I spent 4 hours on the road today when I drove my grandma from San Jose to Sacramento then I had to come back right away to watch my friends perform downtown at an open mic talent show. I didn’t get any work done but it was still a good day.
After 8 weeks on display at the Martin Luther King Jr./San Jose State University Library, my exhibit finally came down today. I'm so lucky to have had this opportunity though I feel like I didn't take full advantage of it while I had the chance. I was too focused on my Inktober drawings, followed by 31 Skulls and the Eastridge mural to make the best use out of the library exhibit. The few things I wish I had done were hang the my large framed drawings, put info cards on all the pieces, and put up an "about the artist" sheet somewhere with my website and Instagram handle. Oh well. Next time.
I thought I was going to finish the green background today but nope! I only outlined half of the green areas in the 9.5 hours I was there. I wanted to stay longer but I have to meet my cousin at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in the morning so she can check out my artwork on display. She's driving in from out of town. I'll come back to Eastridge Saturday night and hopefully finish all the green.
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.
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.
This morning, with the help of my cousin, Jose, and artist-friend Rayos, I installed 9 art pieces at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. I had kinda been dreading this day for a while but with the extra help today it wasn't bad at all. The pieces on display are:
Tonight I drew my Inktober drawing for Day 3 and I'm still 2 days behind schedule. I spent all day Sunday getting my artwork ready to hang for my installation tomorrow at the Martin Luther King Library. I had to make sure all my paintings had the appropriate hangers to use with the library's hook & wire system of displaying work so I went to Home Depot to buy some D-ring hangers. Afterwards, I realized I needed more blankets to wrap my work, to keep them from getting scratched during transport, so I drove to Wal Mart before closing and bought a few of the cheapest throw blankets they had. Now I have nine pieces wrapped and ready to hang for tomorrow.
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!
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 organized, and put away, the tubs of gear used Friday night for my vendor booth. I also counted my t-shirts, updated the website inventory, and figured out how many I sold in each size & style. Besides counting & cleaning up, I started preparing for an upcoming exhibit I'll be announcing very soon. This is on top of the mural I'm currently designing and the new job I recently started (both of which I haven't made public yet). One thing that has been announced is that I'm DJing & MCing Local Color's Estate Sale on Sunday, September 26th.
Today was great! I slept in after working the Street Mrkt event last night. Later on, I went to the local craft brewery, Narrative Fermentations, where local bad-ass artist, Patrick Hofmeister, is painting his latest mural. I had an alcoholic slushy from the bar and a fried chicken sandwich from Scratch Cookery food truck while I was there. Pretty damn good! Afterwards I went to The Arsenal art supply store & gallery in Japantown. I went to see the current exhibit by my friend Amy Brown and cousin Alyssarhaye. There was also a pop-up outside the store where a couple other artist buddies were selling their merch so I bought a few items to support them. I went home after and checked movie showtimes and bought a ticket to see Shang-Chi, the latest Marvel movie. I loved it! It was a perfect end to a good day!
I went to Orange Moon Salon this afternoon to hang my latest 18 x 24 inch drawing. The one I drew earlier this month. It's now hanging out with the rest of its cousins on the wall. We also started talking about doing an art closing reception at the salon, since my drawings have been up for months. Nothing is certain but we might do it in July.
This afternoon I went over to Orange Moon Salon to hang my four drawings. They'll be on display there for a while. Go make an appointment to get your hair did and check out my art. Tonight I finished my last two drawings for Inktober 2020. The 30th is my face, all beat up, broken & undead. The 31st, which is Halloween night, I drew a trick or treating kid with tentacles wearing a ghost costume holding up 6 candy buckets. This was my fourth year doing Inktober.
I finally framed these four drawings because on Saturday they're going to be on display at Orange Moon Salon in San Jose. My friend, Catrina, is a hairdresser there, and also an artist, and she asked me to hang some work. These were originally going up at my exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in May but covid ruined that. Six months later and they're finally going to be available for others see. Please wear a mask if you go!
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. The skull I'm painting looks creepy when it's all masked off and covered in paint and gets prettier & prettier every time I unwrap it. I have one more day and three more colors before I have to turn it in to Local Color for the 31 Skulls fundraising event where a lucky winner will take home my finished Cells-Skull piece.
Today I prepped the ceramic skull by first spraying it with a clear fixative so the pencil lines don't fade or smudge from constantly handling and applying & removing masking tape. After the fixative dried I masked off everything except for cells I was painting and propped the skull on the wooden bar I'm using as a stand. When I set it down I heard a crack. After painting the first color then removing the masking tape I saw that a pieces had chipped off and stuck the tape. Luckily it only broke into 3 parts and not a million tiny pieces so I glued them back on. I also poured glue inside the skull and let it coat the inside where it broke. That was all for today. Tomorrow I'll sand it down and continue painting. Thank god I didn't totally fuck it up. My Inktober drawing for Day 6 is based on today's mishap.
It took me all day but I finally finished mapping all the colors for my Cells/Skull piece. Tomorrow I'll begin masking & painting the first color set. I'll also be making up for the Inktober drawing I was supposed to do today.
I drew a zombie with a face mask mask for Inktober. I also mapped out more of the skull I'll be painting.
I snapped pics of the ceramic skull I'm painting for the upcoming "31 Skulls" art show and I'm digitally coloring in the cells before I go and actually paint it. I'm using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator to quickly draw and fill the cells. My goal is to have all the colors balanced out and equally distributed around the skull.
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Frankie Mcfly's
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