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.

It never is but I’m walking away from this now. I would have liked to have washed it to get all the red chalk dust off of it, and to have spent more time cleaning up letters with the white paint as well. On Friday they’re having an Easter event, and I have a dentist appointment, so I had to wrap it up Thursday night.

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 burned the midnight oil getting this done. Later, I gotta figure out how I’m gonna transfer the image on to the asphalt to start painting. As of right now I’m planning on a large print then pouncing holes in it to make a stencil. For now I’m gonna take a nap.

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

We went to the Aloha Animal Sanctuary and fed some goats, sheep, pigs, ducks & chickens today.

We’re going to go volunteer at an animal sanctuary for a few hours Saturday morning.

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. 

I dropped off the skull this afternoon at Local Color for their fundraising event on the 31st. It was a little hard giving it up after working on it intently for the last two and a half weeks but only spending one day with it after completion. It was so tired after all that work that I went straight to bed when I got back home and took a nap. Now I gotta get back to all the stuff I'd been putting off these last few days, like my Inktober drawings. I've missed the last 3 days but I will make them up. I already have the sketches I just need to ink and upload them.

I did all the touch ups and gave it a matte clear coat today. This thing is pretty AF! I wish I could keep but instead I'll be dropping it off at Local Color for the 31 Skulls fundraiser event where a lucky winner will take this, or another skull painted by a local artist, home with them.

Buy tickets here. The event, and drawing, will be held virtually on October 31st

It took me all day Sunday, and well into Monday morning, but I finally painted the last set of colors on my Cells Skull. It's due later today but I still need to do some touch ups and give it a clear coat. I'm hoping I can spend some time with it when it's completely finished before handing it off to Local Color for the 31 Skulls Fundraising Event.

Tickets are available here for $10 each and the more tickets you buy the more chances you have to win my skull or one of the other 30 skulls painted by local San Jose artists.

I was recently asked to participate in a fun project to paint/decorate a ceramic skull that will later be sold to raise funds for the local arts non-profit, Local Color. Local Color provided the skull and a little cash for supplies plus a voucher for a free slice of pizza at Pizza Flora, a vegan/vegetarian pizza joint in downtown San Jose. I know what I wanna do and have already started working on it. It's a design I've done in the past and I'll be sharing updates on my blog and Instagram of the process. 

Yesterday, after uploading my "protesters" drawing to Instagram, my friend Catrina let me know that Works/San Jose, a local non-profit art gallery, had a call-for-art and that my drawing fit the theme. I looked into it and found out it's for a memorial exhibition for George Floyd, Breona Taylor, and the countless other black people who lost their lives due to racism.

From the Works website: "Rather than issue corporate statements, Works seeks to amplify creative voices calling for justice. We ask artists to thoughtfully respond with work for a community exhibition respecting those who have faced the ultimate deadly disrespect." 

My drawing fit the bill so I submitted it last night. This morning Works/San Jose posted my drawing on their Instagram page.

The show is online only, since we're still dealing with Covid, and officially goes live June 19th (Juneteenth) 2020.

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.