Gettin' Fresh in the Clubhouse

Carlton Says... (Get Fresh) (approx 8ft x 6ft, aerosol, 2012)

Yaaooo! I've been meaning (Mingin') to show you these photos of my work at The Clubhouse, a not-for-profit arts organization here in Edmonton. They commissioned some work from me and a couple other artists as a part of their Culture Days celebration — they're one of the selected spaces for the festival, and will be showcasing several bands, an arts workshop by my man Ben, and much more! Check them out at 9510 105th ave above the bottle depot. Alberta Culture Days runs from Sept. 28-29th and is free and family friendly, so come check it out at the Clubhouse (after, of course, you come see me painting live for another Culture Days event on 104st and Jasper ave — I'll be painting a canvas live from 4:30 onwards, and also will be painting a piece live during Politic Live's set!). The portrait of Alfonso Ribeiro (aka Carlton from Fresh Prince) that I painted definitely seems to think you should come hang out!

CAPS feature wall (detail) (aerosol, 2012)

This here piece is one of my contributions to the feature wall, a collaboration with a local arts advocacy group called CAPS. You'll be hearing more about them soon, but for now, come see all the art we made — Ben, Bernie, and Miles all dropped some heat in here.

CAPS feature wall (detail) (aerosol, 2012)

Clubhouse Bar (aerosol, 2012)

Lastly, here's the bar I painted. OK, I gotta run — I'm due in Calgary for a United Way event tomorrow, then back on Friday to get my Culture Days on! Catch you soon homies!

Walk & Don't Look Back

I'm The Toughest (R.I.P. Peter Tosh) (approx 8.5ft x 4.5ft, aerosol on billboard, 2012)

The whole billboard about 3/4 finished

Yo homies! I've had an eventful week — on Tuesday I finished a mural along with Joker from Ihuman (see: last post) which is getting a little internet love, so far about 1000 likes on facebook and a ton of shares and comments. Jonathan, the main writer and producer we worked with on the project, is a hella cool guy, and let us do whatever we wanted on the billboard we were originally supposed to paint. I did a greyscale portrait of the Reggae legend Peter Tosh, and Joker repped his old graffiti name and crew. I'm proud of how the portrait came out, and although I still have tons of work to do on this area of my game, I'm excited to move forward and step it up! Peep this classic (and hilarious) video of Peter Tosh choppin it up with a wild-eyed Mick Jagger back in the day right here. Ok, that's it for today, I'm painting a pair of murals for Edmonton's The Creative Clubhouse tomorrow so I've gotta get myself sorted with supplies and that. Thanks for comin to kick it! One Love. 

Global TV Mural: The Process

Yo homies! Here's the mural I finished yesterday for GlobalTV's new campaign. I was contacted by Ihuman, a local group I've worked with several times in the past, to create some brand-conscious graffiti-influenced artwork (basically I'm a huge sellout is what I'm saying...jokes) to be used for what was originally to be a GlobalTV billboard. TV moves quickly, so the timeline to get things done was pretty tight! Ihuman also asked that I mentor one of the youth they work with, Joker, during the creation of the mural itself. There were some definite challenges throughout this process — the billboard we were supposed to paint on originally was blocked off by some roof construction crews working in the area, so we had to think on the fly. Luckily, Jonathan, one of the head creatives at Global Edmonton, pulled some strings and got us clearance to paint directly on the GlobalTV headquarters here in E-town! Another challenge was working collaboratively with a new artist — Joker definitely has some experience, but we have pretty different styles, not to mention that it's never easy working off of someone else's sketches, so props to my man Joker for getting it done! Also, on the second day of painting when we were doing a lot of the detail work, the wind picked up a ton, making it hard to work with gradients, a big part of this particular piece. A few last-minute changes to the design (moving the chopper over, making the logo a bit bigger, handpainting the logo for a more hand-made look as opposed to a stencil or vinyl) were accommodated as well, which made things a tiny bit trickier. In the end, everyone at Global loved the new piece, so all was well. I can't help but pick at tiny little things I wish I had the time to touch up, but it was important to make sure the piece was a group effort, not just my own creative impetus, and so I told the annoying little perfectionist in the back of my head to shut up for now. Below, check out the sketches, from my first four initial concepts, to the digitally coloured version of the one they chose (with some revisions regarding legibility and placement), to the final, approved sketch. Shout out to the homies Jonathan, Randall, Rhonda, Phil, Ashley, and everyone else at Global who came out to watch and support! There was a film crew on us for a big portion of the production, so they'll be editing it up right away and airing it soon. Nuff props to the man Touch, a local musician who's group Global commissioned to put a song together for the campaign. Touch was kickin it with us while we painted, and Global shot a mini-music video for the track, which is fire by the way, and should be released soon! Peace, and thanks for rolling through!

Kaleido Festival 2012 pt.1

Ayo! I'm back with a photo of one of the pieces I painted last weekend at Kaleido festival on 118th avenue. The photo is by my man Nutly, Edmonton's hiphop documentarian who's on his Henry Chalfant game for real. For those who don't know, certain areas along 118th ave have historically had a reputation for being tougher areas of town. Over the past few years, a lot of amazing work has been done to pull 118th ave together as a community and erase that reputation for good, and the motto 'we believe in 118' has been placed in business and community centre windows all down the ave. I painted this piece to help support the movement, and if Kaleido fest this year was any indication, things on 118th are coming along pretty damn well! I also painted several Exquisite Corpse style pieces in collaboration with 3 other artists, and am just waiting on the photos to come out. Catch you soon!

More Work + Etsy Shop!

Yo! What's happnin'? How's life?? Here's a quick update on what September has in store for me: I'm painting a few things at Kaleido Festival, which is this weekend. Raps On Wax Off, a hella dope fundraising event for Hip Hop in the Park, is next weekend (peep the poster I made above). Basically various local musicians are getting various body parts waxed, chosen by the most generous bidders, to raise money for next year's Hip Hop in the Park. I'm also collaborating with Ihuman on a big new project based in part on the Aerosol Academy program I designed earlier this summer, I'm performing at Culture Days here in Edmonton as well as an event in Calgary at the end of the month, and to top it all off I'm trying to finish a challenging commissioned portrait as well. Life is good!

One Love (48x36 in, 2012, aerosol on wood)

Gaudly (30x40 in, 2012, mixed media on canvas)

Here are a couple pieces I finished fairly recently. One Love was the piece I was working on for the brief Global TV spot promoting Kaleido Festival this year. Gaudly, the second piece, is a reconstitution of an older piece (can you tell which one?), and was purchased at Artwalk this year.

I also wanted to mention that I've opened a new shop on Etsy — you'll be able to buy prints of my work here, as well as occasional original pieces. There are prints in the shop at the moment from two of my favourite pieces. The prints are 12.5x17.5in on quality photo paper and are suitable for framing — they came out amazingly sharp, and are a great deal at the price. I won't be doing prints of even close to all of my pieces because ensuring a quality print means getting professional quality photos and printing done, but if you see something on my blog or in real life that you really want a print of, let me know via email — ajalouden@gmail.com — and I'll try my best to hook it up! 

Seasons Change

 Sara's Piece (2012, aerosol, acrylic, and ink on canvas)

Sara and her mom Lianne with their new piece.

Yo! Here's a piece I put together for as a commission last month. Sara wanted a large piece, a portrait, so we decided to do it in the style of my Research on Control series. I took a few liberties and experimented with the colour palette in the portrait a fair bit, and am happy with the results — I learned a lot doing this piece, and have another top-secret acrylic portrait thats been in the works for quite some time coming soon...

Rock the Rails 2012 demo piece

So I've spent part of my summer designing a program, called the Aerosol Academy, to teach youth about the history, cultural relevance, and legalities of graffiti. Using a custom workbook, they first learn about the history of the art form, then get to try out some of the tools and techniques, first on paper, then on canvasses or boards. At the end of the program, we again review the legality of graffiti — what it's legal for them to paint on and what they'll probably get in trouble for, and where the nearest legal wall is, or how to get one set up. At Rock the Rails last month in Leduc I introduced a super condensed version. Here's how it went...

Rock the Rails 2012. After running around all morning getting supplies for the Aerosol Academy Mini Camp, I get to the site at around 2 pm. It's nice and sunny out. I start prepping all the boards with basecoats and setting up the easels. Around 4:00, the wind picks up. Hella. We start putting everything away, and a big section of the sky turns green. Everyone starts taking pictures cause it's so freaky lookin. Then, intense lightning and thunder. Everyone runs to their vehicles and GTFOs. Intense hail and winds for like 2 hours. Then all of a sudden, at like 7pm everything clears up and it's all good, Rock the Rails 2012 skateparks competitions are delayed, but the Battle of the Bands is good to go, and the bands start to throw down. Kids start signing up for the Aerosol Academy, and I start giving them plastic jumpsuits, a quick walkthrough of the mini-workbook, and cans of spraypaint, then pointing them at 8'x4' sheet of plywood on easels. Other youth come over and check it out. More kids come with consent-form-signing parents in tow. I largely ignore the demo piece (above) I'm trying to paint as I'm too busy signing kids up. And stopping them from trying to figure out whats wrong with the nozzle by staring into it and trying to spray. The plan was definitely to do something a lot more structured, but considering it was hailing out half an hour before, a little rolling with the punches was required. Everyone had a great time regardless — we actually ran out of boards to paint on, and could have used more paint too, so despite the intense weather and tight timing, the event was hella successful! I wish I had some more time to finish the demo piece I did (shown above), there are definitely a ton of things I would have like to clean up, but it's all good. Congrats to Smile for the Bullet who took home the top prize in the Battle of the Bands!  

 Untitled (diptych) (2012, aerosol, housepaint, acrylic)

Lastly, here's a diptych I painted for my mom while I was down in Calgary for the long weekend. Seasons are changing where I live, and that's what these paintings are about. Aiight, thanks for coming by homies! I'll be back again to get it crackin' soon. 

Zombiffany

Zombiffany: The Shaolin Zombie 50's Housewife
(comic book cover, digital and traditional media, 2012)

OH SNAP! Is that a Shaolin Zombie, or a housewife from the 50's? Both?! Good Lord, have mercy, that can't be a bucket of BRAINS, can it?! What kind of comic book is this!? Does this comic book even exist? Only time will tell, my friends. As for the cover art, I created it using a combination of digital and traditional media. It's all an homage to my hella good friend Tiffany Tate, who loves zombies, B-movies, and 1950's culture. I know, she's awesome. She's also an extremely deadly illustrator. Zombiffany probably takes out her victims with a combination of deadly Kung Fu (like 5 Deadly Venoms deadly) and fierce wet towel whipping from that washcloth. Then she takes their brains back home to her zombie family. Zombiffany: Bringin' home the bacon brains. Word up. Have a gander at the original sketch below.

FPG3: Album Art

FPG3 (cover)

FPG3 (back)

Ayo! I'm back to share some album art I recently finished for Doobyis, a local musician. FPG#3 (which dropped today, get your copy right here) was a little more solitary and contemplative than the last instalment, and I wanted to reflect that in the cover art. D is alone in the lab with a pen and a pad, honing his craft and gettin' his 10,000 in. There are lots of little details taken from the music, like the posters on the wall (MF Doom, Ghostface, and B.I.G.), Soundcloud up on the computer screen, a Nas CD on the table, and Doobs rocking workboots and a green hat with a D, to name a few. For the back cover, I went with some hand-rendered type to represent the DIY self-made style of music Doobyis makes. A few key lines from track #2, "The Wreckage", inspired the visuals for the backside. This was a fun project — Doobyis trusted me with a lot of creative freedom and enough time to get the job done right, and I'm really proud of the results. A special shoutout goes to my man Jarett, whose critiques were invaluable throughout this piece, and my man Bmoney, for teaching me to keep my files tight — this project was drawn by hand and then coloured digitally, so with all the layers involved, not being a sloppy worker was a huge help to me. 'Till next time, onwards and upwards homies!