R.I.P. Michael Jackson 1958-2009

My friends, we are witnessing the passing of a legend...

I was literally standing across the street from his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when the news was broken to me by a stranger. Now I just got back from UCLA Medical Center (where he took his last breaths) to share the love with fellow hardcore MJ fans and rock out to his hits. On the way there we passed by his mansion off of Sunset Blvd, bombarded by news trucks and followers. It's unreal... He is untouchable--no one in history or even in the coming generations will ever be able to even come close to the performer and artist that he was.

As a kid I spent hours in front of the TV learning his dance moves, painted artwork inspired by him, befriended strangers just for the mere fact that they shared the same love for him as I do. THREE days ago I was in my car driving down to LA from the Bay, blasting the biggest hits from his life (of course I was playing them chronologically from Jackson 5 era to now!) and just singing along... I spent hours online a few months ago just trying to snag tickets for his London tour, but now I'll never have the privilege to see him moonwalk on stage..

He was an integral part of my childhood, and even through all the gossip and tabloids I still remained his number one fan--despite the controversy surrounding his life there is NO denying that he was an amazing performer, he was the King.

RIP, Mikey, you will truly be missed.



my contribution to Cover Band -Gallery1988 LA, Oct 2008
http://www.gallery1988.com

At the UCLA Medical Center..









Sharing our love for MJ with the press

Now I know why Twitter is so popular

I suck at this blogging thing!!! Twitter has become my best buddy (sometimes). Twitter = super condensed blog posts. Add me on there! twitter.com/paintbyword

I've moved back to Socal, Hollywood area. Doing design for entertainment/music/corporate clients, which seems to be my niche. In a nutshell I have been working on:

-Pre-production on my very first music video project (as creative director)
-lots of illustration work
-branding an exciting new startup
-working on my SOLO SHOW (my first!) which will open in August in San Francisco
-trying to get some new prints out
-and of course doing work for continuing clients
-newly added to the client roster: Skechers, Nickelodeon, Rogue Pictures

OK I'll try to update again real soon...thanks for reading...

TONIGHT: Opening Reception for Sweet Surrender at Gallery1988 SF!

"Nema Enters Slumberland"
14"x36"
Acrylic and oil on wood and plexiglass



"Sweet Surrender"
March 6 - 28, 2009

5-Woman Show @ Gallery1988 SF

Featuring:
Michelle 'Mia' Araujo
Krista Huot
Camilla d'Errico
Jennifer Tong
Allison Torneros

Opening Reception:
Friday, March 6 (7-10 PM)

ONLINE PREVIEW:
http://1988sweetsurrender.blogspot.com/
Starts at 12PM PST today


I'll be showing ten new pieces on paper, wood, and plexiglass. I didn't get to properly celebrate my Cut&Paste win last weekend, so I'm using this night as an opportunity to get into a fun drunken stupor. Come join us!! ;)

Last night @ Cut&Paste

I WON!!!!!
First Place as well as People's Choice ~! Which means I'm off to NY... again!

Many thanks to everyone that came out to support me, you guys were loud!!! I had so much fun, it was a great fantastic night, the venue was packed, and I couldn't have asked for better competitors (please check out their portfolios, AMAZING). Not only are they mad talented, but very down to earth and fun. And THANK YOU to my girl Chelsea, without your boobies and courage this would not have all been possible.

I'm in the middle of a Street Fighter battle so a much more detailed post w/ pictures will be coming soon ;)

Cut&Paste LIVE Webcast

Tonight's the big night!! It's game time at Cut&Paste in about 10 hours... If you can't make it to the event, you can still watch online at the Cut&Paste Webcast.

Tune in between 8-10pm PST to watch it all go down.!

http://webcast.cutandpaste.com/

Cut&Paste 2009

Holy Wacoms Batman!!!

I just found out that I made it to this year's Cut&Paste 2D competition in San Francisco. Cut&Paste is a digital design tournament in which 8 competitors go head to head on stage, creating designs under a ridiculous time constraint of 15 minutes. This year there are three different categories: 2D, 3D, and Motion Graphics. These same competitions will happen all around the world in other major cities. The winners that emerge from each will compete in the Global Competition in New York.

From the online entries, they chose people to compete in the Test Rounds, which oddly enough took place at the back of the Villain's clothing store on Haight in SF. It was nerve-wracking at the Test Rounds, so I can imagine how nuts it's going to be when we're all onstage. The San Francisco battle happens on Feb 28th, at the Galleria.

Watch this video from 2007:

Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament 2007 from Cut&Paste on Vimeo.

We are Scientists

The website we designed for We Are Scientists on MTV's Engine Room is now online!!! I'm a little bummed that they didn't use the original paper napkin background, but it all still looks good. Remember, we dropped a few easter eggs throughout the site (animations courtesy of Max), so try to find them. Look for a unicorn, a dog, and a cat. I'm really happy to see it live, and that I can link to it as a portfolio piece. There were so many things I would have done differently about the look and overall design of the site, but mind you we only had 2 1/2 days to complete this, and the WAS boys were looking for something SUPER simple to begin with.. So with that said:

Enjoy.

http://www.wearescientists.com

Merry Christmas from me :D

Laser tag

Here is a small preview of the project that I've got in the works... All the elements are finally coming together, including our laser-cut hang tags we just received in the mail yesterday morning! I couldn't stop looking at them. The material makes me excited. :D The design is cut into double corrugated cardboard, so the cross section looks very delicate, forming its own sort of architecture on the inside.

Pages from my sketchbook

From my trusty Moleskin: Gnarled blobs and girl-on-girl embraces.

CircleDot Creative - new logo

Damn. It's been crazy busy lately!! And I feel like I say that or something like it every time I blog. But I'm serious. I just started up another project with some buddies, which I can't talk too much about, but it shall soon be revealed in the months to come.. *evil laugh* Last month I brought on 3 ridiculously amazing assistants to help us out (Brianna, Ian, and Brittany), so with just a little bit less weight off my shoulders, I have a tiny second to blog. :) Oh! I should probably explain the image up there, right? ^^ 8 months ago when I graduated, I decided to make CircleDot a full-time endeavor. I used my Creative Internet class at UCLA as a way to work on my company's website and identity. But because it was initially done for a class, I didn't really have time to give the designs much thought. So now I'm working on a website re-design (the new site should launch in the next few days or so), and last night I just finished reworking my logo, even though the original logo wasn't even a year old. I feel like this one represents more of my style.

The old logo. Get outta here!

President Obama 2008

WE DID IT.

Oh. Wow. Excuse my language, but FUCK YEAH!!! Words cannot express how proud I am of my country at this moment, for electing Barack Obama into office. I really wish him the best of luck, it's not going to be an easy job taking on Bush's legacy, but someone's got to do it. I'm just glad it's him. I'm really, really sad that Prop 8 passed though. As your quintessential f*g hag (haha, just kidding), I have tons of very close gay friends whose rights are still limited, like second-class citizens. It's only a matter of time though.

Finding out that Obama won was pretty anti-climactic for me. I was at the mall (a place that I rarely even visit) and wasn't keeping track of the time. I wish I was at home to see it on my tv screen. Or at a bar clinking beer glasses and cheering my ass off. My stomach hurts from the free Krispy Kreme donut and Starbucks coffee. I claimed my free coffee twice today. Once would've probably sufficed but I'm a dumbass and got one more cup later in the day just because I knew I could.

Since June I've been working with ProjectHope 08 for the Obama Campaign, designing their website/e-commerce store. We just put out a 14-month collector's calendar that I designed to commemorate the glorious event (and thank god he was elected, or else we would have looked stupid for making it). It's not exactly my usual style, but it tells you which day of the week/month it is, which is pretty essential to any calendar.

Tonight: Gallery1988 LA's "Cover Band"

Just a reminder, tonight is Gallery1988 LA's opening reception for Cover Band, where over 50 artists take classic album covers and go nuts to create new pieces of art.

Here's the info you need:
Gallery1988 LA
7020 Melrose Ave.
7-10pm

Here's my entry for the show in all its gory guts and glory:


See you tonight!

Episode 4: Website Challenge!

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max laughs his head off in this bonus scene:
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You NEED to check out WeAreScientists.com, Max had every reason to cry from laughter. Their essays on there are f*cking hilarious!!!!

TNA = Team North America!

So the third episode of the Engine Room has aired, and I hope you're enjoying it so far, if you've been watching at all. For those of you that haven't caught it yet-- the episodes are only 8-9 minutes long, and you can watch them all following this post.

Sucks that the episodes are so short. I love watching it though, observing from both a production and a regular viewer's perspective. Out of all the footage (hours upon hours of footage!), it's pretty funny seeing which clips they actually decide to put on the air. Sigh. I really miss everyone from the cast. Everyone was so goofy and fun and talented and really good looking.

On MTVEngineRoom.com, you can watch bonus scenes, view portfolios, and check out each team's challenge entries on their respective team pages.



EPISODE 1 - WORLD PREMIERE:
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EPISODE 2 - ALL HANDS ON DECK
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EPISODE 3 - MIX & MASH
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