what's really going on... the skinny on painting

so, every new years eve loads of people get totally smashed and probably do something intimate with someone they shouldn't, or should. that's hot....

the resulting hangovers and remorse doubtlessly give people an impetus to make 'resolutions' ie; 'stop smoking' 'exercise more' 'stop hitting my kids' 'start a militia' 'banana splits'. that last one isn't really a resolution.

thanks for waiting. my 'resolution' for this year was to do a small watercolor painting everyday for a year, which in most circles is called the 365 project. after holding out for roughly a month i caved and failed at this, let me tell you why.

i do a lot of art. i have callouses from pencils, pens, brushes, tattoo machines, wood carving knives and musical instruments. most of my time creating is spent drawing for tattoos with some very limited and precious time left for doing design jobs for bands, writing music, cleaning, cooking, and lastly personal art. with the 365 project i found myself cutting corners on the painting. doing the same medium everyday is kind of a soul-crushing thing for me. i thrive on the diversity of tomorrow. my paintings got worse everyday. i was giving less and less time to it. and consolidating 4 or 5 days of paintings into one day. i figured i would rather swallow the failure of the project and take time to create art that I wanted to do and see, than spend the next year doing crappy one-off skull paintings.

that said, these are the last of the 365's, enjoy!!!......

 color study for a tattoo

this is what i'm talking about. can you say 'rush job'? the wine bottle is pretty, but the banners are blank and unshaded and the damned fiddle has no strings?! weak.

 painting this rose ruined my day. even looking at it makes me feel like a hack

 stylistically 'nice' rushed though. look at that wonky sun, if the sun ever looks like that, become a CHUD

 this is akin to bathroom stall graffiti.... the fella on the right is the famous Hot Stuff devil. classic. the four on the left are (clockwise from top left) Pot Stuff, Fraught Stuff, Bot Stuff and Caught Stuff...five 'days' of paintings, obviously took me under an hour between appointments. buh-loney.

pretty but under-developed, will prolly repaint

this was a bad one to end with, why did i do that?

keep yer lil' eyeballs peeled!

i've never wanted to be myself more than i do right now

nonstop fun muffuggas. this week was chock full of really great ideas.

tattooing friends is awesome, because they always come up with the most creative, wacky, engaging ideas....or maybe i just hang out with creative, wacky, engaging people... this one speaks for itself...

old-timey mania! that caterpillar metamorphosed from a blank kneecap to a pretty patch of hurt in just under 2 1/2 hours....bless this tough, tough woman.

aaaaand a one-two punch of straight edge fury...
   x up or shut up i suppose

and the cover for TopxNotch's new album 'The Ressurrection of Conviction'....also my 365 for today (forgot to shoot a couple flix for the last 365s) www.facebook.com/pages/TOPxNOTCH/181966431817351

even nails cower in fear

truly the toughest thing posted on the internet to date. easily the toughest thing post-internet as well.... might as well stake a claim!

even the crossbones are bleeding! what? do you not have blood?

not front

i'm back on top of the 365! fell off painting and documentation for almost a week now! it's been a hell of a week down at the ol' tattoo shop. check out my efforts...

first, a tattoo on Jaime, the newbie over at Kenny Curtis Tattoo, nice and witchy....

and the new 365's...
i oni have eyes for you

 acrylic, watercolor, and gen-U-wine Acme coffee and moonshine

 Amebix plus shine equals ugly

it's a sign!

i have recently fallen completely in love with signs and the pugnacious craft of sign painting, a trade as hard to enter and master as tattooing! here are a couple of my swings at the medium, still sussing out material and techniques... all respect due to all sign painters, these were gifts to people.

and a couple more of those 365's that you love so much, these were done sort of late at night, so....

and gosh! it must be your birthday! here's a tattoo too! this kid is in the military and realized after pledging 6 years that the US military was entirely responsible for the eradication/ decimation/ genocide of the native american peoples (well, the disease scourge that the military brought helped too...) so he got this tattoo as a sort of posthumous reparation.

shake, shake, shake

here's a couple more 365's for everybody's perusal... the seahorse is a design for one of the counter helpers here at the shop and the fishes are purely medicinal.

also owls are good fun! i was lucky enough to dodge the hipster owl bullet, so it's still quite fun to knock one or two up every now and again.

another beautiful day on planet earth, time to paint!!!

truckin'

i work at a great shop. i work at a shop so great, people who don't even work here get badass tattoos of our name!!!!

also, here's some new 365's

i'm trying to be more spontaneous with this project, rather than painting multiples a day to make up for slacking or being busy, the color schemes are a dead giveaway. enjoy!!!

365 project 2011

myself and my colleagues at Olde Town are doing the 365 project this year (1 painting a day for three hundred sixty five days), i will update this pretty regularly, but here's my first 13.

Happy 100th birthday to Sailor Jerry!!!