My generation hasn’t had any significant progressive leaders that have served as role models in the public sphere. I’m pretty sure we can all point to people in our smaller circles that live their life in a manner that you try to live up to. But as far as progressive leadership with a substantial voice in mass media, nada. Michael Moore would be the closest thing to someone who consistently put himself out there to get people thinking, talking and inspiring organization. But at his core he is a movie …

In response to the BP oil spill that may effect the Carolina Coastline Solas Culinary and My Restuarant Guru are hosting a fundraiser for The NC Surfrider Foundation. It is our goal to help fund this non-profit so that it is prepared to deal with the effects of the BP oil spill on the NC coastline.

Fundraiser is quite a draw

Pabst Blue Ribbon will be sponsoring a rough and tumble, beer flavored art show called “The PBart Show” in Raleigh during the Cherry Bounce Festival on July 29th. Artists were encouraged to create PBR inspired artwork so I took it quite literal and create a few custom painted, full, unopened 22oz tall boys. I built the theme around the concept that “PBR brews very strange company”. This was my first crack at customizing beer cans and I think I have stumbled into an arena that I am going to be …

I had a dream that I was fighting off the best artists in Raleigh armed only with a spray can, a stack of canvas cards, a sharpie and a swarm of killer yellow jackets that had built a hive deep inside my libido. I woke up with a startle, a cold sweat and a tingly libido. This could only mean one thing….. LoveBug 2010 is approaching fast…… and this year…… I’m packing heat. (heat = overinflated, machismo driven creative ego)

I wanted to pay my respects by way of the pencil. Our favorite curmudgeon will be sorely missed.

There is no better place to practice your life drawing skills than the beach. Men, women, young, old, thin, heavy, everyone walking around in socially accepted underpants. Drawing people laying out, standing around or pursuing activities requiring subtle actions is cool but my favorite activity is trying to capture the people that are strolling along the beach. You only have a few seconds to snag their movement, style, shape and personality. It is tricky but your inventory will keep presenting itself for hours. I highly recommend it to my fellow …

This is getting out of control. She won’t slow her grow. My girl Nina Simone is turning 5 and holding true to tradition, I hooked up her invite. This year I was closely art directed my Nina Simone herself. All the way down to the rainbow sleeves and the unicorn horn on the knights horse. She’s got style, no question.
Love ya girl. You got my heart.

The first ‘bird in the ole’ A-hole’ that was created for the “Letters” show at the Lodi Project had sold at the opening. I know, the wordplay is endless…… Yes, my A-hole is hanging above the mantle someones house right now. The show was such a success that it is going to be traveling to Greensboro, NC. One problem. No A-hole.

What happens when all our favorite villains get locked up in a 1920’s penitentiary with an optional intramural football league? It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

I am going to hook up a limited run on some signed prints. Sign up for my newsletter to get the heads up when the drop.

Matt Scofield, Victor Knight, Greg Davis and myself hooked up a show at the LabourLove gallery last year where we painted a set of panels in the gallery and pulled off a very cool show. We were approached by Kelly and John of LabourLove about showing the panels for a showing at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC). I love that building, inside and out. I was thrilled. So thrilled that I felt compelled to redo that panels completely. I was never really very happy with how my panels came …

I was approached by the Chair of the Art Procurement committee for Appetite for Art which is an annual auction gala that will support arts programming for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wake County. She wanted to know if I had any artwork that I would be willing to donate for the event. After thinking and debating on what would do well, I figured “screw it, I’m doing something fresh”.
Growing up I was a huge fan of Catcher in the Rye. Like most kids, I connected on an …

Hard to really know what to say about the show. A few things are certain.
1. It was raining like all hell.
2. It was ten time more crowded than I expected.
3. The show almost sold out.
4. Things got rough.

A few years ago I was walking through a parking lot in a strip mall. I looked up at the signage above one of the storefronts and noticed that a bird had nested in the recessed portion of a letter A. My pupils dialated, a smirk was crafted and an idea was born….. “There was a bird in that A-hole!”.
Years pass but that idea was such a little gem that I kept it on my low shelf. Easy to reach. Then one day I get an invitation to participate in …

My youngest critter is on the move and about to turn three already. She is daddy’s sweetheart no doubt. Love ya girl.

The company I work for has a big yearly company meeting that usually spans a few days. They are informative, sometimes engaging and tend to boost morale a bit. For me, it allows a full day of doodling and doodling. Now don;t get it confused, I have become quite skilled at absorbing information while I am drawing. I performed quite well through high school and college doodling profusely. When I work in the evenings I always have a movie on and can follow it all the way through without using …

The day went great. Congratulations to Swoon Unit. Let’s go another 10.

The legendary North Carolina based bboy crew, Swoon Unit, is celebrating their 10th anniversary. They have put together a multi-layered series of events that include an open mic MC battle, a NC graffiti Wall of Fame event and a large format Bboy battle. It will be taking place at the Boys & Girls Club in downtown Raleigh on Sept 26th from 12-5. I have created a custom painted piece of linoleum for the battles to take place on.
When we first came up with the idea I figured it would be …

My final piece for the show is completed. I have been a bit obsessed with Victorian and Elizabethan era explorers and the culture and lifestyle that surrounded them. These guys were half cocked off their asses. The world was an unknown. There was no real policing of any exploratory activities. These mutherfuckers would roll through and wreck shit. Claiming whatever they found as their own. If someone else had what they wanted, they would try and exterminate them. They would steal all kinds of treasures and riches and haul them …

Part of the BOMBED show will be a silent auction for these customized shoes that each of us hooked up.  The auction will be benefiting the Helping Hands Missions Shoes 4 Souls campaign. We were initially expecting the shoes to be some sort of white sneaker but when I went to pick them up I was surprised to see sparkling white bridesmaid dress shoes. After a few minutes I decided that this was a better idea anyways. A lot of people have been customizing sneakers but I really haven;t seen …

My main man Georges Le Chevallier and his wife Carrie are opening up a new gallery called the LoDi project. As part of their big opening  they are hosting a juried show featuring work celebrating the Dia de los Muertos. Cool theme, cool people. I had to throw my hat in…. even though this really is probably the busiest month I have had ever. Anyways, I’m pretty happy with it. I’d like to explore these colorful skulls some more. There is something attractive about them.

We all know that Buckleyboos can’t ride coach so a custom crate had to be built in order to ship the Buckleyboo family and its gear from tradeshow to tradeshow. On its first journey the shipping company lost this thing. How could you loose this  thing?!? Anyways, it has been found and all is well in the world.

I know I have been stressed out and under pressure but this is what I am putting out these days? There is an art show that is showcasing artwork themed on video games at DesignBox. The show is called 2Bit and open this Friday September 4th.  Anyways, I was initially going to paint a fairly classic portrait of the original Atari 2600. Midway through I scrapped it and ran with a Ms. Pac-Man strip tease ripe with a drunk Mario, shitfaced ghost, pervy Q-Bert, horny Pac-Man and a retro strip-club …

The first four installments of the “My Baby Loves” are finished up and will be hitting the stores soon. The first installment “My Baby Loves Michael Jackson” can bur purchased in cd form at Amazon by clicking here or you can preview and download mp3’s by clicking here (also through Amazon). Stay tuned for more installments and the launching of a website. My babies loved screaming throughout the night like a murderer was in the house but I’m doubting we can make a lullaby version of that.

Here are some pencils/colors …

I have been a fan from go. They have yet to put out an album that isn’t solid. I dont like using the word “underrated” but these guys are among the best and most people don;t know it. Anyway. I hadn’t drawn them yet and I have been feeling a return of the letter form.

I am going to be participating in an art-based fundraiser supporting Toxic Free NC. The event has two parts: a bug drawing competition on First Friday in August, as well as a month-long exhibit of mixed media art.
All proceeds from sales of the art will be going to support Toxic Free NC’s courageous work to fight pesticide pollution in North Carolina. More on that at www.toxicfreenc.org.
Should be a cool event. You know I am always game when there is competitive creativity in the mix.
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It took me a little while to …

Well, not quite but the title is definitely an eyebrow raiser. The good folks over at Good Hands Records put me on task to do a series of album covers for a lullaby versions of some classic pop. Fun gig no doubt.

I just put together an 8.5 x 11 flyer to help promote the Love Bug event on the 7th of August. We were asked to sketch up a “bug version” of ourselves so I ran with it a bit. After I finished up I realized the irony of the aresol spray can on a flyer for an event intended to fight pesticide pollution in NC….. so yea. My painting for the show is in a bit of a holding pattern due to the workload that I am carrying but we …

A little while ago I sat down with my daughters and showed them the art of the paper bag monster. Little did I know that this session would give birth to two little buggers named Zoopy and Billiam and would entertain my daughters and their friends like crazy. What quickly emerged was the Zoopy and Billiam show which was made up of some raw dialogue between a southern yee-haw (who suffers from untimely flatulence and a tendency to think anythink is edible) and an upper-class Englishman (who knows his manners …

I was approached by my man at Lucky Design + Media to hook up an illustration for a radio team that is out of Hartford, CN on HOT 93.7. It took a handful of revisions and a took a few to gain clarity on what we were going for but I think wer’e there. I guess we’ll see.

I made K-Dub way too heavy in this sketch. For whatever it’s worth, I built it off of a headshot and a bit of a steriotype that I had of radio dj’s. Sorry …

I landed a mural gig a little while ago. It is in this enormous basement of the Chi Omega sorority house on the UNC campus. The house is gorgeous but as usual I bit off a bit more than I could chew but I have been forging through with the help of the great Greg Davis. I have been putting in some strong hours and am starting to feel it a bit. It’s huge but almost there…..

Me and Greg finished up this evening and barely tucked our heads under the …

Old drawing I stumbled across. I should finish this dude.

As hard as I pull on the hands of time, I can;t seem to get them to slow down at all. It is true. Nina Simone is turning 4 already. Every year I do an illustration of the girls and hook up their invite. I think I will make a tradition of drawing them around their birthday. I’m sure this plan will vary in degrees of excitement and embarassment….. but I will stay the course.
This year I wanted to tip my hat to the great Alphonse Mucha. The guy crushes.
Happy …

Mario at the Green Hill Center for NC Art hooked up a time lapse of the murals progression. We took a little longer than the time lapse lasted but it came out cool regardless. Check it out:

The Windows-Down crew got together as part of the Green Hill Center for NC Art show to put together a collaborative mural that will be put on display at the show. Five of the guys got down on it. Victor Knight, Matt Scofield, Ben Tuttle, Joe Giampino and myself. We got out there early and minus a flat tire, the day went off without a hitch. The space was much bigger than I expected and crazy nice. We also took some time to let loose on the main gallery wall …

So yea, Tommy Hearns and J.D. Salinger? Seems random I know. I started doing a series of pencil portraits for a collection I was calling “Beautiful Losers”. The idea was to showcase people who had poured their heart and soul into their passion but fell short of winning the top spot. In a lot of cases these people inpired more people by continuing to dig their heels in and push hard, never giving up. Or in some cases…. giving up. Anyway, I am putting these into the Green Hill show …

There will be a wall in the Green Hill show that will showcase artwork on paper from the group. I have a few portraits that i will be showing. I just finished up an Obama jawny with that new outlining style that I have been playing with. I’ll post the other pieces as well. YOBAMA!

I was commisioned to hook up an illustration for an April issue of TimeOut New York. The article was about a upcoming group of “Hip Hop Republicans” so I got loose with a funky elephant. You can check out the online version by clicking here.

Dev Rocka and Seano team-up for a Wu banger.

I have just finished up the full colors of a gig poster for a live band hip hop group called the Turbo Pro Project. The truly unique part of the band is the infusion of a banjo. It is good stuff. Check it out.

* I left all that white space at the bottom so the band can write in the gig details at their various shows.