unordinary

So Color Ink Book is this awesome art periodical that is themed as a coloring book and full of art by neat contemporary artists. I ran into their booth at comic-con and geeked out for a while on the concept and the nice, color-able papers and art.  THEN I emailed them, and they decided to interview me and print some of my art in next month’s issue. My mind is boggled. I am excited to see the book next month!

My interview is up here.

I also made a version of their mascot that you can color and draw your own nipples on. It’s a family-friendly book, but my itchy boob-drawing fingers got the best of me with that one.

Most of the art pages I did for the issue are pairs of visual antimetaboles. From Wikipedia:

“In rhetoric, antimetabole“… “is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (e.g., ‘I know what I like, and I like what I know’).”

They were so fun to draw! I hope it’s obvious enough which pairs of drawings are related.

I have been making lots of new stuff for this Saturday the 25th, when I will be doing Art Slam!

It’s happening during (and right next door to) the Adam’s Avenue Street Fair, which is free and has lots of neat things to see. Apparently there are carnival rides, AND Exene Cervenka. I will probably be absent from my post in front of Visual Art Supply when that happens.

I’ve been making bags again, but have been concentrating on less applique-heavy stuff. More prints and painting and a little bit of soft sculpture have replaced it. Here are some of the tote bags with faux-Rorschach prints and some printed with my new stencil, the fill-in-the-doctrine pope:

Another tote bag, a classy faux-suede handbag that is triple-Rorschach printed, and a hand-drawn shrunken head bag that converts into a utility belt pouch:

And four more shrunken head bags that can convert into utility belt pouches. All of these were done with a fun low-tech batik method I read about here:

One of the pouches being worn as a utility belt pouch. Please excuse the crazy eyes and the very brightly-lit room:

And, of course, kitties:

The pink head is soft-sculpted and painted, and the off-white face is hand-drawn on more faux suede.

I almost want to paper my walls with the fake Rorschach prints. I don’t think they were ever supposed to be in color, but I do think they’re pretty that way. I read a study once that claimed the most beautiful people were those whose faces were the most average and symmetrical. I mostly disagreed, personally, but I guess I at least find symmetry in abstract art visually appealing.

This lovely store in South Park (San Diego) called The Make Good just posted about their new Unordinary stuff in stock!

They are a really neat place. Everything in the store is handmade by artists and crafters. It’s like walking though a museum, but all the art is affordable and lots of it is wearable.

Go check it out if you’re in their neighborhood! I hope they are successful enough that more places like this can open in San Diego!

www.themakegood.com