Tattoos Famili

Friday, April 8, 2011

Illustration Friday: Chugger

"Topsy-Turvy: Chugger" Inks on Paper / 2007

"Bottled" is the theme for this week's Illustration Friday, for which I've chosen to share another piece of art with you from my Topsy-Turvy series (where the works can be hung either side up to create a different perspective on the image.) This particular piece was displayed in my first Topsy-Turvy exhibit in 2007 at The Icehouse Cafe. I had a contest to see who could stand on their head the longest to win a free work of art!

Beer has been bottled since the 16th Century, however the modern college student has found many different ways to ingest the jolly juice more and more efficiently including beer bongs, shotgunning devices, and countless drinking games and general excuses to see how much beer they can possibly pickle themselves with in one sitting.

[Click Here for MORE works from my Topsy-Turvy series]

[Click Here for ALL my weekly entries for Illustration Friday]

[Click Here to learn How to Make a Beer Bong]

Monday, April 4, 2011

In Memoriam: Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley

Kurt Cobain (inks on bristol / 2011)

Grunge music will always have a lasting memory and place in my spirit. I grew up listening to Alice and Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and the rest of the Seattle movement of the early 90's which harnessed the angst and deep emotional turmoil of a lost generation. For a brief five or six years, these bands made records which are timeless to me and a lot of the people I grew up with. It was a very brief glimmer of a rebellious, anti-corporate movement which dampened with the death of legend Kurt Cobain on today's date in 1994 at the age of 27. A few years past the end of the grunge fever, downward-spiraling Alice in Chains front man Layne Staley succumbed to his addictions on the same date, April 5th- eight years later in 2002.

Layne Staley (inks on bristol / 2008)

My memories of hearing about the death of both of these icons will always break my heart. Two musicians who moved and spoke to an entire generation and turned a local sound into a world-wide phenomenon died young and without a friend close enough to stop their demise. Both bodies were discovered some time after their deaths (Cobain's three days and Staley's two weeks.) I'll leave the commentary once again today to Joebot over at Rock Star Martyr, who is borrowing my portrait of Layne Staley from my 2009 Cult of Personality series as well as this new portrait finished this week of Kurt Cobain.

Here's a couple of shots of the process of creating my Kurt Cobain portrait with the shotgun shell halo...

[Click here for more on my Cult of Personality Series]

[Click here for more of my portraits for Rock Star Martyr!]

Friday, April 1, 2011

Illustration Friday: Comic and Tragic

Illustration Friday has posted the theme for this week as "Duet." It takes two to tango (...or sing a duet) and sometimes they are complimentary and sometimes they are contradicting voices. Opposing forces often factor into my work. Here is my entry for this week, which was displayed in my solo exhibit in 2008, entitled "Felt and Found."

Comic and Tragic (inks on bristol / 2008)

[Click here for all my previous weekly posts for Illustration Friday!]

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

This Weekend's Rock Star Martyrs...

Joebot has a wild weekend of dead celebrity commentaries in store for you with the anniversaries of the deaths of Marvin Gaye, Rozz Williams, and Rob Pilatus (of Milli Vanilli fame.) You'll have to check out Rock Star Martyr this Friday to see how I handled drawing Mr. Marvin Gaye but here's the process from linework to finished product of my other two portraits which will be featured with Joe's articles this weekend...

Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli (Who won a Grammy for Best New Artist... and had to give it back)

(06/08/65 – 04/02/98)


Rozz Williams, the shock-rocking front man of Christian Death (15 years before Marilyn Manson)

(11/06/63 - 04/01/98)

[Click here for more of my portraits for Rock Star Martyr!]

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Straight Outta Compton: Eazy E

Get on by Rock Star Martyr today for a new article from Joebot about Eazy E on the anniversary of his death. I drew a pop surrealist portrait of the hip hop legend this week just for the article!

Click HERE to get ahold of the prints from my Web Store!

Click HERE for more of my portraits for Joe's macabre and psychosurreal hyperverbal take on the cult of the dead star.

Inks on Bristol / 2011

Friday, March 25, 2011

Illustration Friday: The Banned Birthday Clown

"The Birthday Clown" inks on bristol / 2010

"Toy" is the theme for Illustration Friday today. I couldn't resist sharing this illustration from 2010. I was drawing a series of clowns about this time last year and honestly, they all turned out disturbing and creepy. Clowns have petrified me since childhood- I can't think of anything scarier. This clown was the "birthday clown," which would probably make any kid dribble in their shorts. I chose it in reference to this week's theme because of the hand puppets and the concept of the work.

On social networking sites such as Facebook, I've been in the habit of posting art on my friends' profiles on their birthdays. The past several months I had been using this particular piece for such a purpose. Last week, I was suddenly unable to upload this work for posting anymore since it had been flagged as vulgar or obscene. Apparently somebody got offended by the birthday clown. Why do ya think?

[Click here for all my previous weekly posts for Illustration Friday!]

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Retro TV Night...

Artwork by Loyd Gant

This Saturday night, you'll get a full dose of local pop surrealist art if you drop in at No Egrets Tattoo on College Street here in ClarksVegas. From the mind and organization of Joe Melanson comes a HUGE exhibit featuring works by artists like Brooke E, Charles Bennett, Jeff Bertrand, Chad Spann, and more. Clarksville was long overdue for a major group exhibit, so thanks for taking out your trumpet and making the call brother.

The show is FREE and open to the public THIS Saturday night! I'll see you there with a dozen works, some fan favorites along with never before exhibited work. Here's your taste of some of them...

Inks on Bristol / 2009

With the theme of "Retro TV Night," many of my Cult of Personality series' works come to mind including my portrait of Alfred Hitchcock. This illustration borrows it's name from one of the director's famous quotes, "A man cannot live by murder alone." I grew up with my dad glued to his Nick at Night, which ran Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The macabre stories and Hitchcock's dry but manic sense of humor were a stable of television in my youth. The art I created features scenes from Hitchcock's films. Can you name them all?

Inks on Bristol / 2008

I grew up watching wrestling and my folks had one of those ancient huge satellite dishes which looked like you were communicating with the beyond to anyone who drove by the place. We'd find obscure channels, especially foreign language ones and watch programs like Lucha Libre Mexican wrestling. This Topsy-Turvy work is called "Luchadores of the Squared-Circle."

See these and many more works at this FREE exhibit Saturday night, March 26th starting at 7PM!

UPDATE 03/27/2011

Joe Melanson with his Sculpture

First and foremost, a huge thanks to Joe Melanson for bringing an incredibly rich group of artists together for a long-overdue major group event here in Clarksville last night. Joe and the staff at No Egrets built these huge gallery walls suspended from the ceilings of the warehouse section of the tattoo studio's building to house some of the south-east's wildest low brow artists. There was installation art, live art, painting, sculpture, found object art, photography, live music, and even a huge cake shaped like a television set. Joe, you really pulled out all the stops and I certainly hope you have the calling to organize another show this year.