Coyote

Finished the artwork for the my friends in Bravo Utah! Their EP entitled 'Coyote' is now free to download on the internet. Or you could buy it once it's pressed.

I don't usually work in a way where I pick from a selection of verbal ideas already expressed by the artist (in this case- the band name, song titles, and lyrics). If you illustrate an idea of an idea, the original concept becomes lost in translation. I find it better to leave the verbal idea palette open to interpretation. Pick some verbal ideas of your own, and illustrate objects from those ideas. I know this doesn't apply to a lot of artists, but when I work, I use words as much as images, because words are illustrations. So I choose objects from ideas, not ideas from objects.


But where I ended up was an image pretty involved in the concepts already created by the band. Sometimes your associations are just too heavily influenced to escape easily. But if you work hard enough at it you can break out of that association and come up with an image that puts a new spin on an old idea. 'The Singularity' is my favorite track on the album, and the black shape that is swallowing the coyote is a representation of a singularity.

Delusion

Just finished an illustration. It's on the subject of 'delusion'.

It will also be used for the cover of a little recording i'm working on for myself. Just a little project i'm working on with a friend, where I am responsible for all instrumentation (writing and recording) and he is responsible for all the vocals (*). But anyway...

I was inspired to illustrate this topic after reading Richard Dawkin's 'The God Delusion'. I'd tell you what it's about, but the book's title speaks for itself. Parts of the book are focused on delusion in a more vague sense, but overall, about the delusion of God, and why it is dangerous. This image is not, however, about 'The God Delusion'. Only about 'delusion' in general.

Here's the finished image:

But it took a lot of changes to get here. Here's the painting that went to the scanner, with the original drawing. I did SO much drawing and clone stamping after this point. Who says you can't polish a turd?

So from this point I worked digitally to fill in the ribbon section on the bottom amongst other things and I arrived at this:

I wasn't satisfied so I incorporated an old drawing with a flatter perspective of the volutes (which are those swirly things that they put on Ionic and Corinthian columns) to fix the balance problems the older volutes. Here's the older drawing I mentioned:

And the final drawing here:

Distracted

Here's my latest illustration for an article on our nation's attention span, titled "A Nation Distracted". Which I found myself really relating to.

The article is about what we risk by being so tapped-in to our world of unlimited information. Today everything is an arms length away, and because of this we've become desensitized to everything of real importance. The sensory overload that is technology has in many ways made us lose our sense of value. It's a simple concept that I think people really need to be reminded of. I could go on for hours about this stuff but I'll just say this - Be weary of what convenience is doing to your patience, ambition, character, etc.. Technology is a great thing but like everything else, it requires compromise to be balanced out by it's opposite.

In other words, put down your iPhones for a second, dorks. Especially when you're amongst other people. It's rude as hell. [Nate, this is not about (just) you. Hehe!]

Sketch above.

Painting below.

Currently i'm battling distraction more than ever. As a post-graduate I'm finding it extremely difficult to motivate myself without any outside help.

I Used To Think 'Altzheimers' Was Really Called 'Old Timers'

Hey,

Here's my new image. It's on the subject of finding a cure for Alzheimer's.

Just because it's fun to scan thumbnails, I stuck them in there. Don't read too far into the images you see in my thumbnails.

finished sketch

Finished painting. Ew! Colors are horrendous partially because of a bogus scan and the fact that this file of the painting has been tampered with. Parts are really desaturated. Also the dimensions are different. The finish is supposed to be a square, but I ended up completing the image with the proportions seen on the painting, so that I could put it on a postcard.

Here's the digital finish. Did a lot of tampering with colors. Took out a lot more of the pencil work than usual. I think it looks a lot less messy.

Thanks for checking up.

All By Hand

My friend Juli Lose is now co-owning an artists consignment shop in liberty place - it's called All By Hand and its at the shops at Liberty Place. The entrance is the one on 17 & Market. They open this Sunday and they're gonna be selling a LOTS of cool stuff by a ton of artists. You should come by and check it out. I've got some prints that I'll be selling. The are all matted and nice, as you can see here-


So check it out, babies.

New

New image! First one since graduating! This will be my next promotional postcard too- which I'm excited for.

Distressed type on the back side of the postcard.

Yeahh, I don't like to brag but i'm probly gonna mail about a billion.