Leyland DeVito

2011-11-30T12:16:00.001-05:00

I'm a grown ass man... Why is my life like 'Mean Girls'?

Ofrenda for Amy Winehouse

2011-09-26T20:33:00.000-04:00

This is my contribution to the Day of the Dead art show at the Starkweather Arts Center, curated by my friend Heather Hansma. The show opens October 7th and runs to October 29th.

The memento mori here is a Spanish translation of a line from Amy Winehouse's best song.

Chris Bathgate 'Salt Year' design

2011-03-09T12:30:00.004-05:00

Did the type for the packaging and liner notes for Chris Bathgate's new record Salt Year. It is out April 26th from Quite Scientific Records. Paintings by Sarah Jones. Here's a peek inside:

"We Got All Things That Are Good" now available online

2011-01-17T21:28:00.001-05:00

Just a heads up that you can buy Sole Stickers' We Got All Things That Are Good online from the band's store.

Kelly Jean Caldwell "Outside Heart" sleeve

2011-01-02T17:33:00.003-05:00

Did the illustrations and design for this spooky debut single by Kelly Jean Caldwell. You can buy it at the Top Magic Records website or pick one up from UHF Records in Royal Oak.

Sole Stickers "We Got All Things That Are Good"

2010-09-19T14:21:00.001-04:00

Illustration and design for Tasmanian band Sole Stickers' album We Got All Things That Are Good.

reVIEW CCS Alumni Show

2010-01-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

I have a piece in "ReVIEW: Alumni Selections By Syd Mead" at my alma mater. The show was juried by designer and honorary CCS alum Syd Mead and proceeds go toward CCS's Alumni Scholarship Fund.

There is an opening reception on Friday, Janurary 22nd from 5 - 8. See you there. :) The show will be up until February 20th.

¡Choneman!

2009-12-26T17:59:00.003-05:00

A mysterious luchador whose identity is obscured by an underwear mask. Thanks, Modesto.

You can peek at my process below.

944 Magazine

2009-11-17T16:10:00.000-05:00

Nice little write-up about my bottle in 944 Detroit! You can pick up the magazine in and around Detroit at locations marked on this map: http://www.944.com/magazine/map/?pubID=89

Good Wood Skate Deck Show

2009-10-23T10:47:00.000-04:00

I designed a skate deck for the new Good Wood exhibit, a charity show at the Slingluff Gallery in Philadelphia. You can bid on the decks online right here knowing it'll benefit Stay True, a foundation that helps at-risk youth make social change. On a related note, my board is about getting super powers.

Extreme!

1800® Tequila Essential Artists 2009!

2009-10-07T15:33:00.001-04:00

I am excited to announce that one of my illustrations is part of the 2009 1800® Tequila Essential Artists series! The series debuted in 2008, pairing work from artists like Glenn Barr, Chris Dean, and Hannah Stouffer with bottles of 1800® Tequila Silver. This year's campaign features 12 new artists.

You can find out where to buy bottles using the website's store locator. But for right now you can see all the bottle artwork turned it into an animation for this promo clip:

Von Bondies / 800beloved poster

2009-09-05T19:53:00.000-04:00

I got a chance to do a poster for The Von Bondies' show at the Magic Stick last week. Things got pretty crazy close to the deadline but Bilal at Modati was a huge help letting me use use his equipment and dealing with my crazy insistence on using five screens– thanks! Watching people wait in line at the merch table to buy it and later have it autographed by the band was enormously rewarding. Plus it sold out!

Digital file

Screen print

Ann Arbor Art Fair

2009-07-19T20:56:00.000-04:00

The guys at Modati do a screen printing demo at Ann Arbor's art fair every year, and Saturday's theme was "circus" so I drew a fire-breather for them to use. I made it over just in time to see some kids pulling my screen:

Victory of Samothrace: Take One

2009-07-08T12:39:00.000-04:00

Another poster. I needed to come up with something fast and I've had this idea of a Victory of Samothrace with a ghost head and arms that I thought would fit the goth-tinged bill. I got the idea from a line from Filippo Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, where he declares the superiority of "a racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of an explosive breath– a roaring car that seems to ride on grape shot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace."

In his manifesto Marinetti was contrasting the statue with the automobile, which he thought ought to be the epitome of modern art. The statue, or what's left of it, contains all the dynamism and athletic qualities of the goddess of victory, but all Marinetti could see was a pathetic, wounded has-been.

I'll inevitably come back to this... the idea fit the assignment but I can explore it so much further.

MCR poster

2009-04-13T02:02:00.000-04:00

Just did this poster for Motor City Rocks. I wanted to give a little nod to Hatch Show Print while still doing my own thing– I hope it comes across. I'd link to Hatch's website but Google says it's infected! So instead here's a link to Noman, whose folk-punk I've been digging lately.

Doodles

2009-03-27T18:02:00.000-04:00

Clockwise from top left: a pig, raise the roof, a warthog, a car, not a panda, a clock, a magnet, Karen O, a skinny dog, a duck writing a bad word that rhymes with 'duck', a snaggletooth, a confused fork, and a snowman with stick feet.

More Von Bondies

2009-02-04T01:47:00.000-05:00

Jason "Von Bondie" Stollsteimer dug the illustration I did of his band a while ago, so when it came time to gather materials to put in their press kit for their new album, he gave me a chance to do some more illustrations to throw in:

Also, the original Von Bondies illustration I did was selected to be in CMYK Magazine #43, out in March.

©POPpor2nity

2008-12-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

Tequila

2008-11-24T10:32:00.001-05:00

If you've ever wondered what your illustrations would like like as a 1800 Tequila label, you can now find out.

happy halloween

2008-10-31T15:56:00.000-04:00

Here's a Halloween illustration, although it really wasn't supposed to be when I started it. Would it not look so Halloweeny if it weren't Halloween? Or did Halloween, grinning all along at the end of the month, slowly shape it in its image? Whatever the case, Happy Halloween.
Also, I have a profile up at CMYK now.

Shadow Art Fair

2008-09-29T00:45:00.000-04:00

This is my entry for Ypsilanti's biannual Shadow Art Fair poster contest. Limited with a two-color screen print, I thought it'd be fun to try an effect out. My idea is it would be have a coat of matte black with a glossy, slightly lighter black for the art over the top, my hope being that the result would be sort of subtle, kind of creep out at you. This is only a digital version, so I would like to try it out as a screen print regardless.

Kwame Antoinette

2008-08-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

Marie Antoinette and Kwame Kilpatrick: what could the Queen of France and the mayor of Detroit possibly have in common? Both had reputations for being frivolous despite hard economic times– Antoinette gambled and bought an extravagant country house, while Kilpatrick splurged on a luxurious Lincoln Navigator and took a Californian vacation. Both are the subjects of biting urban legends, with Antoinette supposedly uttering "Let them eat cake" when faced with the plight of the poor and Kilpatrick hosting a party with strippers at the Manoogian Mansion. And both were put on trial to be ousted.

Would the backlash against mayor Kwame Kilpatrick would be so bad if Detroit wasn't doing so poorly economically? Marie Antoinette was eventually executed at the hands of the Revolutionaries– and in a similar sense, to a certain extent at least, I feel Kilpatrick is being made a scapegoat by a struggling city and state.

So while we wait for the mayor to get ousted, here's an illustration of Kwame in French aristocratic garb awaiting his fate. The inspiration for the bright colors comes from Sofia Coppola's sympathy film Marie Antoinette, as do the blatant anachronisms like the cell phone (the movie's soundtrack had rock n' roll and a pair of Converse sneakers made an appearance as if to connect the story to our time).

Self-Portrait

2008-07-25T12:25:00.000-04:00

Here's a self-portrait I've been working on in my spare time. I liked how Roy Lichtenstein drew from the style of early comics and made it something else, but what I realized was that the original tiny panels he was ripping off are marvelous on their own without needing to be elevated to fine art paintings! Check out Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein to see some gorgeous panels from mid 20th century comics blown up so you can really get a look at them and their printing process. There's just something about seeing the delicate and cheap balance of the halftones mixtures and registration in your face like that that makes me feel the same way I do about a great, sloppy punk band live- like it could all fall apart.

Appreciation: Queens of the Stone Age "Era Vulgaris"

2008-07-07T01:51:00.000-04:00

It’s been a year since Queens of the Stone Age’s Era Vulgaris came out, but I just got around to really listening to it this summer. It’s not fair how underrated it is.

To start, just look at the cover. The title is Latin for “The Common Era” and the art features a smoking cartoon lightbulb and a pirate cartoon lightbulb. Genius. The rest of the album’s art campaign- spanning 7’’ sleeves and posters- has more crazy cartoon characters and artwork along that retro-sleazy Grindhouse vein (check out the artists, Morning Breath). The “You Have Mono” phony-monophonic label makes it for me, though.

But what’s important is what’s inside- the music. I will admit that the first time I heard the songs nothing stood out, but repeated listens reveal by far the sexiest Queens of the Stone Age album in recent years. It is a much closer match to the band’s manifesto of making rock “heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls”, unlike the macho Songs for the Deaf and the snoozy Lullabies to Paralyze. A lot of the vocals are softer and falsetto, and every single song on Era Vulgaris is danceable as far as heavy rock goes and sounds perfect at 70 mph. And within those parameters, there’s a surprising diversity of sounds: it’s got southern-flavored psychedelic (“Turnin’ On The Screw”), heavy irony (“I’m Designer”), rhythm n’ blues (“Make It Wit Chu”), really spastic ("Sick Sick Sick") somber introspection (“Suture Up Your Future”), and what can only be described as car-chase ("3's and 7's"). I’m going to say that this is my favorite album so far, but I admit I haven't listened to the first two in a while. Any of the ones I mentioned are highly recommended, but everything is good. And while you're at it, check out the fantastically titled b-side "The Fun Machine Took A Shit And Died".

La Fea

2008-06-27T18:16:00.000-04:00

As far as TV goes the only shows I could be bothered with lately were Arrested Development and Ugly Betty. So, here's a spot-type illustration inspired by Betty from a few weeks ago: