Crest Sketch Ready

Ayo what's happenin'? This is an initial drawing for a crest (click the pic to see it big) I'm currently working on for myself - I've been looking at a lot of crest and coats of arms lately, and its definitely been influencing my design aesthetic. Drawing these by hand has been challenging but rewarding - I'm super stoked on trying to hide little things here and there within the dense foliage elements that make up the outer body of the composition(see: Jerk chicken, spraypaint, #2 rounds, you know my steez! and the flags on the sides will be one Jamaican and one Canadian. Represent!!). This for me is about the excitement of the esoteric - I love the feeling you get when you discover something that not many people notice, those little key details that tell a more complicated story not everyone is listening for. This feeling is a big part of why I do visual art, and trying to share this feeling is often part of my motivation. This drawing is by no means a finished piece, but just an indication of a direction.
My friend Jarett and I have been exchanging critiques lately on each other's projects, and it's been a hella good look. I think that any artist or designer worth their weight knows that getting another set of eyes, especially an experienced set like Jarett's, to critique your work is invaluable. This goes doubly so when you've been staring at a project for a long time - a fresh, honest perspective is often the thing you need keep your style in check. Word! Back soon with some of the new work from the TU gallery show!

Musical Update

Hey! What's good? This is a time-lapse animation of the piece I did for Locution Revolution's LRT video last year (hit the fullscreen homie!) - they used the time lapse as a teaser for the video and the piece was a background for a big part of the video too. Big thanks to Nathanael J. Sapara for the photography and animation - good lookin' out chief!

This is the full video for Locution Revolution's LRT, one of my favourite tracks from these cats! It was a pleasure working on the video, and I was blessed enough to also exhibit alongside Khiry at the TU gallery show. Nathanael J. Sapara shot and directed this joint like a boss!

I have a few cameos in last year's Shiest - Props Pilin Up video too - check it out above. The guys asked if they could do some filming while I did the Guru tribute piece at last year's Hip Hop in the Park (check my July 2010 post) - peep for me around 1:30 and my art throughout the rest of the video. Shoutouts to my man Teagun who also shows up! I'll be back a.s.a.p with copies of the press from the TU and Latitude 53 gallery shows.

Back off self-imposed hiatus, busier than ever! Life is good.

R.O.C. #5 - More details after the show!

Oni's Day Off (acrylic on Paper)

Shoutout to NesOne and DJ AA of the Bassheadz!

Let's get it!

A marker portrait of my friend JohnDog's

dashing gentleman of a son Rowan.

YO!! Glad to be back after such a long hiatus. Life is GOOD! As usual, I've been super busy with art, school, and work, and especially so in the last couple months. Here's a quick update of the major happenings in my art life: In December, I was the Art Coordinator for a group mural around the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination created by myself and some great people from Edmonton's Centre for Race and Culture and Canada World Youth - I will post the photos as soon as I get them. At that event I met Darren Jordan, who invited me to submit my portfolio for an upcoming gallery show. Fortunately for me, they were interested in seeing more, so I was invited to be featured in a gallery show, (5 Artists, 1 Love) coming up on Feb. 5th-19th at the TU gallery (10718 124st Edmonton AB)!! Big ups to Ricky who introduced me to Darren and to Steph Molina for linking me up with the CFRAC event. Last night was the beginning of Hip Hop on the Wall at the Latitude 53 gallery (10248 106st Edmonton AB), which was a fundraiser for this year's Hip Hop in the Park and runs until Feb 11th. I have two paintings in the show, one of which sold last night. Also, starting on Feb 1st, Leah Erickson and I will be sharing a small cafe show at the Mandolin Cafe (6419 112 Avenue NW) for the month of February. I've been lucky enough to get some media coverage for all my events coming up too! This past thursday I was interviewed by See magazine (seemagazine.com - the article should run in print in about a week and a half), a photo of my work was printed in the Edmonton Journal today, then at 11:30 (in a couple hours) I'm being interviewed by CBCradio!! Big tings poppin'! I won't be posting many photos until after the gallery show, but here's a couple things you haven't seen yet - a couple old and a couple new!

Marker Drawings

What's happenin'! Still waiting on photos from my last couple projects, so while we wait here's a pair of quick marker drawings I did this week...enjoy! The portrait is of Wiz Khalifa, a hiphop artist I've been up on lately, check for his video "Pittsburg Sound", one of the songs that blew him up, after the jump. I definitely prefer painting a portrait as opposed to doing it with markers, but they can save time and have some interesting characteristics as well. The bird logo is something I've been thinking about for a bit but is definitely not where I want it to be yet: I'm not happy with the palette yet and I still have some scale issues to work out within the lettering, so you might see a few reincarnations on here in the future.

Phil and Kayley's Wedding Portrait

P & K, August 27th (9x12" acrylic on canvas)

Yo!! Wow, what a busy couple weeks for me, lots of work got done, including this wedding portrait, a garage mural inspired by the iconic Scottish artist and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and a bunch of work on R.O.C. #5! This is the portrait I did for my cousin Phil's wedding - this was my second attempt at a portrait in acrylic, the first being earlier this month for my cousin Kevin's wedding (see a few posts back). I didn't have any of my own photos of both Phil and his wife Kayley together, so I decided to snoop on Facebook and see what I could find. I don't think I'll use that approach again because the quality of the photos just isn't high enough to convey the level of detail I'd like to include. It was definitely a big challenge to try to create something expressive and realistic from a pretty grainy and pixelated photo, and I ended up spending about 30 hours on this piece. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the results, but I feel that I still have a lot of work to do and tons more to learn.

I included a few symbols within the painting, something I've been doing more and more, and I'll share a few. The dove represents the people from our family who couldn't be there and are watching from above - Phil's Papa Ken just recently passed away (RIP), and it was a huge loss for the family. The dove is presenting interlocked wedding rings to show that Phil and Kayley's union is being blessed by all those who couldn't be there. I painted the background a calm blue to represent the clear blue skies I wish for their future, and I lined the banner in gold to signify the prosperity I hope they have together. Like in Kevin and Maria's painting, I chose to change a few minor elements to aid the composition - for example I took the pattern off of Phil's shirt, 'trimmed' his hair a bit, abstracted some portions of Kayley's hair, and made a few small changes to the folds in Phil's collar.

Fo Yo Sorrows

Fo Yo Sorrows (40x30", Aerosol, Acrylic, Houspaint, Krink, 2010)

Fo Yo Sorrows (detail)

Fo Yo Sorrows (detail)

Fo Yo Sorrows (detail)

Ayo! Here are a few pics of my latest project 'Fo Yo Sorrows', inspired by a Big Boi song of the same name off of the "Sir Lucious Left Foot the Son of Chico Dusty" album. The song features the legendary George Clinton and one of his layered, funky, grinding analog basslines, as well as a verse from Too Short and some bumpin' Organized Noize production. I tried to do something new and take a few risks with this piece because what inspired me about the album was how Big Boi bridged diverse sounds from new and old schools to create a unique blend that referenced his work with Outkast but still stood on its own as a solo album, and to me was an instant classic.

Although I'm happy with this piece and the direction it represents, if I had to redo it I would definitely go at least 50% bigger - working on this small of a scale made the aerosol portrait part of it unnecessarily difficult, especially considering the level of detail I was looking to reproduce. Big Boi - "Fo Yo Sorrows" video feat. George Clinton, Too Short, and Sam Chris after the jump!

The ROC is back!

Research on Control 3 (18x24" mixed media, 2010)

Research on Control 3 (detail)

Research on Control 4 (20x16", mixed media, 2010)

Research on Control 4 (detail)

Research on Control 3 (detail)

The ROC is back!! Here are two more additions to the Research on Control series as well as some detail shots, a couple process photos, and a pair of quick sketches that got things started. Back to school for me in September! J. Cole knows what I'm talkin about, hit the link and check him out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbyB7sut1pY&feature=related

The figures throughout this series were done entirely without models or photo references, which proved to be a challenge in some cases more than others, and although I'm happy with the results, I think my work will benefit from the classes I'm taking in the fall - especially the model studies in my upcoming drawing class. Knowledge is the key and we gotta be the locksmiths!

OctoDon: Roll Out!

Photo credit: Leah Erickson

Whattup! Sorry for the wait, it's been a crazy busy week and a half! I've been working on tons of stuff, including not two but three more additions to the Research on Control series, a portrait for my cousin Kev and his new wife Maria who's wedding I just attended (check the last post), sketches and concept for an upcoming Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired garage mural, and in between all that I took a hot second to bust out the Octodon on my friend Johndog's old car - aerosol cephalopod mafia roll out!!

Kevin and Maria's Wedding Portrait

Kevin and Maria (9x12" Acrylic on wood panel, 2010)

Yo! This is a portrait that I did for my cousin Kev and his new bride Maria to commemorate their recent wedding - Big up! Big up! It was a great time, and the afterparty was crazy like only a Jamaican-Filipino afterparty could be, word is bond!! The piece was a challenge for sure, I haven't done too many portraits, and this was my first one in acrylic, but I learned a ton and I'm looking forward to stepping it up again for the next one. The music and dance was a definite highlight, the whole party just mash it up - hit the link and check the vibe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eybAUrqSjuk

Research on Control 2 (and R.o.C.1 revisited)

Research on Control 2 (22x30'' mixed media, 2010)

Don't ask me why these dudes are wearing spandex pants...

I did a few of these sketches quickly early on but

most of them felt too posed so i went bigger.

Research on Control 1 (40x30'', aerosol and acrylic on canvas, 2010)

Back again to get it crackin'! I've been busy lately working on a new series called Research on Control - remember the piece above from a few posts back? It was just the first in a series I'm doing on the struggle for control of public visual space, and I just put the finishing touches on the second in the series (top of this post). I needed to do this series to express concepts about control of public visual space that I've wrestled with for several years now and have never been able to properly articulate with words. Other than that, I'll try and let the work speak for itself. Completely unrelated video after the jump! This one goes out to all my DJ homies on the grind - I got you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDppqfj7Mu8

Colours Art Supply Mural

Almost done!

This was a mural I produced as a demo along with a tutorial yesterday, July 24th at the south Edmonton Colours location (7371 104st) in Alberta, Canada. I painted the piece and taught the lesson within about 4 hours. The owners of the building wanted something eye-catching because nobody could find the place, and they also wanted to provide customers with a tutorial on use of the Montana Gold brand spray paint that they sell. You know your man was more than happy to help them out! I started by giving the students handouts with a few tips on which caps to use when, and showed them how to hold a can to get more control as well as a couple techniques to practice to help their can control, then answered any of their questions as I started working. About halfway through I took a break and showed them some things they wanted to learn on a few scrap boards. Teaching was fun, and I'd be interested in trying it again - I feel like I learn a lot about my own process as I share it. Big ups to everyone that came out!! In terms of the mural, I wanted it to be legible but stylized and fun, and my time was restricted quite a bit by lesson length and budget. I used art supplies to represent some of the letters and stylized the other letters to try show the diversity in styles of art, and also so I could show my students a wide variety of techniques throughout the piece.

Few more works from Artwalk 2010

Welcome Home Deer (~6x12", Watercolour and India Ink, 2010)

Laser Bear (~12x10", Watercolour and India Ink, 2010 )

  

Fortune (24x6", Acrylic, 2009-2010)

              7x20" quick pencil sketch for an upcoming watercolour and india ink (2010)

Death from the Depths (In progress)

A squid painting I'm working on...

Cycloptopus vs. Scuba Ninja

      What's percolatin'!? Artwalk went great, more photos later, but for now here are some process photos from the skateboard I started at Artwalk this year (and finished at home shortly after) - "Cycloptopus vs. Scuba Ninja" (Acrylic, 2010). The concept development behind this project was kind of freestyled; I just started mixing paint and throwing it at the skateboard to get a loose background, and basically just went from there with the first ideas that came to mind. I'm a cephalopod fan, like many people, as well as a fan of ninjas. I probably would have put a laser in here but they don't work well under water.
      Trying to document my art has been a bit of a problem for me so far, I don't have too much camera experience yet, so I'm always impressed by people that do it up right. On that note, I'm gonna take a page out of my homie Jarett's book and leave you with a dope joint off of the new Big Boi album - this one goes out to all the shutterbugs out there... do ya damn thang!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ_iZbcb1uw