science!

I'd love to know if these are accurate. It's surprising how many different terms there are for the same thing. To keep it under control I made them very general. Hope you like them!

mmmm... leftovers

I made this piece a couple of months ago for a Good: Gallery show called "Preserved".
The current group show is "The Present", and there's lots of great art up there this month. Go check it out!

Nosferatu and other happenings

I won't apologize for not posting lately. I just won't. Instead I'll try to prove to you how much I've been working since my last update.






First of all, I had the honor of being a part of a play! Atomic Arts, a theater troupe here in Portland, asked me if I would like to create some backgrounds for a production of Nosferatu. The idea was to make little paper craft sets, photograph them, then set them up in an interactive sequence using flash so that the lighting technician could simply advance through the sequence whenever there was a scene change. I had to learn a lot to accomplish all that, but I had a really good time doing it, and would love to do something like it again in the future. The play has completed it's scheduled run, but I hope you'll enjoy a few of the more interesting backdrops I've posted here.

In addition to that, I've been working with bent on some cool projects and I got to animate on a couple really fun ones. Hopefully I can link to them soon!

chickenosaurus

I recently checked out a book from the library called How to Build a Dinosaur, by Jack Horner. It overviews research into reverse engineering dinosaurs from chicken eggs. Here is a link to an article that can give a better overview than I can:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/6090313/Chickenosaurus-Canadian-scientist-says-he-can-create-dinosaurs-from-chickens.html

I haven't gotten very far in the book, it was enough for me just to know the basics of what they're experimenting with and let my imagination fill in the blanks. Part of what I love about paleontology is the educated guesswork, it really is awesome how much paleontologists can infer from the little clues they get. I think that if they were able to do this it would be like catching bigfoot; it'd be awesome to see but it might take out some of the mystery.

Anyway, that was a lot of text, here's the picture:



This is my first attempt at illustration in a long time. I tried out a few lighting scenarios and then manipulated it a bit in post. Is it working? I'd really love to make more like this, and a couple of good critiques would be helpful.

art for love

This is a cake topper I made recently for a friend's wedding. I'll probably get pictures of it on the cake itself soon. It looked really neat, another friend of the Bride, Kitana, made the cake and really decked them out with flowers. She integrated the topper beautifully! It was an honer to be a part of it.

New work from the show

Going along with the previous post, here is some new work from the show at Tyson Gallery. I've been experimenting with matting and working in a shallower depth of shadow box, and I feel these were some of my more successful boxes. What do you think?

First up is Green.
He is in camouflage.


Next is Mr. Fancypants. He is decidedly not camouflaged.


Blue.

And this is the largest piece I've made yet. It's about 2 feet across by i foot down, un-matted. I'd like to do some more large pieces, but with a different method than this. Making a large bird was pretty unwieldy, but I'd love to make a large image that's filled with small birds. Some day soon?
Here is a detail:
I'm thinking some of these shallow-depth pieces would make good prints. Can I gauge your interest? Any suggestions for how to go about it?

Art Show!

On July 2nd, first thursday, I had my very show solo show. Thanks to everybody who came out! I know I said I update this blog more than my website, but I'm even pretty slow at updating this. Admitting it is the first step to recovery, right? Without further ado, here are some pictures from the show...


This local celebrity stopped by:

There were curated groupings of art:

A big old waterfall made out of cardboard and fabric:

All at the Tyson Gallery


The show will be up through the month of July. If you get the chance to see it, it will be open on the weekends. Tyson gallery is located on the corner of NW Broadway and Flanders and is part of the Everett station lofts.

Resurrection

This piece is called: "Hey, I made it!". I just finished it this afternoon for Good Gallery's monthly themed group show, this time the theme was Resurrection. And seriously, I'd probably get nothing done if it weren't for these monthly themes lately.
This one depicts a phoenix, feeling refreshed after his self immolation. I imagine that it probably is pretty scary for a minute for the phoenix to endure this process, hence the title, yet here he is in full splendor. His nest is a campfire made of basalt stones and paper twigs, and the container was found as usual at a thrift store. He is about 5 or 6 inches tall from beak to the tip of his tail feathers. Be sure to come check him out in person a Good Gallery! The reception is next Friday, April 3rd from 7 to 10. Check goodpdx.com for further details.

mouthful

Boy, if it wasn't for good gallery's monthly shows I'd get nothing done! Seriously though, February? Short month.
This was made especially for good's mouthful show for the month of march. As always, check their site at goodpdx.com for a full rundown of the show and times you can come check it out in person.
PS: Don't forget to turn your clocks back!

Robot Love

Hey guys, here's some new stuff (finally!)
These pieces were made for a group show called "Robot Love"! The reception is happenin' February 6th at Good, a Gallery in Portland. www.goodpdx.com
It's going to be a great day, since Coraline opens on the sixth, too. Don't worry though, if you're too busy peeping stop-motion goodness on opening day the show will be up for about a month and I think the gallery keeps pretty regular hours.

Sculptures

This next set is a couple sculptures I finished a little while ago. The crow is first, he's about 3 or 4 inches, but he looks really big to me in the picture. I was thinking he'd be cool to re-make life size. I could install him on a big branch and he could look like he's yelling at you when you walk by. Anyway.
The other one is a big snake, and that's about it. Hes one of the larger things I've made, measuring a whopping 7 inches tall. I learned a lot while making him, namely it's tough to get paper to curve like that. Hope you like em!

More Boxes

I haven't posted in a while since the internet was down at my house. I've got a sort of backlog of work, and something big-ish in the works, so I'll try and keep up from now on.

I was working on the first image for a while. I had the pieces finished, but the frame wasn't coming together the way I liked. It's finished now, and I like it.

The next piece is loosely based on the puzzle: find a little red house with no doors and no windows, and a star inside. The answer is an apple, because the seed casings make a star pattern when you cut it in half cross-wise. Anyway, this little old lady figured out the riddle, and moved in. Adding a door and window for convenience.