My brother and I went to Area 15 in Las Vegas to check out Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart interactive art experience and it was so much cooler than I anticipated! I mostly took videos, which I uploaded to my Instagram, but none of them were able to capture what it’s really like in there. I think it’s the coolest and weirdest art installation I’ve ever seen can’t wait to go back. If you’re in Vegas you must go visit!
I flew out to Las Vegas today and met up with my brother. We went to the MGM Grand to watch the Jabbawockeez perform with G-Wrex of The Bangerz. I’m on a mini vacation till I fly back Thursday morning to prepare for the Rose, White & Blue event on Sunday, the 4th of July. Another busy day, but I made sure to make time to work on our 1000 piece puzzle with grandma. We got a lot done. Tomorrow I'm flying to Las Vegas to hang out with my brother foe a few days and go watch the Jabbawockeez perform with local DJ group The Bangerz at the MGM Grand. I'm super excited! I'll be back Thursday to start prepping for the Rose White & Blue Festival on Sunday, the 4th of July.
The Valley Verde Mural Celebration event was so much fun! My buddy, Mario's mural looked great in it's new home, the live band made me want to dance, the vegan tacos were delicious, and the paint-by-numbers activity was hit! As soon as I started pouring paint, people were ready to go. They were painting during the whole event up until it was time to pack up. I didn't have to paint at all, it was great! The best part was seeing so many friends in-person at the event after being stuck at home for the last year and a half. I can't wait to do more fun stuff like this!
I forgot to take a picture of the finished panel but the pictures below are of the map screenshot, my rough sketch, the original color mockup, the outlines with numbers, and final variation based on the paints I used. Another busy day getting ready for tomorrows event at Valley Verde. I went through all my paint buckets and made swatches. Then used Adobe Illustrator to assign colors to every shape and a number to every color in the digital image. Then I went to panel and wrote all the numbers on it. Tomorrow I'm gonna print some simple instructions for guests (the numbers & colors) then take apart the frame and take everything to the site and reassemble it and get set up before the event starts. I hope it's a good turn out and people want to come and paint-by-number.
Holy shit, what a long day! I put two coats of primer on the 4'x8' panel, built the frame, hung the panel on the frame, then transferred the image outlines from my laptop using a projector. Luckily I don't have to paint it till the Valley Verde event on Saturday with help from guests & passerby's.
I started building the frame for the 4'x8' panel we'll be painting on Saturday for the Valley Verde event. I cut some 1"x3" pieces to make a 4'x6' support frame then glued and screwed it to the 4'x8' panel. I'll continue working on it tomorrow, after the has glue set, and and figure out how I'm going to build a stand for it. I'd like it to sit two feet off the ground so no one has to squat to paint the bottom portion. I'm eventually going to transport it which means I might have to take it apart then reassemble it on site. I love building stuff like this, I only wish I wasn't pressed for time!
Today was busy! I worked on a button order. Followed up on another design job and sent an invoice. Went over to Local Color and picked up paint and supplies for this Saturday's event at Valley Verde. (RSVP here) Bought an 4'x8' panel to paint, lumber to build a stand, and more supplies at Home Depot. Then drove to my brother's studio at night to borrow his projector. Tomorrow I'm gonna prime the panel and start constructing the stand and hopefully go for a hike in the evening.
Today, my grandma and I started working on the new puzzle I got us last week. It's been a tradition over the last few years when my grandma comes to visit that we do at least one 1000-1500 piece puzzle together. Although it feels like much longer, we usually finish it in a couple days. Grandma likes to start by going through all the pieces and pulling out the edges and starting with those. She tries matching them to one another by color while I reference the poster, or box, to try and figure out where the pieces go. Today we came close to completing the edges after a couple hours. Grandma split when it was time to watch her novela!
I did not anticipate was how out of shape I was before DJing last night after a 12 month hiatus. Before covid shut down all weddings & events I'd been DJing every weekend for 7 years straight. I was used to the physical demands of the job. And although I'd been hiking on a regular basis for the last year, I wasn't prepared to be standing for 11 straight hours yesterday. Today I was practically dead to the world. I slept in late and when I woke up my feet, legs and back were all crazy sore. I stayed in bed most of the day, watched a couple movies and only left the house to go eat. I hope tomorrow's better because I gotta start sourcing materials and preparing for Saturday's event. I'll be doing an interactive live painting thingie downtown. It'll be my first time doing something like this and I need to figure out how I'm gonna accomplish it by Friday. It should be a lot fun and hopefully a lot less taxing on my body.
Tonight I DJ'd my first gig in over a year since covid shut everything down. It was my friends Mike & Raquel's son's graduation party on their ranch. It was super casual and laid back. A good event to shake off the rust. The only trouble I had wasn't my mixing, or MCing, but with the song selections. I couldn't remember half the music I used to play at events so I relied heavily on my Spotify playlists, which I have categorized by decades and genres. I was constantly scrolling thru Spotify on my phone looking for what to play next in Serato on my laptop. I still had a decent set even when I played random requests at the end of the night for the last few people there. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time.
It's been over a year since I last DJ'd an event. The last one was at a private residence on June 13, 2020, right in the thick of Covid. Before that, March 14, the day before California was ordered to shelter-in-place. Tomorrow I'm doing my buddy's son's high school graduation party at their house. This will be a good event to shake off any rust. I'm a little nervous, partly because I'm using a mix of my own equipment and my friends speakers, instead of my work's gear which is all a bit different. Either way, it should be fun.
My idea for the live outdoor art activation on June 26th has been approved so I'll be moving forward with it. Next on the agenda is getting the supplies and figuring out how I'm going to set up. It's going to be a small 4'x8' paint-by-number mini-mural where passerby's can jump in and paint. I was invited to do this by the amazing folks at Local Color, San Jose's own arts non-profit. That's all I have to share about the project & event for now. More details to come!
I've been asked to do some live interactive painting at an outdoor event on Saturday June 26th in Downtown San Jose. The invite came from Local Color. The location is next to a gardening non-profit organization called Valley Verde. They'll be unveiling a new mural painted by a couple buddies of mine. Today I went to check out the place and talked to a couple people working there to get ideas for my project.
It's been confirmed! I'll be vending, for the first time in over a year, at the Rose, White & Blue Parade, on 4th of July, here in San Jose. I'm still waiting on more details but the date and times are set. Earlier I pulled out the foam sign I made for my booth just to take a look at it. Over the next couple weeks I'm gonna need to work on a new booth setup to display my prints & buttons, and maybe magnets too, along with my t-shirts. I'm really looking forward to getting out there again and talking to people!
....F R A N K I E.
The red & blue USA prints give me an Alpine White kind of vibe. They remind of the Nestle candy bar wrappers from the 80s. I should do an Alpine White version of the map with a white background and blue states to make it a complete set. Pencil sketches for a thing I started working on this weekend. It's comprised of 6 other things. Thing things!
I dropped off the first couple prints at the post office today! One's off to Sunnyvale and the other to Salinas. I also delivered one print myself, here in town. I needed some "Do Not Bend" stickers so I made a quick design and printed them on some Avery labels I had laying around. I really like the way they came out!
You might have seen it on your way in. If not, go check it out. (just click on the images below) I also created a contact form for anyone interested in bulk pricing, custom color combinations and mural opportunities.
I finally got around to taking pictures of my Frankie Mcfly USA prints. The pics are for my online store, I just haven't added them to the site yet. I also created a printable form to log every print that goes in or out. I use something very similar for my t-shirt inventory. There are currently 5 different flavors of the Frankie Mcfly USA map as seen in the animated gif below.
Another busy day. I spent part of it calendaring upcoming events, something I haven't done in over a year, marking my wall calendar at home and updating my Google Calendar online. Things are opening back up! I already have one DJ gig booked in less than 2 weeks and 3 vending events happening in the coming months. Regardless of how busy I get, I need to stay physically active, so tonight I went to Alum Rock Park before closing and hiked up to Eagle Rock before sunset.
I spent half the day thinking today was Tuesday. I stayed busy cleaning, doing dishes, laundry and went shopping at Costco. I picked up a few items for my booth, for when it's time to start vending at events again, a convertible dolly/hand truck for moving my boxes & tubs and a 16' roll of color changing led lights to give the booth some color. There are some upcoming events I'll be vending at and I want to be ready to kick some ass when the time comes.
I went and visited my friend, Arely, at an event she was vending at this afternoon. I surprised her with a few buttons I made of her artwork. She loved them. She uploaded a video on Instagram showing off her favorite. Around the same time, my other friend, Lulu, also uploaded a video showing off the custom roller skate button I designed for her. Later, when I got home, I pressed the buttons I designed for my buddy, Vic. It's based on a sketch I made in high school of his bands name, QMI. He ordered one of my San Jose t-shirts a few days ago and the buttons are a surprise. I spent two hours this afternoon preparing a background music playlist for my buddy's 40th birthday party today. I sat with him a couple nights ago and went over a bunch of music he liked and today I organized the tracks by genre and created a 5 hour playlist for the party. Afterwards, I gathered my speaker, my old iPhone 4 running Spotify and all the necessary cables before getting ready for the party. Later, when I arrived at his house I could hear music coming from the backyard. When I went back there it turned out my buddy found a Pandora station, with music he liked, to play on his brand new boombox and didn't need my music or gear anymore. Womp-womp-womp... Oh well! Less work for me and I was able to just enjoy the party as a guest. It had been years, longer than the pandemic, since I last saw some of the people there tonight.
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Frankie Mcfly's
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