The Art of Sequence

I've been working on a new website

2012-02-16T16:32:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not know, I'm the head bartender at one of the largest bars in the country... I spent the last few days creating a website that uses your current location and randomly finds bars/pubs/clubs within a certain distance to you and displays directions to them via Google Maps. You can even read reviews on the place that was chosen. If you don't like the randomly chosen selection, you have the option to have it find a new one for you. I also have the option to manually enter a location if it can't find you for some reason (Poor signal, slow ISP etc)..
I have dubbed the website, "WHERE THE F**K CAN I GET DRUNK?" or "WTFCIGD" for short... Yes, I put an obvious vulgar twist on it to make things interesting.

You can check it out at http://bit.ly/WTFCIGD

I'm in the process of buying a .com domain for it..

So yeah, tell me what you think, as well as any bugs you may find or suggestions you may have. Thanks!

http://bit.ly/WTFCIGD

--Side note: I have started making an iPhone and Android app for it as well :)

ROCO6x6 Artworks SOLD!!!

2011-06-19T04:04:00.000-04:00

Both my artworks in the ROCO6x6 Art Show have been SOLD! I'm so excited!! Thank you!!!
LINKS>> http://bit.ly/jxqH5Q & http://bit.ly/mHsrW3

IMPORTANT Blog Updates

2011-06-19T04:00:00.000-04:00

Since I have graduated and have received my 4 year degree from Ashland University, and no longer attend said University, this is just an official statement saying that this blog is no longer owned by, endorsed by, watched by, maintained by, affiliated with, or associated with Ashland University in any way, shape, or form.

This blog is no longer a "class assignment."
Any posts from this point forward have no relation to Ashland University and this blog is now for my personal use only.

That being said, I will now be posting when I want, about what I want, without any penalty from the University.

Have I made myself clear? Good.

TAG!

2011-05-21T02:28:00.002-04:00

Some poor bridge just got tagged... whoops!

"M-CUBE" - My initials are MMM = M3 = M cubed...
Get it?

Disclaimer: (to save my butt...)
I made this whole story up and this image was created in Photoshop...
No bridges were actually defaced.
Don't believe this post.

Body of Work

2011-04-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

Here is just a post with the final versions of everything I accomplished this year:

Senior Show

2011-04-24T23:30:00.009-04:00

Well all my artwork for my senior show is finished. It is all framed and installed in the gallery. All I have to do is hang my labels and my artist statement... I'm glad I finished early and it didn't come down to the last minute... it was easier than I expected it to be actually...

In total, I have 9 pieces. 5 from this semester and 4 from last... it feels good to be done early!

2011-04-24T23:30:00.007-04:00

2011-04-24T23:30:00.006-04:00

Graffiti and Street Art Exhibit - Sponsored Post

2011-04-17T15:49:00.001-04:00

Graffiti & Street Art! Preview 'Art in the Streets' street art exhibit feat. Banksy, Mister Cartoon, Retna & more!

Stickers!!

2011-04-07T02:06:00.001-04:00

I just ordered 250 of these stickers to be made with my own custom artwork on them and a nifty little QR code included :) I travel a lot and I thought it would be cool to place these at random places when I travel. Hopefully it catches someone's eye, and if they are tech-savvy, they may even scan the code. Try scanning it with your phone! The actual size is 2.75"x3.25"

Hey, I may get more exposure, and whoever scans it will get to know a little more about the artist who made it :) Anyways, I thought it was a cool idea!

Final 2 print versions

2011-04-06T17:12:00.002-04:00

Final two?

2011-04-05T23:41:00.000-04:00

Well at my last track meet, I pulled my hamstring in the hurdles, so I'll be out a week or so. This gave me a lot of time to finish up my pieces on screen and get them printed.

First off, is this piece. If you saw any of my work last semester, this is a continuation of one of those pieces. However, I feel that this may be the weakest out of the five I have done.

Lastly, is this one. It is of the Hindu goddess, Shiva. Shiva is often referred to as the "lord of destruction," But the type of destruction she does is good. She is the destroyer of evil. You can see her holding many different art supplies, going along with the "ART IS POWER" theme I had earlier in the semester. This one is going to be a pain to cut out. I think I may try to re-work the hands and arms a little bit though. This is done in the same style as the Eagle piece I did earlier.

Eagle on background

2011-03-21T16:52:00.000-04:00

This reminds me, when I was in Vegas for spring break, they had a place selling bald eagles for $8,000 a piece. Is that even legal? It was a shop run by some Native Americans... I don't know, but it seemed pretty sketchy to me!

Anyways, here is another update on the Eagle piece:

New artwork!

2011-03-20T19:25:00.001-04:00

This past week, I was in Vegas for spring break, (which also happened to fall on my birthday!!), so as you can imagine, I didn't do a thing except... well... I can't tell you because "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." :)

Anyways, this is what I've been working on lately. I'd say it is my most complex one yet, because this one consists of five layers, as opposed to two or three like my others. I just couldn't avoid it with this one. If I did it in fewer layers and it would be impossible to stencil.

I would also say that this one is about 98% complete, depending on what kind of comments I get during the critique.

Other than that, I think I have three that I'm ready to take off-screen and finally get my hands dirty!

Give me liberty, or give me death?

2011-03-02T15:58:00.001-05:00

I really don't want that to be my theme, but it looks like it will be for this series. I suppose for the next few pieces I do, I'll try to stay away from that. I don't like death being a theme in my pieces; to me it seems cliche. Again, that's just me.

I re-worked the 'Reaper' piece, it had too much red in it... now I think the two go pretty well together...

Art is power...

Something new

2011-03-01T21:07:00.000-05:00

When I did the 'Renegade Liberty'piece, the phrase "Give me liberty, or give me death" came to mind... and it gave me an idea... Here is what I came up with:

I'm not sure if I want to keep "Give me liberty, or give me death" as a basis for a theme, though... It seems cliche to me... Oh well, I think it looks cool. And it sort of goes with my 'Renegade Liberty'piece too.. However, I'm not sure if I want to add a face. A skull, as the grim reaper normally is seen with, could be a bit difficult to cut out details with my x-acto knife on that small scale... Skulls are also... cliche (in my opinion). Maybe I can do something to suggest a face there though. Remember this is still a work in progress.

Art is power...

Small Tweaks

2011-02-23T17:24:00.001-05:00

Just changed the black bottom part... I'm still contemplating how/if I want to add text somewhere...

Update

2011-02-16T16:21:00.000-05:00

Some updates on Lady Liberty...
I want to add some text somewhere, most likely in the black area at the bottom... "ART IS POWER"
I also thought about going somewhere with the term, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
I'm also playing with the idea of changing the background a little bit...
Hmm....

Update on artwork

2011-02-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

Here is where I'm at... I'm almost done with this one. I could probably put 45 more minutes into it and I'll have something I think I could take off screen. It's Lady Liberty in all her glory...

Some changes I want to make include:
Adding more detail to her clothing (However, it will already be a pain in the butt to cut out as it is)
In the bottom black area, I want to add the words "ART IS POWER"
I want to add my peace-sign logo onto her book and satchel...

After those changes, I think this one could be ready to be stenciled.
Comments/suggestions?

Wine label design

2011-02-15T21:28:00.002-05:00

A random thing you guys may not know about me, is that I make my own wine in my spare time... I know it is completely unrelated to what I study in school, or anything I do for that matter... but I enjoy it so much, that I actually want to open my own vineyard some day... Yeah, true story. Well this past November, I finished 30 bottles of Strawberry White Zinfandel... I wont go into all of the technical stuff but the grapes were imported from Colombia. I fermented it, bottled it, finished it, and now it is aging... it took about 50 days from start to finish, but like I said, I finished in November... Yes, it's that serious.

I like all of my wine to look pretty, so, of course, I had to make a label for it. Here is what this one ended up looking like...

Yep, so I just thought I'd post some things I've worked on outside of class...

Thanks for looking!

Crit

2011-01-31T15:03:00.003-05:00

Early updates

2011-01-31T00:33:00.000-05:00

As stated in previous posts, I am continuing my stencil work. I have several ideas in my head and a few early sketches... as for work on the computer, I've been experimenting with different background patterns and different fill effects, just to try to get some variety. However, I still feel drawn to the demask (floral wallpaper) styles I used last semester... The newer ones seem to be a bit much, and I think they would distract from the actual stencils themselves.

I'll try to show some examples during the crit. on Monday.
As of now, thats where I'm at!

Ideas for the semester

2011-01-17T19:15:00.000-05:00

Well I'm fairly confident that I want to continue with the same style of work I did last semester, designing a set of stencils on-screen, and then spray painting them.... If you're new to the class, you can take a look at a few of my previous posts to get an idea of what I mean. After developing my own style and technique, I think that I can hopefully) produce just as many pieces of work as last semester, if not more. I want to focus on more elaborate stencils this semester, however. I've toyed with the idea of trying different colors, but I am very fond of just using red, black, and white. They are very bold colors and I think they work well with my theme and overall idea.

So that's just a brief introduction/recap of what I'll be focusing on this semester. And then at the end... SENIOR SHOW!!!

End of the semester

2010-12-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

I think this semester of Digital Art has been one of my best so far. I am very proud of the body of work I have created over the past few months. One thing I really like is that I have a lot more work to show in this series than semesters in the past. I think this is because I finally found something that I enjoy working on more than anything else I have done before. The hands-on feeling of working with the spray-paint and stencils really gives me more sense of accomplishment and pride in my work than if everything was done solely on a computer.

As far as being ready for finals weeks... That could be a different story. We ran into a slight problem when we were printing my backgrounds. We ran out of canvas, so I'm going to have to (quickly) find an alternate type of paper to print on. All but one of my stencils are cut out (which will take 10 minutes). All I have to do is paint my stencils... I just have to wait on my backgrounds to be printed on something different... Hopefully that decision will be made within an hour of this post, and everything will be printed by this evening so I can get it all done over the weekend.

The end is near, I can see it!! I just need these backgrounds! It is frustrating when you have everything ready to go, you just have to wait for something to be printed. Oh well, I was thrown a curveball when we ran out of canvas, so we'll see how I'll handle it. Hopefully I can hit it out of the park on this one!

Cutting it close.

2010-11-30T21:10:00.000-05:00

Literally.
Heres the last 4 pieces (I have 5 total. The 5th is the "Star" one you all saw earlier)
I think I'm done with them but suggestions are still welcomed. After the critique, I'll do what editing I can, but I have to get these things submitted to be printed (Along with my backgrounds) so I can cut them out and paint them. And every one of these has multiple layers. Yep, I'm cutting it close.

I struggled with this first one a bit, but this is the outcome:

This is the second, I tried to keep some things in common between each one, to try to tie them together:

And the third. If you look back, I made the flowers on this one A LOT more simple on this one. I realized that the flowers I had before were far too impossible to cut out.

This is the fourth. I made this one right before Thanksgiving break... I had spent lot of time on it but compared to my three newest, it just doesn't seem to fit in. I really like the idea.. and I think it is my favorite out of all of them, but it just doesn't seem to fit. It doesn't have the elements of the other ones... so I'm not sure what to do about that...

And remember, all of these will be sprayed on the patterned backgrounds that you all saw in class, and will have a black border, so don't mind how some of the edges are. They will most likely be covered up.

So I think that covers most of it... I still have a bunch of work to do, but I guess I'm all done on-screen! (Unless you guys rip my ideas to shreds and have a lot for me to fix!)