Fair and Square

It's coming! It's almost here! I'M NOT READY! Er, um, that is to say, heeeeey guys! If it smells like sweat, paint, saw dust and polyurethane, it's only because Renegade Craft Fair 2012 is on its way to Chicago, and I'm making stuff!

The last time I partook in Chicago's largest craft fair was back in the year of twenty-and-ten, and it was the first of its kind for me. I learned a lot that weekend, and since then have done a few more craft fairs and C2E2, which is similar, but worlds different. Renegade is outside, along Division Avenue, between Damen and Paulina. If you happen to talk to a cloud in the next week or so, please ask them to keep the rain at bay that weekend. Last time we started off wet and ended things on a boil. Hopefully this year will be all-together mild.

A few weeks ago I made a few prototype cut-out-animals, which were made of cardboard. Cardboard has always been one of my favorite materials to fiddle with. I can't say why, exactly, but I'm sure it has something to do with the industrial, everyday-ness of it, that makes it a thrill to transform into something exciting. Also, it's cheap. I'm sure that contributes to its charm, for me, at least.

For these animals, with the thin legs of the giraffes and the delicate scallops of their manes, the cardboard was a little too rough around the edges, and would split, fray or bend unexpectedly. I went to the art supply store, and made the switch to Bass wood, which is like balsa wood, but quite a bit stronger, and harder to accidentally break, but still soft enough to cut with a craft knife or razor blade, and sands very easily.

The paint takes to it just like paper, once it's all sanded and ready to go, and the texture of the wood allows for some really pleasing dry-brush textures.

After the giraffe was ready to go, I recreated the elephant in the thinnest of the wood panels I bought. I have to say, the 1/4 inch panel, though harder to cut, makes a much more stable animal.

Once I had the process down, it was only a matter of time until I made a beautiful, enchanted unicorn.

So very magical!

Renegade Craft Fair is such a HUGE event, that I wanted to think of something I could make to catch eyes of passerbys, and draw them into my little tent. I had some 3/4 inch plywood panels left over from another project, and used a jigsaw to cut out another giraffe, this one just shy of a meter high, once slotted together. Martha is going to help me get him painted yellow this week, then I'll do the details.

Side note: if you have a REDICULOUS amount of work to do in three weeks' do not, under any circumstance of nerd-thusiasm or plain curiosity, DO NOT download the free Jurassic Park 'park management' games for ios. It's fun. And obsessive. And very distracting. Back to art!

This was my next creature' and my new favorite. He has quite a lot more detail than the others, and such a winning smile!

As Renegade draws closer, I've been trying to stay ahead of the potential stress storm closing in, and trying to keep moving along my list of little details like tags, signage, and a display plan. I decided to design a tag logo, and after wasting a night attempting (and failing) to carve a linoleum stamp with text as sharp as I wanted, gave up and turned to the professionals at Lakeview Rubber Stamp Co.

The stamp cost about $23, took two days to make, and achieves the exact look I was going for. these will serve a double purpose of title/price tag and website advert. Great!

 

That's where I'll be, down about Division and Paulina, in booth 156. I'm close to a DJ and a beer booth, so come party at my spot! There are a bunch, nay, a ton of talented artists involved with this thing, so come for the Ben, stay for the them! See you in about two weeks!

Come see me and all of the other Renegade crafters and artists at Chicago's Tenth Annual Renegade Craft Fair, September 8 and 9!

 

 

Boxing Teeth

Three or four days a week, I dry off my paintbrushes, store my pencils, and go to work as one of the three teachers at a preschool co-op playgroup, here in Chicago. Every August we have a special ceremony to see our oldest and boldest off into the wild territory of kindergarten and, appropriately, have a graduation ceremony.

My fellow teachers and I make a yearbook and help the kids fill out questionnaires, print hand and foot prints, and scribble on the 'autograph page' in the weeks leading up to graduation. For my personal bit, I give the parents an option of ordering a tooth box - a tradition that was active in this community before I was involved, but was handed off to me when they realized I was an artist.

This year I made nine, and took some photos to share here. They turned out pretty cute, and the kids and parents (who received them at graduation today) loved them. Mission accomplished!

 

Busy, like a, whataya call it? That rat thing with the flat tail. Like's trees. Buck teeth. Busy like one of those.

       By George and Bob-howdy, I have been keeping busy! You won't hear me complain (unless I'm complaining, that is), but man ALIVE! Here are the highlights from the last eight-to-ten weeks. 

       My good friend Joel was lucky enough to marry a lovely wife, who later brought along a sweet daughter. With Joel's birthday and Father's day fast approaching, Erin asked me to make this, which turned out lovely. That's Grace up on his shoulders, and everything was going great until I mailed it. 

       See, all of the zip codes in Lawrence, Kansas (where I used to live) go 606**, whereas all of the Chicago zips go 660**. I'm a feeble-minded young man, so I'll leave you to put the puzzle together and guess how I DERAILED a nice gifting experience. It took about two months to straighten itself out, and happened to get delivered while I was having a beer with Joel himself, in Kansas, just a few miles from his home. I could have biked it there faster! But it got there, and he loved it. FTW!

       Then, of course, there is this one. I'll keep it short: He hated it. End of story. 

       I never heard if he went through with using these dolls as a vehicle for a marriage proposal, which was their intent. Custom artwork can be tricky, and I am more than pleased to say this is my second (#2) dissatisfied customer EVER. In the end, his dissatisfaction had to do with the likeness, in that they looked old and fat, which, you see, nesting dolls, their general shape is... Oh, well.

        Back to happy! These kids turned out to love their portrait, all suited up to fight crime. It was a gift for the oldest childs' birthday (he's batman, there in the middle). The parents and kids were all very happy with it, I am pleased to share. 

       Next came the singularly most random and fun-to-paint wedding invitation OF ALL TIME. What you see here is the result of a request for a wedding invitation image that was to encompass, and I am quoting here, "mummies, sarcophagi, a T-Rex named Ivan, shrunken heads, the Berlin wall, something from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars,  the two grooms, and (their) cat, Carrie Fisher."

       Basically, awesome. They loved it, and I wish them a long and happy marriage! You may recognize the fellows and their cat from a previous post, in which they were made into little, adorable peg people.

        MUNCHIE! He's into adventures, apparently, which are chronicled verbally by my friend John and his wife, for whom this was a gift. We are all curious, John, and when the time comes, I expect to be considered for the illustration half of the award winning children's book. 

       MASKS! On toddlers! So very cute.

        These were commissioned as take-away party favors for a very special fourth birthday party. They were a hit!

        There was also a fox mask, which I somehow managed not to photograph. So cute!

       I made this elephant last night! I think I'll be pumping a few out to try to unload at Renegade Craft Fair, which I will again be participating in! Oh, boy, so much to do. 

       This giraffe happened today, and they are great friends, he and the elephant. I know because they TOLD ME. I need to sleep.

       Oh no they're CONSPIRING AGAINST ME!  Sorry for the 'instagramminess' of some of these photos, I try not to use them outside of the 'gram itself, but it had to happen if I wanted to get this up tonight. 

       As always, thanks for reading!

ART CAMP 2012!

       Before I get started, let me say, right out here in the open, that this post is admittedly about six weeks late. I wanted to get this on record the week I returned to sunny Chicagoland, but things happen to happen the way they happen, and sometimes that means all at once, in an unrelenting spiral of chaos and productivity. But that isn't always a bad thing!

       To Art Camp! This was the fourth year of camp and the group, while ever-changing, stayed mostly the same. The age range of the group has expanded further each year, with our youngest being seven, and this year the oldest was fourteen.

        We managed to all work well together, and the kids turned out some amazing work. The return of fiber arts and hand-sewn felt craft is evident here, with Drew looking TERRIFYING in his fox mask.

       One of the new mediums explored this year was animation. Here you can see Jackson hard at work in the animation corner, which we jokingly dubbed 'Pixar Jr.'

       On the last day, we invited parents to come see what we had been up to all week, and each of the campers had a table of their own to showcase their thirty-plus hours of work finished in the five days we met. Aidin had a lot to show, even though it seemed like that cupcake pillow might take the whole week to finish!

        It's worth mentioning that the real Pixar movie, Brave, opened a few days before we started our week, and so, showed up in some of the projects, most notably the family tapestry that Aidin recreated.

       All of that embroidery, those poor little fingers! And on the back?

         CUPCAKE!!!

       Eliot had a lot of fun sewing, painting and drawing, and helped maintain the 'geek-cred' we established in previous years by making Minecraft themed pillows.

       Payton and Julia, hard, hard at work. Sometimes you have to tear them away and remind them that they are children, and should enjoy life! (joke)

       Payton's body of work, complete with hand sewn puppet.

       Drew's table, thick with illustrative work - nice mixed media, too!

       Riddhi and her little brother Dhruv displayed together, initially, then had to use two tables when they realized how many pieces they had completed.

       Riddhi started to make a chicken plush, and ended up making three left-facing chickens (the feathers all on the same side), before she was able to focus and make an opposing side, to complete the stuffed bird.

       The extra lefties weren't a complete wash, though! She ended up with a beautifully embellished chicken pillow.

       Dhruv kept the video game theme alive in his awesomely retro Pac Man pillow.

       Macy worked hard all week honing her different interests like sewing, working toward a better grasp on drawing people with proper proportions, and wet-media. On day four, though, she found her calling...

       MARSHMALLOWS! So cute. Good job, Macy.

       It was a great week, and I was lucky and happy to spend it with such talented, focused kids. Great work, everyone! See you next summer. Until then, bask in the glory of the complete Art Camp 2012 Animation Collection: Volume 1! 

Doll-a, Doll-a Billz Y'all

It's been a few weeks since I was able to post any new work, so I thought I would take this opportunity (so many opportunites reveal themselves at 2 am) to catch you up on what has been happening in the Arts du Rumback. Sorry, that's supposed to be a French joke, but I have no French to speak of.

In March I took an e-mail through etsy inquiring about my policy on international shipping and the time-frame needed to complete a set of nesting dolls. It was from a lovely and complimentary Glasgaunder (new word!) named Katie. She was engaged to a handsom fellow named Nico (both pictured here through the cartoon-filter), who had proposed to her with a set of nesting dolls. Let's all say it together: Awwwwww!

She thought it only appropriate, and I must say, I agreed, that their wedding cake topper avatars be in the same form, in the style of Russian nesting dolls of olde. As it turns out (here I thumb snap my suspenders and smile a saucy grin), I'm the closest thing to a Russian craftsman between Glasgau and Chicago! I was happy to take the job, and made my best set yet.

The dads! I was absolutely charmed by the e-mail exchanges between Katie and I, and loved her guidance offered on the cothing. "Dad ALWAYS wears a navy round-neck jumper, pale blue collared shirt and blue jeans... That's when he's not in his cycling kit!" I had to lean on my Harry Potter lingo a bit t decipher things like jumper (pull-over sweater) and trainers (sneaks, kicks). I had to google her future-father-in-law's outfit detail though, as I had never heard suspenders reffered to as braces.

She asked for two extra 'second' dolls to give to her bridesmaids, her sister and a friend. Notice the yellow wellies with navy shorts on the sis - these were very precisely noted details.

Incidently, sis got to be painted twice - once in the complete set, and once in the add-on brdesmaid gift. Here are the mums and the sister. Look closely at the edge of each mum and you'll be able to guess how I fit seven family members on five dolls.

That's right, double-sided parents! That sounds like a sixties horror movie that never was. Yes, by the power of illustrative representation (and a lack of space) each of the parent pairs are represented back-to-back. I was pleased with the outcome, and thought it a fun and functional detail, as so many of the back-sides of these dolls are just butts and wasted space.

Here they are,one big happy family, soon to be joined by marraige and bound for life! Good luck, Katie and Nico! Many happy years await you.

And here... Carnage!

The next job on the list was this trio of peg people, ordered bythe magic of IRL (off-line) social networking! My friend Joel has a friend named Doug who I only knew through Twitter (okay, a little online). Doug and I met after years of digital acquaintance at C2E2, in April. Doug took my card, and gave it to Dustin (the bespecticaled fellow pictured here), who e-mailed me (okay, fine, the internet is an integral part of our everyday blah, blah, blah), and asked after peg people for a birthday gift.

Here they are! Actually, there they are, my postal tracking app tells me they've safely made it to Kansas, and are on the verge of being delivered. Look at that kitty! Too cute!

Then! (Garth Algar style) Then, I was finishing those guys up at naptime at preschool, and one of the parents saw them on a shelf and asked after them. These very hip and cool pegs you see here are the product of a LONG stint at my desk Friday. I finished them up bringht and early Saturday, and they were out the door, on their way to the doll-i-fied couple. He is a DJ and she a Photographer, so the client asked if I could come up with something dirivitive of their interests in lieu of a pet or family member. Boom! Crate of records and camera gear. Done, and done.

There! Three deadlines met, and two more to get started on. As always, e-mail me with any inquiries. I keep busy, but there is almost always room for one more!