I bought new acid free art materials this week which I'm kinda digging. They are water-based stamp pads called Distress Inks by Tim Holtz that can be applied to paper, wood, and even photographs. Typically you would use a paper tortillian to accent certain areas of photos to age and weather them, but I used the stamp pad raw and punched and dragged the square pads throughout the paper directly. It created a great abstract effect that I know I could use in future projects.

I had work an hour earlier than normal on Thursday but it was the wrong Thursday. Although I live only five minutes away, I decided to just draw instead and came up with this pretty cool abstract. No harm, no foul.. Just art.

This series came together in lieu of the bi-annual "Penny Sale" at my job. I started with President Lincoln who's face was plastered all over everything. I was staring at him at work all day for a whole month so what's a few more hours right? It blew up into a full blown series containing all presidents and important figures in our country's history that are immortalized on US currency. I finished it with Obama as a snake which I titled Red Across America to make fun of his proposed health care system. He's such a snake and he looks good in his true form. I'm just sour because I honestly thought this time was going to be different. Everything he said he would do during the last election sounded so good.. I wish it all.. well most of it.. were true.

The slogan of his campaign was "CHANGE," and not the literal form that most Americans contain in their pockets, but the promise of a new direction for the country. The most obvious "change" was racial and at this point it seems that that is all it was. The bail outs, the war for oil.. It all persists.

This series is to help people "change" for real. To aid change in minds stuck in their ways as my figurative finger points at all these suits smiling and waving on on TVs as they collapse their fingers back and forth at night to accompany their sinister laughs.

The times have changed my friends. We don't duel in the street in response to being "Yella!" We don't dip our feathers in ink and mail shit on horses.. Let's get with the program here and demand this change.

We all have a voice.. Scratch that! We all have many voices now. Social networking has become the new water coolers for our society and people need to start drinking. Bill may still be raving about Gloria Notimportant on American Idol somewhere but there are 15,000 others Bills talking about shit that actually matters. Let's stand back and send back the free bullshit our government propagandizes as "Top Headlines" and tap the keg on true political and environmental change.. Do you think our old ass system is working?

Anyway, there is a lot to say about each piece individually but now I'm pissed off and totally over this..

Pangea fo life!

This acrylic painting was commissioned by a coworker for her grandmother. Her grandmother always loved this particular painting and she tried for many years to have someone hand paint this image. Unfortunately for her she could not find anyone to tackle the task. Fortunately for me, I'm a artist. A struggling artist willing to 'portrait' some pooh if the money's right.

My coworker told me about this project in October and she brought me a postcard of the image for a reference that she took from
Her grandmother. I snapped a shot of it with my iPhone which became the only image I had or could find since I did not know the artist's name.

I started the reproduction that night and spent a couple hours painting the larger areas in the background and never touched it again until a week prior to Christmas. I procrastinated this piece for some time.

On a side note, I procrastinate everything actually but in a good way. I seem to like the pressure of deadlines and push the envelope of those deadlines to the last possible opportunity. When i was in college, I noticed my best works were the ones where I was up all the entire night/morning before class or when i was forced into production.

This was a similar situation. I literally finished this painting twenty minutes before I gave it to my friend. It was so fresh I couldn't even varnish it..

To end this story, the gift was a huge success. My friend loved the final product and it sounded like her grandma did too. She later told me that her grams loved the painting so much that it made her cry. I'm not in the business of making anyone cry, but hearing that made me feel good and I was happy to to be involved.

I'm glad she liked it Steph and you're welcome Steph's grandma ;)

I love sales. C'mon! Who doesn't? You hear things like 40% off and see beautifully designed signs urging you to spree like there will never be a sale again. You go overboard and purchase things you may never need or even want.. use? You get home. You sort of regret it but you're still happy because you saved a couple bucks.

That's me right now. I spent a grip but I saved more than I spent. I recently went insane and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of supplies just because. They were my Christmas gifts to myself. Canvas, markers, pens, frames, clay.. You name it, I got it. Here is the fruit of those spoils..

This is another drawing of my girlfriend Natalie. After seeing the wacky doodle above that accidentally resembles her, she wanted me to actually draw her and more importantly, to "Do it crazy!". I gladly accepted the task.

I came up with this idea using Microns and prismacolor markers. I was inspired by some very linear African artwork that I recently framed at my job. I could not determine the artist's name but he/she produced these beautiful images of African women and children all rendered with crosshatching and muted blocks of color. The color palette was extremely simple which emphasized the beautifully constructed and painstakingly clean crosshatching.

I have experimented with a similar process to this about ten years ago when I was graduating high school. I remembering learning about crosshatching and pointillism to which both techniques became my favorite over the next couple years. Come to think about it, it was around the same time my mother bought me the 48 set of Prismacolor Markers which is a little ironic. I would draw intricate shapes, crosshatch them, and fill in each box with a color. It originated from my love of chess. I emulated the game board in a lot of my drawings back then and I still use this repetition today.

I stepped my game up this time and recently purchase the 72 set of markers which I am "crazy" excited about and which is why I am pumping out art daily. New materials bring forth new ideas.. New ideas bring forth new opportunities.. New opportunities bring forth.. Ahh.. you get it.