SKETCHBOOK : Open Mic Night

     This is what I sketched while we were at the Gypsy Den in Santa Ana last night, watching our friend Matt do "open mic" night. Matt played guitar and sang, and did a great job. There were maybe one or two other acts that were okay, and the others were mostly endurance tests.
     I never know where to look when anybody other than Matt is up there. We sit very close to the stage, and I don't have much of a Poker face, so I'm afraid to look directly at the performer, in case I accidentally sneer, frown, or make a painy face. So it helps my nerves to have my sketchbook to disappear into. Especially if someone is reciting a poem, which is worse than having your teeth drilled.
     It was kind of cool, though, when a young lady at a table across the room somehow set some napkins on fire with the candle on her table. All of a sudden, while some guy was performing, there were flames and people running over to douse it with water.
     The lady was by herself, and had a strange honky afro. When she first walked in she had an attitude like, "I am a quirky, interesting lady!" But after the fire, she looked like she wanted to disappear into the floorboards.
     In my mind, I have re-written it so that her honky afro was what caught fire.




T-SHIRTS : "Razors"

"Razors" t-shirt design on Amazon, courtesy of "CleverT"

     This is another design I did for CleverT. There are two colorways available. One is for a black or dark shirt, and the other is for lighter or brighter colors.
     You can buy it on Amazon HERE.
   
I can't decide which background color I like better- red, or blue.

T-SHIRTS : Scream of the Bear

"Screaming Bear"
design for T-shirt by yours truly.

     I did another design that CleverT has released as a special limited run Tshirt. Here's a screenshot of the listing on Amazon:


     Click HERE to purchase it from Amazon!
    But please note, they run SMALL, so order several sizes larger than you think you'll need. I prefer men's 3x, because then it's comfortable and there's room to grow. Not that I plan to grow any fatter, but the trend is pretty obvious at this point.

T-SHIRTS : Valentine's Skull

     I had to order my own to make sure I liked the quality of Amazon's Tshirt printing, but I received mine today and it looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself. So Adam (CleverT owner) has the following two color versions of the shirt listed, and I've placed links below each. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Valentines-Vintage-Skullman-Mine-T-Shirt/dp/B01B3XPPFW/ref=sr_1_5?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1454026758&sr=1-5&nodeID=7141123011

http://www.amazon.com/Valentines-Mine-Heart-Skull-T-shirt/dp/B01AR4WNJ4/ref=sr_1_1?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1454027405&sr=1-1&nodeID=7141123011

T-SHIRTS : experimental Amazon product


     Above is a screenshot of a listing on Amazon for a T-shirt with some original artwork I did. This is a new thing I'm trying out.
     A high school friend contacted me recently, and said he's been selling T-shirts on Amazon through a new venture they have in which Amazon prints and ships the shirts on demand. My friend's company is "CleverT," and he asked if I'd be interested in doing some designs and sharing profits.
     What I'm most interested in is seeing what the quality of the printing on the shirts is like. Usually print-on-demand isn't the best quality. I've done CafePress before, and others like it, and the image is usually okay at first, but grows faint quickly, especially when washed.
     He's doing a test one for me, and I'm going to wait until I see Amazon's t-shirt printing quality before I start really promoting this.
     But I have to say it's nice to have somebody else doing the legwork to create the listing, and I like the way he worded the stuff about me and my artwork. So, that's cool.

Here's a link to the page: http://www.amazon.com/Valentines-Mine-Heart-Skull-T-shirt/dp/B01AR4V886/ref=sr_1_6?s=apparel&ie=UTF8&qid=1453135009&sr=1-6&nodeID=7141123011

ORIGINAL ART : "Castle" digital print

"Castle" digital version for print
     So I scanned every block of the original Castle structure before I glued it all together, and created a digital version of the real thing. Wasn't that clever of me? I did it partially because I half-expected my shoddy craftsmanship to result in the castle falling apart, or getting otherwise ruined.
     Which it sort of has. I put it out in the back yard and it got rained on, and it fell over and some of it came apart. But I'm fixing it. :)
     Such is the transitory nature of art, and life.