Fun Times - Hand Painted Shoe!

For the Fundraiser for Fundraisers show, I got to hand paint a pair of my mom's never been worn Nike Airs from '92! It was great painting a pair of white shoes, because I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted to them. I wanted to keep them simple though, without too many graphics. They were very time consuming because it was my first time painting paneled shoes, and I wasn't quite sure of the materials to use! The most trouble I had was with covering up the dry panels, but I figured out a good method using paper towel because it doesn't stick (do NOT use tape! or cellophane, as some tutorials may say!). I had a lot of fun painting them and a rewarding experience. I was bummed they didn't sell at the show. C'mon, $100 is a decent price (vintage + brand new + hand painted)!


(click the images for a bigger view, as some pics are cut off. i haven't quite figured out a good method yet to upload pictures.)

Fundraiser for Fundraisers Sneakpeek

The art show at Little Mountain Gallery is coming up in less than two weeks and I am very excited to see how everything is going to unfold. The show will consist of Tevis' and my artwork, along with many donated pieces from various artists. I am very amazed at just how helpful and generous the people around us can be, and for them I am very grateful. Without them, there will certainly be no show.

I am looking forward to this show because it is a great chance for many of my friends who donated work to finally show off their talent to the public! The great thing about these shows is that you never know who will see your artwork and what reactions they will have towards to your work.

So, in anticipation of the show, I am posting the process of a piece that I just finished, entitled "Let's Ride Together!" Done with pencil crayon on tracing paper and paper.


Final composition with tracing paper overlay.
Pencil crayon underneath.Pencil crayon on both sides of the tracing paper. Tracing paper is magic, I swear.Sketches. I discovered that working on graph paper helps a lot, even for doodles.

T-shirt design for Young Life New West

So I was recently asked to do a design for a tee for YoungLife New West (hook-ups from my sister because she works there) to be worn by kids going to a camp in RockRidge. The basic guidelines were to create something that these kids (in their teens, i guess) would keep on wearing outside of camp. I don't know if I may have accomplished that or not, considering the color was seafoam, which may not go too well with the dudes. But that's "in" now right? Wearing ridiculous colors are cool. Thank goodness they didn't want collared shirts, so all the kids can pop their collars and be super "awesome".

So the idea for the shirt came from making these new west stickers, which turned out a lot better than i thought it would! My other doodles have been not too great because I had to go the commercial route and design something that kids in high school would wear. My main influence was Hydro74, a rad designer that does a lot of commercial stuff. I chose him because all of his designs look similar but still very distinctly Hydro74. Very marketable.

I printed out a few designs and crumpled them up and rescanned them to get a plausible aged look, rather than throw a bunch of fancy brush effects on them. I had to play a bit with the ripped sticker bits, but the magic of photoshop never fails. Overall, I was really stoked on the bird design, but I think they will be picking the sticker design. Goes better with guys in gr. 12..


Good ol' threadless template.. comes in handy for everything.

Fundraiser for Fundraisers!

Hello to whoever even reads this thing!

Tevis Bateman and I, along with a few other artists, will be a having a bike-related art show to fundraise money through cheap artwork for our upcoming bike trip! We, along with Sam Wade and Fred Tsai, are planning a cross-Canada bike trip as a group called Pedalers for Prostate in the summer of 2010. Through this trip we will fundraise and raise awareness for prostate cancer.

A majority of the money raised from sold artwork and donations will go towards our essentials for the trip, primarily supplies, food, and housing. Your help is needed to make this trip possible! Also, a portion of the money raised from artwork will go towards Little Mountain Gallery, as we would like to keep a great little art space like that open!

In addition to our own artwork, we will be showing donated pieces of artwork from various artists! If you would like to get involved, donate some bike-related artwork, or have any suggestions for the show, please contact me via facebook or btong604@hotmail.com. We will try to accommodate as many pieces as possible, but due to very limited space we request that you keep your donated pieces smaller than 18” x 24”!

So come on out to enjoy a night of very, very reasonably priced art, musical acts? (hopefully), good music, boooooooze, snacks, great people, and a great time! Tell your friends!


For more information about our cause, please visit our website at www.pedalersforprostate.ca!

Final Design Project

This was my final design project and the assignment was to design a functional or dysfunctional piece. I wanted to do a piece that was both, and I created this usable but highly impractical and ridiculously heavy log lunch kit. It is simply a log cut in half, with the the compartments routered in one side and the utensils carved in on the other. The utensils sit perfectly inside and even include a pair of silver chopsticks. The insides are coated with a non-toxic walnut oil that is used for salad bowls, which means that this food could actually be eaten out of the log! Fun stuff, I have yet to try that out.



**I just got booooooom'd! Thanks, Jeff! That was quite exciting.

Self-directed painting project.

This was my painting proposal:

" My final painting project consists of six 20” x 20” paintings. The images were originally from photos from World War II and from the 1970s around the civil rights movement. I had cropped the images in order to abstract and take the images out of context. I crop the images so that the action is highlighted and the faces are cropped to avoid recognition. My method of choosing the colors is by randomly picking colors on a pantone color swatch book. Judging the value of the color chosen, I then pick where the color will be applied according to the values in the picture. My rule is that I have to use the chosen color, even if they do not work together. Once the base color is chosen, I can alter the tones to define forms. By working on all six paintings at the same time, I will maintain my gestural and energetic brushwork throughout the whole series.

I am trying to explore new ways of painting and working with randomness, because I am intrigued by the unpredictable outcome. By using this method, I am addressing the role of intuition and subconsciousness in art. The randomness of the colors forces my brain to actively think about how different colors work together and the dynamics they create. It is interesting for me to see how these potentially clashing colors work together to form a coherent painting. The paintings will be displayed together so that they will form a mass of color. Through this method I hope viewers will see the paintings first for its colors, and then recognize and be intrigued about the subject matter."

I will upload the process shots to these paintings soon.

Posters!

Some old posters that I had done for Chris-a-riffic. I have some really old ones that I am not going to bother to post. I would love to do more!