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Thursday, March 06, 2014
COUNTDOWN TO YURI'S NIGHT: ANACOSTIA EDITION
I actually have lots of things I want to share with you that have happened in the past few months, but it has become a lot of information to pass along, which means that I have been putting it off every week. And the list gets longer. I will parcel condensed versions of the exciting things that have been happening to me next week, but THIS week I am going to share the announcement of this year's COUNTDOWN TO YURI'S NIGHT!
Monday, January 27, 2014
My T-shirt design was on the show COMMUNITY!
I am a big fan of the tv show Community. I have seen every episode on Hulu plus (because I prefer to watch things whenever I want, I dont have cable and the HD signal is kinda iffy in my neighborhood). I appreciate the detail that is put into every episode. I was looking at the details in the background this morning while I was eating my chex, and then BAM! right in the foreground was a familiar T-shirt. I paused the playback, and there, plain as day, was my T-shirt design on the chest of the character Abed Nadir!
The design is actually based on a large velvet painting that I created for Spooktacular VII (2006)...it was the Vegas themed year and Roy (of Zeigfried and Roy) had recently been mauled by one of his white tigers...so, I thought it was an appropriate Halloween painting to give away as a prize. We usually have a game that we make up and play at the Spookatcular, and I create prizes to give away. We put a very high price on the painting (we had lots of gaming chips as the unit of exchange) figuring that no one would actually earn enough to "buy" it...but Yancy Davis (formerly of the Sweettravelblog.com) rounded up all the chips from people leaving at the end of the night...well, a deal was a deal, and I found myself, a week later, delivering a giant velvet painting to his house. Ain't she a beauty?
So, fast forward to 2010 where I get an email from the T-Shirt company Sub_Urban Riot asking if they can use my painting as a design for one of their T-Shirts...I negotiated a deal with them and they printed up some tees, and sent me one which Kate currently wears.
I had forgotten about the whole thing until this morning, eating chex and watching one of my favorite shows. I am honored and humbled because I have great respect for everyone involved in the show...and in a way, I am part of the show now too....if you want one of your very own, you can buy one HERE.
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| SEASON 5, EPISODE 4 of Community...featuring my T-Shirt! |
The design is actually based on a large velvet painting that I created for Spooktacular VII (2006)...it was the Vegas themed year and Roy (of Zeigfried and Roy) had recently been mauled by one of his white tigers...so, I thought it was an appropriate Halloween painting to give away as a prize. We usually have a game that we make up and play at the Spookatcular, and I create prizes to give away. We put a very high price on the painting (we had lots of gaming chips as the unit of exchange) figuring that no one would actually earn enough to "buy" it...but Yancy Davis (formerly of the Sweettravelblog.com) rounded up all the chips from people leaving at the end of the night...well, a deal was a deal, and I found myself, a week later, delivering a giant velvet painting to his house. Ain't she a beauty?
I had forgotten about the whole thing until this morning, eating chex and watching one of my favorite shows. I am honored and humbled because I have great respect for everyone involved in the show...and in a way, I am part of the show now too....if you want one of your very own, you can buy one HERE.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Elvis Birthday Fight Club Round Up
...And then we can start talking about C2YN! :)
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| Promo Shoot...Zombie Apocalypse style |
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| Four 40" x 30" velvet Elvises that I painted as prizes for the Quaalaise toss |
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| Promo Shoot...I love my cake from a trash can lid... |
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| We did not use this promo shot as much as I would have liked...its my favorite of the bunch |
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| Promo Shot with ring girls Candy and Rev Valentine |
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| The Washington Post had a nice Sunday spread with us the following week |
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| The Quaalise logo and capsule sketches |
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| Saturday Night Beaver |
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| VICTORY! (and a great shot of the confetti cannons I made for the show) |
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| A cloud of pure Colombian... |
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| Four Score and seven dollars ago we made this puppet |
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| The Flying Spaghetti Monster tries to intimidate Kirk and Capt Crunch |
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| Saturday Night Beaver intimidates Justin Beiber |
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| Donkey Kong throws barrels at Ding Dong with the help of Stage Ninjas (Koken) |
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| Baby Jesus' take on a "baptismal font" |
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| The traditional EBFC opening |
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| Vladimir Putin threatens to blow everyone up with is nukes |
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| Donkey Kong about to throw some poo |
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| Obama Care Bear 2.0 |
Friday, November 22, 2013
36 views portraits
Back in October, I created a prop for Constellation Theatre Company's 36 Views. It is a fairly central item in the show, so I have been waiting until the last week to show it on my blog (it wont spoil much, but I am trying to balance being polite, and helping advertise the show)
The show closes this Sunday. I saw it last week, and I must say that I was impressed. As you may know, I am a Shin Hanga nerd (Japanese woodblock printing from around 1900-1950 that was a break from the Ukiyo-e "floating world" prints, valued a more naturalistic style, while still maintaining the separation of labor in the production of the prints.) so, although they may not have known it, I was a very good person to call on to produce this prop.
They knew what they wanted, but needed me to articulate it in a sketch first (I hesitate to call this part of the project "design"...that is, I don't know if I can say I "designed" the image, because they were so specific on what they wanted) Anyhow, after about 5 back-and-forth sketches and consultations, this is sketch I came up with:
They wanted two identical portraits of this Japanese woman, and it supposed to look very old. The old part I could deal with. The "identical" part is what made it difficult. So I did my best to paint two portraits side by side. When I would make a stroke on one, I would make an identical stroke on the other. When I would make a mistake on one, I would try to make the same mistake on the other. Below is the final product (not actually the final product...they were painted on the same piece of muslin because they were going to be cut out and mounted to scrolls in the traditional Japanese silk painting style)
Its a bit hard to see here, but the biggest concession I had to make in producing this was in line quality. That is, when you are painting with a brush the stroke has a character. It's thicker here, thinner there, more expressive in some spots. That is very hard to reproduce twice in the same way. So, I opted to make all of the black outlines be approximately the same width throughout the paintings. This creates a more mechanical, or modern look, which is not desirable if you are making a very old looking painting. But that was one of the trade-off that had to be made in order to fulfill the demands of the script.
36 Views closes on Sunday. Check it out...I'll be interested to hear if you could tell the difference between the two...
The show closes this Sunday. I saw it last week, and I must say that I was impressed. As you may know, I am a Shin Hanga nerd (Japanese woodblock printing from around 1900-1950 that was a break from the Ukiyo-e "floating world" prints, valued a more naturalistic style, while still maintaining the separation of labor in the production of the prints.) so, although they may not have known it, I was a very good person to call on to produce this prop.
They knew what they wanted, but needed me to articulate it in a sketch first (I hesitate to call this part of the project "design"...that is, I don't know if I can say I "designed" the image, because they were so specific on what they wanted) Anyhow, after about 5 back-and-forth sketches and consultations, this is sketch I came up with:
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| Sketch for 36 Views Portrait. Pencil and Photoshop |
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| 36 Views Portraits final state. each is 20" x 24" acrylic on muslin |
36 Views closes on Sunday. Check it out...I'll be interested to hear if you could tell the difference between the two...
Friday, November 01, 2013
SPOOKTACULAR 14!
See the below photos for a glimpse of the insanity that was our 14th spooktacular (the all clown circus year! (photos stolen from multiple sources...send me some if you want them posted here!)
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| Cannon photo op with Ring of fire, knife throw skeleton and Queequeg's Coffin |
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| View from the Cannon |
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| Pennants staked in the front yard (with hanging skeleton!) |
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| Clean photo of the 16 foot + plinko |
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| Crowd in the Karaoke Fun House |
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| Gangster clown uses the cannon for a getaway |
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| Bumpin' Backyard |
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| Creepy clowns before they have been won |
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| Space-Ace and Catman |
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| Doctor Rockzo has made a f-f-f-friend |
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| Party organization committee...whatta team! |
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| Artistic Plinko Shot # 1 |
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| Artistic Plinko Shot #2 |
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| Queequeg died from being crushed by SO MUCH BEER! |
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| Karaoke Fun House |
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| Behind the Music |
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| Favorite triple launch of the party |
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| FOOD! note the cotton candy... |
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| KISS! |
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| The Joker and Catman are suspicious that you have read all the way to the end of this post... |
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| The Circus Peanut costume was found wandering the streets of Petworth the next day... |
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