It’s been a while since I made new flyers, and I ran out of business cards at Subzero last weekend, so it’s time for a new design. I still need to add all the important info but I’ll have it ready & printed out for this weekend’s events at Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park.

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’m back home after spending the day in Elk Grove. I’m all set to DJ tomorrow’s wedding in Monterey. Monday, I get to sleep in before starting work on a new mural design!

I did a little rearranging and redrew the image, except for the street signs which I’ll create on the desktop. But I think it’s ready to color.

I worked a little while on this project today. I did quick sketches of the street signs and tried to figure out the best way to arrange all the pieces. It still doesn’t feel right so I’m gonna tweak it again before moving on.

Today I was commissioned to paint a small mural that’ll serve as a backdrop for an internet tv show. The mural will feature San Jose landmarks, the Capitol Drive Ins, SAP Center and the Tropicana Shopping Center and Emma Prusch farm on Story & King Road. It also includes the street signs for Tully Rd, Monterey Rd and Seven Trees Blvd. all per the client’s request. These are the rough & colored sketches. Next, I’ll redraw the artwork and get it finalized before transferring it on the wall.

One of the reasons for making a zine is to sell merch. I’ll need at least one page dedicated to my t-shirts, prints & stickers. Tonight I was trying to come up with a cool layout based on the alien/space theme. It’s not quite there yet.

Andrew, the photographer/videographer who's been documenting the Eastridge Mural asked me to send him the time lapse video of me drawing the mural design. The time lapse is automatically generated within the drawing app on the iPad. I exported the video, cut some of it out and sped it up. I think I sent Andrew a 5 minute version but I also made this 30 second cut.

Today I dropped off the leftover cans of paint and equipment, from the Eastridge mural, at Local Color. After I do an interview for them I'll be officially done with the mural. I've been busy with other errands but can't wait to get back into another artsy fartsy project. Next week I'l be following up on a few leads. A couple of them are for murals and one is for a logo design.

After weeks of working on this mural design, today I got the news that it was approved and we'll be moving forward with it! The mural is going up inside Eastridge Mall, on the second floor, on the boarded-off entrance where Sears used to be. It's going to be community mural, where volunteers can sign up to help, so I had to make it easy enough for people without mural experience to be able to paint. The scope of the mural design was to celebrate Eastridge Mall's 50th anniversary of serving the community. Inside the letters are objects, or as I've been calling them, "icons," that represent stores, past and present, inside the mall. Outside of the letters, the background, represent the surrounding East San Jose landmarks. I'm officially starting work in a few days and the community paint day is scheduled for December 4th.

This project has been facilitated by Local Color and I'm excited to finally share with everyone what I've been working on.

To sign up for the community paint day please register via Eventbrite. (There is a $5 fee, that goes directly to Local Color, plus a processing fee)

The colors for this mural design are slowly coming together. I hope I can finish everything by tomorrow.

I knew it looked kinda goofy to include a pair of feet in the mural design I submitted this morning. I got feedback saying to remove them and replace them with something else. No problem, but I did let my contact know why I chose to include them. They represented a local spa/massage parlor and I got the idea from the poster they have on display. I have no problem changing it. I just thought the whole thing was kinda funny.

I just submitted the mural design that I've been working on for the last few weeks. I think I overdid it with the details. We'll see what they say in a few days.

Another long night working on this mural design. 

Besides painting the skull for Local Color's 31 Skull's event (which I finished today), putting away all the gear from yesterday's live-painting at Viva Calle, I've been working on a mural design. The plan is for me to draw the design and for volunteers & community members to paint it. Sort of like a coloring book, or paint-by-numbers. I have to submit the final design in a few days so I've working long hours to meet the deadline. Here's a sneak peak of part of what I've done so far. Can you guess what it is?

About a week ago I got a DM on Instagram from someone who bought a couple shirts from me at an event a few years ago. He's a photographer and is about to release a new magazine and asked if I was interested in putting an ad in it free of charge. We talked on the phone a bit and he seems like a good guy so I said yes. Tomorrow is the submission deadline so of course I waited till the last minute to get it done. This is what I sent him

I spent a good chunk of the day looking for the perfect typeface for a logo I'm working on. I went through all my pre-installed Adobe fonts then all the additional fonts available for download. I picked twelve then narrowed it down to eight. I mocked them up then emailed them to the client (my sister in law) and she picked the winner. The logo still needs a bit of polish but it's getting there.

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!

Tonight I started vectorizing a sketch I made for my sister in law's house cleaning business. I drew the pencil sketch weeks ago but I'm finally getting around digitizing it now. I started by building the shapes in Illustrator on the computer then drawing them in Fresco on the iPad. I drew most of the tattered ribbon tonight and plan on  having a finished sample by tomorrow.

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 supposed to be a rest day before DJing the Local Color Estate Sale on Sunday. Instead, I distributed a ceramic skull and shipped another (to 31 Skulls artists). I also had to go to the printers and get the brochure I designed last night printed & folded. I did manage to take 2 hour nap before prepping some music for tomorrow's event. I'll get some rest on Monday.

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!

I made some more sketches today for the upcoming project I'm working on. It's still super early in the design phase and I'll share more details as the design gets fleshed out over time. I'm pretty excited about this and can't wait to share with everyone!

What did I do today? I worked but didn't doing anything art related besides take on a new logo design job and sketched some ideas. This should be a fun little job!