i was already impressed by the cover. i had no idea this publication was going to be so…well, like a real book i guess. not that i thought it would be some stapled xerox copies, but i didn’t expect it to be so substantial. but man, this thing looks great. the paper, the scale, the type, the design..all look fantastic, really nice quality all around.

then i opened it up to see how my drawings looked.

holy cow, they looked better than i’d imagined!

the print quality was really nice. the drawings are rapidograph on mylar, and on some of them i used spray paint on the back to fill in some of the black areas. so naturally when you look at them from the front, those spray paint areas have a sort of frosted look to them. that look totally comes across in the printing – and the paper that was used for the book has a similar transparency to the mylar used for the drawings, so the printed drawings look really close to the originals.

and the rest

so yeah, i’m very pleased with how the book turned out. the only thing i’d change about the design of the book would be to replace all that superfluous text on the back with the bird and beckett logo (a very nice logo).

by the way, not only do i love the title “amerarcana”, but “bird and beckett” is a great name for a book store.

want to own one? check out the amerarcana website for more info. thanks for including me nick, i’m proud to be a part of your debut publication.

and check out bird and beckett books and records while you’re at it.

click (below) on this scan of one of the originals to go to my flickr site where you can see scans of all the originals plus larger versions of the images above.

ps – hey, i guess that makes twice my work has been published in a book.

after about a week of contemplating what to do, an idea came to me like a flash. all at once i knew what i was going to create, what it would be made of, and even where i wanted to hang it in the gallery. what you see here is the result of that flash – an ArrowDeco form made of steel and frosted acrylic. the only modification to the idea was that i used frosted acrylic for the arrow instead of frosted glass – the glass was going to take too long to get. as it happened, i didn’t have the piece finished until the night before the show…as usual. (at least i finished it!)

thanks to a great guy named elliot hathaway, a fine welder (and also a photographer), i got the steel welded just in time for a very reasonable price. thanks elliot!

ah, the perfect spot. just above your head, in the doorway, as you walk from the front to the back gallery.

there are more, better quality photos HERE

spray paint on three 4′ X 8′ aluminum panels. they’re installed on a backyard fence next to a pool, with about as much separation in between them as you see here.

i didn’t get paid much, but i had fun making it, and i’m glad i had the opportunity. it was good practice to do something this large, as i hope to be able to do many other large scale pieces in the future.

left:

middle:

right:

and here’s the drawing for the piece:

go HERE for bigger pics.

he said it reminded him of joan miro. i suppose i can see the connection.  although that wasn’t the motivation behind the drawing, i do love joan miro.  anyway, he told me that i should make a painting of it. at which point i decided that i would paint it and give it to him as a surprise.

well, it took a couple months to get around to it. mainly because of the circumstances i spoke of in my previous post. i did, however, complete it:

12″ X 9″, spray paint and paint marker on galvanized steel.

it’s a simple painting with a simple porcess. but it was fun:

and i love the look of galvanized steel:

instead it was in a nice, glossy paged, hardcover book. cool! apparently the article is in one of their “guestbooks” which is published annually(?). the guestbook is basically a travel guide all about touristy stuff to do while in san diego – dining, clubs, museums, and so on – and it’s distributed to hotels and such in the san diego area.

anyway, here’s the cover:

looking inside the book, and towards the middle, we get to the intro spread of the article. that’s a photo of the san diego tijuana border – the article is about how adapta is bringing tijuana and san diego artists together in an effort to gain attention and recognition of the growing art scenes in both these border cities.

turn the page and on the left you see a picture that was taken at adapta’s show Army of icons at the san diego childrens museum, and on the right is a piece by artist and adapta member Jorge Tellaeche

turn the page again and your hit in the face with a full page of arrow deco. man, i wasn’t expecting to be so prominently featured. and on the right is a photo of 2 of my pieces from adapta’s Phantasmagoria show back in august of last year (has it been that long?).

thanks to the adapta trio (jorge, jaime, and kinsee) for being such a supporter of my work, and to Where’s mark hiss for the full page eye candy.

then i photocopied it a couple times, cut it out, and taped it together to make a neat little subway car skyscraper that sits perched on a shelf in between some art books and some ultra flat black.

next, 2 more drawings that will become paintings very soon, and will be unveiled on september 27th at the Device Gallery in la jolla.

“30 story ranch house”

“up”

here she is during one of her many “paparazzi moments”:

eventually she hooked up with some fellow avengers – captain america (that girl was tiny. her and trista entered the marvel costume contest together and got into the finals but didn’t win), and nick fury:

speaking of hand made clothing. here’s trista and i the night of the art show – she’s wearing a skirt that she made just 2 days before.

the art show went relatively well. three pieces sold, although unfortunately mine wasn’t one of them. still, it was fun. plus the show will be up for another month, so who knows, maybe it’ll sell.

i was originally told that this was a comic book themed show, although it turned out to be not so comic book related. nevertheless, i adapted my style to the comic book theme. the piece is a diptych titled “Metrotham” – 48″ X 37″, spray paint and paint marker on 18g steel. The word metrotham is a combination of metropolis (as in the city of superman) and gotham city (where batman fights crime). i used relatively the same drawing for both cities with subtle differences. the idea being that metropolis and gotham city are both based on the same city, NYC. the one on the left is metropolis – red, yellow, and blue are to represent superman. that red streak in the clouds is superman taking off from the daily planet building. the right then is obviously gotham city. it’s black and gray, the colors of batman. the design has changed slightly by omitting the daily planet and adding smoke stacks, a bat signal moon, and a W to the top of wayne tower. in both pieces there are subtle differences in gloss, satin and flat colors that are almost impossible to photograph. for instance the background of metrolpolis has 3 different whites of varying textures and gotham’s background has 3 different blacks. you can only really tell in person….so go see it. it’s up til sept 15th.

i had done 2 pieces prior to this on aluminum but this was my first on steel**. i had a 1″ square steel tube frame welded for the back of the steel sheet so that i could hang them without outside frames. i JB Welded the tube-frames to the sheet and painted the back white:

here’s a shot of the back signed, titled, and dated. “metrotham: metropolis” and “metrotham: gotham city”

**i’ll be working on steel from now on. it just fits better into the whole arrowchitectural decograf concept. graffiti was painted on steel trains, skyscrapers are built of steel, and so on.

in order of completion:

i just finished this painting today. it’s 12″ X 78″, spray paint and paint marker on aluminum. it’s titled “A.D. – 14″. excuse the horribly blurry photo, the ol’ camera’s on it’s last leg.