Bear?....Duck!

it must be a very small baby bear and a very big adult duck because they are the same size.

Choze's MySpace

the pittsburgh rapper that had me design him a flyer and CD cover also asked to have his myspace "pimped". check out the layout i made him. warning: NSFW, shirtless rap dude in furry hat.

Improvisational Musicians

this request also came with a style suggestion. the requester said he'd like something sketchy like the artist Sol Schwartz. it's not a problem that i've never heard of that artist because of the magic of google image search. here's an example:



the requester said this about Mr. Schwartz. "This particular artist has done a great deal of drawings of musicians like Emanuel Ax, Yo-Yo Ma and Rostropovich, and the way that he creates a sense of motion in his work reminds me so much of the way a great musician can create a sense of spontanaeity with their music, even if the score itself is nearly 2 centuries old." i hope i captured what he wanted.

Keepon

keepon is a robot designed for research on human social development. he dances! the guy doing research with him requested this painting. he studied at my university and i've actually worked with keepon before. and when i say "worked with" i actually mean "danced with". check out the videos. (i wrote the music for them too.)





and pop up videos





i was actually thinking about painting keepon to give away at the next gallery show i do but i ended up getting this request before i got to it. i'm really glad because if anyone should have a painting of keepon it's his researcher.

Semilarvatus Butterfly Fish

i just now noticed that the person requesting this actually asked for a school of semilarvatus butterfly fish. i guess i missed that when i first read her email. though she didn't say anything about it when i emailed her a picture of the finished painting so i guess it's ok. i actually would have liked to paint a whole school of fish, though. i'll have to read more carefully in the future.

Bacon and More Bacon....Plus Eggs and A Shark

ahh! i forgot two days in a row. darn the weekends distracting me. i was too busy being lara croft. yes, thats right. i was in costume a whole week before halloween. and i will be in costume on halloween and the weekend after as well. i'm a big fan of dressing up. so much that i guess it made me forget to post. now monday is extra special with three! which is cool because bacon and eggs is on the same post with bacon. when i got a request for a bacon sandwich, i titled the picture "bacon.jpg" because i thought to myself, "no one is ever going to request just a piece of bacon," and of course i was wrong. now bacon.jpg is a bacon sandwich but bacon2.jpg is a piece of bacon. plus i just created eggsbacon.jpg! what is with requesting bacon?! also, there's a shark.



atkins would have loved this art.



jews do not love this art.



duh dun.......duh dun...duh dun..duh da duh da duhdaduhdah!
....yeah that was supposed to be the music from jaws.

Third Boombox

since this was my third boombox i designed it a little differently. this is what the first two were like:

Ramized Rooster

a girl that's an aries (ram) and was born in the year of the rooster requested this. it reminds me of commissions from the past where artists were paid to make work that basically worships the patron. though those were usually portraits. i guess you could call this a portrait.

Toothbrush

a painting for hygiene enthusiasts.

Code Blue Flyer

i just finished another club flyer. it's going to be handed out every week instead of the usual one time use. they wanted it to fit into people's wallets so it's business card sized.

Choze CD Single

a pittsburgh rapper (the same guy for whom i recently designed a flyer) had me design his CD single cover too. here's what the front, back and inside look like.

E. A. Poe

a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe. if i had to imagine what the guy that wrote all those creepy stories looks like it would be exactly like he does look like in real life!

Peep Art

i'm not the first person to make marshmallow peep art. David Ottogalli makes sculptures from marshmallow peeps. you can see his work at peepshow.com. my favorite is his piece titled "the PEEPS shrine".

Game Jam, Pineapples and a Bike in a Garden

my company is hosting a game jam this weekend. for those who don't know - and i hope you don't because only nerds would know and i don't want nerds reading my blog :) - a game jam is an event where teams of game artists and programmers get together and develop video games in 24 hours. it's a giant nerd-fest sleepover. it started yesterday at 9 AM and i am still at it. ugh. what i do for my career. so anyways, that is my excuse for forgetting to post yesterday.



a guy asked for a girl's blue schwinn bike on a vegetable farm. odd but interesting.



this is the fourth pineapple i've painted. other fruit paintings i've done include a grapefruit, a bunch of grapes and an apple core. and i guess you can count the painting where a rhino is holding up a watermelon. i never could have guessed that pineapple would be most popular fruit request.

G Clef 3

the third G clef i've painted. this one looks like he's struggling to fit inside the canvas.

A Second Shakespeare Ninja

can you believe someone saw the first shakespearian ninja and thought he'd like one too?? those two requesters should be weirdo nerd friends together. and i don't mean the term "weirdo nerd" as an insult. its just the only thing i can think of to describe a person that would come up with "shakespearian ninja".

Steampunkbot

i'm not really sure what he was created to do but he does it with steam. for what function did people in the 1800's make robots?

Fox

this one was hard to give up. i try and stay disconnected to my paintings because they leave me immediately after they are created but i couldn't help it with this little guy. not that i actually would want to keep him. i have no where to put it and i have too many unclaimed paintings as it is. i just hope the owner appreciates him.

Buddah Reaching and Girl Gamer Dragon

i'm awful at remembering to post on the weekend. here are yesterday and today.



i would expect this request to come from a guy because it's clearly someone who wants to represent themselves as a dragon and loves video games. those two things seem like they're typically masculine. the request was actally from a girl which is quite cool. unless she had me paint it for her boyfriend. that would be dumb and ruin my excitement over this gender stereotype crushing art.



a guy emailed me asking if it was ok if he got a tattoo of the first painting i did of buddha. i told him it was quite acceptable and offered to paint him another. he asked that i put his arms in the air this time. i'll post pictures of the finished tattoo once he sends them to me.

Clover 2

this request was for a leaf clover. just leaf clover. i should have given it one leaf.

Choze and Halloween Flyers

i started doing flyers in my free time as freelance. i figured i'd start posting them because i like when i can post stuff other than free paintings. here are a couple i just finished. one is for club events coming up on halloween and the other was for a local rappers CD release concert.

Sunflower

if you plant birdseed you can grow birds. it will grow sunflowers and they'll attract birds. i believe that was the plot of a story i read in first grade.

Warm Penguin

this is the fourth penguin i've painted. so far they've all been on blue backgrounds so i thought i'd change it up this time and make a subtle (VERY subtle) reference to global warming by putting him on green. now i realize he's an african penguin and they live in warm climates anyway. there goes my statement.

Skull 4

to thank this guy for committing to my artwork for the rest of his life, i sent him a painting.

Nessys

this request was for loch ness monsters in love. it's kind of sad because there's only one loch ness monster. made up legendary creatures like nessy and bigfoot are doomed to walk the earth with no partner. maybe the abominable snowman could fall in love with chupacabra.

Tiger

a tiger cub was just born at the Pittsburgh zoo in May.

World Beer Festival, Bicycling Snake, Prince

this weekend i took a road trip with some friends and went to the World Beer Festival in Durham, NC. it was awesome and made me forget i have a blog. i'm making up for my lapse in memory with two posts today.



when i was asked to paint Prince i was tempted to just paint his symbol but he's too distinctive looking for me to pass up doing an actual portrait.



well, if you have no arms or legs you can't wear a vest and/or ride a bike. i guess i just explained the joke. this reminds me of a quote from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure where Pee-Wee's talking about a dream he had and he says, "i'm all alone. i'm rolling a big doughnut and this snake wearing a vest," before he gets cut off. i bet the snake in his dream was on a bike too. i imagine if a snake saw this painting...and had rational thought...he would hate it and hate me for making fun of something he has no control over and he'd pretend like he didn't want to do those two things anyway but secretly all snakes wonder what it would be like.

5th-ish Robot

this is the about the 5th robot i've painted that looks like this. 6th if you count the one i called "thickbot" that was the same design but thicker black lines. i've done a bunch more that look very different. i try to change it up when i can but this person requested one that looks like the first robot i did on an orange background.

Whittier Graphics

this is for a guy who teaches page layout and heads a school newspaper. an interesting note: he found my site by googling himself. his last name is spagnola.

Aromatoast

i got a request from a guy named Aromatost (i'm guessing its not on his birth certificate) to paint what i think aromatoast looks like. also, he lives in Germany. i wonder if aroma and toast mean something different there.