Today was a long day of drawing. I think I probably drew for 10 or 11 hours. My eyes are shot for the night. Making headway but it's slow. More tomorrow.

Goodnight.

Double Punch Gallery Exhibition Promo

This is the flyer for the upcoming show at Double Punch Gallery I am excited to be part of this month. I'm very happy to have my work amidst the work of such great artists!

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend the opening because I will be in Colorado. However, if you live in San Francisco, be sure to check it out!

My New Stapler

I know it seems stupid to post an entry about a stapler, but I am ridiculously excited right now about this PaperPro Long Reach stapler I just got. It's awesome. Now I can staple zines! When I hold it I feel like I'm holding a loaded weapon or something. The thing is BIG. They recommend not having it anywhere near your face when you staple because the staples come out with such force, you could take your eye out. Thanks for the tip!

Yes, it was expensive (for a stapler) but I consider it a necessary piece of equipment. It's an "investment" stapler. Haha. Definitely an improvement to the crappy little mini stapler I had before.

I've been working on three things today. The shirt design for the band Unholy, the drawings for Faesthetic, and gallery stuff for Double Punch. Last night I organized what I imagine my section of gallery to look like by laying the artwork out on the floor. I took some pictures and tried to make it look as balanced compositionally as possible. Kinda tricky. Sent some images to the gallery to use on the promo flyer today.

Things are going slow but steady with the art for Faesthetic. I almost have one drawing penciled out. This stage always takes so long because I'm really starting from nothing and not sure how it will look. A lot of erasing.

Discovered a nice post about my work today on someone's blog HERE.

also found THIS.

Okay, back to work.

Lots of stuff happening lately!

-I got my artwork back from Fenario Gallery in Oregon today (relief)

-Working on a t-shirt/poster image for a band

-got word from Double Punch Gallery in San Francisco today about an upcoming show I will be in. JULY 25th. I get an 8' x 10' wall to display my work on. I need to decide what artwork to send. The show is called "We Are Awake" and will feature new works by John Casey, Nick Mann "Doodles", Shawn Wisenau, and me!

-Working on 2 of my own zines. This is a first attempt.

-Also, just found out today that I have artwork featured in the new TEST EVERYTHING zine. The theme was "I'll See You in My Dreams"

-Working on new stuff to be featured in Faesthetic! I got bumped up from issue 13 to issue 12!

Mail from Abroad!

I was very happy to receive this package today from Paulo in Portugal who I traded art with recently!

You can see more of Paulo's work on his blog HERE!


Included with the artwork was some stickers and a little painted bird.


I love this part of the painting with all the creatures, some familiar and some not. I like how the cat is playing with a little ball.


This is written on the back of the work. Nice little drawing too.


Here's a close-up of the little bird.

I gave in and paid to upgrade my monthly traffic quota so now my website is back online.

Off to Portugal! (Haha....no, not me)

Went to the post office today to mail something to Portugal. It's some artwork I'm trading with a guy named Paulo. It's sort of my first official art trade with someone I don't really know, so hopefully it will be a good experience that will encourage me to do more trades in the future.

In other news, I exceeded my traffic quota on my website, so now it's down for the rest of this month. Sucks. I mean, it's great so many people are looking at my work, don't get me wrong, but now no one can see the site until next month unless I buy a larger quota. Kinda don't want to do that, but maybe next month will prove I don't have to. I think I had an increase in traffic this month from two interview things I did and from being featured on illustration mundo. But on average I was getting about 53 mb worth of traffic daily. I remember when I didn't even used to get that much a month, so I'm adjusting still. Adjusting, not complaining mind you.

If I get as much as I'd like done today, I may even gesso some cradled wood panels and try to decide what to do with those. If not today, then tomorrow.

Framed art follow-up

A while back I sold a sketchbook page to a guy in Syracuse. I requested he send me a picture if he ever got the drawing framed, and he was kind enough to do just that! Mine is on the bottom right.

He said "Hanging next to your art on the left is a piece by an artist named Al Columbia, then a poster for a mexican siamese twins murder movie. Directly above is a heart of a young vampyre boy and a haunted doll."

I think it looks very at home on that wall :)

Commissioned Piece

gesso, india ink, gouache, micron pen on found paper
9" x 11 1/2"

This is a commissioned piece I did for my friends Nikki and Alan. They wanted it in the style of the other animal head portraits I had done with similar media. I don't normally do commissions in the style of a previous work, but they're good friends. I had some fun with this though. It's a portrait of their bulldog Cecelia.

FAESTHETIC!

Oh, I forgot to post my good news. On Friday I found out that I won an art grant from Faesthetic! Basically, I will have my work featured in their publication, Issue #13. If you don't know Faesthetic, you should definitely check them out. They are a great little art publication based in Toledo, Ohio. This is what they say on their website:

"Since its inception in 2001, Faesthetic has grown from a photocopied zine into a high-quality Arts magazine with international participation and readership. Originally an annual, we now release 3 issues a year.

Never to be taken too seriously, Faesthetic is made by artists, for artists. Not so much eye candy, as it is brain candy, Faesthetic supports making art for art's sake. From day one, our aim has remained the same: to provide an affordable, original and accessible showcase for some of the best creativity and new art the world has to offer!

We give the artists interesting themes and a limited palette to challenge and bring out unexpected results. Instead of focusing on ad sales, we focus on quality content. Faesthetic is currently 100% ad free!

We’ve been honored to work with some of our art heroes over the years, and just as honored to be able to help talented newcomers get some of their first printed exposure alongside established contributors."

This is a picture of the current issue.

Another Portrait

I'm still on this portrait kick, so I did this yesterday. I had an oval mat that I wanted to use, and I had an idea to do this for it. I'm really getting into drawing beards and different kinds of headwear. I like trying to think about the sort of materials these things would be made out of considering the kind of environments the characters are living in, and what would be available to them.

I mixed some brown ink in with the india ink to add some warmth.



India ink and colored ink on found paper
8" x 10" - oval measures 6 3/4"h x 4 3/4"w

NEW miniature portraits!

These are the portraits that I've been working on this week. Just finished painting and sanding frames today.

Just finished drawing a series of six mini portraits today. They are of the various characters I usually draw and maybe one or two new ones. I spent today doing ink washes and a lot of scanning. Then I did a lot of cutting, taping, gluing, using the hairdryer, and then more scanning. Now they're in their oval mats and ready to be put into frames. Tomorrow I will be sanding frames and then spray painting them black. I'm so happy I got this spray paint. It should make things a lot easier! Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny, so it should be perfect weather to do this.

Today I got a few things accomplished. I made a trip to the nearby Joanne's fabrics. Yes, it's full of old ladies buying scrapbook materials and silk flowers, however I got some good deals on frames. They were having a 50% sale on them. I also got some brushes for real cheap and some spray paint which I need for picture frames. I'd been painting them myself and I figured if they're black or white, I might as well spray paint them; far easier. So I went there and then came home and framed some stuff. I also am working on these little mini portraits right now. The main inspiration for that was because I have these little oval cut picture mats that I've been wanting to use for a while. I have 2 done so far and about 4 more to go. Well, 4 are sketched out.

Also, some cool news! I'm finally trading art with someone. Paulo from Portugal contacted me and asked to trade and I gladly accepted. Pretty cool! The internet is pretty amazing like that sometimes. I already picked out my drawing from him and I will draw him something to trade.

GOB Magazine

Today I have a mini interview on GOB Magazine's blog!

Check it out!

Framing

Today I spent a lot of time framing artwork. I painted a bunch of frames white and varnished them. I also backed some artwork and scanned some stuff. Overall a productive day. Here's a picture of the stuff I framed as well as a few process pics.

So I finished another drawing last night. I was having some difficulty deciding whether it was actually "done" or not, but in the end these things always resolve themselves. Since I've moved I've finished two drawings and completed my website makeover. So far so good. I think before I start some more drawings I should work on painting some frames and putting things in the frames. Also, I told myself that after I finished the drawing I was just working on, I would start emailing some more galleries. I just wanted to create something new before I did that so I could feel like not all the work was old work. It's always good to refresh the portfolio with something current.

There's a couple side projects I want to work on as well, but those will have to wait until the frames are done.

More updates soon.

Another sold piece!

I found out this week that I sold one of the two pieces that went to Fenario Gallery in Eugene, OR for the "Menace to Propriety" show. I'm really happy that someone liked it enough to buy it, even in these hard economic times.

If any of you are curious, the piece that sold was "The Abduction." (see May 10th blog entry for picture)

Illustration Mundo

I was recently notified that I am being featured on the website Illustration Mundo as Editor's Choice!

Thank you!

http://www.illustrationmundo.com

New Work Area

My Website Makeover (FINALLY)

I've been working on and off on my website for the past couple of weeks now. It was in dire need of an update and general makeover. I tried to streamline it a bit more, eliminating the splash page and main/homepage. Even though I sort of enjoyed the splash page, I decided it was probably just more unnecessary clicks of the mouse. Apparently, art directors are put off by splash pages or any other pages that are not right to the point. I can understand that. So now my index page takes you right to the good stuff, the work. I have taken some older images off the work page, as well as added some new art and illustration. Some of the thumbnails have been made over, as well as the buttons that go to the different sections. The work is categorized differently now, dividing it into four sections. One of these sections is new and contains some examples of my fine art/personal work from the past year. Also, I fixed the link to my blog, which used to go to my old blog (my drawing-a-day blog which ended last year and I haven't posted to in forever). Now that link goes to this blog, Scritchy Scraps, which I update pretty regularly with news and images. The info page is pretty much the same, but I changed up the bio a tiny bit to mention my gallery/fine art experience and added some new things to the links section. I also now have a CV available, which is much more detailed than the bio alone.

TAKE A LOOK!

A couple more blogs

Just a few more blogs I discovered that have kindly promoted my work. Thanks!

http://chokoladeis.blogspot.com/

http://200-70.blogspot.com/2009/04/jon-macnair.html

http://camillaengman.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-and-white.html (Camilla's work is wonderful. Be sure to check it out!)

Carpaccio Magazine and Creep Machine interview

Recently I was asked to be a featured artist on the Creep Machine website. "The Creep Machine is a webzine dedicated to alternative, underground, outsider, lowbrow or pop surrealism art." Two artists are featured every month. I am really happy to be featured with Jason Hernandez, an amazing artist. I definitely wouldn't mind having some of his paintings skills. You can see more of his work here:

jasonhernandezart.com
Jason Hernandez on Flickr


Jason Hernandez

You can check out my work and Jason's work on www.creepmachine.com

Also, Carpaccio Magazine's 2nd issue is now online. The theme for this issue is "Fear Values Traveling." "Carpaccio Magazine is a monthly online publication and a quarterly print publication created to promote the work of 'uncooked' artists: emerging but very tasty artists. Published work includes illustration, photography, drawing and others -as music, poetry, diy designs, etc."



These are my pages in the magazine:




http://www.carpacciomagazine.com/

http://issuu.com/carpacciomagazine/docs/issue2

Fenario Gallery "Menace to Propriety" show

Just thought I'd post some pictures from the show. I didn't get to attend this event unfortunately, but my friend Ellen went in place of me and reported back. She also took these pictures so I could see how it turned out. There's a few good ones of people looking at my work, which is always nice to see. These are some of the best photos. Enjoy.

Thanks again Ellen!
















My work (Left: "Sleeping Under Watchful Eyes" Right: "The Abduction")