I waited till the last day but I paid it on time. All the sales tax I collected from t-shirt sales in 2019. I would have forgoten if my friend Arely didn't ask me about it. Last year was her first year vending so she got her first notice to pay from the CDTFA. This is my second time doing it. Any questions I had this year I figured out by looking at my old records. I'm glad I got it paid in time and that I saved the money to pay it. Next up are the federal and state tax returns. I'm just waiting on my W-2 from work, and maybe a few other forms. I can't wait to get it done & over with and see how much money I'll have left over for merch. Last Saturday at The Arsenal's art auction I won this piece by the homie Fernando aka EPH KUE. (@nandoid2485 on Instagram) I fucking love it! It's 19 inches long, 3 inches wide and made of wood. Made to look like a Sakura solid paint marker aka "streaker." It now lives on my desk near my books. Please give him follow and visit The Arsenal when you need art supplies.
I was asked to submit an image and a 30 word description for my upcoming art show at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library for a newsletter going out to San Jose State students, faculty & staff. I hate writing about myself so I started with the image. It began as a pencil & paper sketch then brought in a photo of the library into Adobe Illustrator and started playing around. It's not perfect but I'm liking where it's going. I might make a few tweaks before submitting it and probably do more by show time. Now to go write a description...
I'm done with Head Thing 2 poster. I'm currently working on three other drawings but when I'm done with those I might start working the next Head Thing. The first Head Thing (top left) was going to be one of my original 3 t-shirt designs until I found out how much it would cost to print all those shirts so I went with my logo instead. Below are some sketches for possible future Head Things. I'm still looking for one to put on a shirt. All the cracks in Head Thing 2 are not going to work on a screen printed t-shirt.
It's hard to see the pencil lines but I wanted to show my progress on the piece I call Hearts & Stars & Hearts & Stars... I drew this a couple years ago and it had a 2 inch blank border around the edges which I'm now filling up. A few days ago I started adding more hearts & stars starting from the middle of the left side (in the pic) and tonight I wrapped around the bottom right corner. Once again, it's hard to see.
The reason I worked on this piece tonight, and this has happened a few times now, was because of this daily blog. Instead of trying to think of something to write about I can just post progress pics of my work. It's easier for me to draw than to write. I think I'm done with Head Thing 2. I might come back later if I think of a good background for it. The next project is to update these 3 old drawings, from an old art show that never happened, and ink them. They're the same size as Head Thing 2. Big. I originally drew them with 2" white borders but now I'm making them edge to edge, full bleed. They're all based off much smaller versions I drew back in 2014 & 2017
I was going to leave my San Jose Skarks piece somewhere near the Skark Tank for someone to find but when I saw that The Arsenal, a local San Jose mom & pop art supply store, was having an auction to raise money for an expansion I offered to donate it them. I dropped it off Friday evening and the auction will be on Saturday from 2-5pm. I don't know if anyone will bid on it but I hope the fundraiser is successful for Roan & Sean, the owners.
Redux on the left. Original artwork on the right. When I printed the EMN shirts with the original artwork, a lot of the smaller details were washed out or blurry. Now that I'm going to print more I decided to redo the parts of the image that weren't so sharp. I printed the original artwork in black & white on paper then highlighted the parts that came out blurry on the t-shirt. I then digitally made some of those lines thicker and redrew others completely. This should result in a better looking print on the next batch of shirts. I feel like I did what George Lucas did to Star Wars when he released the Special Edition versions of his original trilogy. Tonight I attended my first Meeting of the Minds session where artists are randomly paired to work together on a single canvas together. I was paired with local artist Al Preciado and we ended up with three canvases at the end. It was a lot of fun catching up with old friends and making new ones. It's a monthly thing and I look forward to doing it again in the future.
I took a bunch of photos while I was working on my first Cells painting years ago. I knew I wanted to make something with the photos afterwards so I made a time-lapse of the cells multiplying from the center out (starts at the 1:22 mark) Everything leading up to that is the painting process, cans I used, my workspace, feral kittens, and notes that I scrawled everywhere including the cans. Here are a few details about the piece: The red can of MTN 94 is only used once as a 5 sided shape in the center. Everyone other color was used multiple times to make 5 & 6 sided shapes until they bled off the sides. I made sure no shape was touching, or too close to the same color shape, so they're all spread out evenly. The 2nd large scale Cells painting I made (Cells MK2) looks very similar but I used a completely different process. For the second one I mapped it all out on my computer first then painted one whole set of the same color at a time. I originally posted this on an old YouTube which is still up bit no longer active. Before using the alias Frankie Mcfly I used the handle I Draw Weird Stuff. The song I used is "Singing' In The Rain" by Mint Royale (used without permission) and it synced up almost too perfect. It's time to reprint more EMN shirts and replenish my inventory but first I'm going to make a few edits to the artwork. There were too many fine details in the digital artwork that came out blurry or washed out when screen printed onto shirts. I took this into consideration when I made the EMNSJ (San Jose) shirts and made sure not to make any lines that were too small. Now that it's time print more I'm going to fix the mistakes and get a better looking image next time around.
I had few beers watching the 49ers beat the Packers in the Championship game, ate dinner, laid down to read some Preacher comics and passed out. Now I’m awake in the middle of the night. Maybe I should drink more beer, eat more food and read more comics to fall asleep again.
This weekend and last weekend I DJ'd doubles. Friday & Saturday gigs. Tonight, and last night, I DJ'd at the same venue and was able to leave the rig setup overnight. Today I came already dressed in my suit, versus load-in clothes. My dinner was waiting for me when I arrived. And I had a fun dance floor going for most of the night. The only issue was my DJ laptop freezing half hour before the end of the night. It killed my dance floor. I played some Spotify music playing from my personal laptop while my DJ laptop restarted and got the dance floor going as soon as I was up and running. Unfortunately, there were only half as many people by then. If it wasn't for that incident tonight would have been perfect.
Yesterday I got a new addition for my small collection of Edward Gorey books. The Doubtful Guest. It's a rhyming storybook about a weird creature who comes to visit an Edwardian families home. The first Gorey book I bought was The Object Lesson. I found the little hardcover at a Savers thrift store and fell in love with the illustrations and the super weird story that makes no sense. Next, I bought the Gashlycrumb Tinies. It's basically an alphabet book where each letter represents a kid dying or getting killed. Wikipedia says Gorey wrote over a 100 books. If they're all like these then I want them all.
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. I don't remember when I first noticed it but it had to be after one of the San Jose Sharks Street Rallies I DJ'd last year. At the SAP Center, where the Sharks play hockey, if tag your location on an Instagram post one of first options is the Skark Tank. It's easy to miss since the words are so small and the h and k look kinda similar. I've had this Shark poster for months and recently decided to get rid of it, but not before marking it up first. I used tracing paper, Pro White paint and a black marker to make the tweak. I also drew my logo where the registered trademark symbol was. Lets go Skarks!
I came up with the paintbrush holder (the M shaped one with the two feet) a few years ago when I was working on a canvas. I needed something to set my brush down and not get paint everywhere. I don't know how I got the idea to bend a paperclip but it worked out great. Recently, while working on Head Thing 2, I made another brush holder then came up a second design (triangle base) that was a little easier to make. Super simple and practical. I love that shit.
I used a Micron 03 and cleaned up some lines I made with a Copic brush marker. The details were so small that it's barely noticeable. It's just a little bit sharper now. Last night I printed a picture I took of the piece and tonight I sketched a possible background but I'm not really feeling the diagonal lines I drew on the photocopy. I'll try again tomorrow.
I added the details to the teeth and made some thin lines bolder. Next I gotta sharpen some lines and add more floaty things around the outside and maybe a background of sorts.
Gig number 2 was another holiday party. No theme, just a straightforward cocktail hour, dinner & dance. There was some cool lighting in the room and some garland for the rig. Next weekend is another double which is great since January & February are usually slow.
Another year of changing in restrooms. Tonight's gig was a Roaring 20s themed so I played ragtime & jazz during cocktail hour (it sounds better on paper than at a party) then electro swing at dinner to liven up the event. During open dance I played modern music from the 80s thru 2010s. It's weird to think that all new music going forward will be labeled "20s music." My Spotify is ready. I just hope the new 20s music works better at events than the old 20s.
I think I'm done with the cracks. I still gotta work on the teeth then add more floaty things before it's done-done..
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Frankie Mcfly's
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