This is an old post that was lost.. not in translation.. but in relaxation.  This image is also referred to in the post prior to this one (Natalie Meets Tom).  I couldn't post this at the time of completion because it was before Father's Day and I didn't want to ruin the surprise.  This is why I forgot about these last two posts.

This commissioned project was for my friend's wife.  She wanted a Father's Day gift that meant something special for my old friend Hanks.  She told me how she felt about him in a short paragraph and I took it from there.  Being sneakerheads, I figured nothing could be better than sealing their love in a drawing of some kicks.  I knew that they both loved Jordans so I found out which ones exactly and took it from there.  At this point, I made each person represented by a sneaker.  I made a few minor tweaks to the design.  I changed the hologram from a circle to a heart on the red/whites, and wrote "Love" instead of "Jordan" near the toe of the grey/blues.  The one lace travels around each sneaker and weaves into and out of each to represent two people and two minds into one life and one idea...  This metaphorically speaking represents their life together and how things truly change when you are in love and start a family together; two people joined as one.

Jamie, Hank's girl and the commissioner for this piece, wanted her words to be written in the background of the drawing.  Without disrupting the composition, I was able to incorporate her beautiful words into the laces that join the two sneakers together.  I really like the way this came out.  My favorite part being the open white spaces, on each shoe, that seamlessly blend into the background.  My one quarrel with it is the toe portion on the grey/blues.  I didn't think about it I guess, and I drew each sneaker from one picture.  The sneaker design is actually different between colors and the red/whites have that triangle shape of the toe while the grey /blues do not.  Oh well.  What's perfect?  I hope you like it Hanks!!

This drawing is in lou of another drawing that I can't disclose of at the moment. All I can say is that it's a sneaker which got me thinking. Feeling frisky, I decided to design an image to paint.. Well paint on.

A couple months ago, I applied for a job painting sneakers for Tom's. Art degree and all but still couldn't generate a response. Sucks for them right?  I have never owned a pair, but I love the simplicity and the relaxed faux hippie, classic slip-on style. I'm fitting puzzle pieces back together as we speak.. Maybe it's because I went to one of their sneaker painting events my second day in California with my buddies Yon and Joe.  My friend was in cahoots with a company called eVocal, which basically was a team of local artists in Costa Mesa that had a facility to silkscreen and sell their work. It was pretty sweet.  They got the opportunity to create sneakers for local Newport Beach customers right in front of the store.

We hung out for a couple hours and I watched the artist receive requests and I got the opportunity to watch them flush out their ideas on customer's sneakers. I remember one of the artists maintaining but his talent and skill was that of a high school student who just liked to draw.  To my surprise, his customers seemed please.  I remember having the urge to paint a pair just to see what would have happened..

Anyway, this is the design I came up with.  I am currently transferring this idea to the actual sneaker.  I'm almost done so I'll post those pictures soon.

This was a fun little bonsai project that was inspired by my "playercard" on COD Black Ops. Your playercard is a small picture that you can create from other preset emblems, symbols, and pictures to make your card unique from everyone else's. Most people's cards are for mature audiences only. Most seem to think its funny to objectify women and animals in a pornographic way but there are some that have a 'nerdy class' and tend to build Superheros or Nintendo characters like this Youtube video illustating a playercard design. I, like this guy.. maybe girl.. keep it clean. Too clean actually.

 Although this game is very graphic and emerses the user into violence and war, my playercard was quite the opposite. It was and still is a serene beach scene with a cliff and and some palm trees in siloutte with a sunset sky and large sun (will add a picture at some point). This leads me back to the point of all this..

For some reason my COD sunset made me think of Japan. I know this is very sterotypical and I do not mean to offend anyone, but my thought process is as follows. Red Sun-> Japan-> Martial Arts-> Bonsai Treeeeess.. My bad.

All four are made with colored pencils/stix on various colored, 5" x 7" suede mat boards.  Thanks for reading.