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! 

Hip Hop in the Park 2012: Battling with the Elements

Hip Hop Loves You (8x4ft, aerosol on board, 2012)

Good day! What's new? Hip Hop appreciation week was last week - I was lucky enough to be a big part of a few of the events leading up to the fifth annual Hip Hop in the Park, and last week was sooo dope!! I painted live at an art and fashion show two saturdays ago (see my last post), judged a freestyle battle as well as a production battle on tuesday, painted live at a Turntable Choir on thursday (see the piece above), and again at Hip Hop in the Dark on friday night.  Every element of Hip Hop culture was on display throughout the whole week, but the weather ended up being a huge element too! Luckily, Hip Hop (and Bruce Lee movies! Jeah!) can teach a lot about how to play it by ear and how to freestyle, finding resilience in flexibility and the ability to adapt. The piece above was painted for the Turntable Choir presented by Hip Hop in the Park, which was a really fresh event that involved several local DJs and producers kicking beats collaboratively. This piece was a huge challenge to paint due to the wind and the temperature - at the beginning, it was all good, but as the night wore on the wind picked up and started blowing the board along with the heavy metal easel right to the ground! Using aerosol paint in wind like that is definitely no cakewalk either... Luckily, for a few stretches my homie Mo as well as my man DJ Budakron, who organized and MC'd the event, hooked a brother up and held the board steady against the cold winds (Thanks homies!). This piece was auctioned off at the show, and after a fair bit of back and forth, it went to my dude KazMega, an ill local MC and beatmaker - check out his video by clicking right here. 

 (photo credit: the fisheye of my man nutly from nutly.net)

Hip Hop in the Park 5 was blessed with a beautiful, sunny day, but the wind definitely threw down a little as well. The piece you see being created above was a banner for Rellik, a musician from around the way, who saw me painting another piece earlier in the day (which sold at the festival - I'll probably feature it in another post if I can get some quality photos of the final piece) and commissioned me to quickly paint his show banner. He had it tied to the fence, and it seemed fairly taut, but when I started painting it the wind rolled through and made things mad tricky. Basically, I ended up having to paint a moving target, as this banner was billowing in and out at least a foot almost constantly. I really wish I had it on video, because it would probably be hilarious to watch me dodging back and forth trying to paint this thing as it whipped around in the wind. Somehow, I managed to make the paint stick mostly where I wanted it to, and Rellik was stoked with his new show banner.

I'm pumped that making both of these pieces work amidst unfavourable circumstances ended up being possible - there are a few little details I'd loved to have been able to touch up, but for the most part I'm happy with the results. This year's Hip Hop in the Park was easily one of the best yet, and the graffiti section pulled out some serious heat!! I'm proud to say I helped organize it. Until next time!

HHITP: Passion for Fashion

Passion For Fashion (8x4ft, aerosol on board, 2012)
 (Photo credit: the fisheye'd Iphone camera of my man Nutly from Nutly.net, and Deep Blue Photography for the other two)

(my initial sketch)

Greetings! I'm back with a quick update after the Hip Hop in the Park Art and Fashion show last Saturday at the Remedy Cafe. The event was a hella good time, and the house was packed! I showed a few pieces alongside Jenn Kovachik, who kills it on the regular with her portraits of Hip Hop's legends, and Lorien Maheu, whom I've shown with on several occasions before, and who's laying down an ill impressionistic surrealism of sorts at the moment. Big respect! There was superfly fashion all on display from the multi-talented Lady Venz, Solidaritees, and many others. We were also lucky enough to have DJ Baggy Lean on the wheels of steel, mashing the place up with classic and new tunes. I also painted a piece live during the event, which took about 4.5 hours. I'm happy to say that the piece was sold at the event, with 100% of the proceeds going to support Hip Hop in the Park, and since this year is shaping up to be the biggest, baddest-ass HHITP ever, a few hundred extra dollars in the bank definitely helped out! Shoutout to Melissa La Bishop and the rest of the HHITP crew for putting together a dope event, and nuff love to the folks at the new Remedy Cafe for their hospitality!