Day 22

This one is bigger and more subtle than it looks. Based on Lichtenstein, but not dots, alas, but wallpaper. Tired. Look closer, the yellow is two tone.

Day 21

Re-using this image. I guess I'm re-enforcing the idea that a varied background doesn't work for an image that you want to come through undistorted, like your fiancee's face. The darker areas distort her face a bit and make this more of an abstraction than is necessary. I love the graphic-ness of this image and that one wisp of hair seals it. I am learning a lot in my painting days here. The funny thing is that I never really thought I would be a painter, but it really does seem to fit the more I try it out.

Day 20

wtf, right? Again, one of these that was just sitting around for a while, staring at me. After I finished the Molly painting the other day, I kinda felt like the background was almost so strong that it was fighting with the foreground, so I figure lets give this pattern a chance as a foreground on a pretty intense background that just didn't win me over at first, but I like this one a lot. Kinda one of those overphotoshopped things that you see online all the time, but the background is 100% organic and the foreground is playfully switching it up here and there--so not too rigid.

Day 19

This one is by no means new. It has been sitting almost done fore weeks, but I could never feel good at it. This past week I've been doing multi-day pieces, so I've been fighting with this one and I am finally ready to say it is done. This piece has a lot of movement and and a really good feeling, but simply is just too schizophrenic for my taste. But overall, pretty solid.

Day 18

So, this is a bit of a departure. Per Josh, foreground first: A beautiful Molly picture, but much less confrontational than I usually lean. Also, this is my first dot painting where there is absolutely no major distortions, my lines are even. The background is just pretty. Painstakingly pretty. Molly says this might be her favorite to date.

Day 17

This wasn't quite as poignant as I'd hoped, but it still cracks me up. I like making abstract and absurd the banal and comfortable. For once I double layered the white where necessary and for my enjoyment left the background a bit on the messy side, but I like things to feel a bit painterly.

Day 16

So, I think this one ended up a bit fugly, so I'm trying to think about another layer to add on it. Up close, it is really interesting, but overall just doesn't do much for me, but that's why I doing this 30 day thing, so I can be free to make a few duds. Or at least a background that I can get back to later.

Day 15 - halfway point

So, I was trying to make the background a bit more interesting, but clearly the value difference is too little and it is a bit hard to see whatsagoinon, so I'll be a bit more careful with this next time. If I would have swirled some yellow in there, it would have worked. I can't for the life of me find a heavy body yellow that is truly opaque. I originally planned on doing the foreground yellow, but it was just too uneven. Sad to say, but I think I might like the original more than the painting. Sad,

Day 14

So, this is simple, but not quite. The background is solid silver and the dots are black. This is the first time I have used an image without a high contrast ratio, so I significantly upped the ante on this one. I stuck with a recognizable subject ( a face because people naturally see faces everywhere says Walter Benjamin) and of course, one dear to my heart, Molly, not only is she people, but she's my favorite one. Each dot lovingly placed, tediously placed. So, the silver background is a reference to Warhol's silver paintings, as his homage to the silver screen from which he took so much of his source material, but the technique is only Warhol-esque in the sense that it is completely the antithesis to his technique--the technique is closer to Chuck Close who is all about painterly human qualities. So, to Chuck, enjoy, also, since you're rich, can I have some of your many many monies?

Day 13?

I've had a tough week, but I'll keep up from here on out. I dropped the yellow from the split. it works with the glasses, but I need the magenta and green glasses which I don't have. enjoy.

Stella!!!

Simple, Stella, with a little halftone in there as a throwback to my first dot painting, the 7 color Cody.

Just for Fun

I'm really enjoying the beauty of this collection as a whole. These pieces are tiny, but they really show the chaotic and scattered thoughts in my head. It is beautiful, loving, and very non-linear.

Day 10

Back to basics. This was supposed to be a research piece, but I fucked it up, washed it clean, and started over. So, there are different types of halftones (lichtenstein's benday dots), and as my work shows, I am absolutely fascinated by them. This one is the non-touching kind, so even when it is dark, some of the background color shows up, then there are some like the diet coke which bleedinto one another. Also lines like my domokun and some other effects I love. first time I've switched colors part way through--it was a whim but it gives me some good ideas for later. Sleep again.... like every night.

Day 9

Calvin on a swirly background. Simple black. The effect is using the color halftone on a monochrome image, then the circle halftone, then masked off with the original background.

Day 8

Sleepy, made from abandoned painting. Murakami.

Day 7

Nothing t0o different here. Lichtenstein source. Cropped and made the plane a girly color. Maybe it should have been pink, but I wanted something with a more similar value to the original blue that I replaced. Main issue I needed to improve was my brush control. I was always the kid who broke the tip off both regular and mechanical pencils--subtlety has eluded me my entire life, just ask my parents and Molly.

Day 6

Sleepy, so I'll be brief. Banksy source. Testing a theory I have about another 3d based double painting. In the three ink system, there is magenta, cyan, and yellow. With my previous paintings you could see the cyan and the magenta-yellow mix (i.e. red) so, blue, red, and all combined is black. So I threw the yellow on the cyan this time and made lime green. So, lime green and magenta, both heavy body, and when they meet, mars black. Kinda Rohrschach-esque, but fun colors. I ordered my two sets of 3d glasses and they should arrive tomorrow, then I'll test this our and see if it woks in paint before making a bigger one someday.

Day 5

Same template as day one, nonchalantly flipped and painted light on dark. The freaky green absorbs light in an amazing way, but the white is a bit boring, but I was looking for the 'film negative' look. So there we go. I know there's a lesson in every step, but I need to put a second coat on the white because the green is just so dark, that even my super opaque white needs to be applied thicker.

Day 4.5

Clearly my photo setup has got to improve a little or I need to get less lazy and update the colors in photoshop. The background is an intense red with magenta undertones and the foreground is a medium-dark blue...cerulean the tube says, but lies I say, its royal blue minus the intensity. There is a bit of unevenness because the blue was not entirely opaque, which on the last one was intentional, but on this one, it means I need to go and touch it up again later in a painfully monotonous way. The weird highlights are the reflection in my bad photo setup.

Day 4

So, geeky, yeah, basic, yeah, trying to go a bit up on the kitsch. I used two semi-translucent paints to make for a bit splotchier of a piece--maybe more than I would want. I might go over the green again, we'll see.

Day 3.5

Molly was out today so I was a bit on the bored, so here's a bunny. Jeff Koons is one of my favorite sculptors ( I know HE doesn't make anything...shhh). The inauspicious bunny is one of his early triumphs and helped with his skyrocket to fame. The bunny is very smoothly 3D and with the simple halftone effect, remains fairly dimensional, while still having a bit of nostalgic silkscreen/photocopier throwback. And I tried a semi-textured background--kinda splotchy and sponge looking... not sure how I feel about it, but overall the piece is solid

Day 3

So, today is a Lichtenstein girl. Background is somewhat of my personal trademark. I guess the swirls go back to a piece I did when I first started painting where I tried to approximate Van Gogh's style--next painting I made after was even length strokes with no objects and no realism. Safe to say it was my first abstract painting. And I feel like people like my abstract work, but it doesn't speak to them in the same way it does to me, so in that sense, they are mostly a failure. Pop however speaks to a part of people that already exists, it speaks their internal language and sink deeper than something as personal as my abstract work. I'm glad people like something of mine and I'm trying to combine the two and see if it sticks--this piece represents as basic a combination as possible.

Day 2

I like this one. Two colors plus a background-the grey is really our friend blue. My first time mixing halftone with flat. So, that's one effect. Next is the dots, next is the rings, so that's three total yet it is a very simple piece. Tiny brush again and the detail shows up. Very 80's looking, which is fun because this is a relatively recent can, bringing back the thoughts of the old very unpolished design of the previous can. Then it's also funny in the sense that it is a clearly Warhol reference, with the classic-ness of the Coke logos, however diet Coke wasn't introduced until the early eighties by time Warhol was working less obviously wholesome stuff, mostly portraiture and things of the like. By time diet Coke reached it's apex of being so pervasive in everyday life, Warhol was dead--but if you think about he's not completely dead.

30 paintings in 30 days... starting now.

Pretty simple, but a stunning effect, if I do say so. The blue is a heavy body light medium blue, which also happens to be one of my favorite colors to paint with. Actually it is, hands down, my favorite paint. The subject is a greenback and the effect simple. I think this is most Warhol-esque one to date. This is the first projector piece I've ever done in small scale and I am thrilled with the result and the amount of detail I can actually stand to put into it when I know I only have to do 108 square inches of it. The finer detail, letter and number, feel present--your brain knows they're supposed to be there and the really feel there. I'm really pleased with this one. Took about 1.5 hours.

Mural Pitch, Again.

Someone put up a mural request on craigslist again for no money and no help to pay for it... so petty much exactly what we want! It is several 8' x 4' panels o the side of a market, assuming it is near the address listed as the contact, it is in Cole Valley, so it might even be a pleasant place to paint. I'm think we can't go too grand on this one, so I'm thinking one of two things, either an homage to all things pixel like this guy or just a baffling series of domukun vignettes, maybe calvin and hobbes?

Finished my Koko painting

Here it is in regular light, blue tint and red tint. Neat, huh?

Signed up for a show - Gorilla Benefit

Show's Page

Honestly I kinda like doing the charity shows because I actually feel like there will be attendance and maybe people will assign some value to my work. I tend to offer up newer work which has a bit less sentimental value, so I get less sad when they leave.

A Codyesque Challenge?

I've been considering doing some smaller work. Maybe practice my subtlety in a smaller scale. So what about 30 paintings in 30 days? I buy some small (1' x 1') or less canvases and try a more studio approach. Actually churn it out. Because right now my method is occasionally crawl craigslist and when I find a show or something that interests me, I stay up all night a few nights and crank out one piece, maybe two. This means I only complete about 5-10 paintings a year. I think scale scares off 90% of people, but it also creates a sense of awe when a painting dwarfs the viewer. Also, it has the 'if you can't make it good, make it big' factor, which adds a layer of fetishization to the piece, which for me, fetish is the heart of pop. So, whaddya think?

Techinically, I finally made it on Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

I made a second painting for Lolarts, this time its personal

Lolarts on Deviant Arts

http://news.deviantart.com/article/60356/

Whiteboard Painting for Lolcat Art Show

http://lolarts.com/art/

A paper toy every day....

Utterly Fascinating I seriously have not been able to stop thinking about this since last night. Good is good, but proving your chops x 365 is awesome. I think serial actions speak in a very clear voice and I really like this guy's direction.

I made my pitch to an answering machine

I kinda figured they'd either like or hate the idea off the bat and therefore either call back or not, so the ball is rolling. Also, we've decided to toughen it up a bit and load it with more pop references, including 'billy's balloon' and bombs.

99 red balloon update-

I'm going to pitching this one to Zeitgeist either tomorrow or tuesday. Molly and I stopped by for a few drinks and got the office number today. I think painting this on the hostel would be amazing!

New Painting

Finished a new painting this weekend. Nice and simple, but trying to avoid the standard gesso white backgroud. I used a yellowy ochre paint for the background that is about 80% opaque, leaving the texture a bit up to randomness. The effect looks basic from a distance and gets a bit trippier up front--it breaks down into ellipses and hourglasses. Potentially showing at a gallery next week, so this will find a new home soon.

Thank You, Everyone!

I just want to say thank you to everyone for helping make this project such a success! Ian (spiderman), TQ, DQ, Molly, Ben, Jeff, Geoff, Tom, Lizzie, Tyler, Christina, Tomasz, Eris, Trisha, Random Guy, Cody and anyone I may have missed, you all rocked this thing.


This has kinda got me thinking about making this an ongoing project. What would you guys think about doing this once every month or so? I'll book the wall and we swarm upon it and do something awesome. How many times do you walk/drive/ride by some mural in this city and think to yourself that the true geek value of this city just isn't on display. I know there is no official geek district of this city, but I really think this whole city is pretty much official geek territory. I think we're onto something here and we can should bring geek to the street. And for my first idea that's good for any type of wall. This would be a stencil based project, guaranteed to bring out your inner-banksy.

On Icanhascheezburger!1

icanhascheezburger.com

We made GAWKER too!

On Fark and Main page of Digg

On Fark
Digg

Laughing Squid Sez Hai!

Our Giant Lolcat on Laughing Squid
Digg
Willy Weird

Done!

Someone called me noble...

thank you to jeff for this one:http://reddit.com/info/6jnzu/comments/

Change of Location

Alright, so I met with the owner of the building and as he walked me
to the building, my first question is, "wait, what, you told me this
was the other building." "No, no, no, that's not even my building.
I'm sorry, did i not make that clear" (Mind you, I spoke with him for
a while on the phone and he said it was the building on the corner, I
talked to him about all the fennel growing there, and he didn't say
anything.)

This is the point (in my head) at which i smacked myself in the face,
then I haggled with him for over an hour as he tried to weasel tons of
more free labor out of me.

The result, we now have a building half a block away that is way
easier to paint, but is not as cool as the wall he told me we had.
The building is 3.5 stories and one pine between grant and kearny (the
micro street is quincy) on the picture attached. It is in a short
alley and you'll be able to drive up and maybe leave cars there at
least temporarily. I'm sorry about the change, but this is what we
got handed and I still think this will be awesome. I hope to see all
of you there and please don't beat me down. BTW I'm still sure this
will be the world's largest lolcat.

A special thank you to tomasz for hustling for rope and flamingcow for
extra climbing equipment.


The Actual Building (its ok to sigh when looking at the windows)

The Little Cross street On pine, between grant and kearny is Quincy
-Josh

Ben from icanhascheezburger is coming!

Invited Ben from Icanhascheezburger.com

Thank you Alex Choi for letting me know he was in town and even greater thanks for probably being the first person to link to my site!

Link to Ben's Cheezburger Hazzing on Cautrday

Email sent about Halping Out with Mural

Current Mock Up^


Source Of Inspiration^


Location in SF^

Through the beauty that is Craigslist, I have hooked up with a
building owner who wants a mural on the side of his ugly ass building
ASAP and for some reason he doesn't seem to care what it is (we think
he is being fined for it being an eyesore). So, after some
brainstorming, we decided to paint a lolcat, and after hours of
nomming, hoomans, and kookie jokes, we decided the least offensive and
most baffling image we could pick is the invisible bike. So, we're
expecting to make it between 3 and 4 stories tall, with most of the
text being toward the bottom, so lots of people can help! I will be
getting the at about 8am to setup and expect to be prepped by 9:30 and
painting by 10-10:30. Attached, find picture of the original
invisible bike, the picture of our location, and a basic mock up of
what we will be painting. I'm not getting paid and don't have any
equipment, so anything you can offer up will be appreciated. I will
be setting up a grid on the building and handing out the squares
you'll need to paint in, like that project you did in 2nd grade.
Since the image is so huge, precision isn't that crucial. We'll be
working entirely in spray paint, so bring clothes you don't care
about. The lot is basically abandoned, so bring shoes because there's
crap strewn everywhere and chairs to sit on when you bask. So far
I've got about 10 people coming, but the more the merrier and
hopefully we'll knock this out quickly and get to laughing this up.
Bring cameras and friends. I am meeting up with the owner tomorrow to
confirm that he is who he says he is and I verified on county records
that he wons the property, so no worries there.

Where: Corner of Pine and Kearny

When: Saturday 8:30am if you're bringing equipment, 9:30 or later if
you just want to paint

What we still need: Very tall ladders (20+ feet), Rope for securing
the ladders and repelling if need be, drinks (alcohol at your own
risk, but it is fenced off), and donations for paint =)

What we expect: We will be submitting this to all the favorite sites:
icanhazcheezburger, lolcats, fark, laughing squid, and others.

Why?: This is central financial district! People will be absolutely
stumped and might even like it.

progress being tracked: http://jazlink.blogspot.com
gallery: http://www.jazlink.com/lolcat
my craigsilist ad loking for help:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/ats/678148691.html


-Josh

Current Mockup + Location Pic

So basically a three level approach, first white, then orange, then black. We're going for max height and the widest part should be accessible by the people below.

Upcoming Project

I answered an ad for a mural to be painted by a guy who wouldn't offer up an money, but also didn't care about the subject matter. So after a bit of brainstorming we opted for something completely banal and ridiculous that a lot of people would get the reference, but not entirely understand why someone would ever consider it. So we decided on the 'Invisible Bike' lolcat and I am excited. I'm still working on recruiting people and equipment. I'm asuming $120 out of pocket on paint, but rope, ladders, and man-power to be entirely donated.