Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Busy Spring

I know, what else is new.
busy busy busy


Here's a quick smash-through of what I've been up to the last couple months...

In March me and some of the ON!D crew participated in a live-painting event at the glamorous SOHO House Chicago
It was super fancy.  

With super-fancy cocktails.
It was an eight-hour event, which I think is the longest 'drink&draw' live-painting thing I've ever done.  Definitely a great way to spend a weekend!  

A couple days before that I was also live-painting, but in a slightly lower-brow setting at the Green Eye.  I was a panelist at Atomic Sketch - something I've always wanted to do!  And I shared the table with my friend Shayne, and a bunch of other rad artists.
Even sold a thing or too - enough to cover the cost of beer anyway.

Speaking of Drinking & Drawing
Somewhere in there, Max and I were passed the management duties for the Chicago Chapter of the Drink & Draw Social Club - so that's been fun.  We're doing monthly events at venues small and large, for the rest of the year.  Max drew this thing here for an event we did at Geek Bar, teaming up with the Chicago MST3K Group during their screening of "Werewolf".  Good times.

And then we went on a (very) quick vacation to the beach (it snowed)

And then we ran to Kalamazoo to see 
Neutral Milk Hotel
Which was an unbelievably wonderful experience.  

The day after that concert we came tearing back to Chicago, because we were both panelists on 
"Beer & Comics"
at C2E2!
This C2E2 panel was actually a live recording of the "Strange Brews" Podcast, where we shared the mic with reps from Revolution Brewery, Arcade Brewery, and 3Floyds Brewery.  

We explained the value of a good Drink & Draw and what Draw Until You Puke is all about, and drank a bit of Revolution's new "Fist City" beer. 
And - handed out these bitchin' zines that I made.
These "Beer & Comic" zines feature local Chicago Drink&Draw-ers that we've met in the last few months.  

Shortly after all that, we tabled at Chicago Zine Fest!
Where we sold a whole bunch of our dumb stuff.

So much cutting and stapling.
I made a new sketchbook zine for the event, called Mustache Bug.  It pulls together some of my favorite sketches since I moved to the city.  
Everyone was pretty upset about the cover image, which you can understand if you're from Chicago.


Another fun Chicago activity - entering the Arcade Brewery "Public Brew" contest.
I did one of these last Winter, where I tried my hand at digital art.  For this round I decided to go more hands-on and did the whole thing in watercolor.

While I didn't make the cut, I'm happy to have a design that I really like and feel is pretty solid.  It's a tough and fast competition!  

And now...
Still busy.  
Getting a new piece ready for a group show, opening in July.  Giant soft-sculpture commission about half-way complete.  Online shop update coming as soon as I can finish off some of the little bitey jerks lingering on my sewing table.  
And every day working in this big crazy building.  
And every day looking for what's next, in the beat-up pages of my sketchbook.


I'll have some links soon to where you can get copies of these Zines and things! 
In the meantime, if you're interested you can take a peek at my Patreon page, where I have all sorts of fun ways to bring home some of this fun stuff.

xoxox