“Rock’n'Roll Exposed”
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Well, not entirely exposed, but either way, the King of Rock is shown here in this pop art-inspired, quasi-retro, semi-homoerotic painting. Presented on a 16×20 canvas, the art was applied using acrylic paint and spray paint and utilizes a custom-designed and hand-cut stencil of the King, himself, and several stencils I keep around for various uses along with some textures created by heavy doses of spray paint, an old computer keyboard and a discarded cable modem. This is a great piece to have hanging around if your goal is for your guests to ask “why?” Your answer will simply be, “Why not?”

$80.00 + Shipping (At my Etsy Store)

“Trojan Skinhead Heyday”
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Everything a Trojan Skinhead could ask for: Tunes and style! Custom designed and hand-cut stencils presenting the Trojan Records logo within a Fred Perry wreath logo. The surface is a 12″x12″x~2″ wooden box with a layer of acrylic paint / modeling paste mix. Design was applied with black, red and green spray paint with a yellow spray paint vignette. Hang this above your record player and put on some Desmond.

$40.00 + Shipping (At my Etsy Store)

“You Don’t Even Know What a Revolution Is”
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Could this be a statement of how the image of Guy Fawkes, a soldier convicted of treason who never really accomplished much of anything, has been used and abused due to the popularity of graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta to Americans and their American version of anarchy and revolution? Maybe. Here’s to a bullet in the head of true revolution. Painted on an 8″x10″ canvas on a base layer of acrylic paint / modeling paste mix, the stencils were custom designed and hand-cut. Design was applied with a heavy dose of spray paint, a tool of the guerilla revolutionary but only if it’s trendy.

$30.00 + Shipping (At my Etsy Store)

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Some other year-in-review items: On Monday, January 31, I bought my Flip UltraHD camera that I’ve used to create all of the videos ACS developed this year (14 in total). I also started working on digital illustrations a little more hardcore, putting my previous feelings toward Adobe Illustrator to the side long enough to develop some awesome work with it (26 were created in total). I posted my first portraits on March 10th. Later in March (the 22) I posted photos and a video of my first-ever art-commission: “Number 3,” a terrifying, highly textured and sort of “hot” feeling Dale Earnhardt painting for a friend. This stencil became rather popular and found it’s way onto two other paintings later in the year. On May 20, I made my first sell on Etsy – “The Poes,” one of my first paintings and a set that I grew rather fond of and am still very proud of. I ended the year with a total of 36 individual paintings posted online – some that never got posted.

Speaking of My Etsy Store, in its first year in existence, it saw several sales and quite a bit of traffic considering my lack of promotion. I paid for one day of advertising and didn’t see any results, however, my shop was favorited six times and various listings were favorited a total of 46 times. Search terms that most frequently lead folks to my store: 1) “Death note” 2) “mario” 3) “willy wonka” 4) “deathnote” 5) eraserhead. While “The Marios: The Villains” were my most popular product in my store view-wise, the high search results ended in my Deathnote painting “Ryuk” to be sold early in December. “The Marios: The Villains” are still for sale.

Some of my favorite things I was able to get into this year was some artwork for some rock’n'roll bands. Woe to the Inhabiters not only got a logo, but also got a demo album cover out of it. Soul Radics got a possible t-shirt design and some sticker designs. Always Coming Soon got the burning desire to be able to work for bands full time out of it all. That’s still pending.

So what’s in store for 2012? More digital illustrations – I’ve become quite the fan of multiple techniques involving this method. I’d like to maybe make some collages this year with them and develop my skills in digital watercolors as well. I want to learn graffiti lettering and become more of a guerilla artist, though I’ll never be able to be anonymous the way some of my favorites, like Banksy, are. I say this every year, but I want to do more traditional, free-hand drawing this year because I’ve never really learned how to do it realistically. This year, I bought a book that teaches you how, put charcoal to paper and did a pretty nice drawing of a naked lady on a stool. It was so good, that I never did another one for some reason and she’s just been on display on my workbench in the studio ever since. That’s a problem and I want to fix that. I wouldn’t mind to get together an art show at some point or if nothing else, just set up at one of the local shops. Ooh, and also, I have a project in mind that requires nude / partial nude models (one male, one female) that will eventually turn into digital illustrations.

I guess overall my goal is to develop a little more confidence in my art. I’ve never been a big fan of my own stuff but I realize now that my lack of confidence is the main reason I don’t try to get myself “out there” any more than I do. People look, people “favorite,” and heck, people have even spent their hard-earned cash on my work, so it must have some value to at least a few people and that should be enough for me to try to push it a little further. Continuously developing, constantly learning, and Always Coming Soon.

My sincerest thank yous go out to everyone who has looked at my art, purchased my art, said something nice about my art, said something ugly about my art, watched one of my videos, “liked” one of my blog posts, Tweeted (or retweeted) some of my work, “liked” Always Coming Soon on Facebook, bought me a Hobby Lobby or Michael’s gift card, allowed me to use you as a subject in one of my digital illustrations, “shared” me in some other form online, paid for a commission, was thankful for something I did for you for free or in some shape, form or fashion enabled me to do as much as I have creatively this year.

Thanks for 2011, see ya in 2012.

click to enlarge

At long last, the prints for the Mountain Mover piece are in and on sale at My Etsy Store! From the store:

“if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” // Jesus Christ: Savior, Redeemer. Through faith in Him we can move mountains. An amazing thought – an amazing reality.

This project was created after Christian metalcore band Woe to the Inhabiters commissioned me to design the cover art for their demo, “Mountain Mover.” The painting was created on 8″x10″ canvas with acrylic paint, spray paint, and two uniquely designed and hand-cut stencils. After scanning the painting in, the digital effects were added. Another version includes the band’s branding. This version, however, is a 11″x17″ semi-glossy print and features the One that paid the ultimate price for our lives.

Prints are $20 + shipping

Again, these can be found exclusively at my Etsy store.

Here’s this again:

My initial idea was to roughly draw some hands clasping two sides of a mountain in ink on watercolor paper, keeping the design minimal.

My drawing looked stupid. So I tried something else.

I painted an 8″x10″ canvas red with a white spot in the middle, then designed a stencil in Photoshop that was a collage of items including an anatomical heart with barbed wire around it, a stylized cross and a flame. I then got together source images of John the Baptist, a Cherub, an open Bible and three small crosses. After staining them with strong coffee, I wanted to arrange them around the painting and finish with some digital effects.

The coffee all but ate my images and my stencil didn’t turn out well. So I tried something else.

This time, I took a great artist’s rendition of Christ (stock photo) that showed pain and heartache, but strong passion and created a stencil of it. I then created a second stencil depicting rays of light protruding from behind him. Using the same canvas I had already painted on, I sprayed over it with the new stencil, scanned the painting in and added some digital effects in Photoshop. Finally, I branded it for the band with their logo and album title, delivering a design the band loves and I’m pretty happy with, myself.

I am in the process of having prints of the non-branded version made and hope to be selling them soon. Until then, enjoy the photo and the video of how I made it.

click to enlarge