I went back to Casitas de Esperanza on Friday, not to work on the map mural but for their Easter event. It was open to all Amigos de Guadalupe residents They provided food for all guests and an Easter egg hunt & toy donations for the kids. Right before they released the kids to go hunt for Easter eggs the staff used my map to help line them up based on age. It made me so happy to see the map being used and to see all the kids running around having fun. I posed for a few pictures while was there too.

Crap! I forgot to post on Wednesday. Here are pictures of the Alaska stencil before getting chalked, after getting chalked and then primed with a white base coat before getting colored.

Aside from a bit of touch ups and a good cleaning, the contiguous United States are done. I still need to lay down Alaska, and color in Hawaii to be officially done-done. In a few days Casitas de Esperanza is having their first annual Easter egg hunt, for all the kids housed via Amigos de Guadalupe, and they’re accepting donations for pre-filled Easter eggs. I bought a bag of plastic eggs and chocolate candies and loaded them up. I also drew a different smiley face on a each egg.

Another fun, busy and productive day working on the map. My friend Catrina came to help paint then my other friend, Carolina, came and she brought her goddaughter, Natalie. Alex, one of the staff members at Amigos de Guadalupe, hung out and gave us a hand too. We made so much progress and we’re a lot closer to being done.

We had 5 volunteers today to help us with our murals. We covered a lot of ground, no pun intended. I was so busy I forgot to take pictures but we did stop for a pizza break. Tomorrow I’m hoping to finish painting the top half, lay down the stencil for the bottom and Alaska and start painting some more.

I had a few volunteers help me paint today and we still didn’t get far. I thought the whole top half was going to be finished and the bottom half chalked by the end of the day. The asphalt is really difficult to paint with a brush and the mini rollers work better but some letters are too small for the roller. There was a fair amount of trial and error today. I hope I can finishing painting the top half tomorrow and be 100% done by Monday night.

Another busy day! This morning I went to Local Color to pick up and pounce the missing piece of the map that didn’t print last time. At home I cut the new pieces and taped them to the main stencils. Later, I went to Home Depot for some supplies before going to Casitas de Esperanza and priming the Hawaiian islands with white paint. I’m hoping that on Friday I can start painting the states in color after making another stencil transfer.

Today at Local Color, Ben from Brush House printed out my map on 5 long sheets of paper and trained me how to operate an electro-pounce to make a stencil. I took me about 8-9 hours to finish. Now I gotta assemble the stencil and hope that tomorrow, when I hit it with powdered chalk, I get a good transfer on the coarse asphalt.

Today was our first day working onsite at Casitas De Esperanza (Tiny Homes of Hope.) It’s a non-profit run community that provides shelters to unhoused families in downtown San Jose. I, along with a couple other artists, are going to paint murals on the ground for the kids to play on and to brighten up the place. My US map will be one of 5-6 murals getting painted this week but before I can lay down any paint I gotta get my map printed & pounced to make a stencil. I’m excited to be a part of this and can’t wait to get going!

Many thanks to Local Color for adding me on this project and Amigos De Guadalupe for operating the site.

I had a late start again tonight and only vectorized 7 states. Earlier today I picked the 5 different color paints I’ll be using and made a color mock up.

I vectorized a few more states today. Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico & North Dakota are done.

I went and did a site visit Thursday evening where I, and other local artists, are going to paint on the asphalt. I’ll be doing my USA map below. I did a quick color fill in the bottom pic to get a better idea of what it’ll look like when it’s done. More details to follow.

Here’s my sketch for the project I mentioned yesterday. The idea would be to paint the names of all 50 states on concrete and make it as colorful as possible. I’ll wait to see what the organizers think before finishing this in case they have other ideas.

An opportunity came up today to design & paint fun interactive paintings on concrete at housing project in downtown San Jose for kids to play on. Think hopscotch & four square. This opportunity came via the arts nonprofit Local Color. I and a couple other artists are waiting on more information from the organization, and for dry weather, before we can begin. 

In other news, I penciled the this 3 eyed vampire kid as a Thank You card for me to ink later. 

This morning I and a bunch of volunteers helped paint a boarded up window in downtown San Jose. It was organized by the arts non-profit Local Color. I didn't do much besides fill ins. Local artist & sign painter, Ben Henderson did the lettering. It was fun being out there working with everyone and hanging with friends.

This morning I saw a post on Instagram to meet up at city hall and help clean up downtown San Jose. I grabbed my work gloves, rubber gloves, mask, hat and couple large garbage bags headed out after lunch. This was my first time going downtown since the protesting started and I was a little nervous driving in. When I drove by Santa Clara Street, between 4th & 6th, I expected it to look like warzone but it didn't. It was clean. It didn't look like anything out of the ordinary happened there. After parking a block away I DM'd the person who originally made the post, because I didn't see anyone cleaning, or any groups besides protesters (holding up signs or fists,) so I decided to walk around till I heard back. I hung out were the protesters were for a little bit before cruising down Santa Clara street and making a left on 1st street. I snapped some pics along the way: protest signs on storefronts, graffiti over murals (which bummed me out,) artwork on the windows at Local Color & the boards covering up Good Karma Cafe, and the peaceful protesters in front of city hall and the food & drinks that were provided to them (that made me happy.) On my way out I drove past the protesters, fist up and out the window, trying to honk my horn to the "No Justice, No Peace" chant. I sounded like shit. Later on, I finally heard back from the clean up guy. I guess they were told to leave by police once the protesters arrived.

Except for go on a walk and make this animated gif.

My friend Arely Cardenas, along with artist Jesse Hernandez, were commissioned to paint a mural during a Google conference, in collaboration with Local Color, a few months back and today it was donated to James Lick High School in East San Jose, CA. A faculty member walked me to the new building for the unveiling and as we walked thru the old halls I told her I went to summer school here in 1998. I went to Mount Pleasant High School, which was a couple miles away, flunked a bunch of classes my freshman & sophomore year and had to make them up during junior & senior year. It was that summer in between. MP didn't offer classes that summer so all our dumb asses went to Lick. 

That was also the summer The Beastie Boys released the album Hello Nasty. My friends and I went to go buy the CD when it came out at Circuit City (by Eastridge Mall) after school on a Tuesday.

Tonight I finished adding the second coat of white paint to the 3rd Redwall Studio mural I've painted. I  love red paint but it's a pain in the ass to work with. I bought the top shelf, "one coat" paint and it still needed a second coat. Even the "one coat" white needed a second pass. The plan was to have this done by New Year's Eve but it took a few extra days. Now I know. If you wanna hire me to paint your walls please send me a message.

I spent about 10 hours today painting this sucker. Gonna come back next week after it's completely dried incase it needs touch ups.

I only had a few hours today to get the materials, prep and draw the outlines using a projector and chalk. I left early to attend an event at Local Color and snapped a pic of my EMN mural while I was there. Tomorrow I'm going in early to knock out the Redwall logo.

Here's the mockup (top) of the Redwall logo I'm painting at my brother's Studio in Fremont tomorrow. I forgot we painted it on an actual red wall (left) in his San Jose location a few years back. I also designed the logo. The original pencil drawing (right) lives in on one of my old sketchbooks.

I took a picture every time I got up to clean my brush or take a break, and at the end of each night.  Over 40 hours of work in a 17 second video slideshow.