AJALOUDEN.COM

Gone Fishin'

Hey homies! I am officially no longer updating this blog (you may have noticed...*ahem*). I haven't actually been fishing instead, mostly working. **2016 UPDATE** I haven't actually been fishing since I went full time as an artist in August 2015 (YAAASSS!). I've built a new website, you can find it at:

ajalouden.com

Thanks for continuing to check out what I'm up to! The support goes a long way.
Much love, and cool breezes. 

Not Forgotten

Not Forgotten (approx. 8ftx5ft, aerosol, 2012)

True Bboy (8inx10in, watercolour, ink, acrylic, 2012)

Rest in Power to Jarrett Bortscher, a member of Edmonton's breakdancing community. I didn't ever have the pleasure of meeting him, but he was well known for bringing mad game and energy every time he danced. The Bboy community in Edmonton is pretty tightly knit, thanks in particular to the Cypher Wild crew, and cats like Lunacee, Jeff Poppin' Fresh, and Creeasian ('The DJ Creeasian who just won back to back Redbull 3Style competitions in Edmonton, and plays Fridays and Saturdays at the Backroom, you ask?' Yes.) Jarrett had Asperger's, which is on the autism spectrum, but was not the type of person to let anything stop him from doing what he loved. A true Bboy, as well as a friend and inspiration to many, Jarrett will be missed and not forgotten. Creeasian got at me to create something for Jarrett's family, and True Bboy is the piece I created. I was inspired by the stories of Jarrett's breakin' abilities and commitment to bringing high energy and flavour to every cypher. Working on this piece got me thinking about loss, and how it can be a bitter, tragic part of the human experience we all share. For me at least, sometimes communicating helps; sharing the weight of a loss can often be cathartic. Just after I'd finished Not Forgotten at the legal wall up here, a lady walked up behind me, sobbing, and said she'd just lost a close friend and basically didn't feel like sticking around anymore, and the piece meant something to her. I really didn't know what to say at all, I said something corny like "I'm glad it meant something, I hope you feel better" and by the time I could muster anything more intelligible she'd walked on. Wow, I didn't mean for this to be a depressing post at all, so let's just enjoy the hell out of all the people we like. I should have just said that right off the bat!

Portraits

Geordie LaForge (approx 8ft x 7ft, aerosol on wall, 2012)

(photo by the homie Nutly)

(in progress)

(photo by Nutly)

What's crackin? Here are a couple aerosol portraits I knocked out over the weekend up here in Edmonton. Above is a portrait of LeVar Burton as Lieutenant Commander Geordie LaForge from Star Trek: The Next Generation that I painted last sunday. You already know I'm a nerd like that. I chose LeVar Burton because he was one of the cats I looked up to as a kid. His character Geordie on Star Trek: TNG was unlike any other Black character I'd seen on TV — well-respected, tech-savvy, professional, and an integral part of the team on the Enterprise. What a boss! I'm proud of how this piece came out; I've been working hard on my portrait game, but this one was definitely a challenge, especially with a bit of wind and limited colour selection. By no means did it end up perfect, but I feel like I'm getting better! 

 Lots of people have been asking me lately if I use stencils or markers or an airbrush or anything like that, especially for the more realistic looking stuff — just to set the record straight, it's all free handed with spray paint only, it's more just about practice, thinking in layers, and understanding the medium. The LeVar Burton portrait took me about 5 hours to paint, and the one below took me about three and a half.

 Portrait Demo #1 (8ft x 4ft, aerosol on board, 2012)

(photo by Tiffany aka Zombiffany)

(in progress)

(photo by Maigan van der Giessen)

The black and white portrait above was created for an aerosol demo I did at Colours Art & Supply on the south side here in Edmonton last Saturday. The piece iteslf will be moving between Colours art stores, likely every few months. I learned a lot while doing both of these portraits, hopefully conveyed some knowledge, and happened to get a lot of props from passers by as well — thanks for all the love Edmonton! 

Rewind

 One World (60x48in, aerosol on canvas)
(photo by nutlydotnet)

Politic Live (60x36in, aerosol on canvas)

Yo! I'm back with a few blasts from the recent past — above are the two pieces I painted at the Alberta Culture Days Block Party this year, followed by a snapshot of the Nexen event I worked in Calgary. The top photo is of a piece I painted as a demonstration during part of the Block Part event, which celebrates family, diversity, and the local arts scene. Shoutout to Nutly getting some record of the piece in the low-light situation as I had to hand it over to the event organizers right away. The second photo is of the piece I painted live onstage while Politic Live played their set. It was just over 45 mins from start to finish, so my concept was to paint important words and phrases from the group's extensive history as the fill for the letters. PoliLive was backed by a full band, Quordal Fusion, who were killin it too, and the whole stage was shaking as I painted this! Peep their jam Throwback, grip the new album Ellipsis on Itunes, and go check them out when they're in your city! The third image is a bunch of shots taken by my man WiserOner at a Nexen/United Way event in Calgary. Myself and eight other artists were hired to run around encouraging about 300 employees in white plastic coveralls to paint each other. We started by lining up about 20 employees shoulder to shoulder, then painting a big piece across the front of them that read 'YOUNITED', which is a current United Way tagline. We had about 10 minutes or so to paint it, so we worked pretty efficiently as a team to set all the letters up and paint all of the (often awkward) nooks, crannies, and folds of the suits on our human canvasses... Then, we ran through the crowd getting them stoked about painting each other, usually by painting them first. It ended up being a fun and hilarious event, and I met a bunch of sick local artists I hope to see again hella soon. Peace to Wiser and Léa, Angel, Cody and Kai from Light&Soul, Matt, Toner, and Cendrine! 

Next, below you'll see the eight collaborative pieces we came up with for the Kaleido festival's Exquisite Corpse event in September. During the event, we each had an hour to paint 1/4 of each piece using ink, water, and only 3 brushes. We couldn't see what anyone else was painting until the end of the event, so before we switched canvasses to do the next quarter, the co-ordinator came and covered up what the last person just did. It was a fun project, and meeting and working with Kristen, Adam, and Kris was all good times! I think my favourites are the last two. I've been painting non-stop all weekend so I've got many new things to show very soon, but for now I've gotta run out and start a big halloween themed production with the homies Kurls and Demer. Stoked!!

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!