J0LLYG00D Xmas Playlist

A little Holiday playlist I put together for my friends.  About half of the tunes are from this year, and the other half is just music I've discovered and been into this year. It's a pretty mellow mix of post-rock and instrumental music with some electronic, hip-hop, and a dash of R&B for good measure.  My first mix, and I think it's pretty cool.  Hope you like it.

Make sure to import the .XML playlist file in iTunes (File -> Library -> Import Playlist) to get the correct song order. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

DOWNLOAD J0LLYG00D MUSIK

*If that link doesn't work, try this one (click 'free' download):

DOWNLOAD J0LLYG00D MUSIK AGAIN

-Kyle

APATOW TRIBUTE TONIGHT!

Tonight is G1988's Judd Apatow Tribute group show, hosted by the man himself: Judd Apatow.  It's a great line up, and should be a great show.  Very excited for the opening.

My screenprint "Fogell" has been given a second chance at life and it's all thanks to Jensen and Katie at G1988.  Originally intended for a different (and significantly more disastrous) Apatow tribute show, my Superbad inspired piece will be on display at G1988 tonight and I couldn't be more stoked.

The print pays tribute to the greatest character in what may very well be my favorite Apatow movie of all time.  It is entitled "Fogell", is printed with 3 colors on cool gray Strathmore paper, and is available in an edition of only 20 prints, with the final print in the series for sale in frame.  Printed as always by yours truly, in my lovely garage.

"Fogell"

Edition of 20 prints, inspired by "Superbad"

FREESKIER

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  My ad in Freeskier magazine dropped yesterday and I'm pretty excited about how it turned out.  Armada skis has been doing a series of artist-based ads in conjunction with their 10-year anniversary and I was given the opportunity to customize an epic photo of freeskiing legend Tanner Hall in any way I chose.  For the most part the previous ads in the series were created by artists that have contributed to the visual history of Armada over the past ten years, so I was especially honored to be selected as I am a full-time employee of Armada and I've only been with the company for a little over a year so far!

I was given a vertical black and white photo of Tanner and we thought it would be cool to orient the ad vertically over the two page spread so that you have to rotate the magazine to view the piece.  All of the ads so far have been extremely colorful so I went with a decidedly unsaturated approach and decided to limit myself to a single color and focus more on the composition and typography.

 My first magazine ad that I've ever gotten to put my name on so I am quite stoked.  Happy 10 years to Armada skis, definitely watch the sick anniversary edit we just put out for a little insight into the company.  The video, which you can view right here, was created by my good friend and coworker, Corey Stanton.  He and I have worked together pretty closely to try and create more exciting graphical content for our videos.  Hopefully there will be much more to come!

Be sure to pick up a copy of the magazine and check it out for yourself.  Thanks for reading!

POSSESSED

Here's my second piece for Gallery 27's 'Are You Afraid of the Art?' group show, opening tomorrow night at Gallery 27 Chicago.  Inspired by one of the best/most demented cartoons of my childhood, 'Rocko's Modern Life'.

"Possessed"
Watercolor on lanaquarelle paper
8 x 10.25"

AGGRO CRAG

Here's one of my two pieces for Gallery 27's "Are You Afraid of the Art?" group show opening this Friday, 11/2.  The show pays tribute to classic Nickelodeon shows from the 90's, and it's going to be totally awesome.  I was really excited to depict the famous Aggro Crag from Global Guts for this piece.    I wanted to climb that thing so damn bad when I was a kid.

"Aggro Crag"
Watercolor on lanaquarelle paper, 8 x 10"

Here's a preview of my 2nd piece, (can you guess which show I picked?) which I will post later this week.  Be sure to check out the show at Gallery 27 on Friday if you happen to be in Chicago!

Thanks for reading.

Are You Afraid of the Art?

Too excited for this upcoming group show at Gallery 27 Chicago.  "Are You Afraid of the Art?" celebrates the classic Nickelodeon shows of the 90's, shows like "Rocko's Modern Life" and "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters" that many of us were raised on.  I was inspired and disturbed by many classic Nick shows as a kid.

 I immediately jumped at the opportunity to create a piece for the show, but couldn't decide on just one program to illustrate.. so I will have two pieces in the show.  Stay tuned to see which ones I picked.  "Are You Afraid of the Art" opens next Friday, November 2nd at Gallery 27 Chicago.

CENTIPEDE

Here's my piece for the upcoming 'Old School Video Games: Level 2" group show at G1988 Venice. An homage to one of the best/most frustrating games from my youth: Centipede.

Really wanted to participate in this show and nearly ran out of time, but pulled something together yesterday morning at the last minute.  Definitely the quickest piece I've ever done, but pretty satisfied with how it came out.

"Centipede"

8 x 8" 

Watercolor on lanaquarelle paper

Hope to see you at the opening next Friday, Oct 26th at Gallery1988 Venice!

Love the invite image by Scott Scheidly.  So trippy man.

Wax Seal

I stumbled upon this great tutorial for making your own wax seal a while ago and have been meaning to try it myself.  Wax seals are sweet, and not that hard to make.  All you really need is a dowel and carving tools.  

I used a 3/4" dowel, and sketched my design on the end after sanding it super flat.  In the tutorial, they use a wood burner to engrave their design, but I wanted a deeper, cleaner impression so I opted to carve out my design.  All I had in my apartment was an Exacto knife, so this step was pretty annoying/time consuming.  I strongly suggest picking a more simple design.

Once you're happy with your carving, you need to seal the wood so wax can't  get trapped in any of the nooks and crannies.  For this part you can use wood stain, polyurethane, resin--basically anything that will seal the wood off from moisture, etc.

1.  Sketch                      2.  Carve out                          3.  Seal

Once you let the sealed end cure, you're ready for the fun part.  You will need sealing wax, which seems like it would be difficult to find, but you can actually get it at Michaels in the wedding section.  It comes in a few colors and is pretty cheap.  They are just little sticks of wax that have a wick in the center.  All you do is light the wick and let the wax drip in one spot over your envelope until you have a pool about the same diameter as your dowel.

Now let the wax cool for about 15 seconds and while you're waiting, dip the end of your dowel in some oil to prevent it from sticking to the wax.  Blot most of the oil on a paper towel, and then press your seal firmly into the wax and let it sit while the wax dries fully.  Once the wax is cold again, wiggle your dowel gently until it parts from the seal.  Hurrah.

                                     

                                     

Gold looks purty.

New Business Card

Been waiting to get my new business cards in the mail for a few weeks, finally got em yesterday and they're just as beautiful as I hoped they would be:

I spent a while on this design and knew I wanted to have it letter pressed so I did some research and finally found The Cotton Paperie, which I can't recommend highly enough.  Not only did they have the most reasonable pricing I was able to find for letter press jobs, they also have the most options for paper and ink colors-- not to mention the fact that they did an incredible job on my cards.

The detail is perfect and the embossing is subtle and classy. Their standard paper stock is a thick double-ply which looks and feels great in your hand.  I am going to be giving these out with extreme discretion as I don't want to part with any of them!

NO SOLICITING

Solicitors totally suck.  You know it, and I know it.  When you work in office without a receptionist to fend them off, they end up coming straight to your desk, distracting you from your work and wasting your valuable time, trying to get you to sign or buy things before you can politely tell them to get lost.  This is even more obnoxious when you have a sign on door that says 'No Soliciting' which gets completely ignored time and time again.

I thought maybe if I created my own No Soliciting sign, something more bold and beautiful than the average type, it might be noticed and actually *gasp* heeded.  You can call it somewhat of a social design experiment.  Whether or not it works is yet to be determined, but at least we now have a nicer sign on the door.

Check it out and download the pdf in a size of your choosing below to print yourself and proudly display in your own office!  Solicitors Beware!!

download - NO SOLICITING (6 x 4.25")

download - NO SOLICITING (8 x 6.5")

download - NO SOLICITING (12 x 8.5")

PRESS - Breaking Bad Art Project

The Breaking Bad Art Project is on display for one more week at Gallery 1988 Melrose in LA.  The online response to this show has been absolutely insane and I am so thrilled to have been a part of it.  Check out some of the coverage below!

A great little video made by AMC about the show

Breaking Bad Art Project on E!News

And also a few of the more notable sites that have covered the event:

SoCal Public Radio

Fast Company

LAist

Huffington Post

Flavorwire

Inside the Winnebago

And finally, here is my piece for the Breaking Bad Art Project, commemorating my favorite season of the show, and my absolute favorite meth lab set up thus far, complete with chemistry equipment stolen from J.P. Wynne High School!

"Inside the Winnebago"
Watercolor and gouache on lanaquarelle paper
13 x 19"

*The original painting has been sold, but you can now buy a print of this piece in a size of your choosing through Society 6!

**Also, check out a sweet write-up of the show with pictures of some of the works including mine via LAist!

Breaking Bad Art Project Opening Reception

Still somewhat in shock over how awesome last night was...

Me and RJ Mitte in front of my painting.  He was an incredibly nice guy.

Got to give my Walter White portrait to the man himself!

Also got Bryan to autograph the rubber gloves I used for my painting!

Me and Emily with show creator Vince Gilligan, also a really nice dude!

Gallery 1988 pulled out all the stops and absolutely KILLED it with this show.  So appreciative to those guys for the chance to participate in this show and attend the opening.  

Breaking Bad is one of my all-time favorite shows and I am so incredibly grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to contribute to its history in some small way.  So damn cool, and can't wait for the new episode tonight!

BB preview

Here's a small section of my piece for the Breaking Bad Art Project group show opening next week at G1988!

Respect the Heisenberg.

RIP VENICE ART WALLS

August is officially the last month of the Venice Art Walls so I felt I should probably head over there and do a little something.  Busted out a super quick piece this morning, not my best work but all in good fun.  Wonder if it even lasted through the day?

It's really a shame that a city like Los Angeles, whose very soul and identity are so saturated with graffiti can't find enough money in their budget to keep their only public legal walls alive.  Once these walls are gone, there will be nowhere in LA for artists to paint graffiti legally.  

Without the painting program in place, the walls and surrounding area will inevitably get covered in tags and become an eyesore to the public-- I wouldn't be surprised at all if this leads to their eventual demolition.   A place that was once such an important part of LA's graffiti, music, and skateboard scenes will be reduced to memory... Bummer.

THE BREAKING BAD ART PROJECT

This is probably the most exciting thing ever.  Still not quite sure how I managed to weasel my way into this show, but Breaking Bad is my absolute favorite series and I couldn't be more stoked on this.

  The culmination of G1988's BreakingGifs campaign, The Breaking Bad Art Project group show will showcase all of the original posters from the viral campaign as well as a handful of new artwork from new artists including yours truly.  

If you've followed the campaign at all you've seen some of the amazing things that have been created in the name of Breaking Bad.  This is going to be absolutely epic. Can't wait to show you what I painted for this one.

CRAZY 4 CULT

CRAZY 4 CULT opens tomorrow night!  Very proud to be a part of this awesome show.  In keeping with their plan of global art domination, this year Gallery 1988 has moved one of their biggest annual exhibitions to NYC.  The gallery space is an impressive two floors and the show boasts some of the best work from over 200 artists.  

Previews of people's work have been popping up all over the place and everything looks incredible so far.  **Check out a sweet write up on the show and some images from Thrillist, including a sneaky appearance from my Eraserhead piece (image #10).  

If you are a New York friend (you know who you are!) please go check out the show and support G1988!  Address and details below:

My painting for the show is admittedly weird, but perhaps not even quite as strange as the movie that inspired it.  After watching David Lynch's 'Eraserhead', I was disturbed and intrigued and knew I wanted to create a piece around it.  The movie has a lot of spermatozoa floating around in it, so I focused on the sperm image as a symbol for life and death and got real weird with it.  Hope you like the painting!

"The Endosperm"

Watercolor on Lanaquarelle paper, 16 x 20"

"The Endosperm" (close-up)

Education of Style Invite

This is somewhat exciting, as I rarely get to share things I make at my job right after they are created (our ski designs are made 2 years in advance, and everything else is generally done 1 year in advance).
However, next week is the world premiere of 'The Education of Style', the new ski film starring Tanner Hall, Henrik Harlaut and Phil Casabon, and I got to make a cool invitation for the event:

The title of the movie is done up like a graffiti handstyle and I thought it would be fun to play off of that for the poster.  Since the movie is called The Education of Style, I wanted to "educate" folks on some different styles of tagging.  I always enjoy drawing out type by hand so this was very cool to work on.

I also got to make the invitation for the after party, which is a celebration of Henrik Harlaut's 21'st birthday.  Henrik (or E-Dollo as he is called by his fans) is one of my favorite dudes and I wanted to do something really awesome for his party.  And what's more awesome than Mike Tyson's Punch Out?

If you happen to be in Southern California next Tuesday, definitely swing by Lido Theater in Newport for the premiere and check out the after party at Bikini Bar!

*Update:  The afterparty will take place at our office/warehouse at 1987 Placentia St in Costa Mesa.  Come grab a beer and skate the miniramp with us after the movie.

AMERICAN HERO

"The American Hero" is a group show that opens next Saturday, July 7th at Gallery 27 in Chicago.  The show pays tribute to Americana in film and pop culture.  Artist Adam Devarney tipped me off about this new gallery, having recently moved to Chicago.  I believe this is only the second show they've done, (The first was a Wes Anderson tribute show) but I saw the title and was really inspired to do something for it.  If you are a Chicago friend or happen to be in the windy city next weekend, definitely go check this show out, it looks like its going to be really awesome.  Adam will be in it, and a bunch of other cool people too. Check out the show flyer for Gallery 27's address.

This piece took me a little over a full day to paint in total, but the fact that I left it alone after that is somewhat of a personal accomplishment as I have a tendency to want to overwork everything.  I didn't focus on a specific movie or piece of pop culture for this one either, which was nice.  Instead I thought on the much broader theme of violence, and came up with something I think is pretty cool.  Hope you like it.

"Untitled (usa)"

watercolor on lanaquarelle paper, 11 x 14"

You can't see very well in the picture but the frame has some nice red white and blue splatter on it.

Busy..

..with a couple new projects.  More on that soon, but until then:

FOGELL

Well hello there.  I have been very busy the past few days making and screenprinting some posters for an upcoming show at Kato Gallery in San Diego.  The show is taking place July 14th and 15th at the Firehouse Gallery in San Diego, so if you happen to be in the area for Comic Con, you should definitely go check it out, its only a couple blocks away.  The show is called 'The Apatow Effect' and focuses on the films and television shows produced by Judd Apatow, the man responsible for such classics as '40 Year Old Virgin', 'Pineapple Express', 'Step Brothers', etc, etc.

My piece is based on the best character from 'Superbad', a movie that resonated with me on a very deep level when I saw it back in the day.  It is entitled, "Fogell", and is available in an edition of 20 prints.

This was actually the fastest I've ever turned out a poster as I left myself very little time to do a piece for this show.  I started sketching out the first layer Friday evening, and had the last poster printed by Tuesday night.  With such a tight deadline I tried to keep things very simple and stick to a tight schedule (Saturday: finish pencil drawing and ink first layer, Sunday: draw/ink 2nd and third layers, scan layers and print transparencies, Monday: Gather supplies, coat/expose 3 screens, Tuesday: Cut paper and print posters.) 

For the most part I was able to keep to this, although I inevitably ran into problems with my emulsion and wasted almost a full day trying over and over to get decent exposures on my only 3 screens.  Anyone that has dealt with silkscreening knows how annoying this is.  All these technical issues have made me really appreciate and yearn for the days of my art schooling where I had access to equipment that makes all of these stupid tasks very easy and fast.  Instead I have had to work with the very limited resources I do have to replicate these processes.  The two machines I miss the most are replaced by embarrassingly lower quality solutions:

So all you art school folks out there, just cherish it okay?  CHERISH IT!

Ok I'm done with that.  And the posters came out alright too, I guess:

"FOGELL"

Thanks for reading.

killaz

Freestyle spraypaint collab with Lila Ash.

Feelin' good

"Sad Dumpster"

spraypaint on dumpster

Wut up.