Artsy Fartsy

So among the tumult of life these last few weeks I had to pencil in a little art time (har har har) to complete a painting for my history class. I know that a painting isn't your run of the mill history final projects but my professor was really cool and gave us quite a few options to choose from and I chose to paint.

There is a depression era photo taken by Dorothea Lange that is known as "migrant mother" that I have really wanted to render as a multi layer stencil for a long long time. In fact, I even attemped to do so once a few years ago and wound up spending like 12 hours cutting out a single layer that was only 8 1-2" x 11" before I gave up. This time around I did things a bit differently. I decied to do a larger print, I kindof dumbed down the layers because i havent stenciled anything for quite a while and I told my professor that I was going to make a painting thus obligating myself to follow through.

I snapped a few shots of the process with my futuristic camera that is also a phone... you should really check these things out because they are nifty. I think that in the future every one will have phones that also take pictures.















I know that was a long bunch of pictures without dialog but I will do nothing to excuse myself because I am lazy and don't feel like labeling them. What I can tell you about the process though is that it was pretty fun. Like I said, it has been a really long time since I have cut a stencil like that so it was a little bit daunting at first and I suffered from "cutters block" also known as "I-have-no-idea-where-to-start-itis" but I eventually got to it and it wasn't so bad.

That project definitely got the gears turning and I hope to do some more projects like this and hopefully some fun mixed media stuff. Keep an eye out for that stuff because i hope to mess around with some of it soon.

Gold in my back pocket.

I have been failing wonderfully at diligently posting blog entries. I hope to do better in the future though as I can now do them from anywhere by using the gold in my back pocket. You might be wondering what it is that I am actually talking about, so I will clarify. I bought an iphone recently and it has a lot of the same characteristics of gold ie. it weighs a ton and costs a lot of money. My overall satisfaction makes up for the weight in my right pocket where my phone now resides and the void in my left pocket where all of my money used to be. All in all I'd have to say that I am stoked on it.

So, the title to this entry is actually borrowed from a pseudo rap song by my good friend Ja Speed called "Gold in My Back Pocket B*tches". It is a wonderful song meant to be sung falsetto through six months worth of beard. Ja, in fact, is chalk full of these sorts of things. His portrayal of a drunk indian, though it would probably offend most people, makes me laugh uncontrollably and his monolog of a has-been hippie calling 911 to report a still-is hippie for living in a van up the canyon is timeless. To honor Ja I have created this OBEY-esque image:


I hope to turn it into posters, stickers and T-shirts to make my millions.

In other recent news, I am almost done with most of my schooling this semester and am very excited to have some free time in the evenings to pursue my life of leisure with my wife. and our 5 kids that we don't have. kids put the backspace backspace backspace in F-U-N. Just kidding about that.

I really have nothing against kids; you can ask anyone who knows me and they can vouch for that. Natalie on the other hand can't stand kids. Okay that was a total lie. She actually loves kids, especially babies, and she has set out on a mission to clothe every baby in the world with hand knitted apparel. Some of the stuff that she knits is pretty sweet and makes me wish that I was a baby so that I could wear it. Photos will eventually be posted of her goods. The trick is to snap a photo before it winds up on a random baby never to be seen by me again.

Natalie's knitting is awesome because it has the captivating power to consume her attention to the point of not noticing that I am at the skatepark riding my BMX bike which I have been doing a lot lately. It has been a blast and I have been progressing a ton- a feat that I would have not thought possible about a year ago when I was super afraid of everything. As a result of all of the riding my legs have been looking particularly heinous. I took a photo but it doesn't really get across the sickly green color that my knees have turned due to bruising.

I am really hoping to get some riding footage to share on here soon. I am kinda holding out for the tailwhip to happen first. I have been working on those ones lately and today I even got back onto the bike and then fell over so that is real progress. AND I totally was super close to getting a foot back on a whopper (bunnyhop tailwhip) today. woo hoo.

Until next time.