After the 31 Skulls event yesterday I was beat. I spent the day resting in bed and watching movies. I only went out to get food, buy some supplies and pick up my buddy's projector to use for the Eastridge mural. This thing is huge, compared to the other projector. I think it weighs like 30 lbs. I hope it works out for me tomorrow night when I go back to Eastridge. 

After months of work on the 31 Skulls Fundraiser for Local Color, and all the frustrations that came with it, I still had a fun time MCing the giveaway this afternoon in front of a live audience and online via Instagram Live. I'm so glad it's over.

Friday night is when I officially start working on the Eastridge mural. I'm going to use a projector to trace my design on the wall and I need to run an extension cord across the floor so I'm going to wait till after the mall closes, when there's less foot traffic, to get started. I might be there all night. Then the next day is the 31 Skulls event at Local Color. I'm going to be really busy the next couple of days before I can focus my full attention on the mural. I'm a bit anxious but also excited about it all!

Tonight I went into work to prep for the 31 Skulls Giveaway + Art Party we're having on Saturday. I laid out black linens across the counters where we'll have all the skulls on display. A couple weeks ago I mounted some lights above the counter to light the skulls as well. There's still much more work to do in preparation so I'm going back in tomorrow to do some more.

Here's the link to register for a chance to win a skull on Saturday.

Today I took a break from working on the mural design. Instead I worked on the 31 Skulls campaign for Local Color by posting some pictures of the skulls to social media, made a minor website update, and went shopping for food and drinks for the event on Saturday. I can't wait to finally be done with 31 Skulls so I can focus on the upcoming mural!

I had so much fun painting a mural alongside my friends TWC (Together We Create) at Viva Calle this morning and into the afternoon. I was so so focused on my work (being in the zone) the 5 hours just flew by. I painted the EMN sketch I drew last night. I used yellow because it was the paint I had the most of. I wasn't happy with the black paint because it didn't cover well but it looked fine from a distance, and in pictures. I had to rush to get as far as I did before the event ended. I didn't completely finish. The eye with two pupils, at the bottom, didn't get a white fill. I also didn't outline the pink hot-dog shape (with my name) or anything above it. I'm still really happy with the way it turned out. In the end, the panel was taken apart and hauled away. Some day, the folks in TWC, will paint at another event and reuse the panels and paint over them. I knew that going in and was totally ok with it.

A few things I learned:

• Painting the background, drawing the shapes in chalk, and doing the white fill-ins are boring to watch. The sooner I get to outlining, the better. Maybe next time I I wait to fill in the whites at the end.
• I need to step back more often and look at the mural as whole. I was up close most of the time, about a foot and half away from whatever I was painting. It looks different when you step back. You don't see a lot of the details. Up close, the black paint looked like shit but when you stepped back 5 to 10 feet, it looked fine.
• Buy better black paint! I bought a can of Painter's Touch Flat Black and it looked like crap up close. It didn't cover the yellow well. Next time I'm gonna buy some of the good stuff!
• Don't use chalk to draw on the wall/panels. I did the same thing when I painted my brother's logo on the wall of his studio. The chalk made it almost impossible to paint clean lines. The dust also accumulated on the brush which was really annoying.

I recently got invited by my friends in TWC (Together We Create) to join them in live-painting at Viva Calle tomorrow. Viva Calle is where they close down some streets to car traffic and open them up to bicyclists, pedestrians, skaters, etc. I rode my bike at the last one and visited the TWC folks while they painted. Now it's my turn to paint. I just finished a sketch for tomorrow which I'll be painting on an 8 foot square panel. It's my EMN design.

I started drawing/painting on my skull with black markers this evening and it's starting to come alive. I have to be really careful not to smudge the wet paint while I'm holding the it so I only did half the skull tonight. I was running out of spots I could hold. I hope I can finish it by tomorrow night.

In other 31 Skulls news, the video I edited finally got posted on Local Color's Instagram & Facebook pages to promote the skulls giveaway + art party on November 20th.

After a bit of a hiatus I'm back to working on my skull for Local Color's upcoming 31 Skulls Fundraising Event. Tonight I penciled in all the remaining eyes, mouths and noses and did a few white fill-ins, mostly on the eyes and teeth. After I'm done with the fill-ins I'm going to do the line work in black. I'm using Sharpie brand oil based markers on spray paint for this project and kinda wish, half way through, that I'd found a better solution as the spray paint bleeds through the white paint of the marker. Oh well. I'm going to follow through with it and just add extra coats where it's needed, like the cloud shaped eye below.

My finished skull, along with 34 other skulls painted by bay area artists, will be given away in a sweepstakes on November 20th, and Local Color's Keystone location. More details to follow.

After a bunch of setbacks trying to coordinate the 31 Skulls fundraiser for Local Color, I think we've finally settled on an event date and a game plan. November 20, at Local Color's Keystone location. More details TBA (I'm so tired of saying that). I had to make a few edits to the teaser video I put together and added an extra artist, resized the text, and added the date and location at the end. Hopefully now we can put this on the Local Color social media and follow through with the plan.

Today I picked up the 5 drawings I had on display at Orange Moon Salon. They'd been hanging there since last October. Now I'm gonna take them out of the frames, photograph them (to make prints later), and put them back in the frames before moving them to the Martin Luther King Library to hang with the other pieces I have currently have up there.

Today I made a little bit of progress on the skull I'm painting for Local Color's upcoming 31 Skulls event. I'm drawing Eyes, Mouths & Noses on it. I'm using oil based markers, white for fills and black for outlines. I hope I can finish it this weekend.

Today I worked on the sponsorship packet design for Local Color's 31 Skulls fundraising campaign. This was a first for me. I've seen them before and recently learned more about them. Organizations use them for fundraising. They have different levels based on contribution amount, each with different perks for those who choose to sponsor events. I had a little involvement with the actual content of the packet but I handled all the design. I did have to look at a few examples to get an idea of what to do. I'm waiting on the team at Local Color to get back to me with edits and to finish writing out all the content before the board members start sending them out to potential sponsors.  I hope this makes us lots of money!

I'm behind schedule on the skull I'm painting for Local Color's fundraiser, 31 Skulls. I spent most of the day trying to decide what I was going to draw on the skull. I was torn between the Eyes, Mouths & Noses motif or the brains I usually draw. I also tested out different markers, paints and brushes.In the end I went with EMN using oil based markers.

I'm also a day behind on my Inktober drawings. I't's day 10 but I'm on drawing 9. I drew this chunky demon guy marching along.

I finished the background on the ceramic skull I'm painting for Local Color's 31 Skulls fundraiser. I think I'm going to draw a bunch of eyes & mouths on it like my previous work. When it's all done I'll give it back to Local Color and it'll be used as prize for their fundraising raffle.

Tonight I knocked out my Inktober drawings for days 7 & 8. I had to catch up and draw two today because I didn't draw one yesterday. Earlier, I started painting my ceramic skull for Local Color's 31 Skulls Fundraiser. I spray painted the bottom and some of the sides and still need to do the top. After spray painting I'm going to draw on the skull with an oil based marker and clear coat it when I'm done. I'm hoping to finish it this weekend.

Tonight I worked on this video for the 31 Skulls Fundraiser for Local Color. This is the second annual event where Local Color commissions artists to decorate ceramic skulls which then get used as prizes in a raffle. I'm spearheading the fundraiser this year and thought it'd be fun to make it like a sequel to a horror flick and gave it the subtitle, "Revenge of the Skulls." This video might change a little before it's official release but my goal was to highlight all the participating artists, in a cool way, and hopefully get people excited about the event!

As if October wasn't busy enough with work, vending & my art install at MLK Library, I'm gonna do Inktober again! That's where you draw an ink drawing everyday in October. I've done it the last 3 years in a row and I want to make it 4. I didn't draw one today, for the first, because I was vending downtown so I'm gonna draw 2 tomorrow. I'm already lagging!

A teaser poster I designed for the 31 Skulls 2021 Fundraiser by Local Color. The image is a still from footage my brother, Sunny, filmed at Redwall Studio last week. This is the first big fundraising event I'm working at Local Color. Wish us luck! 

Today was the Estate Sale at Local Color. Not a lot of people showed up, but I still had fun DJing. I was a little nervous because I was playing for the Local Color staff & artists instead of a typical audience. I made sure to give every artist vending a shout-out for participating. After it was over, I stashed my stuff inside Local Color and went to the Sofa Street Fair on South 1st St. I ran into some friends, hung out for a little while, then left to go pick up the gear and take it home. I'm exhausted after working seven days straight, and tomorrow I'm taking the day off to rest. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in.  

I pulled an all-nighter working on this brochure design for Local Color. I gotta get a bunch printed and folded on Saturday so we can distribute them on Sunday at the Estate Sale. I really like how this came out!

After a long day of webinars & work meetings, I was happy to end the day hanging out and painting with friends at Meeting of the Minds. That's where artists and non-artists meet up, are randomly paired, and paint a single canvas together. They're always a lot of fun and laid-back—a great way to end the night.

Today I sent the confirmation emails to all the artists participating in Local Color's 31 Skull fundraiser this year. It thanked them all for signing up, gave instructions for picking up the skulls and information about how the fundraiser works. I also hung out at Local Color Keystone for a few hours as artists came to pick up their ceramic skulls. When artists arrived, I asked them to pose with a blank skull for a quick photo. Here are the pictures of me...

I should have made this announcement sooner, but here it is. My exhibit at the Martin Luther King Library, originally scheduled for 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, is now back on! I'll have my work on display from early October till late November. I'm very excited and a little bit nervous. This exhibit will be almost ten years to the day since my last solo show. Wish me luck!

Today I went to the Local Color Keystone studio to get some work done. I'd primarily been working from home these last couple of months. I was on the computer all day till I had to test some audio equipment. They have a couple of 12" speakers there, so I checked to make sure they worked when I plugged them into my DJ controller. They did! I also used my new mic for the first time. I'll be using them when I DJ/MC their Estate Sale on September 26. It should be a fun gig!