radio silence

Wow...its been so long since I've posted anything I'm not even sure what to write. I need to remind myself not wait this long anymore. Well its been a little weird around here for me. Traveling around Ohio with band the last few weekends, we had some amazing shows and some terrible experiences from shows, but all were well worth it, even for a learning "adventure". Mom also had a kidney removed! She's doing fine, its just a slow process to recovery. As before, I am still on the job hunt. If you think the economy is hard, trying finding an art/design job out there...nigh on impossible it seems. Despite this I have been doing some design work for my father's company as well as offering my services as a freelance designer to try and earn some extra cash. I have also begun working on my own personal website, which I will either start a new blog or link the two somehow...so this site may look a tad different down the road.

Anyways...

In case no one has heard of the newest and most bad ass supergroup ever, Them Crooked Vultures (comprised of Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl of Nirvana/Foo Fighters, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin...holy shit right?), they are now streaming their entire album on youtube.com! I have listened to it at least 5 or 6 times, and pre-ordered the album a few weeks ago. If you have a chance to catch them on tour make sure you do so!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ6arQ-qK34

New Ordinance poster

Seeing as though I haven't posted anything in a while I figured it was as good a time as any; here is the latest poster that I have created for our next show this Saturday in Athens. I had found this great font, and have been itching to use it and decided that this poster was a good excuse. I was having a lot of fun playing the colors in this as well. I think that the green text really stands out with the black background and orange/yellow artwork. When I first designed this, it didn't have the lightning bolts. It looked just off...I couldn't figure out what to put in there for the longest time, but after I had talked to our singer Mike, I had a stroke of genius and made these lightning bolts to accent the page. I am really happy with how this design came out...I'm even thinking this might be a new ordinance shirt in the future. maybe some buttons at least.

Home sweet home and into the great unknown...

Finally after two and a half months up in Wisconsin, my brother and I returned home to Cincinnati without a clue of what to do next. It is great being back home, but I am constantly left wondering what is next. Do I go back to school? Where do I find a job? Can I find a job? the list goes on, and on. Despite my lack of foresight, I am optimistic that something will happen. Maybe later than sooner, but I have a little time to wait and see what happens. In the mean time, The Ordinance is still forging ahead in the studio and on the stage. Tomorrow we are heading to Athens for a little band practice, the first all summer! And this weekend Mike will be heading back to work on some vocals. We just finished all of the instrument tracks last week and are going to be touching up all of the vocals for the next few weeks, and then cleaning everything up. We are really excited and cannot wait to hear the final products!

While we are working on finishing the album, I am going to be working on revamping the website and myspace pages, as well as getting together some sweet merch (buttons, stickers, shirts etc) and working on the album artwork. Right now we are in the brainstorming faze with some great ideas being thrown around. As we get ideas more finalized I will try and post some drafts so that you guys can see whats going to be happening. That's all for now, but I will leave you with a few other inks from this years Pineneedle. The first are a couple of cartoon braves, following that is a sketch of one of the brand new totem polls at the entrance to Kawaga. The totem polls are absolutely massive, if I can find a picture of them I will post them so you can see them. Following camps totem polls, is a totem poll that I made up for the Pineneedle staff, it is composed of a box of paper, a box of MacDonald's french fries because that was our late night snack, a printer/scanner, my laptop, followed by Jays laptop and a cup of coffee. And lastly is a sketch I did of a native American warrior with a spear.

Ski gear

Since we got the ski staff gear today, I thought it would be a good time to post it up for you guys to see. It turned out really well despite the ridiculousness it took to get the design finalized and printed up. This is the design for the ski gear. This went on the t-shirt (American Apparel super comfortable). We then took the left side with the braves head and skier and placed that on the back of a hooded sweatshirt, ball cap, and beanie. I'll post some of those images when I get them.


This second image is what I created for the 36th Annual Kawaga Ski Tournament. I really like the design, and the shirt turned out awesome as well. Unfortunately though, the tournament was canceled due to a flu bug that was going around camp. I have some more shirt designs from other things around camp, and hopefully I'll have those images up shortly.

Every summer at Camp Kawaga, they have a color war competition in which they break up the camp into 2 teams and compete against each other for a few days. This year I had the priveledge to design the t-shirts that each team will be wearing over the next few days for the annual Blue/Gold Cup. I have been waiting until the kids were revealed the shirts so that nobody would see the final product before them. So yesterday, we began the competition by announcing coaches and dividing the teams and giving them their shirts. From what I can tell, everyone seems to like them, hopefully they aren't just being nice.

I have some other designs that I have done for the Blue/Gold cup but I am waiting because the kids still haven't seen the designs (not that any of them would be able to see them while at camp...lets just call it superstition). I have some more gear designs that I am going to be showing you guys in the future. I also have a lot of artwork that I will be posting from the annual Pineneedle real soon...stay tuned!

Oh and here is the black and white logo I whipped up for the Annual Pineneedle's Blue/Gold page.

At Kawaga they have Indian tribes that the kids strive for by performing different activities around camp; somewhat similar to badges in boy scouts. The two tribes are Mawanda and Sachem, and each year a plaque is made to celebrate the kids initiation into each tribe. After being initiated into the tribe of Sachem for the first time you are given an indian name (mine being Loyal Scout). The plaque contains all of the kids who have made it into either tribe during that camping season. This year I had the honor to design the plaque that would be around for years to come; camp has plaques dating as far back as the 1920's and a few before that! This first image is my design for the Mawanda Sachem plaque of 2009, my sketch has been sent to one of the fathers of the counselors at Mercury Plastics and it is going to be machined out of a plank of wood. I can't wait to see the finished product!

The Blogging begins...

Well I finally have my own blog! As I am currently graduated from OU and at a temporary job up in Wisconsin as the Art Director at a summer camp for the next few weeks, I figured it was due time I started putting some of my work online. Lately I have been doing a lot more sketching and ink drawings for a yearly publication that the camp puts out called The Pineneedle. The Pineneedle includes art work, and articles from the past camping season, as sort of a year book for the kids each year. I also have been trying to get some of my old sculptural work up from my years as a student from Ohio University. As well as my sculptural work, I have videos that I have created/edited for school as well as my band The Ordinance. With my band I do a lot of work for our websites and promotional material with posters for shows and what not. I have a wide plethora of work from the last few years and a lot more things to come in the next couple weeks. Thank you for joining in the fun.