Old Pieces, New Photography

I started these pieces last year and reworked them incorporating techniques I have developed in the past year as a result of these pieces. What started out as an experiment has developed a concrete process that I utilize with every piece, now. All as a result of experimentation. I've even standardized my post-painting process; photographing them and posting them on my blog. As per usual, mad props to my buddy Josh Verduzco" for the help with the photography. We swap photos for haircuts. Never underestimate the power of bartering your skills!


Moving Forward


Negative

I have other old pieces that are photographed better, now available to view on my Flickr site, but these were the only ones I reworked. Moving Forward is now available for purchase at the Austin Art Garage, located on South Lamar. I'm pretty excited, it's a really rad, lowbrow gallery.

On that note, my other photographer buddy Evan Prince recently took a few photos of me, The Fox, and Shirley.


The Fox behind me, and my other mode of transportation even further behind me (the Focus is a road warrior. Ten more years!)


Me and Shirley. She's a beast.


Just me, thinking about my bikes.

You can see more on his tumblr. He makes me look good.

And since we're going balls-deep with the images here, I'll go ahead and toss in some recent graphic design freelance I just completed:


Any excuse to use neon is a good one.

I hope I crashed your computer with all that overwhelming amount of amazing content I just dumped on you. Ya welcome, internet.

May is Bike Month!

For all you crazy motorists out there....

Save the Earth, Ride your Bike

So I designed a poster for a poster contest in Austin promoting the use of bicycles as a means of transportation. Here is my design:



And you can vote for me here. Or, you can vote for whoever, I don't care, just vote!!

The Other Side of the Hill

I've been thinking a lot about the other side of pain. For every action there is a reaction, and the world has a way of course-correcting and balancing itself. For every hill you drudge up, there is a lovely ride down. The duality of pain is interesting, two sides of the same coin...how can we truly be happy unless we know what it's like to be completely miserable? How can we know what we've got until we lose it? To really appreciate the full spectrum of emotions, we have to climb up hills so we can appreciate the glide down.

When I tell my clients about my wreck, I hear some people say "I used to bike, but I fell off once and it scared me into never biking again." I guess I just don't get that mentality. Getting into bike wrecks makes me appreciate my body even more. To know that I (usually) have a fully functional body, with functional limbs and a functional brain...that is just amazing to me. To have it taken away so abruptly really makes me appreciate what I have when I have it. It makes me want to ride even more, so that I can fully appreciate this vessel while I can, and use it to its fullest extent! To think some people live such sedentary lives seems like such a waste. We are capable of so many things, it really is incredible.

I guess I've had a bit of a rough month. I am dredging up this hill of life. I had this wreck, and have had some other personal stuff happen...my house, job, and love life have been stressing me out. It's been so long since I've slept soundly. I just keep telling myself to keep putting positive energy out there and it will come back to me on the other side of this hill. I just have to keep pedaling (figuratively, of course, I'm still "taking it easy" for now).

It sucks when your stress outlet is taken away from you, which for me is usually biking. So I've turned to the guitar lately. We are old friends, me and the guitar, but it's been a while since I was really into it, so we've got some time to make up for.

I think I somehow turned my art blog into a blog about biking, so I'm going to post pictures of recent projects to keep this more art-friendly.






This is a painting I made of my dad for Christmas. I made one of my mom too but don't have pics yet.







And various candids:





And this is entirely unrelated, but quite indicative of how much I hate being cold:


And that's it for now. See you on the other side ;)

Take it easy.

"Take it easy," he said, "and wear a helmet."

It's impossible to ride as often as I do and not encounter the occasional bike wreck. About two weeks ago I hit a patch of gravel in a turn and hit the ground pretty hard on my left side. I fractured my collarbone and sustained a mild concussion. I was taken to the emergency room and after an MRI scan and a few hours later, I was released with a prescription of hydrocodone and specific instructions to "take it easy."

Which was easy enough at first because all I wanted to do was sleep anyway. Everything wore me out. I took naps at work in between clients. But even though sleeping was all I wanted to do, it didn't come easy, and I woke up in fits of pain and couldn't get comfortable. I still can't get comfortable, and I've regained most of the mobility back in my shoulder. So I do my physical therapy exercises every day, take hot baths often, and ice my shoulder down after work. And I pop a lot of advil (I ran out of the hydrocodone about four days ago). But now I'm finding it very difficult to "take it easy" because in spite of it all, I still just want to hop on my bike (helmet on!) and ride around.

So I walk. A lot. Everywhere.

At least I got a cool scar out of the deal.


This is the day after the wreck.

I was completely out of it this day. Definitely still reeling from the concussion, my boss said I was very zombie-like. I just remember sitting up front and staring straight ahead, having absolutely no thoughts. I was in a daze.


2 days after


3 days after the wreck, and by far the worst day of them all. The swelling started to go down in my shoulder, my endorphins were long gone, and bruises started popping up all over town. My joints were achey, and for some reason the area beneath my eye just puffed up and I could barely see out of this eye. Sleeping was almost impossible.


5 days post wreck and the outskirts of my road rash started receding.


8 days post wreck and my face is ALMOST presentable to the outside world.


10 days post wreck and I almost feel cute again.

And here I am today, 15 days post wreck, and in good spirits:




I gotta say, a week into it I was feeling pretty blue. Nothing gets me down like forced laziness. It sucks to have no energy and to get worn out so quickly. The last time I went running I ran five miles and then went to a party. A few days ago I walked two miles and had to take a thirty minute nap. If I could give any advice on dealing with a bad bike wreck, it's this:
1. Wash your road rash with soap and water every morning.
2. Douse your road rash in neosporin after cleaning it and wrap it up in nonstick bandages for half the day.
3. For the other half of the day, let those suckers breathe! They need to dry out. Sleep without bandages on them. The next day, repeat 1-3.
4. For broken/fractured bones, if you can stand it, save the strong stuff for night time, you will need them to get you through the night, sleep is KEY! If you can handle it, just alternate advil and ibuprophen during the day. Tylenol is bad for your liver.
5. Physical therapy, hot baths, and cold packs are your friend.
6. TAKE IT EASY!!!! If you're like me, this is the hardest one to follow.

Of course this would happen two weeks before SXSW. Fortunately I live close enough to downtown I can walk to everywhere I want to go. Thank god my legs are okay! I've definitely learned my lesson, helmets are to bikes what seat belts are to cars. Message received, universe!

New Bike High

I think the reason I like biking is because it's all about moving forward, being aware of your surroundings, making your surroundings aware of you, earning your keep as you travel forward, in whatever direction you please. Looking forward, looking around, accepting that sometimes you will swallow a bug, get yelled at by impatient, lead-footed motorists, get sunburnt, exhaust your fuel supply, fall down, hurt yourself. But you always get better, always improve with each pedal forward. Going up a hill, you may curse nature for creating such an obstacle, but your sweat and hard work are rewarded tenfold on the way down, wind in hair, you feel like a demigod floating down to visit mere mortals.



And then, when the roads are flat, you're left to contemplate the issues of today, tomorrow, yesterday...and you feel a profound connection to the world around you, how related we all are. Next thing you know you've traveled twenty, thirty, forty miles, and you've really traveled, you've earned it, and you feel strong. Strong enough to face another day, another mile, another gigantic hill, shaking with the anticipation of gliding down, wind in hair, like a memory of something better than yourself.


Any time I start out on a long ride, the first few miles are filled with doubt and worry. What if I can't make it? What if I'm not strong enough? What if it's too hard? What if I fall? But once my blood gets going, I sweat out all my anxiety and just let go. I just ride. And I remember I can do anything, I am strong enough to overcome any hill, it's all inside and I just have to access it. It gives me the confidence I need to tackle other issues in my life.

In all things, progress.

Making new year's resolutions is easy enough, sticking to them is the tough part. Yesterday was the first day in a long time that had suitable biking weather, and since it was my day off I knew I had to take advantage. After six months off the bike I went on a 14-mile bike ride. Surprisingly, my legs don't hurt so much as my neck and upper back. All that straining into the wind, I suppose. The skin on my face is so dry today, I should have worn a balaclava. This is what I'm riding these days:



Surly Long Haul Trucker. As I was biking from one end of Purcell, where I was raised, to the other end (a whopping seven mile stretch), I had a new found respect for a town I had always thought of as bland and boring. I realized that this quaint, lazy little town is exactly the kind of town I want to bike through when I tour across America on my bike. I don't know when this bike tour is going to take place, maybe at the end of the summer, but I hope to one day span several states on my bike, rolling through small towns on little highways, stopping only to take pictures, sleep, and eat.

But first, the dreaded century! I'm still waiting on my heart rate monitor to arrive in the mail, plus I need new batteries for my cyclocomputer, and then the training will commence! In the meanwhile, I'm just getting my ass reacquainted with a bike seat.

In other news, I designed my boss's business cards and they finally arrived today, I gotta say Overnightprints.com does a damn fine job for a VERY reasonable price. We printed this:


Front


Back

with rounded corners. We ordered 500 of them and it was only about $40 total. I always google "overnightprints coupons" before I order and almost always get some kind of discount. They are awesome, and their staff is incredible and very timely at answering any questions you have for them. I highly recommend them! And I highly recommend myself if you want a design ;)

Since I have been doing so many designs lately, I think what I'm going to do is have ten or fifteen basic card designs to choose from for $50, or I will do a personalized design for $75 (plus cost of printing). It makes more sense to me to do it that way. Once I have my basic designs I'm going to put them in a portfolio and go around town to various businesses and promote myself.

Speaking of promotion! I got the fliers for the art show printed today and they look awesome! I went around Campus Corner and Main Street and put them all up. I'm really looking forward to this event, but I'm also kind of nervous about painting in front of everyone. I think I'm going to have to bring my iPod and block everything out.

I have a few oil paintings I'm working on at home to get me geared up for the event. I'll post them once they're done.

peace!