Pen Drawings

Over the past few weeks I've been working on some pen drawings of old-school Westfield NJ for Trader Joe's, as you saw in my previous post.  I've finished the series of 4 larger drawings (16x20 framed) for the hallway after the bathrooms, and am 4 into the series of 6 smaller ones (6.5 in square) for inside the two bathrooms, so I thought I'd share!  

And here are the smaller ones, eventually 3 for each bathroom...

I really enjoy doing these actually, and I think if I didn't feel compelled to any conceptual matter I'd probably be doing something like this more often.

That Mural's Done! ...Again! ...I think...

As August rolls around, I've had an extremely busy summer.  Between trips to the Catskills and New Hampshire, TONS of reading, research, events, and projects for school (subject of my next, far more interesting post), and, minor detail, having a BABY, I've still been plugging away at Trader Joe's on this infernal mural (see past posts).

I THINK it's finally finished:
- 8 panels
- totaling nearly 90 feet long by 1.5 feet high
- somewhere around 30 landmarks
- somewhere around 10 foamboard character illustrations
- interstitial designs that were made and then lost (and forgotten about)
- 3 section banners

Here are some detail shots from the newest panel:

On top of that, I've recently been working on another related project (I told you it wasn't done) that I've been enjoying quite a bit.  To go with the Westfield landmarks, they wanted some pen & ink drawings of old-school Westfield to hang in the hallway outside the bathrooms.  So I returned to my recurrent haunt under the train station to pilfer some black and white photos to use as reference material, and here's the result.

This is the first one I did, with some detail shots to follow.  All done on 11x17 paper with Micron pen

This is the second one that I've begun working on:

It's been fun to be able to just lose myself in a technical drawing.  Something I don't have the opportunity to do very often anymore!  I'll do between 2 and 5 others, and I'll make sure to post them when I finish!

Landmarks

Well I figured I'd give an updated report of that infernal landmark mural I've been working on for Trader Joe's, off and on for the last half a year or so!  As noted in previous posts, it started out as a 30-some-odd foot long (by about 1.5 feet high) mural for the front of the store, consisting of landmarks from throughout the town.  However, when the regional VP stopped in for a visit, they decided we needed to get something up on the back wall (another project that hadn't yet been completed).  So the mural panels moved to the back wall above the refrigerator cases.  Naturally, it looked incomplete considering it was never meant to go there in the first place. So, rather than put it back where it belongs and make something new for the back wall, they decided to have me add to it to make it look as if it had belonged there all along.  And add to it.  And add to it.  Until it consisted of about 45 feet of mural and 5 or 6 victorian style illustrated characters doing Joe'sy things (which have nothing to do with anything, really). 

That of course looked too piecemeal.  ...So lets just add more characters!  And new sectional signs!  And of course, it still doesn't fill the space, so fast forward to the next regional visit (now months later) and they want less characters, but instead giant hibiscus flowers and reusable bags and the like to separate the mural panels which are now moved as far back as possible, flush with the wall.  Which makes them look even smaller.  Which means we need two more 12 foot panels. 

So I've been working on those new panels, and frankly, in moving our art room to what used to be the produce room, I've lost track of where the giant hibiscus and bags are... 

Here are some pics of the back wall as it is now, starting at the far left and panning to the right in each shot:

And here are some pics of the new sections in progress.  Each 12 foot section drawn out on an 8 foot board next to a 4 foot board, cut out of masonite, primed and then painted:

I've now got one of the two 12 foot sections done and the other a bit more than half painted, so it shouldn't be too long now.  Hopefully my next post on the matter will be the last!

A Birthday Gift for a Traffic Cone Aesthete

Much dismayed by my unavailability for fellow artist Erik Sanner's birthday gathering at Brighton Beach today as per my work schedule, I promised Erik I'd try to do something involving traffic cones in his honor.  As a part of the Trader Joe's Westfield Landmark Mural That Never Ends (see previous posts from December...) I've been tasked with adding two more 12 foot panels to this already out of hand project (which began as a 36 ft mural on the front windows and has now become a 70+ ft debacle on the back wall including pop up foamcore victorian style illustrations of guys with mustaches and giant neon hibiscus flowers.  But that's a story for another day).

As such, I spent a good chunk of the day hoofing it through the town taking pictures of landmarks.  As it turns out, Westfield is actually littered with traffic cones, so I thought I'd share some of my findings (humbly selected by applying Erik's own criteria [if you're actually diligent enough to follow the link, scroll down 7 pages to his "Exceptional" page]).

WARNING, some of the images you are about to see may be a bit disturbing;  Westfield is not a friendly place for traffic cones.  Though, in the midst of this forlorn - or at best eccentric - quasi-post-apocolyptic abandonment, there does seem to be some sort of hopeful, activist movement emerging in relation to these destitute and forgotten harbingers of the singularity.

my personal favorite

Happy Birthday Erik!  Hope it was a great one!

Long Time No See

Wow, it's been a busy month, and I have so much to catch up on in terms of blog posts!  I'm told that's what finals season in an MFA program will do to you.  So lets try to bring some closure to some of the things I left hanging all month...

TJ's MURAL

I did manage to finish that freakishly long Westfield mural for Trader Joe's.  Only after our regional manager pointing out to our store Captain that we didn't have enough Westfield related stuff in the store, speeding up the timeline for its completion significantly.  One of our other artists was assigned to help me get it finished, and contributed one 8 foot section while I finished up the remaining 40 or so feet, as hastily as I could to still make it cohere when viewed at a distance.  It then has been temporarily relocated to the opposite end of the store to fill in some space while what will eventually be installed there gets made.  Here are some pics (in various states of completion).

I'll get some shots of the whole shebang when it's finally installed in it's rightful place.  Less than half is pictured here:

PAINTING IN PROGRESS

I was also able to finish the painting I had been working on about "active passivity" and spiritual preparation.  Here are some shots of it being completed:

An interesting experiment; a sort of synthesis of Bruegel, Robin Williams, Hokusai, and my Archetype I.  I'm still working on a title... perhaps Journey to Tabor (in place of Hokusai's Fuji is Mt. Tabor, the alleged site of the transfiguration of Jesus, when his divinity is revealed to two of his disciples as hangs out with Moses and Elijah and he gets all shiny and holy-looking...)

There's more to catch up on, but I think it merits a new post.  See you there!