exhibit will have over 100 powerful images from the world’s foremost illustrators, addressing the current environmental issues that we face today.

here is the image that will be in the show

along with The Seeder puppet

here he is being fitted for his crate. i know its a little ironic that a wooden crate had to be created in order for him to be shipped. but at least the crate will be able to be used a multitude of times.

i am not a big believer in having a statement alongside my work, but being that one was requested here is what i sent.

I no longer live on the small farm I was raised on and now that I have children of my own, I wonder how I can teach them all that I learned while planting and harvesting the fields. I wonder how I can instill in them the values of knowing where your food comes from, that you have to replenish what you take. I wonder how I can plant the right seeds in their minds and give them the foundation to nurture those seeds so they can one day share those seeds with others around them.

last week i was honored to be part of an event that took a look into the the idea of what illustrators and art directors are doing to expand their work beyond the traditional printed page. the panel consisted of Anita Kunz, Yuko Shimizu, Christoph Nieman, Bridgid McCarren Art Director of HOW magazine, and Tyler Darden Art Director of Virginia Living magazine.

having anita kunz introduce my work the way she did was a highlight of my career. she was a  huge inspiration in the beginning to me. Yuko clearly has an amazing ability to teach, and her personality just glows. Christoph is an entertainer! easy to talk to and has an insight and clarity that is admirable. it was good to see Brigid McCarren from HOW again and to hear her challenges of designing for designers put things into a different perspective for me. Tyler Darden is a gentleman who reinforced that well thought out, executed and designed promotions can cut thru the endless solicitations he receives and can make an impression.

i was told there were 700 students in attendance for the symposium…

i have to admit having lunch, diner and sharing a panel with the likes of that group made me feel a little out of my element but talking with all of them was pretty natural (even for this farmboy)

there were some good points brought up about collaboration and how many are built upon strong relationships and even friendships, and having your preparedness help put you in the best place when opportunity is ready to intersect with your work.

some good innovations were featured with such things as hanock piven’s face making app for the iphone to the innovative They might be giants business growth and the idea of taking content to the marketplace. i spoke on a few of the animation collaborations, along with mumpuppet, target giftcard, books, and specifically the artalog and the collaboration between Magnet Reps and Frank Sturges Reps. and i ended with an inprogress collaboration between myself and my son.

i also learned that savannah is not the town you want to forget to take a camera to… beautiful!

Here is the book trailer that was put together for the book, provided by Random House.

as an afterthought to the previous post, i wanted to highlight a couple details from Gino’s office that might get a little overlooked in the book.

chinese takeout box. i figure he is working some crazy hours trying to keep the barge out of trouble and the garbage buried quickly before he looses anymore money on this great idea of his that has turned into an international debacle.

a few of the other items on his desk. notice that the envelope even has a thin plastic film in the address window.

what better way to show a little stress than a broken pencil. carved from a toothpick.

the radio/CB device he uses to talk to Captain Duffy

even though Gino doesnt seem to be the brightest fella, i still wanted to give him some aesthetic credit with this awesome chair.

after the colorstudies were finished i  needed to start to figure how all of this was going to get built and how i was going to build things that worked well for each image but didnt end up being more work than they needed to be.

it was overwhelming to try to see it all at once, so i took advantage of all the prep work i had done and found that it allowed me to have most everything scratched out on paper so my mind could start to focus on individual aspects without getting bogged down everything all at once. i started with the ocean i knew it was going to be the foundation of the scenery, it needed to work for several different scenes. to me that meant that it needed to be easy to work with. in the past i have used actual water for scenes with water. but i learned that even though water has a look all its own it sometimes looks too real for the worlds i create, besides it can get really hard to control too. once i almost flooded the studio when a garden hose spraying water on set got out of hand… i have also used saran wrap in the past and although it had some properties i enjoyed, it still looked like saran wrap. i have seen folks use mirrors or glass with elements added on the surface to mimic ocean foam and ripples but that didnt seem like the right application either.

so in keeping with the theme of garbage  i pulled out some discarded, large, clear plastic bags that my large art boards get put into at the art store. they had a substance to them that saran wrap didnt have and the light played on the surface and gave a feeling of a heavy ocean. now i was getting somewhere. the next material i found was the plastic bags that the local dry cleaners use. they were a little lighter than the art bags and they had a blue tint.

now i felt like i was onto something. here are the first ocean tests that set up the foundation of the Garbage Barge’s world.

the following image was shot with a paper cutouts of the colorstudies of the tug and barge.

in trying to decide how i would create this mass of garbage that hulks upon this infamous barge i arranged a tour of the landfill back home where i grew up. (where my father now works) i wanted to see what trash looked like once it had been through the ringer a few times.

notice the serene farmland on the horizon. this is about 7miles from where i was born and raised.

the garbage is sort of whited out. they spray a layer of heavy concrete like powder on the new garbage at the end of everyday. it keeps stuff from blowing away and helps to compact it. from what i understand they used to use a thin layer of soil for this step. for me this white stuff took alot of the color that i was looking for out of the garbage.

yes, that is a semi trailer on a contraption called a tipper. its the easiest and quickest way to unload a trailer full of trash. a new trailer comes in about every 30 minutes.  you have to see it to believe it.

this is a compactor. i didnt get to see it running but it was quite a machine just to look at. beautiful in its own right.

i did get to see and  feel this dozer running. because we were standing on a mountain of garbage the earth literally shook and quivered when the dozer passed by. the trash that was caked in and on this machine is what i was looking for.

i think everybody should take the time to tour your local landfill. it really make you think about how WE ALL live.

while indulging in the poppies blooming in our garden earlier this month,

i recalled a sketch on my wall of (rejected but save for later concepts)

seemingly obsessed with doing things the hard way. (i dont mean too it just seems to work out that way) using silk flowers just didnt look right, building them like i drew them was the only way to get the right look and feel. it took about a day of cutting and bending and glueing and painting to get enough for the scene. my 4yr old son even joined in on the fun using a hole punch for the centeres of the flowers and punching the flowers for the distant hill.

i used the mechanics of a broken umbrella i picked up off the road for the posable structure for the wings. and the ‘seeders’ suit was sewn from a fabric i have had for awhile but up until this piece i couldnt find the right use for it. i liked how it fit right in with the wing structure.

the final