Local Flavor Competition

I just did a quick design for tote bags. This is a competition for the Chez Panisse Foundation. They are an organization that supports teaching healthy food habits to children and growing in schoolyards.
The idea was to show a food specific to your region or country. It was quite nice to work on a design for a purpose again.
The first one is my adult one, but is being playful so that adults can go back to a more carefree time. It could also be grape juice though, eh? I also really like that Local almost reads as LoCal so it's double meaning.
I made up the saying on the avocado design after being inspired by reading the Organization's website and mission. And I love avocados. REALLY love avocados. With salt and a spoon love.

I will sleep tonight

Hello my dear internet,
It is a bit late for me right now. I stayed up quite late last night and woke up early to work on this new piece. I really wanted to finish it so it was worth it. Tomorrow starts painting 3 of the Monotone series. The first one was Jaded, the second was Aristocrat and now we move onto Birthday. I have had this idea for a while so finally getting to work on it is quite exciting. I already have the sketch done so tomorrow we go to canvas! Hooray!
I found a really great art store this past weekend called Sterlings. I had never heard of it, but it was a giant warehouse filled with everything from architectual tools to furniture to buy one get one free canvases! So of course, I left with six... If you are in the Orange County area, I would definitely check it out. They are a local business and have the human being discount(%25 off your order on anything, anytime), why would you give your money to anyone else?
Alright, so my hand is hurting and I am falling asleep. Onto the linking...
This one will enlarge when clicked on b/c I made it pretty big and I lost a lot of detail shrinking. I also have decided to start signing on everything. I can't really say anything if people want to print my work on their own. I just want them to know it came from somewhere. I am flattered that they would take the time to print and display my work actually. I feel that helps me b/c they are sharing and it they obviously loved it enough to want to look at it all the time. I am an advocate of piracy. I believe it helps the artists, but that is another discussion for when I am not so tired.

The Day After

Yesterday (which was my birthday) was such a fantastic day!! If you go to Six Flags, (I went to magic mountain) I definitely reccommend going on a weekday. I had the whole park to myself, yet I still couldn't make every ride. I love amusement parks and the more extreme the coasters the better. I went on my first standing and laying flat roller coaster. They will do anything now to change it up. One case of a trying too hard is X2 though. They wanted a 5th dimension experience so they added fire, sound and rotating seats. While this SOUNDS amazing, it really wasn't. It was too rough on numerous occasions where I just got a headache and the "sound" was just about every clip that WB has the rights to mashed into an intro with a badly syned Metallica song. Besides that, every other coaster was a thrill and it all ended with strawberry topped funnel cake.

My mom was in this past weekend, so I didn't get to do the finishing touches on the latest painting, but now ... HERE IT IS!!!
I don't know what to call it, but I have decided that this will be the last painting of a series that I will now be starting tomorrow. I have a better idea of how much time I need to paint each one so I am going to make it a 6 painting series not including this one. I do not like talking about work before it is done, so the subject matter and discussion will need to wait, but as always I am excited.