Florasaurus 2021

Each January Native Poppy, a flower shop in San Diego, runs a dinosaur and flower drawing contest they refer to as their Annual Florasaurus Competition. While I don't usually partake in many contests anymore, this one is definitely one I still very much enjoy.

This year's contest is accepting entries through Jan. 17. Native Poppy will select 4 finalists and voting will be from Jan. 20 to Jan. 24. Winners to be announced Jan. 27.

Below is my entered drawing, wish me luck!

Feel free to check out their Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/native_poppy

Evening Rose Sketch

Separate Songs

I have quite a love for the band Restorations, and one of my absolute favorite songs by them is Separate Songs. This band is one I can listen to any day of the week, when I am in just about any mood. That's more than I can say about many other bands and music groups. Separate Songs has some of the most well-written lyrics in my opinion. From "You said you worry about me leaving, I fear I'm already gone" to the chorus of "all singing the same time to separate songs" and going into the killer bridge...

Anyways, listen to it. Listen to all of LP3. While you're at it, listen to everything you can and then go see them in person and be wowed. 

The other night I played around with hand lettering ideas and came up with this. The next time you see it, it'll be on my gray 3/4 Bell helmet. Stay tuned, the 1shot is drying.

McCabe Drawings

I particularly enjoy making drawings for friends and family getting married, and I have posted a lot of these in the past. Most of the time I draw or get creative with letterforms, typically the beginning of the couple's last name. My friends Colleen and Paul got married on October 15th, and I needed a unique idea. The couple already have several "M" decorations for their married name of McCabe, so I abandoned the letterform idea. I was fortunate to be a bridesmaid in their wedding and was elated, and because of this I got a lot of details on how Colleen was planning her wedding, including the flowers in the bouquets. Recently I have been drawing some flowers with micron pens primarily, and the idea struck to do a series of drawings of flowers that would be in Colleen's bouquet. The three flowers I decided to choose to draw were a sunflower, a white rose and a white ranuculus. All were done with very thin micron pens at 8"x8". I added some boulder details with a thicker pen. I debated adding some color with chalk pastels but ended up being so pleased with the black and white prints that I kept them as is. They were double matted in white with a dark brown frame that reflected some gold when looked at in a certain light. Below are the final drawings and a photo of my bouquet from the wedding. Colleen and Paul had a gorgeous wedding, had a full on dance party at the reception and I am so happy to have been apart of the celebration. Congratulations to the McCabes!

mrsjjfive

One of the greatest things that has come out of being a part of the Aid to Injured Riders nonprofit has been the friendships I've developed with the other girls involved. I am proud to call them my friends and work on personal projects with them as well. Jodi Johnson has been a rock star behind the camera this season snapping some really awesome candids of racers and their teams. Because she was snapping more and more photos, she came to me wanting a logo for "mrsjjfive". I was happy to take on the project and sketched up some hand drawn logos one evening. After only one round of revisions we landed on one that she could use to make stickers, use it on autograph cards and, most importantly, as a watermark on her images she shares. Below are the various sketches that had been turned to vector and the final logo Jodi chose. 

 Above are the initial unorganized logo sketches on paper. Most times I sketch first to brainstorm various ideas.

 Above are those initial sketches in vector form. These are fairly rough vectors and I later cleaned up the line work on them. These are what I presented to Jodi for round one.

 The logos shown above are round two based on Jodi's feedback from round one. She wanted to incorporate some dots within the one logo so I provided various options to choose from.

Eventually she settled on the above logo that I had cleaned up, yet still allowed for the handwritten feel to remain. I look forward to seeing it around the flat track community!

Rose Paintings

This weekend the plan was to set up at a flea market in my hometown to sell a bunch of clothes, odds and ends and a few of my paintings I've been working on. Being that it is Mother's Day weekend I chose to paint a few roses in a traditional style on an 8"x10" canvas. Unfortunately, the weather does not seem to be favorable for an outdoor flea market, so the sales may not be high. However, if you would be interested in checking out the original paintings for purchase or have a piece for commission, let me know! I intend on also getting prints made of paintings and drawings in the future as well.

Five 8x10s Started, Two Completed

Doodle Turned Into Vector

Last evening I had a spike in creativity and felt the need to create some handwritten typography and toss it over one of my new photos from the trip to Austin. Below is one of the doodles I made last night and its transition from a sketch to vector to photograph.

Rose Drawings

Lately I have been drawing several roses in the same style. I refer to it somewhat as traditional, but not entirely. They are drawn with graphite pencil, microns, vine and then compressed charcoal for the deepest shades. I've painted them too, however, I prefer the softness that the blended charcoal gives them. Below are some final and progress drawings, expect to see a bunch more!

Doug!

Please meet Doug. Doug is a special doggie who now as an official portrait that has been turned into stickers & more. Doug even has an animated gif now. Doug is fancy.

8"x10" graphite pencil drawing with subtle Prismacolor accents.

Transition: From Paper to Clothing

One of my favorite aspects of art and design is seeing how an original idea can transform itself throughout different mediums. Since my work for Throttle Down Speed Co. is highly experimental, a t-shirt design for example, typically originates from a fine-art piece. Below is one example of how this has been done in the past.

Our Mens & Womens "Cafe-X" design was one of the first garments designed from a drawing. Below is the initial ink drawing that was later scanned and transformed into vector art.

Everything about it was handmade including the hand drawn typography. Once in vector form it was cleaned up and slightly modified to be a sleeker design.

Having this design in vector form, opened up the opportunities for not only a design for a garment, but also to be cut as a vinyl sticker. There were a few additional revisions for the vinyl application, especially when considering the black to be inverted to white.

In addition to vinyl, we got this design printed on a variety of heather grey t-shirts. The black on grey turned out seamless and it is one of my favorite shirts because of it's roots in raw creativity. 

I believe it is essential to know where the ideas are coming from and how they are evolving throughout time and through varieties of applications. One idea can transform itself to endless possibilities, which is what makes my career exciting. Stay tuned for more design transitions!

The OG Motorcycle Helmet

Painting is crazy important to me these days. I grew up a painter-mainly acrylics and watercolors, and thought I'd go to college to be a painting major. I'm glad my mind shifted to design for my education, however, I did manage to pick up my paintbrushes again about a year ago. One way I got into it was through this motorcycle helmet below. This was painted with white One Shot enamel on a friend's vintage helmet. The theme, if it is not already apparent, is bandana print. I'm really happy with how the piece came out, and I look forward to future helmet painting gigs through Throttle Down Speed Co.

AmericanMuscle T-shirt

This is the most recent apparel design I have designed for AmericanMuscle.com. It's a 3-color vector "splatter" design using the AM logo on a polyblend. See it on site now at americanmuscle.com/wet-track-tshirt.html. Photo taken by Justin Mondschein.

2 Wheel Soulmate

3 months ago I was sitting in the ER getting my shoulder popped back into place after picking myself off of the hood of a car from crashing my '74 CB360. That night my CB and I became blood brothers. Today I'd say I'd 95% healed, the exception being my scar from those 20 stitches. I'm incredibly grateful for the helmet that kept my head intact as well as all of the people that were with me during and after the accident. Not to worry, my motorcycle is still the love of my life and this drawing proves it. Micron pen, sharpie, graphite and compressed & vine charcoal on Rives BFK with post digital typeface added - 18x24 - CB360 wheel & traditional style roses & leaves

AmericanMuscle.com

Everyone: head on over to AmericanMuscle.com and browse their website!  Look out for some of my graphics I have done:)  They include the Labor Day Sale, September Sale, SR Performance, and the Pre-Painted Parts (all but the 99-04 gen).  Below is a sneak peak.