This afternoon I went on 3.65 mile hike, then delivered my blanks to Jimmy at Downtown Screen Printers so they can print me a new batch of San Jose (EMNSJ) shirts. Later, I went to Meeting of the Minds, the collaborative paint party, and painted a fun piece with my fiends Catrina & Eddie. When I got home, and in bed I started sketching out the design for a new mural I’m working on. Tomorrow night I’m DJing & hosting karaoke for a high school graduation party at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk from midnight till 2 AM. Busy, busy, busy…
I went to a friend’s EP release show and watched her and other musicians perform at a beautiful outdoor venue. Afterwards I went downtown and met up with other friends for pizza & beer before going to the SoFa Street Fair and running into more friends. It was great catching up with everyone. I only wish the day was longer. I’m really looking forward to more events later this year.
I had so much fun today vending and live painting with my friends at Local Color at a 4/20 event this afternoon. I sold a couple shirts and a USA print while I painted pot leaves and on this 2 ft x 4 ft panel. It was inspired from the pot leaves I used to doodle in class when I was in high school.
I did a 7 mile hike today. My first hike since Mission Peak on Wednesday and first time hiking this route in 7 months. I might regret it tomorrow. I gotta get get up early for a 4/20 live painting & vending gig at Airfield Supply, a local weed store. Should be fun as long as I’m not too sore.
Tonight I inked a couple sketches I made when I was hanging out with a couple artist buddies. The conversation was about copying other artists so as a goof I copied what they were drawing. They started as very loose pencil sketches then I added details and lettering before applying black ink.
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:
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. Holy shit, Viva Calle was fun as hell! I drove downtown and started biking at First Street, then went to the Mexican Heritage Plaza on the east side, Japan Town, and the Alameda before returning to my car. On my ride, I saw some friends wearing my t-shirts and a couple who bought their San Jose shirts at a recent First Friday event. I didn't do the whole route but made sure to stop at all four locations where my friends, TWC (Together We Create), were live-painting. I had to walk my bike through the crowded areas, but I did over 13 miles today! My legs are crazy sore after biking today and hiking yesterday. I'll see if I have Lieutenant Dan legs tomorrow.
It's been almost 2 months, and I don't know why I waited this long to let everyone know that I took a contract job with Local Color as their Communications & Development person. I've been working with the amazing staff on the weekly and monthly newsletters, social media posts, and upcoming fundraisers. It's been a learning experience for all of us and I'm slowly starting to get in a groove. This is a paid gig till the end of the year but I'm also volunteering my time & services, like in a couple weeks, I'll be DJing & MCing their Estate Sale, to help artists in residence sell artwork before moving out of their current building. It should be a lot of fun and I hope a lot of people show up to support!
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!
Another great event! My booth was in between two of my friend's booths, Jodi & Francisco, and it was a lot of fun talking and hanging with them. There was an adorable baby girl who walked into my booth and danced when I had my party lights on. I gave her a couple buttons and a high-five. I sold my last Medium San Jose shirt off the display and the rest of the black & blue ones so it's time to print some more. I'm considering doing something similar to the custom & pre-orders I recently did with my 1.0 shirts. Another great event! I sold a few shirts and prints tonight, but most importantly, talked to people in person! I talked to friends (some who I haven't seen in years), people who had never seen my stuff before, folks who have. I even saw a guy wearing one of my pink & black San Jose shirts and asked if I could take his picture! I had missed vending so much! I can't wait to be back out there again, choppin' it up with folks, at the next two First Friday Street Mrkts in September and October! 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 took my bike to Good Karma to get it serviced today. The rear wheel became off-centered and the tire rubbed against the frame when I rode it. They took care of it and now it's back to normal. I also bought an extra wide cushioned seat and they installed it. No more uncomfortable tiny seat halfway up my asshole!
After the leaving Good Karma I drove to Campbell to check out local artist Drew Roulette's mural-in-progress on the Los Gatos Creek Trail. I can't wait to see it completed and without the scaffolding. 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. I went and did a site visit Thursday evening where I, and other local artists, are going to paint on the asphalt. I’ll be doing my USA map below. I did a quick color fill in the bottom pic to get a better idea of what it’ll look like when it’s done. More details to follow.
I finally got a physical copy of the Wet Bandits' CD, "Elysian." I did the cover artwork then the CD layout at the end of last year. The only thing I'm not too happy with is the way the setting sun gradient came out but oh well.
I pressed some new buttons tonight. I also removed the pins and glued magnets on a bunch of them. If you’re reading this and want custom 1.5” buttons of your own... send me a message for pricing info. I recently bought prints from local artist homie, Eddie Ramirez, and the package arrived today. My drawing desk was the only available space that wasn’t cluttered so I opened it there and took advantage of the mounted camera & lights by filming an unboxing video. I think unboxing videos are lame in general but I thought, “what the heck?” I need to get more use out of my rig and was planning on sharing pictures of Eddie’s prints on Instagram anyways. Two birds, one stone. The three prints are of local San Jose retail store signs that have been around for as long as I remember. Check out Eddie’s work at eddieramirezart.com and on Instagram @eddieramirezish My buddy, Adam, contracted me to design the cover for his band's upcoming album. I finished it a few weeks ago but he recently asked me to also do the layout for the CD packaging. He sent me the photos and I had to do a bit of editing to finesse them into supplied templates. I also had to drop in the lyrics for 8 of the 9 songs. Once it's approved, and I get permission from Adam to share the artwork, I'll post it on here and Instagram. This will be the second CD I've done artwork for and can't wait to have the physical copy in my hands.
My cousin Reyna sent me this picture earlier today. It's Arely and I standing in front our booth at the San Jose Jazz Summer Fest last year. The sales weren't great that weekend but it was still a lot of fun being there and meeting new vendors. I really miss working events. The plan was to do more events this year before the 'Vid fucked that all away.
Today sucked. I felt depressed all day and I didn't know why. Maybe the loneliness of sheltering-in-place is finally getting to me. I barely did any work on my Hearts & Stars piece, just made a quick digital mock-up with a black background but didn't lay down any ink. I couldn't get myself to workout or go for a walk. I went for a long drive, took Capitol Expressway from east San Jose all the way to Campbell, but didn't feel any better when I got home. Later that night, still in a funk, I noticed the the note on my calendar, "MLK Exhibit Day One." Today was supposed to be the opening of my art show at the Martin Luther King Library downtown. I wonder if that's why I down all day. I wasn't aware of today's date but maybe subconsciously that's what has been bugging me. For the past few weeks I've kept my head down and worked on my drawings for the show. It was a goal I was working towards. I recently got confirmation that my art show, and all other exhibits, were postponed until further notice. Now I don't have anything to work towards, besides finishing my current drawings. There are no DJ gigs till June, if at all this year, and no event vending opportunities in the foreseeable future. I hope this depression was a one-day thing. I don't want to lose any more momentum and risk undoing everything I've worked so hard to do over these past few months. Wish me luck! This is kinda what it looks like when you go to @sanjoseday on Instagram and scroll to my post. It's one long seamless image broken down into 10 slides. I laid out a bunch of different digital drawings & designs I've made over the past few years. It was fun making this and participating in the virtual art show since we're all still sheltering in place. The actual San Jose Day event has been postponed to July 18. Hopefully we'll be over the 'Rona by then. Fingers crossed. April 8th (4/08) is San Jose Day. There was originally an event planned for this Saturday, the 11th, but it was postponed to July 19th because of the Covid-19 pandemic we've been dealing with for the past few weeks. Instead of just waiting till July, Haley, who runs San Jose Day, thought it would be fun to host a virtual art show via Instagram on 4/08. She invited me and a bunch of local artists to submit up to 10 images/slides that will go on a single post. I had fun with mine and pulled an all nighter yesterday working on it. I can't wait till everyone sees it!
Here's a tiny sneak peak, follow @sanjoseday on Instagram to see the whole thing on Wednesday 4/08 |
Frankie Mcfly's
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