More bMouses....



Been creating a few new bMouse every weekend. These will all be for the Block Gallery show.





Zonkey Stop Signs


Also been creating some Zonkey Stop signs for the unveiling of the 2011 Art-On-The-Move... as part of the celebration for the opening of the City's Transit Operations Center on May 12.

NCMA Art of the Auction 2011



I just submitted my piece for the NCMA Art of the Auction 2011. The North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc., requested original works of art to be considered for inclusion in the inaugural Art of the Auction silent and live auction event.

The works of art selected for Art of the Auction will be displayed in East Building for public viewing beginning the evening of Friday, May 6, 2011, at a celebratory public kickoff event and will remain on view through Art of the Auction on May 21.

Because of limited space, only a select number of works will be chosen for inclusion in Art of the Auction. I hope mine makes the cut!

NCMA Art of the Auction



This is a piece I'm working on for the North Carolina Museum of Art's "Art of the Auction" event.

The thrill of the auction comes to the NCMA on May 21, 2011! Say Yes! to an exciting evening of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, silent and live auctions, and a high-energy afterparty—with all proceeds benefiting Museum exhibitions and education programs. On the auction block are exceptional works by artists from North Carolina and across the country.



This piece is titled "Am I Art?".



Along with the book mouse, the piece also contains several other ianwrittenoverbooks including "I Like Turtles" and "Another Crappy Art Book".



bMouse of IAm Art was selected from the many bCritters available

iPad - ProKeys - Street Art

Zonkey Street Art from iansands on Vimeo.

This video is really about me learning and testing out ProKeys on the ipad. So the pics are just something to wrap around the ditty I recorded using Prokeys on my ipad.

Prokeys is pretty sweet!

Bruce Springsteen

"No retreat baby no surrender" ~Bruce



Some of the Apex HS Art students wanted to make stencil art.. at the same time, the guy who teaches my son how to play guitar asked for some art for his studio.. I thought the two would go nicely together.



Stencils really aren't my thing. They are time consuming to make and all the cutting is sort of tedious and boring. Still I thought I would try it out, at least use it as the background image.

So here is my Springsteen painting..

Scan for Street Art

No Surrender!

If you are like me, you love to make street art but hate the hassle of being arrested.

Seriously, I've got better things to do on a Saturday night than sit in a jail cell and besides, I really don't look good in an orange jump suit. Just not my color.

But what's a boy to do?

The above QR scan links to the photo of the street art below

The answer: Scan for Street Art.

Utilizing the new QR scan technology, it's possible to let people see your street art without it really being there!

Here is how it works.




Step 1: Create some temporary street art, photograph it and then take it down right away before the po po show up.

Step 2: Upload photos of your street art to a website or blog.




Step 3: Generate a QR scan of the URL of your street art photo.

Step 4: Post flyers of your scan on telephone poles or poster friendly places. Rule of thumb, if little Johnny can post his "Lost Dog" flyer or grandma can post her "Garage Sale" sign, you're in good shape.

Step 5: Wait for the rest of the world to catch up with QR scanning.





Happy Street Arting!

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Class Set



Inspired by my trip to the National Portrait Gallery in DC, I'm starting a new series of paintings based on portraits of students.

The initial concept is to incorporate the portrait along with writings, scribbles, sketches, tweets and even Facebook status to create a mixed media portrait.. oh, and each student gets to pose with his or her favorite critter.



This first painting is a prototype of the series to be titled Class Set. The girl in the painting is Alex. The text and post-its are writings and scribbles from the previous Halle exhibit. I'm not sure who wrote what but since this was just a proof of concept painting, it's not really important. However, future paintings will contain scribbles and notes create by the person in the painting.

Coming Soon:

The one missing piece to this artwork is interactivity. I plan to incorporate moving parts, electronics and switches into each artwork. This will give viewers the ability to turn the art on and off and the artwork the ability to move and light up.



The Making Of:

The painting started by dropping torn pieces of scribbles, notes and post-its onto a piece of cardboard.



I painted over a photo of Alex. Since Alex is into photography, I thought it would be appropriate to incorporate her photography. plus, i'm really lazy. Why paint a portrait when I can paint by numbers?



So now I need to find some subjects.. Who wants to be painted??

I Met Obama... sort of

This weekend I visited the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in DC. We were on the way out when I wanted to check out one last room. i stuck my head through the entrance and right there on the wall was Shepard Fairey's hand-finished collage stencil and acrylic on paper version of the Obama Hope poster.





Seeing this poster as "art" is probably harder than most works of art.

First, you have to get past the image. When someone sees the much smaller sticker version, depending on their political swing, they have one of two reactions. Either they see hope and change or they are hoping for change in the next election.

Of course that is the purpose of the art... it's an iconic image.



I see past the political icon but get hung up on a second issue...

copyright infringement.

Even when I separate my political opinion of the man in the image, president Obama, I'm still left with my opinion of the second man, Shepard Fairey. The image reminds me of his conflict with the AP over the "borrowed" image.

As an art teacher, I'm constantly speaking to my students about copyright infringements.. Crime doesn't pay... Unless you "borrow" a photo from the AP and you're Shepard Fairey. The two parties recently reached an agreement to share all the proceeds from use of the image.



It wasn't till I turned the corner and saw the image in person that I was able to connect with the art.

It's a great piece.

Larger than I expected. Maybe 5 feet tall.

What you can't tell by looking at a two inch replica sticker is the background. The image was placed over newspaper and in some spots the ads and text are still visible through the ink.

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Zonkey Crossing