I won't do this all the time, but since this is a milestone I'm putting a Mobile Studio Blog post here on the regular-programming HerrSuite Blog.
Three Murals, One Week
On Thanksgiving day, I started a two-week painting trip from Williamsburg, VA to Springfiled, VA to Greencastle, PA, to White Lake, NY, to Brooklyn, NY, to Easton, PA, to East Petersburg, PA, to Chadd's Ford, PA, to Arlington, VA, and finally back home to Richmond, VA. YEAH.
I got to visit a lot of cool people and see a lot of cool art.... and I painted THREE MURALS in ONE WEEK! YEAH YEAH! Below are links to each project page:
My friend Ellie Doughty and I threw this cutie up in just NINE HOURS on a communal wall space belonging to Artique of the Bushwick neighborhood, 143 Central Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11221.
While in New York I saw a LOT of perfect step vans - apparently NYC USPS trucks are exactly what I need. Short axle base, not too long not too short, single rear wheels, barn doors, sliding doors on both sides, classy chrome fixtures, little snub nose and round headlights... so beautiful! Augh. If anyone knows how I can get my grubby paws on one of these, please tell me.
PS I am still posting updates on the truck hunt in the mobile studio blog, if you want to follow along as I continue to be unable to find a perfect vehicle that I can actually buy / afford.
End/Beginning??
I'm getting better about doing some housekeeping every month - financial stuff, web stuff, car stuff... guess who finally got an oil change after way way too much time... Also I don't know if I mentioned it on here but I moved from my apartment to a house a couple months ago, this month I pulled of some finishing 'moving in' touches like hanging pictures and attaching a ladder to my new loft bed (I am 8 years old, whatever).
Print by Lucy Koo
Prints by Sishir Bommakanti and Jamie Douglas
Last month I rekindled a small weekly critique group with the help of some lovely friends, so I've been getting awesome feedback on recent projects. I'm also getting closer to my goal of wrapping up current jobs in order to focus full-time on my mobile studio plans - the end/beginning is in sight!
I just finished a long-standing, way overdue job for a repeat client: Apropos Roasters is the back-of-shop coffee roasting business housed in Sefton Coffee. After painting a mural in Sefton's, Jennie-Mae (the owner) asked me to redesign the website for Apropos. My only web experience is on Squarespace sites - I designed my own site as well as www.alexandson.com
I'm happy with how the Apropos site came out, and I highly recommend using Squarespace if you are considering building your own site. More than anything else, they are set up to be customer-friendly and easy to understand (unlike some outdated yodeling web-hosting horror-shows I could mention).
This month I also did some rare live-painting at two events - the first was for Chesapeake Bank, with whom I worked to make their "It's All About Community" panels. All of my work with them has been unorthodox for me and fun to do; A+ clients <3
in-progress
The whole 4'x4' panel was painted during the 6-hour event (Party on the Avenues). I was working from photos of the attendees at last year's event, as well as the trees and rooflines of the surrounding neighborhood. This painting will soon be auctioned off online to benefit the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House near St. Mary's Hospital. I don't have great pictures of the finished product, but I'll definitely post something when the auction goes up, where they will certainly have some pictures :)
The second live-painting event was RVA Makerfest, which was a total blast and if you missed it you missed OUT. Participants are heavily encouraged to have a demo of their skill/trade/craft, so at my booth I was painting another 4x'4' panel, in addition to showing lots of process-work examples and my mural portfolio. This panel was also finished during the event, approx. 6 hours.
climbing is an important part of painting
my setup in the rotunda of the Science Museum of Virginia - oooo, ahhh
the finished piece
Happily, one of my best friends from school ended up buying this piece so it has quickly found a home!
Painting loose and fast on these two panels has been interesting - very fun and very design-driven - but it also reinforces my preference for the full prep process where I do a bunch of worrying and small studies. I'm not unhappy with these pieces, but I think large work deserves the full process.
Finally, I have a couple of new tiny gouache pieces to show off! Yay
Alex is cute
Route 5 during a meteor shower
I spend a lot of time at Sefton Coffee