Typography Humor

Credit where it's due:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/the-very-best-of-awful-font-and-typography-humor

Cooleen and Brian's Starscapes

These are a series of four paintings I did for my friends Cooleen and Brian for their wedding. First off, I found their horoscope signs, Taurus and Libra, and found the appropriate star systems, The Bull, and The Scales. I then found the star systems' locations in the sky, as you can see in the full picture of the four squares together on back of I. So I transferred the sky onto four connecting canvases, with The Scales on the far left one (I), and The Bull on the far right (IV), with II and III falling in between. I then just drew horizontal and vertical lines to either connect the stars or just carried them off the page, and I painted the resulting rectangles in browns and blues, trying to limit my palette to be less confusing and loud. I included pictures of the basis in the sky on the back of each painting to better place them, as well as the two systems drawn into their respective placements. This is more of an ephemeral piece than I've really done recently, and it was really fun to do, break out of the traditional and do something a little more abstract.

I
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas



II
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas


III
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas

IV
12" x 12"
Oil on Canvas

This is the back of I. I pasted the actual sky on the back of each piece to better see them. The four squares connected at the bottom is the area in the sky from which these paintings are taken so as to be able to see the physical connection between the two signs.

Quick 2 Paintings

Here are a couple paintings I did for my brother inspired by my trip to Alaska. They are done on two not-great mat-board type product from Pier I Imports or something of that sort. I just gessoed and applied some medium to the appropriate parts to make them paintable. I kept them as simple and as graphic as possible, to maintain the effect I was seeking to achieve. I have at least a screenprint or two that I would like to create based on these images. As with a lot of ideas, though, we'll see what happens. But they turned out well, pretty much what I was hoping for, just some simple original art to be displayed in my brother's house, playing with the frame and art idea: what is art, the frame, and their relationship. Completed August 2010.

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Untitled
Mixed Media
14" x 20"

Recent Work

Here is my most recent painting (besides the ones I'm almost finished with now). But this one was completed almost a month ago, maybe three weeks ago. It's for some friends who are getting married a while from now, I thought the date was sooner but was mistaken, so I get to hold onto it for a while. But the canvas came from Goodwill, the original picture is the last picture on the post, it's a pretty nice impressionist landscape, with some really nice textures. But it was a cheap canvas and reused, so I had to do something on it. I gessoed (a word I just made up, thanks) the whole thing, trying to keep some of the texture, and adding a little as necessary, and penciled everything in. I then painted over some of it with acrylic, and took some pictures because I liked the way it looked. I may use those pictures for some sort of design later, but that will happen as necessary. My goal was fairly clear from the inception of this piece of what it ought to look like upon completion. So I finished the acrylic section, used some latex wall paint for the foreground areas, and did oils over most of it. So much of what is seen is oil, but there is ample acrylic and latex paint evident throughout. The effect that I really wanted could only have been attained through oil paints, especially concerning the sky, and the buildings were far too unperfect when I first did them with just acrylic. So before I did them with oils, I measured and marked them out, making them fit my vision much better.
I am extremely pleased with the end result, the textures I've included with this are particularly pleasing, especially the first brown one of the foreground, there's a spectacular underpainted stroke and texture in the lower right area which is just wonderful, even better when actually seen.
These pictures definitely don't do the piece justice, as is the case with much artwork, but the real piece is slightly darker and more detailed than shown here.
I hope it's good. Even more so that the couple like it.

Hawaii II
Acrylic and Oil on Canvas
24" x 36"

Detail I

Detail II

Prior painting on this canvas
Artist unknown

Skyscapes: Metrolink

Here are the finished Metrolink Skyscapes. I think the wires add a lot more dimension to the pieces that are kind of lacking in the three below this post. This triptych also plays in with man's imposition into nature. These were fun to do though, as always. And am now going to paint on a canvas, which will be a fun new endeavor, or work on a sculpture, I'm just going to see how I feel when I get back from my trip.

Skyscapes: Metrolink I

Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink II
Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink III
Acrylic on Panel
24" x 22"

Skyscapes: Metrolink sans Wires

This is my most recent skyscapes triptych. These are before the finished paintings, which I will put up next. I just wanted to photograph them before I added wires in case I wanted to incorporate them into some kind of design project. But I just wanted to do a before and after wires for these pieces.

Fence Mural

This is a mural I did with a neighbor/ friend of mine. We pretty much grew up together and were both involved in some surgeries recently, he wins surgery-wise for sure though. We figured we'd do something productive and fun though in order to take our minds off other things. But he came up with the idea and execution. I really just helped with the painting. We began at around 9 at night, got rain delayed and built a semi-elaborate (well, elaborate may not be the right adjective, but it did the job) canopy. And of course, by the time we finished the canopy, the rain stopped. But we kept it up just in case it rained again. We then worked until about 12:30 and finished up and cleaned, etc. Came back and photographed it a day later. Really fun to work on, great doing a collaborative piece with him. About 6 or so feet high, maybe 15 feet wide. Two colors. He white-washed the fence and we just did black on top. Pretty simple, but really nice result.

Thursday Night Throwdown

This was done for the Barista Guild of America's (about) monthly latte art competition, entitled "Thursday Night Throwdown." This is my first poster I've done for them, and I hope to continue doing them. I was going for an old-school wrestling or boxing poster. A suggestion was made to add boxing gloves to the poster, which would have been a really cool element, but oh well, maybe next time.

Thursday Night Throwdown Competition Poster
Digital Print
8" x 10"

Skyscapes: Mall

These are my latest paintings, Skyscapes: Mall. This series continues my prior expedition into the connection and relations between natural and man-made. I guess it kind of started with my Skyscapes: Travel series, and I have at least one more planned after this, which I began preparing tonight. I began with the sky/background first, and really finished it before moving onto the building/foreground part. I tried to maintain a connection between the three sky areas and the building areas while keeping them different enough to be interesting. I'm really enjoying the abstraction versus geometry aspect of these paintings, and I hope to maintain that in the next series.

Skyscapes: Mall III
Acrylic on Panel
22" x 24"

Skyscapes: Mall II
Acrylic on Panel
22" x 24"

Skyscapes: Mall I
Acrylic on Panel
22" x 24"

Three Older Drawings

Untitled
Charcoal on Paper
24" x 36"

Reclining Nude
Chalk Pastel on Paper
28" x 20"

Ribs
Charcoal on Paper
30" x 20"

All three are kind of older, done between freshman and junior year of college. And they're all from different drawing classes, but each class was really great. Not much else to say about them.

Skyscapes' Sides

These two pictures are kind of inconsequential or nominal, but I think they're kind of nice. The skyscapes pictures from earlier are about 2 inches off the wall, gallery canvases, and stacked together I think they look pretty interesting, so I thought they ought to be posted:

Skyscapes: Travel (detail)

Skyscapes: Travel (detail)

New Paintings- Skyscapes: Travel

Here are my latest paintings. I came up with the idea sometime during the end of January, very beginning of February, and finished them middle/end of March. It is a set of four skyscapes of pictures that I took on a trip in either Europe or Missouri (three from Europe, one from Missouri). They are all done with oil on acrylic on canvas. This is the first time I have attempted both on one canvas, though I think all of the acrylic is now covered up. It gave it a nice texture, and gave me a good idea of where I wanted to go with them. Next time I combine the two mediums, I may have more acrylic show, but that will depend on the piece, of course.
I think I am, however, beginning a new series of such "Skyscapes." and have begun my second set. Like the oceans idea, I'm going to try to take this as far as I can and then move onto something else. That's the plan at least. These are pretty successful though. Still, I am unsure how I want them hung, whether four in a square as below (and in what order?), or as four in a line (also in what order?); also whether to keep them an inch or so apart, or touch the edges of each to each other. That will remain to be seen. But as they are now:

Skyscapes: Travel
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
12" x 12" each, about 26" x 26" as shown above

Skyscapes: Travel II
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas

12" x 12"

Skyscapes: Travel I
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
12" x 12"

Skyscapes: Travel III
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
12" x 12"

Skyscapes: Travel IV
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
12" x 12"

America 2001-2009

This project began as a relief print for a printmaking class. It is a linoleum cutout of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. My objective for the project was to create a print based on the word "nominal." I applied that to contemporary politics, and used hierarchy to emphasize whom was being nominalized. These particular prints were test prints for my final project, done on a really thin, fabric-like paper. After a while of them just laying around, I laid them out to see what kind of shape I could get out of them, as I could not think of anything else to do with them. They were the perfect dimensions for a flag. I painted them with the appropriate water colors to make it more obviously a flag and months later finally sewed them together, to give it more color and texture as well as to emphasize, once again, the flag idea. I then cut two 2 x 4's in half longways and built a frame, spray-painted white on which to attach my "flag," which I did with a staple gun. I am extraordinarily pleased with this project. It also reminds me, due to the repetition, of my "37 Fountains," an obvious Warhol influence, though I'm unawares if Warhol ever segued into politics.

America 2001-2009
Mixed Media
36" x 24"

America (detail)

America (detail)

America (detail)

St. Lous Symphony Orchestra Mailer & Calendar

This is a project that I did for a Graphic Design class. Our assignment was to redesign the mailer/calendar that the Symphony mails out to get people interested in their new season. All we were given were the specs and a few requirements, everything else was open to our own design. A week before this project began, I went to an estate sale and found a myriad of old photographs in the basement. I bought all of them, imagining everything I could do with them. It happened to work out that we began this project the next week, and I decided to utilize the pictures. I found the German word for memories, Reminiszenz, and titled my mailer as such. I then found German composers to feature on the right side of each spread, and paired it with different images of women through various ages of their lives.
For the cover, I scattered a few of the other pictures on the floor and photographed them to resemble someone digging through their old photos in order to remember something. I hand drew all the titles and names and found two other fonts which were appropriate to my own design as well as to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra aesthetic.

I am extremely happy with my final product. I put a lot of time and thought into it, and I hope it shows.

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Cover

SLSO interior spreads
In order: Pages 1, 2, and 3

SLSO Calendar of Events

Sculpture

So I noticed all of posts so far have been 2D pieces. As quite a few of the pieces that I've done are 3D, I thought I ought to post some sculptures that I've done.

Letters Chandelier (for Hannah)
Dimensions variable- approximately 18" x 18"
Plastic, magnets, wire, glue, wires, and lights

This is a chandelier I did for my friend Hannah in 2009. The idea began with hers and some of mine magnet letters (from our childhood, the letters you put on the fridge to help your alphabet and spelling kids). She had asked me to do something with the letters, and I decided that a chandelier would be the most interesting thing to do with them. I began with a wire armature and glued the letters around it, leaving a large enough hole at the top to put in lights and attach a hook with which to hang the chandelier. I filled the sculpture with clear christmas lights, as they would be the easiest to change if they burn out. I made a hook and attached it to the top so the sculpture could be hung. I am extremely extremely pleased with it and I believe she is too.

Untitled
approximately 24" x 24"
Wood, stain, and glue

This sculpture is a wood relief that I created in 2008. It began with a square wall relief that I had sketched out a while ago (which I still may do at some point in the future), and morphed into circles. They then acquired gaps, pegs, and holes to add more interest to the piece as a whole. The final shape was more chance than I like to put in my pieces. Since I couldn't lay the pieces exactly as I sketched them out, I put them in a general arrangement and they became what is shown as I glued them together. I am quite enamored with the piece and gave it to my brother, Rob.

Older Paintings

Here are a couple paintings I completed in 2008.

The first derived from a picture I took while on a family vacation in Hawaii in December of 2007. We went on a Mai Thai Cruise, drank, and boated around the island. I got a few okay pictures, but I thought this one was the most intriguing. As we were on a boat, none of the pictures were in focus, all were blurred to some extant. This blur was the most appealing to me. So I took the buildings as they were, simplified them even more, reflecting the shapes that had come through in the picture, and focused most of my attention on the sky. That took the most time to feel complete. I've found that when I work from pictures, I reach a point where the picture cannot reflect what I want to accomplish in the painting, so I got rid of the picture and painted the sky.

Hawaii at Night
Acrylic on Canvas
48" x 36"

This second one was taken from a Robert Mapplethorpe image of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Fountain is one of my favorite pieces of art. In order to show my admiration for Duchamp (as well as Warhol, as obviously seen in the repetition and even the color palette), I painted a portrait of his piece. It was extraordinarily fun to do, morphed gradually from my original intention to my end product, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

37 Fountains
Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 36"

Oceans Triptych

I finished my Oceans triptych today. Finished the framing, painting, etc. All I have left to do is attach some kind of hanging apparatus, but that's it. It's a really nice feeling finishing something. I'm excited to start something new now.

The paintings were based off the BBC and Discovery Channel Series Planet Earth. It is an awesome, awesome show, with some beautiful images. My brother Rob and I watched it and paused it to take pictures of images we thought particularly compelling. I then chose three from the 8 or so pictures we had taken that I felt could go together as a triptych as well as stand alone as individual paintings. I did the first two this past summer, but had to delay doing the final one until this most recent break. The Jellyfish was finished first, followed by the coral and seascape respectively. My wish for them to be hung is in the following order:

Oceans- Seascape
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 42"

Oceans- Coral
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 41"

Oceans- Jellyfish
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 42"