Goodbye old studio, thanks for the memories!

 
In October 2005, just a few months after we had our first daughter, I leased an industrial space near our small apartment. It was a pretty big decision for Jennifer and I, it was another bill (several) and another responsibility for us- already under pressure with a two month old baby! 

It ended up being the right move- I‘d been working on our kitchen table or driving across town to work in my parent’s garage. We had moved into a two room apartment but there was still no room to work. I found a nice 1000 sq/ft industrial warehouse type shop with a small office in front. I got the idea from seeing the Clayton Brother’s studio a few years before. The place was big enough, versatile and had plenty of storage space, with large walls, a roll up door and high ceilings. It was perfect, and I got right to work.

I’m a little sad to leave when I look back at all the exhibits and paintings I worked on at this space, not to mention how my life has changed the past six years. It’s been a pretty cool/strange/awesomely/fucked up/rad six years! 

Now I’ve moved into a great new space with friends. The new studio has everything the old one has with more support and camaraderie. Gonna be a new adventure and I’m hoping to get many years of great work accomplished here. But I’ll keep in my heart my little studio which helped me get off the ground!!

Here’s some pictures over the years....

Pearl Jam Montreal posters

I had some trouble getting these posters online from my hotel in France last week. I'm back and they'll go up this week on consecutive days- for people that would like to try for both. Go to www.potatostamp.com 

 

Pearl Jam- Montreal 2011 (Purple color way)
Available Wednesday, September 28, 2011, noon California time
Signed and numbered artists edition of 100 (less will be available)
$65 + shipping

Pearl Jam- Montreal 2011 (Green color way)
Available Thursday, September 29, 2011, noon California time
Signed and numbered artists edition of 20 (less will be available). Super rare...

$120 + shipping

Jarritos Flavor City Winner!!

I was involved with this contest and here's the winner! Oscar Meza of San Diego....

First Place- Oscar Meza

Age: 28

Hometown: San Diego

Occupation: Student

Website: www.oscarmeza.wordpress.com

“What inspired my piece started off as some sketches on a pad. Being that Jarritos was founded in Mexico, I wanted my illustration to reflect that authenticity. It almost felt obvious to incorporate a Luchador. I wasn’t sure who I was drawing at the time; but ironically, some of my friends said that the character kind of looked like me.” 

“Wining this competition has made my year. It is such an honor to have been chosen amongst the other great competitors. I feel very lucky and humble to have won. Winning the year supply of Jarritos has made my belly smile, and having my art published has fed my artistic ego. But to my surprise, the best part of winning thus far is making my friends and family proud!”

Here's a link to the rest of the winners.. congrats all..... http://jarritosflavorcity.com/

Jarritos Flavor City!

I am working with Jarritos on a project of theirs. I'm part of a jury for the Jarritos Flavor City Art Contest. Here's some more info:

The Jarritos Flavor City Art Contest is looking for innovative Artist to describe what Jarritos means to them. We are looking for artists of all ages to develop eye-catching works of art in any medium to express the flavor and experience of Jarritos. Each art submission must incorporate the Jarritos logo and at least one of the eleven Jarritos flavors. (fruit punch, grapefruit, guava, hibiscus, lime, mandarin, pineapple, strawberry, tamarind, mango, lemon-lime).
The Panel of Judges is assembled by: Amanda Lynn, Mike Maxwell, Jeff Soto, Estevan Oriol of SA Studios, Jeremy Kove, Leinya Magana and Kimberly Verde of A&O PR, Raymond Roker of URB Magazine, Tribal Gear, Roger Gastman of R. Rock Enterprises, Stephan Malbon of Frank 151, Mark Murphy of Murphy Design, Eklips of The Seventh Letter and Known Gallery, Jesse Hernandez, Retna, Brandy Flower of Hit and Run, Eddie Donaldson of GuerillaOne.com and more to be announced.
The winner of the Jarritos Flavor City Art Contest will have his work published amongst our partner media outlets and formally displayed at various Art Walks in our selected city’s. The recognition of your talents amongst the robust art community will allow you to maximize your network and artistic exposure to thousands of people.
FIRST PLACE
Work published in all partner media outlets (print and web), online email blast announcing winner with art and bio, showcased on Jarritos website, featuring art at the VIP event, and 1 year supply (365 bottles) of Jarritos.
SECOND PLACE
Online email blast announcing 2nd place winner with art and bio, mentioned on Jarritos website, featuring art at the VIP event, 6 month supply (180 bottles) of Jarritos.
THIRD PLACE
Online email blast announcing 3rd place winner with art and bio, mentioned on Jarritos website, featuring art at the VIP event, 3 month supply (90 bottles) of Jarritos.
Media partners include but not limited to: URB Magazine, Frank 151, Known Gallery, GuerillaOne.com, and Jarritos social outlets (i.e. website and Facebook). More to be announced.
Winning Art piece along with selected submitted Art pieces will be exhibited at various Art Walks in our selected city’s. All artists will be invited to attend.

Jarritos presents the Jarritos Flavor City Art/Advertising Contest. Winning pieces will be published as a Jarritos advertisement in an art/trade publication. Art will be judged by a renowned panel from the Arts industry. Winner will be announced August 11th 2011 See instructions below on how to create your graphics! Good luck!
Please be sure to review each rule and regulation thoroughly before submitting. Jarritos reserves the right to immediately disqualify any and all entrants that do not follow the guidelines to enter:
All entries must feature the Jarritos 2011 logo and bottle. Any entry not including the Jarritos 2011 logo will be disqualified. Medium of your choice. Be aware there is NO SLOGAN for this year’s contest. Multiple submissions are ok.

Send submissions to: ad@jarritosflavorcity.com with the subject line: Jarritos Flavor City Contest. For judging purposes, please send a low resolution (72 dpi) jpg. Any large files (over 5MB) will be immediately discarded.
If you are creating your submission in Photoshop/Illustrator, please retain a layered high res (300dpi) file. If you are creating a photograph/painting/drawing, etc., please retain a high res (300dpi) scan. If your work is selected, but you do not have the original high res file, your work will be disqualified from the exhibition and a new winner will be selected.
If you have any questions please contact us

Eddie Vedder 2011 US Tour Triptych

(click any image to see larger)

I had an idea to create a triptych poster set with the first and last shows of the tour, with the middle one being the US Tour poster. I am lucky that there's some great people working EV's merch and they went for it! The three posters show the acoustic, electric and ukulele guitars Eddie uses during his performance. It was important to me to get his guitars looking right, so I worked from photos of his gear. The drawings were all done by hand in ink on bristol and then scanned in and colored using Photoshop and my trusty Wacom. These are probably my most time intensive and detailed prints I've worked on so far. Working on and off, each one of these took a week to finish, but the end result is worth it I think. Originally it was a triptych with state birds featured, but I think this turned out much better!

The Providence print represents the beginning, the morning hours, the sun rising in the East. The middle tour poster shows L.A. and NYC silhouettes, showing the travel across the states. The Seattle poster is the end of the tour, the night has come and the day is over. I decided to keep the "Eddie Vedder" lettering somewhat hidden, or at least not the first thing you see. I tried some new things (new to me) with the screenprinting, trying to take advantage of bitmapping to make gradients, and overlapping colors to create subtle color shifts. I'm going to keep pushing myself, I really love screenprinting.

 

I got to watch Eddie Vedder perform at the Long Beach show a few weeks ago and it was pretty rad! He's got some great fans! They cheered when he finished a song, cheered when he picked up his electric guitar, cheered at the first strum, then cheered when he began to sing. Loud cheers, deafening even! I really dig Eddie's guitar work, in particular his "Into The Wild" soundtrack. I probably ended up listening to it about ten times while I worked on these three prints. I read some comments about not "getting it" with the first poster.  That's cool, when you make art not everyone gets it. Eddie's song are about a lot of different things, relationships, places, life experiences, and I was trying to capture some of those things in the prints. I never approach these gig posters as advertisements for the band, the venue, the locale, etc. Maybe that's the wrong approach, but first and foremost I'm making a piece of art. I'm trying to take the essence of what the musician does and mix it with what I do. I like his storytelling abilities, and I think I am a storyteller as well, only visually rather than auditory. There's stories in these pieces, as there are in all of my works.

The last two prints will be available at www.potatostamp.com this week. I will have more info and specifics on here tomorrow for those interested....