Mixtape III (2021)

The highly-anticipated follow-up to “Mixtape I” and “Mixtape II” is finally here, nearly a year after all of these songs came out. “Mixtape III” features imagery inspired by my top ten songs for March 2020. We’re all going to politely ignore that we’re only a few weeks away from March 2021, because only I’m allowed to make fun of myself for being horribly behind on this particular project.

Stylistically, this is similar to the previous pieces, but there’s something different (beyond the fact that I used a different pen on different paper). The composition feels less cluttered, even as certain images overlap with one another. The larger figures add an extra layer of motion and storytelling. I don’t mean to pat myself on my own back, but it definitely feels like a step in the right direction.

For those who are curious, here’s a list of the songs used for this particular piece:

1. Waxahatchee - “Can’t Do Much”

2. U.S. Girls - “4 American Dollars”

3. Niall Horan - “Heartbreak Weather”

4. Melanie Faye - “It’s A Moot Point”

5. HAIM - “The Steps”

6. Brandy Clark - “Pawn Shop”

7. Dua Lipa - “Hallucinate”

8. Triángulo de Amor Bizarro + Ariadna Punsetes - “Acosadores”

9. Megan Thee Stallion - “Captain Hook”

10. Róisín Murphy - “Murphy’s Law”

The final piece is about 9 x 9 inches with 6 x 6 inches of covered space. Much like the previous installments, I don’t have any intentions to frame this or show it anywhere. That said, I do think it looks much better in person, so there’s a possibility I’ll reconsider that in the near future.

IS THIS PIECE AVAILABLE?

“Mixtape III” is available in my online shop.

WHERE CAN I LISTEN TO THE PLAYLIST?

The playlist can be streamed on Spotify or YouTube.

Mixtape II (2020)

It’s pure comedy to me that I’m sharing a playlist of my top ten songs for February 2020 in the middle of summer. While I have no idea when I actually finished selecting these songs, I do know that I dragged my feet on creating the cover art. It just didn’t seem like something I needed to prioritize, given the current state of the world.

Once I got started, I used a similar technique to “Mixtape I”. Sections of the paper were designated for certain songs, then filled with imagery inspired by the lyrics. This time around, I found myself using text as a bit of a crutch, but I actually enjoy the way the random phrases interact with one another. It's chaotic in the best way possible.

For some context, here’s a list of the songs used for this particular piece:

1. Caribou - “Like I Loved You”

2. Grimes - “Delete Forever”

3. Car Seat Headrest - “Can’t Cool Me Down”

4. Alex Newell - “Boy, You Can Keep It”

5. Christine and the Queens - “People, I’ve been sad”

6. Soccer Mommy - “crawling in my skin”

7. Jessie Ware - “Spotlight”

8. Orville Peck - “Queen of the Rodeo”

9. The Avalanches (featuring Blood Orange) - “We Will Always Love You”

10. La Roux - “21st Century”

The final piece is 6x6 inches, and I don’t have any intentions of matting or framing it any time soon. I’ve scanned and edited it for digital purposes, but admittedly, these pieces are mostly for my own enjoyment.

IS THIS PIECE AVAILABLE?

“Mixtape II” is available in my online shop.

WHERE CAN I LISTEN TO THE PLAYLIST?

The playlist can be streamed on Spotify or YouTube.

Exquisite Horror (2020)

Occasionally, when I’m running dry on material for my word art, I’ll take a step back and look up quotes about words themselves. There’s a lot of material out there! And much as I considered making a piece about Natasha Beddingfield’s “These Words”, I landed on an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket:

“Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality.”

Once I had the quote, I dug through a pile of mats in my studio. Noticeably, I’ve been shy about incorporating color into my word art. Black and white is my comfort zone, but I wanted something that could help this pop a bit more if it were hanging on a wall. The navy blue 5 x 7 inch mat caught my eye, and the size allowed me to recycle a misprinted 4 x 6 greeting card made of watercolor paper.

Usually, I’ll pencil in the boundaries of my piece. For this, I used painter’s tape to temporarily secure the paper in the mat, then carefully navigated around the edges as I completed the piece. The opening of the mat left 3 x 4.5 inches of space to cover. I was able to finish this piece within a single day, probably within a couple of hours.

Is this piece available?

“Exquisite Horror” is available in my online shop.

Under The Sea (2020)

Much as I love the meditative repetition of my word art, there are times when I get frustrated with the rigidity of the process. This month, I’ve been experimenting with a pictorial technique that I’ve jokingly referred to as Keith Haring-lite. The shift to this freer, more joyful style may indeed have something to do with visiting the Museum of Modern Art, where I very nearly broke down in tears in front of Haring’s “Untitled” piece.

My concern with this technique is that it feels too derivative. It’s somewhere between imitation and emulation, and my hope is that it will evolve into innovation as time passes. It’s also possible that I’ll lose interest and abandon this approach in a few months! There’s only one way to find out.

Long-winded introduction aside, “Under The Sea” is the first completed piece in this series. I started drawing a fish, and to paraphrase my 3 year-old niece, I decided that it needed some friends. Soon, it was surrounded by more fish, an octopus, a mermaid, a sea horse, a starfish, a crab, kelp, and a clumsily drawn dolphin that’s wearing a party hat. The friendship mission was a success.

This piece was done on the back of a recycled, misprinted 4 x 6 greeting card made of watercolor paper. I used an oval mat as a guide for the shape of the piece, making my best attempt to keep the edges rough and avoid the borders. I’m extremely pleased with the resulting piece.

Is this piece available?

“Under The Sea” is available as a limited edition print in my online shop.

The original is not for sale.

Jubilee (2019)

After I was invited to participate in the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s 2020 exhibition “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom”, I decided to take this as an opportunity to create blatant, unapologetic fan art. The theme had me daydreaming about the various nerdy things I’ve embraced throughout my lifetime. The X-Men immediately came to mind.

Many children living in the 1990s went through an X-Men phase, but I took things to the next level. My uncle would gift me Marvel trading cards every time that I saw him, and I would sit in my bedroom carefully studying the strength, intelligence, speed, and other abilities of every hero or villain.

I didn’t do anything useful with that information. In fact, I would completely ignore it while playing with the action figures, choosing instead to evade attacks by jumping very high and staying there.

As you might suspect, I was also a fan of the animated series that aired from 1992-1997. Beast was my favorite character by a landslide. Constantly, I would jump into pools imitating the way he jumped in one of the franchise’s many video games. I imagine that my friends found this very annoying.

Despite my love for Beast, I decided to base my piece for “Obsessed” on spunky teen shopping enthusiast Jubilee. I thought the bright colors of her costume would pop in a sea of black and white text, and perhaps more importantly, I needed a safe space to show my appreciation for this line she delivers in the animated series:

“Does a mall babe eat chili fries?”

To complete this piece, I mapped out a bold, stylized Jubilee design in my sketchpad. Once I got the colors and proportions right, I cut out my original drawing and traced it onto an 11 x 14 inch piece of watercolor paper. I penciled in the rest of the design, then filled it in with colored pencil—meticulously layering and blending until the surface of the paper was no longer visible. To prevent smudging, I sprayed the piece with a matte fixative and waited for it to dry.

Then, as usual, I rotated the sheet and filled it in with the phrase above. I tried to vary my lettering choices to provide some extra texture in the background. The entire piece took several days to complete, and despite being the first piece that I started for the show, it wound up being the last one that I finished.

It was then matted, framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Main Library from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“Jubilee” is available as a print in my Redbubble and Society6 shops.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

Candy (2019)

I spent a lot of time thinking about (and researching) the word “nerd” as I prepared for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center’s “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom” exhibition. When the Nerds mascot popped into my brain, it took me a few days to realize it would pair perfectly with the lyrics to Mandy Moore’s 1999 hit single “Candy”.

Beyond this song’s bubblegum pop sheen, there’s a dark tale of unhealthy obsession. “I’m so addicted to the loving that you’re feeding to me,” Moore sings on the first verse, before continuing later that her, “Body’s in withdrawal, every time you take it away.” It’s almost alarming until you realize it’s the type of melodramatic metaphor you’d expect from a teenager.

Ultimately, this is a piece about Nerds and obsession, rather than a piece about nerdy obsessions.

To complete this piece, I began by doing sketches of the Nerds mascot. Once I got the color and shape right, I cut out the drawing with an X-acto knife and traced the outline onto a 5x5 inch square of paper. I penciled in a quarter inch border of white space on the edges.

Next, I replicated the drawing, then filled in the tongue and body with different shades of pink colored pencil. Once blended, I opted to outline the drawing in black colored pencil, rather than ink pen. This emphasized the cartoony quality of the image and made it pop a bit more on the paper.

From there, I sprayed the drawing with a matte fixative to prevent smudging. Once dry, I rotated the paper and began repeating the lyrics to “Candy” until the full square was full. I decided to go with a more uniform, simple text style to avoid upstaging the drawing.

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

“Candy” is available as a print on INPRNT, Society6, and Redbubble.

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.

A Nerd (2019)

I wasn’t very far into my research for the Port Angeles Fine Art Center’s “Obsessed: The Art of Nerd-Dom” exhibition when I realized that I had to do a piece inspired by the origins of the word “nerd”.

The first known English-language usage of the word “nerd” was in the 1950 Dr. Seuss children’s book If I Ran The Zoo. It had nothing to do with the definition we know today. A “nerd” was merely a creature that lived in the zoo. It resembles the Grinch (and predates him by seven years).

I chose to pair the nerd creature with a quote attributed to lifestyle blogger Mandy Hale. There was an extremely Seussian quality to a phrase she uses in one of her posts:

“Better to be a nerd than one of the herd”.

To complete this piece, I began with several drawings of the nerd creature in my sketchpad. This character was surprisingly difficult to draw, despite appearing quite simple. My final drawing was a bit clumsier than I would have liked, but I reasoned to myself that it didn’t have to look exactly like the original. It just had to look like a nerd.

Once completed, I cut out the drawing with an X-acto knife, traced it onto a piece of watercolor paper, and lightly penciled in an outline. I added the yellow portions in colored pencil, then followed it with the red parts. The black portions were drawn with a Micron Sakura ink pen. To make the white parts pop, I highlighted them carefully with a conté crayon.

The completed drawing was sprayed with a matte fixative to prevent smudging. Once dry, I rotated the paper and repeated the above quote, using a relatively uniform style of text to avoid clutter on the page. I continued until the page was full. In total, this piece took about two to three days to complete (while simultaneously working on other pieces for the show).

It was then framed, and shipped off to be displayed at the Port Angeles Main Library from January 11 to March 15, 2020.

Is this piece available?

The original is still available. Please contact me if you’re interested.