New Cards

Here are some cards I illustrated for American Greetings, available in select Target stores.

Copyright American Greetings

Goodbye Fall!

We certainly enjoyed your stay!

Below is a collection of photos I shot in my Lakewood, Ohio neighborhood.

Record Breakers

I participated in a group show this summer called Record Breaker's (a sequel to Straight from the Crate).

My piece, Lily Prefers Classic Reggae, is a portrait of my beloved dog Lily listening to my Dad's old Reggae music. It was created with acrylic, cut paper, and a record.

Sneak Peek

Here's a little montage of artwork I have created over the past few months. The more representational illustrations I painted in gouache/watercolor and the others I created digitally. Hope you enjoy!

*Please click image to enlarge.

My card on Modern Family!!!

So, I was lying on the couch watching a rerun of Modern Family (quite possibly the greatest sitcom on television), and thought I spotted something familiar. Could that be one of my cards?! With a quick jump on Hulu and a little apple-shift-4, low and behold...

(Eeek! Eeek! Calling the parents!)

* Please click image to enlarge.

Playing with a Block Print look

These two pieces are an experimental style, continued from a few posts below. As mentioned previously, I wanted to experiment with using irregular shapes to achieve a fun, collage-like feel. I kept an analogous color palette to maintain the Valentine's Day theme.

Experimenting with Patterns

Here are some patterns I made with ink and scanned textures.

Mother's Day cards

Here are some cards I painted for Mother's Day 2010.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some Fall items I made for Target. Hope everyone has a fun & spooky Halloween weekend! 

Temporary Tattoos!

Fall card 

Beach day

Here is a personal card I made for a friend and fellow Cleveland surfer's birthday. As of lately, I have been looking at a lot of contemporary folk art ,which seems to have inspired this little piece. I wanted to play around with flattening the perspective and icons into a pattern-like composition of verticals and horizontals. I would like to try this technique again, but venture out of my comfort zone with looser, more irregular shapes.

Straight from the Crate Show

I participated in a group show at Shoparooni called Straight from the Crate. The affiliated artists were asked to create imagery using old vinyl records and album covers as a common substrate.

Here is my submission, a series painted in acrylic titled Femme Fatale.

Color Studies:

Here are my color studies, I made prior to beginning. I was pretty stoked about the lime one, yet as you can see, changed my mind during the painting process. Inspired by the tonal grey base coat, I decided to go with a limited color palette (incorporating the grey and adding the cranberry with a pop of pink). I felt this suited the title/subject matter. The grey representing the subtle darkness of the vixen and the candy pink being symbolic of her alluring qualities.

Info on the Show from Keith Corcoran:

Using old vinyl records originally destined for the trash as their canvas, the participating artists have created a diverse collection of traditional and contemporary art. This show runs from June 26 through July 26 at the very hip Shoparooni Gallery Annex in Cleveland's Waterloo Arts District and features artists from Cleveland, LA, NY, Arizona and Australia.

In an effort to take some of the mystery out of art buying, this show, unlike others, will be "cash-and-carry," meaning if you see something you like, you can take your new-favorite-artwork home with you that night, straight off the wall! "The overall goal of the show," says curator Keith Corcoran, "is to put high-quality one-of-a-kind artwork in the hands of the average citizen at a price that won't break the bank." Artists include... Alison Kurzeja, Aaron Wildasin, Anthony Davila, Bill Kerner, Cheryl Andrey, Claire Mojher, Chris Hsu, Carlos Villagra, Daniel Edlen, Dave Savage, Derek Welch, Derek Yoder, Eliza Devogel, Erik Flesher, Emily Gross, Giao Buu, Jaden Devogel, James Groman, Jeffrey Conrad, John DeLucca, Julia Kuo, Keith Allen, Keith Corcoran, Kevin Carr, Kelle Schwab, Kelley Corcoran, Masa Homma, Nomar Perez, Numskull, Renee Froerer, Robbie Busch, Shaun Edwards, Steve Ehret, and more!

For more information contact: SHOPAROONI, 15813 Waterloo Road,Cleveland OH, 44110 216.383.3633 www.shoparooni.com

Deck Wreckers

My A Good Hair Day board art was featured in the Deck Wreckers Group Show at (Art)ificial Gallery. Please check out the photos from the opening event below.

Close up of my piece.

Painted Ladies Show

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to display work with one of my best friends and colleague, Coleen Kolarik in the Creative Gallery at the American Greetings World Headquarters. We chose the female form as our subject, and experimented with a variety of different mediums. Please click on press release article below.

Show Poster

Coleen and I collaborated on the show poster in an effort to combine our two separate styles. After a couple late nights, over due library books, and thumb nail sketches, this was our end result. I think I enjoyed creating this image with her the most out of the whole show experience.

Here is my work for the Show. I experimented with juxtaposing an expressive line with more representational portraits. I started the first painting with a very naive marking to accompany the rendered face and then progressed to a more graceful brush stroke with the following piece.

Spring

Oil & paint pen on masonite

18"x 12"

Rockabilly Blossom

acrylic, oil & ink on canvas board

10" x 8"

Shoesies

acrylic, cut paper & ink on canvas board

5" x 5"

Soulmate(s)

acrylic, cut paper & ink on canvas board

8" x 8"

Prada Fruitada

acrylic, cut paper & ink on canvas board

8" x 8"