Moved, Again

To streamline my online efforts I have moved all blogging to my website. Check me out, drop the follow and spit feedback and comments at Pistol River Creative

Thank you!!

New Graff

Here is a new "SIMPLE" on a 6-1/2' x 4' piece of plywood ripped out of my basement during the remodel. I love the way the color and the outline turned out and wished I could have left it alone. However, I would have been done painting almost immediately and I wasn't prepared to stop. I took a picture to remind me of how it was when I should have stopped.




I finished it out with much more color, and I like the final result quite a bit. I did lose a fair amount of the lettering detail that I was originally excited about. Regardless I'm not a big fan of where the top of the L hits the bend on the P. Oh well, I guess I need a bigger wall. Anyone have a wall I can paint?

New Art to further flood Portlands walls

With two new restaurant showings for the month of April, I finished up a few canvases to fully stock both places.

"Crowded Clouds"








"Bubble Gum"


"Over the Rainbow"

"Eh-sca-pe"

Colosso Art Show

Lined up another showing for the Month of April, I'll be hanging paintings and possibly drawings at Colosso on NE Broadway between 19th and 20th. Cool little place, come on down and grab some food and check out the interesting setting. I would plan a date over a party with a lot of friends for this spot....

I GOT BUMP!

It took me the better part of two full days working straight to get my install knocked down.

Componetry includes:

Dual DVD/Ipod/Bluetooth/MP3 head unit
Kicker KX series 200 Watt 4 channel Amp
JL Audio e1200 Mono Block Sub amp
(x2) JL 10WO Woofers
Custom box by Stereo Store Corvallis Oregon (Box was amazingly in-expensive and well built)

Amps are mounted under the driver and passenger seat. All in all, clean set up.

East Burn

Can you find the DT Original in the Photo Gallery from East Burn?

Good Neighbor Pizzeria

HOME.

It feels good to be HOME.

Some good developments coming up, showing for April at Good Neighbor Pizza which is right down the street in NE Portland on Dekum. I encourage you to check it out if you haven't, good food good brew - Classic Portland formula for success. At the end of April, they are throwing a party that everyone should go to - It's for me! HA! Sort of, kind of a thank you for showing/promotional/bring your friends to party type event. Good times, like I say it's a few blocks away...

I also have 2 maybe 3 commissions in working progress. A pure abstract then something more in the graffiti realm.

Graff'd lockers

Another Craig list success, I had the opportunity to nasty up some lockers from a guy named Scott. What a fun project, I picked up the lockers quite a few weeks ago and sprayed a bunch of Portland related stuff on all four sides.

Pistol River Creative

New year - 30 by 30

So I'm going to divert from my normal "here is my art and sub par music" blog theme. I guess it's time for some reflection since I started this blog. I started when I moved to Portland nearly a year and a half ago. I hadn't really started showing art, and I was still a hack at making music and music production. In this year and a half I have managed to keep art on constant rotation at the East Burn, I have done a live graff show that was a mediocre performance by me, I have had multiple group/solo and dual shows ranging from restaurants and a little bento stand in the pearl, to coffee shops from gladstone to beaverton. I have played my guitar live for both people, and for money in Washington and Oregon. I accomplished nearly everything simply by checking Craigs List.

I was inspired by Kim's 30 by 30 list of things she wanted to accomplish by 30 years old. I'm going to try to do the same.

1. Do a solo featured show in a reputible Gallery
2. Play live with another band
3. Jump out of an airplane (preferrably with a parachute)
4. Drive 101 to Southern California with Kim and Tele
5. Have my name in Willamette Weekly, for something cool
6. Own two properties
7. Ride Whistler
8. Ride Vail
9. Manage my own $5mm project, and beat the bid margin
10. Have a snowboard company print one of my designs on a board
11. Sell a painting for more than $1,000
12. Stick a clean frontside and backside 360 in the same day
13. Sells prints to a foreign country
14. Visit Europe
15. Visit South America
16. Give Kim her dream Hawaiin Vacation
17. Make 6 figures in one year
18. Own an American Telecaster
19. Record an album of original material
20. Get LEED certified
21. Replace the diamond in Kim's engagement ring with somethin' big (maybe even a diamond!)
22. Have more than 4 readers of this blog
23. Watch Adam in court
24. Pay off all debts except property
25. Go on a backpacking trip with my Dad and Brother
26. Go deep see fishing, and catch something huge
27. Give a tattoo
28. Be the best man in a wedding
29. Crash a wedding
30. See 30.

The rattle can

I love painting with a rattle can, I'm starting to get the hang of it. It's amazing all the possibilities the rattle can offers. Now I just have to figure out that third dimension. Tricky little SOB that one is. This peice of plywood actually used to be a wall in the basement!

Process

I had some intrigue (thanks Jacqueline) about the process I take to get from Paper to Digital. There are multiple ways I get from the drawing pad to the computer. Typically I just take a picture with my camera of the sketch because it's the easiest. This poses challenges as the lighting isn't always uniform because I don't really know how to operate a camera :) However, with some mural type designs it has provided for a very interesting color schemes like the two pictures below. Both were drawn simply with pencil on paper. Due to the differences in lighting I was able to add multiple colors.

However, there are times when everything needs to be uniform such as a screen printing applications. If this is the case, I'll scan in a drawing so I can get solid uniform colors like this design.

Still reaking of Havoc

The Havoc campaign is coming along nicely. The owner/operator has been a good guy to work with and so far seems to like the designs I put in front of him. We are nearly finalized on one design and may be working towards producing gear shortly.

Here are a few new design ideas.

Graffiti Design in progress

I have been working on some design ideas lately. I'm working on techniques to get drawings from paper formatted to print ready designs. I like the idea of having something I drew up wandering around some stranger halfway across the country. One of my first graffiti alias names that I drew was Havok. I haven't written that name in years and recently I found an upstart designer running a clothing company called Havoc Concepts. It's been fun to get back to writing this name.

ALso introducing Mr. Funky Fresh.

Abstract Painting Study

I love painting abstract because the final product can be four totally different peices. This latest peice is an example. If you have a painting on your wall for months or years at a time, you can lose interest in it. Rotating it allows you to constantly have a sense of progress, or change to keep you interested.

Telecaster - the new pup

Say hello to the newest addition to the Toomey Family.

"Telecaster" (Tele) was born 6 days after the wedding and is primarily black lab with a little bit of husky in her.

Leo Fender developed the Telecaster in the 1940's and has since became a legendary guitar. Used to record the first Zeppelin album, below you can see a young Jimmy Page work his violin bow in "Dazed and Confused."

Another very famous Tele slinger is Mr. Keef Richards, below.

New Loops

Sitting in a very croweded bombs away cafe watching Curtis Monette shred the life from his acoustic in an hour loop set that consisted of three songs was pretty amazing. I'm no where near that, but I do enjoy the loops and this weekend got a chance to record two looped jamps. Each song is 6 or 7 minutes long and one take.




BLUE TOES (Click to download)
A day or two before the heat was turned on.




LET THERE BE HEAT (Click to download)
Shortly after our house temperature evened out after finally getting the gas turned on to the house.

Pistol River Creative

Wow, it's been 2 solid months so I wrote a thought down. I have been busy with the wedding, the honeymoon and then coming back to this crazy work life I have been dealing with. Corvallis on monday, tuesday and wednesday night then Portland the rest of the nights. Finally moved into the house enough to where the garage is nearly a fully functional studio for painting or workshop for the home renovation projects.

I have turned out two new paintings, one is going to be my first attempt at donating art for the tax write off. It's going to be auction style, so however much it sells for I can write off my taxes. Any guesses if it'll sell? Anyone reading...? :)

Also new on the art front: Hung new show at Get Bento. A few new peices are up, including my new favorite below. By the way, eat there. It's delicious. It's the spot if you like Bento.

So, the big development in the artistic travels of portland. In my desperate attempts to raise money for my season pass at meadows this year I got this deal that will adequately cover my pass, and some deposit for canvas. As well as an extra nice dinner out for the wifey at the beach. As a result of this gig I needed to set up a company. Pistol River Creative, LLC is now where I move forward. The wonderful wife that she is, Kim has got me set up. A present arrived yesterday, and she had custom made biz cards with the new Pistol River creative business name and contact. The cool part is that there are 6 different designs on the back and they are all different paintings and designs that are diversified to represent different aspects of my creative directions. Very cool.

As always stay tuned with new work at Simplistyk Studios page.

Bamboo Grove

So I just got word the bamboo grove is closing down. I guess the business world isn't kind. It takes more than being a bad ass salon with great art gallery to make money and stay in business.

Here are some pics from the show at the beginning of the month.

I painted a character on one panel. I started when it was nearly dark, and while I LOVE the face, I'm not too crazy about the letters here.

Here is the peice that was created by an Artist I only know as John. (wierd how the artists in the show were John Greater, Jon McKee, this other John.... and then me.) This guy's peices were flying off the rack, everyone loved his work.

Straight Vegetable Oil, what an idea. This guys comes up to us saying his Cruiser runs on Vegetable Oil and he gets all these dirty looks from the Portland Granola types about driving a guzzler. He wanted it to tell the world his rig runs on the vegetable oil...I'm not sure this was the best idea. However, let me and Jon McKee drink our fill of the Blue Ribbon then ask us to paint a car and we will NOT turn it down!!

Vegas in two days....