Three Bears: Day Two

So I worked for another couple of hours today but had to can it early due to having cravings for an angus burger (I hadn't eaten yet) and work at 6. I managed to make a big damn mess by Mr.Sheen-ing off the pencil that was there instead of just trying to erase it, but decided it didn't really matter and got a few layers of colour down. The most exciting part of day two was seeing tonal range in my fills for the first time in my mural experience... it was hard to do on the floor with the nozzles clogging up and all that crap but it was worth the effort. I also ran out of paint for some parts and decided to bus home in time to eat before bussing back into town for work.

Still to do are the rest of the banners, the rope, the underbelly of the snake (green thing) with shading on the dark bits... cut back all the mess I guess.. do the teeth and eyes, then do all the line-work with paintpen.

fuck yeah i love spray paint.

Typhoons & Three Bears

I apologise for the lack of updates lately, things have been hectic with uni with not a lot of the work I'm doing appropriate for the blog... but I can finally upload the artwork from the Typhoons amazing new album, of which the launch was held several weekends ago. It was a great night and the Typhoons played an awesome set.

I have begun a mural commission in Wembley at the Three Bears store, which is still under construction and will be some sort of high-end, urban/coastal-wear store..... today was day number one and I laid out the design in thin paintpen after a while of dicking around with a pencil and an eraser which has halved in size since this morning. For scale, note the dustpan and bucket in the distance.

The mural should take until Monday hopefully, and in the evenings when I'm not doing that I should be working on the new Injured Ninja vinyl cover named "IDDQD". I've done the pencil work but it's looking a bit tame, hopefully the inking will make it insane and gross and shit. It has loads of guts and dead bodies hahaha... ooooh yeah.

PS. I don't have time to hyperlink anything. If this annoys you then you can piss off, nerd.

Injured Ninja Progress Report

Local fucking badass noise/rock/legends-in-the-making band INJURED NINJA are the only band I am doing artwork for now. Exclusive and shit. I have known half the band for a really long time and seen them grow into something with righteous potential. Also, they'll let me draw really outrageous shit if I want to and they'll print it (if anyone remembers the content of the last thing I did for them, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Currently in the works is a 12" vinyl cover for their new single "IDDQD" and today I made them a new logo. I don't often use illustrator, but I have to say I really enjoyed making this.

In other news I have been commissioned to do a mural for a surf store opening in Wembley, a few square meters on the concrete floor near the stores entrance. That is happening next week so hopefully I can get some photos of the making of for that. It is going to be tough doing something that big on the floor... i will need a ladder or something to check it doesn't get skewed.

Recent Happenings

I've been pretty busy lately, with uni starting again for the semester and other things, so thought I'd update on what's coming up for this last half of 2009, as far as I know...

Firstly there's been a few events on lately that were badass, like the UP YOURS show at Last Chance Studio. The night was well packed and the work was brilliant, especially the collaborative pieces; artists like Deathbot, Creepy, Sean Morris, Daek, YoYo and Jessie Mitchell working in twos to make extra-special pieces.. fuckin oath that is some good shit. Also on the night Daek was tattooed by Pari Corbitt, whom I had not met at the time but does sick paintings that are well worth a gander.

Overgrowth 2 was a month earlier, also at Last Chance, and was also packed out and had a hugely awesome bunch of work on display. I did some pretty shitty paintings which I want to re-work before showing them again anytime soon... it's what happens when you get into an art-slump; you leave things until the last minute and produce sub-par work. I've started to dig myself out of my slump only recently with a couple of things I've started which I'll mention soon.

The Condor Tower Car-Park launched on the 25th of July and was a totally awesome (but completely head-raping) experience. five full levels of car-park and almost every single wall and beam in the joint was painted by a countless number of artists in a huge array of styles. The amount of people that came on the night was insane, I heard it was about 1500, and the beer ran out pretty early due to the amount of punters needing to maintain their buzz amidst the chaos. Bloody brilliant Idea, executed fantastically, well done all involved.

On the night of the car-park launch I got to hold in my hand for the first time a copy of the Typhoons new album which I did cover art for. It printed really well and I'm very happy with it, but will wait until the album launch before I post the art here. The launch is on the 28th of August at the Rosemount Hotel in North Perth.

Today I began painting at the Hula Bula Bar. Myself and THNK are painting on the mirrors and lino-printing the tiles in the bathrooms there. It was a good start today, and I'm happy with the two images I finished, but it is no where near the level of cleanliness or neatness I usually stick to. It is way hard to do. I'm not going to bother getting into it.

There is a gnarley online blog about budding artists from Perth called Hawks and Hounds, and the first issue is almost done accepting submissions. I'm finishing up mine this week, and it is looking pretty sweet to me. I had badass horrible dreams about the subject matter because I have been so into it... just thinking and thinking and thinking about it, really hard, for too long every day.

I have a bunch of work still to do for Injured Ninja, including cover art for a 12" vinyl coming out for their single "IDDQD". If you recognise that from somewhere then your parents did something right when you were a kid (or in my case, my grandfather- go pops!). It may possibly be the most epic, gorey, boner-inducing piece of work I have ever conceived to create. Fingers crossed for that one, I'll be starting it really soon.

FINALLY down to my last piece of business.. I think. I have finally got the chance to create the board-game I've had in the works for the past few years. I want to keep as much of the details off here as possible for paranoid fear someone will thieve my ideas, but it is pirate-themed and going to be really great. You'll want it. I am developing it at uni this semester and by the end of the year I should have a playable proto-type of the game itself, a book about the design of the game, and an exhibition based on the game. I need to go now to write a schedule for production of the game now.

werd.

updates

I have changed the layout of my blog, making it much harder to see what the actual point of it is. It is still a hub for my illustration, but is now graced with a genuine David Collins photograph. I am very proud to have this. I am thinking of sending this out to my entire family as christmas cards.

I went back to the car-park again on Saturday to try and add highlights and shadow to my skull piece, but spray-paint and acrylic do not mix so well and i canned that idea and just finished it up with some details and some lyrics. 

I did another piece that took a really short amount of time and I'm pretty happy with in some respects. I didn't know how to get it looking like I had it in my head, but with the nozzles and cans I had with me I think I did a good job. I ran out of a lot of paint and could not afford to go over it and restart or even cut back in to it, so I just had to improvise. I fucking love trashy-sunset-beach imagery.

I was there with a buddy of mine who does graphic design and is pretty awesome at it. He has a blog reviewing indie-pop from strange places and is worth checking out if that's your deal.

Condor Tower Car-park.

I've been spending a little bit of time at the Condor Tower Car-park this week to contribute to a massive street art project by the crew at ololo. The Condor Tower is a new building in town with about a five-level car-park, which is being fancied up by some of the biggest names in the local art scene in Perth, and from over east. For more information (including who is involved, directions to the site and a short video clip), check out the ololo site. The launch is happening on Saturday the 25th and you'll be able to see the entire five levels worth of art. Bring your ID and some casholah for some cheap ass drinks.

Martin Wills and I collaborated on one of the few remaining blank beams in what is my second attempt at murals with spray paint etc... turned out ok, I still need to go back for some finishing touches.

You can see Martin in the bottom of the last photo, painstakingly adding tiny details to the purple crap his dude squirted out.

RTR Carpark Mural

Local radio station RTRfm were nice enough to let a group of us paint a mural on the back of their building in the carpark. Organised by music producer/artist/awesome-guy Ash, the mural also involved the likes of Hurben, Griv, Sean Morris, THNK, Tim Rollins, and some a couple of others. Most of the pack got their work done in an efficient and prompt manner, taking at most a couple of days.

I don't really know what the fuck I'm doing when it comes to murals, so as my first forray into the field I went with a chalk outline, spraypaint fills and then the line-work was done with a paint brush. It took me a good week to get it done due to a massive hangover Monday after celebrating my birthday, and taking a day off Thursday to play PS3 all day while it rained. I should have put more thought into the colours I bought but I still think it looks ok. The banners feature lyrics by Injured Ninja.

It was loads of fun to do this, I'm pretty keen to improve with my can skillz now. Thanks to everybody I saw going in and out the building and not yelling at me because I hadn't finished yet. Unfortunately I had to take these on my phone around some cars, and I didn't get any shots of the rest of the wall, which has some damn fine work up.

I haven't updated in a while because I've been busy with uni and other such stuff I do not want to include in the blog or can't for certain reasons. For example, drawing a picture of a spice rack in perspective isn't something I want mentioned here. I am busting to do a post about the CD covers I managed to get done between uni, one for NAIK and one for the Typhoons, both fantastic local acts from our little town of Perth.

Coming up really, really soon are two shows at Last Chance Studios at the top of William St in Northbridge; Overgrowth 2 is end of this month and Up Yours is the end of next month.

Also coming soon is new look for the blog thanks to David Collins. I'd recommend checking out his site because his photography is fucking BOSS, and it'll give you an idea of what to expect.