WEBSITES, WRIST DAMAGE, AND WAFFLES!

I have to be honest right up front. This post will not contain waffles, I repeat will NOT contain waffles. Now that that's out of the way lets get things started with a few doodle uploads.

 

These are just a a few that are floating around in my sketchbook. So since I last posted I mentioned that I sustained a rather serious wrist injury at my day job. It hasn't really slowed me down much however most of my sketches past this point have been in non-photo blue which has made them almost impossible to get good scans of. That being said I'll just discuss my most recent projects and more importantly at least start lining these things with a fountain pen. The next cannibal flower is coming up so I've been thumbnailing for a new painting as a tribute to Nujabes. Nujabes was a Japanese hip-hop producer, DJ, trip-hop musician, and all and all an influence on myself and so many others.He was struck down in his prime in a car accident. The painting I'll be doing will be a painting less commemorating his life, as I didn't know the man personally, but more his influence on myself. However, without images I'm sure this is boring and will be all the more clear in my next post. Outside of sketching I've been working on the design of my new website. Lets look at some mockups. Keep in mind these are mockups so most of the images are just place holders until I can replace them with Hi-Res images. We'll start with the splash page.

So ostensibly the idea behind this design is to create a bold and elegant informational based website. In order to personalize it I've taken a few aesthetic liberties that kind of give the entire website the same feel as my work. Most important to me, in the beginning, was making sure I implemented wood grain into it somehow as visible wood grain is a big part of my work. The logo on the top of the window is a silhouette of the bone structure of a summer flounder, or a fluke, which I found to be fairly clever. The fonts and filigree are all things you may have notice in my work before. All fonts used appear on all of my business cards and other collateral to keep a sense of cohesion. The filigree coming from both ends of the fluke I originally made for this painting on the left side which can be seen best in this photo of it still in progress.

Functionally the splash page will allow the user to immediately navigate to whichever section they are interested in quickly just as any splash page should. As far as aesthetic functionality the splash page front image will cycle through numerous different paintings giving more variety to any multiple visitors. Let's take a look at what might happen if you were to click the "Contact" link.

So this is the general layout of the entire site. The "Contact" page, I decided, would best function as a bio page with my contact info on it, and of course, images of yours truly as opposed to making two separate pages. Just quickly I'll talk about the layout. I wanted to make sure this website was as easily navigated as possible. I generally hate running into horribly complex and aesthetically crowded websites. The point of a website is to display information not to force everyone to listen to your favorite band or force their browser to ask them to update flash every 30 seconds. I set all the tables as rounded rectangles for all the obvious sleek web 2.0 reasons but also once again to keep cohesion with all of my collateral. I've left justified the menu and made the viewing screen as large as possible. I created little menu place holders so there's never a moment to be confused as to what page you're viewing and of course I've repeated the wood grain and placed my logo at the top. On to the doodles page.

As you can see not much has changed once you click on another menu Item. The big changes here are what is displayed in the info window and the contextual menu created when "Doodle" has been clicked. For the "Doodle" section I didn't see it necessary to add thumbnails as I figured it might be too many elements to load all at once.The idea is to stay away from making a resource intensive monstrosity of a website. I want all the images to be stock photography of my sketchbook as opposed to scans. In the menu I added the choice of which sketchbook to look through and have dated them just to keep some sort organization. The design section will work in the same way creating a contextual menu that will give the choice for "Print/Web" and "Broadcast/Animation." The "Broadcast/Animation" section's info window will look almost identical to the "Doodle" page sans the forward and back buttons as it will only house my animation reel. The "Print/Web" section will contain thumbnails and will look identical to the "Paint" section which looks something like this.

So this is the "Paint" section. As I mentioned before the "Print/Web" will generally follow this template. For now I've added a scrollable thumbnail gallery to browse the images easier and I'm less worried about this portion being too resource intensive as the amount of paintings I have are significantly less that the amount of sketches. This page like the doodles page comes with back and forth arrows as well as descriptions or each individual piece.

Last but not least is the blog section which of course will just link back to this site in order to keep track of with my progress and upcoming events. This is the layout for my website thus far. On the back end,  I've made it so this site can be scripted easily with nothing more than HTML, CSS, and maybe if needed maybe a little Javascript and PHP.  The only thing holding me back at this point is retrieving what work did not sell from the coffee shop and photographing it so all of my assets are clean hi-res images ready hopefully for a December launch(that and my wrist crapping out on).

Well that's it for this post. Next Time = more sketches + final thumb(nujabes) + final thumbs(2 other paintings)

AAAAAANNNNDDDD Once again for those of you still interested in seeing some of this work in person stop by Cacao for coffee and take a look!Time is running out! Everything comes down November 5th!

SHOW TIME!

Hey There Flewk Fans!

So the show went off without a hitch, there was an amazing turn out. I can't thank you all enough for coming out to support, purchasing art, or just sharing a cup of coffee with me. A friend of mine took a few photos throughout the night for those of you that were unable to attend.

Photography Courtesy of Talia Honomichl

Also don't worry if you missed the opening reception, my work will be up until November 5th.

This show was a great time and an even better learning experience.  Being pushed against a deadline really forced me to grow as an artist at record speeds. Last year I finished 2 pieces and this year 15 thus far.What's even better is that both the quantity and the quality of my work has vastly improved. I'd like to say it's time for a break but where's the fun in that right? I won't be painting for a couple weeks as I've sustained an injury to my right wrist. It's getting better everyday and I'm not letting it slow me down. I'm still sketching, designing my new and improved website/online portfolio and just finished freelance work doing 2D animation for business presentations for Dell(The presentations are confidential so I can not post them here so you'll have to just take my word for it). Previews of my new web presence, sketches, and an update on pieces sold to come, STAY TUNED!

Quick Update & Preview

So just a quick update and preview for those that have been paying attention. The solo show that I have at that local coffee shop was pushed back to September 5th which is time much needed to finish more work. Now that that's out of the way we'll get to some quick images displaying my current drawing style as this deadline has pushed me to learn faster and ultimately has changed my style a great deal. SO here area  few quick images from my most recent sketchbook:

I love this new style so much and because of it my work is taking such an exciting turn. I don't have much time to post or talk too much about many of the images ill be uploading tonight as I have to keep working. I have just under two weeks to finish a few more pieces for this show however I will be posting an in depth analysis of these images, my experience with preparing for this show, and possibly the reasons(if any) behind my sudden change in drawing/painting style the minute my time frees up(shortly after September 5th). For the time being I hope you will be satisfied with a few previews some of the work that will be on display. Enjoy!

 

These images and 6 new ones will be on display very soon so Flewk fans, collectors, friends and enemies mark your calendars; September 5th at 9PM at Cacao Coffee House.Come out and support your favorite local artist! Here are some flyers with all the info you'll need:

- Flewk

5 Pieces in Progress

Ok so I know I said I would be posting more often but got a little caught up with life and work for this upcoming show. I did however pick up some promising freelance work storyboarding for commercials, have worked well into five pieces or so for this upcoming show, and lost 50 lbs(healthily).

So last I updated  I spoke of a solo show in June at a local coffee house. That show now has been postponed to sometime in July which couldn't be better. I certainly could use the extra time to finish as much work as possible. Also in the last update I uploaded a thumbnail of the first piece I'd be working on for this show but since then have floundered around a bit and kind of changed the theme the show entirely. Most of my work tends to be fairly biographical and as of recent has a great deal to with relationships. The original theme was going to really play on the weird and almost unseen ties between two lovers and the impact that that relationship has on its surroundings(sort of a lovers string theory if you will).  It seemed like a fairly decent idea but I was having a problem with stale repetitive imagery. I realized in my drawing phase that I wasn't going to enjoy the amount of hearts I was going to have to paint. That being said I moved on to the idea of parasitic and symbiotic relationships being a general theme.  I find it interesting how often we strive for the perfect relationship, one that is symbiotic in its most simplest form, a very even give and take. More often than not when they fail there's is this element of the parasite that assimilates itself and eventually kills its host(the relationship). I thought more about this and realized that a parasite does not have to be something like a leech where it's ultimate goal is to drain the life out of the host. It could be something so young, infantile, and needy that it necessitates the life force of another to further its growth(ie a panda cub). What I've eventually landed on is somewhere in the between. Thus far most of the work for this series features beautiful and almost fetishized women and humming birds(the symbiotic) and soon to come panda cubs(the parasitic) but enough talk! Lets take a look at some images.

So this is the thumbnail that I upload oh so long ago.

Next I have some progress shots. I had a few problems with this one. I didn't treat the wood so I was having absorption issues which stopped me from painting in very thin layers as per my usual. This is the thickest I've kept my paint and I like how it turned out. What's more I kind of got lazy and repeated the same image(the hearts) which left the piece kind of boring and static. Ok Progress Shots! Go!!

As you can see I removed the hearts. This piece isn't far from a finishing point. The edges need to be cleaned up, her halo needs to be more circular, I need to give her eyebrows so she doesn't look so creepy(Yikes!) and add white feathers falling from her hands and silhouetted humming birds. I'm just realizing now it is 1:00 AM where I am which means only four more hours of awake time to paint so I'll have to cut this update short but I will leave shots of the the other pieces I'm working on.

Coming up on the next update, Thumbnails!!!  Progress Shots!!! And so much more.