Sounds and Masks

2014 has been quite fruitful and busy so far. No new 2-D art to show, but plenty of great pix and musix:

Greg's band, INSIDE THE SUN, has been playing a crazy amount of shows recently, and opening for some big (in the metal world) name bands too! I'm so proud of those guys, they're doing it so hard. This picture is from a show on February 9 at Chinatown Youth Center (obviously). For any people interested in playing gigs in Fresno, I highly suggest NOT playing here. Everything about this place sucks miserably. 

March 28 show at Cafe Infoshop, which, for a little DIY venue, was actually pretty great.

High On Fire rolled through last week to play the Fresno Tattoo Convention afterparty and the INSIDE THE SUN boys were invited to open for them! Getting the name around! Made some friends with a badass psychedelic black metal band from SLO called Bloodmoon. Definitely going to have to play more shows with those guys. Man, I'm so jealous I didn't get to play this show... It was good enough to get in for free though, I didn't even think I was going to be able to make it. Also, way back in January, ITS opened for Black Cobra and Weedeater. I took video and you can watch it HERE. 

Check out INSIDE THE SUN's very recently recorded album:



Last night was Moontrail's first show! For those that don't know, Moontrail is me on vox, Greg on bass, Nick (also plays in INSIDE THE SUN) on drums, and Josh on guitar. We got some video of the show, but all I have right now are some stills:

Hopefully we'll get some good "official" band pix soon, it's kind of hard to see the masks and costumes here. A great beginning, many more shows to come. Much thanks to all the great support we got, seeing so many familiar faces in the crowd is one of the best feelings ever. 

Some other stuff:

Obligatory garden picture, I still need to get one of the other plot. And a current one, this picture is actually from a month ago. Trying out some pole beans this year, tons of tomatoes and peppers as usual.

Melvin sleeps in the most ridiculous poses. She also just turned two years old. How do the years pass by so quickly?

San Joaquin River Gorge fun! Although, you know weather patterns are fucked up when you can go swimming in the San Joaquin in March...

Okay, I think that was enough blogging to tide me over for the next three months... Cheers!

Too many people

in the neighborhood. Art dump time. Hope everyone's 2014 is going alright.

Pastel pet portrait bundle! The last one was an actual commission, the first three were just on a whim.

 Some Joshua Tree inspired drawings. Also an Alphonse Mucha goat person.

Furries.

Doodles

Last, but not least, a show poster! Super pleased with this one, hopefully sales will be fruitful! Also, so excited for this show. I gotta sort through some photos, see if I have any worth uploading. And there will definitely be pix from this show soon. Man, existing on the internet is too much effort.

We'll Miss You Boomer

Lots 'o images today, and I even made an effort to not go too overboard. Art first:

That raccoon skull sketch helped propel me into doing several ball point pen and gouache studies, mostly from life.

Cat skull. 

Sun Bear, Thompson's Gazelle, Mandrill, Ethiopian Wolf, all referenced from random internet pix.

Some roses I cut that wilted way too fast.

Cactus and succulent obsession. I gotta draw more of these, they're pretty difficult but they have the most amazing growth patterns. I'm also trying to ID several mystery cacti, but it's insanely difficult due to somewhat poor classification systems. And I'm a noob. Now for pix:

Early March was my Grandpep's 90th birthday. He lives in Florida, so we had a little family reunion there. Got to see almost everyone, got mildly sick, walked on the beach nearly every day, ate tons of fish, as well as some Bowhead Whale blubber that my uncle's girlfriend brought down from Alaska. 

My housemate's cat got knocked up and had kittens. Super cute, but 6 cats is too many cats to have in a house. Luckily they all found homes. Get your cats fixed! 

Pretty old pic, taken on February 4, and we picked and ate it on February 18. Delicious fractals. 

Need more cacti. Watching that one in the middle bloom was amazing. Just a little one day event and then it was spent. I wish I could have time-lapse filmed it. 

Where the magic happens. Focusing on tomatoes and peppers this year. The massive bush in the back is catnip. Leftover winter lettuce patch and green onion gone to seed, three tomatoes (Early Girl, Green Zebra, Orange Russian), four peppers (Chocolate Bell, Mucho Nacho Jalapeno, Thai Dragon, Apache).

Cleared this space out and planted nasturtium, Sunsugar tomato, pimento, basil, and zinnia. Also more Thai Dragon and Apache peppers in pots. I kind of want to adopt them out, we don't really have any more room.

R.I.P Boomer the Black Legged Seriema. Had to put her down today.   :( She was one of my favorite birds at the bird show. We'll miss you.

Year of Black Water Snake

4 months is a long time to not post. Winter is a fairly inactive time for me, I'm very much looking forward to more sun and warmth. 

I did several mini gouache paintings of birds as last minute x-mas gifts for people. I need to do some more, I didn't get to gift everyone I meant to. I also forgot to scan four of them before I gave them away, oops. This is a Sandhill Crane.

American Kestrel and Peregrine Falcon

Greg and I started making feather and bead earrings, we'll have an Etsy account up soonish under the name Bird Droppings Crafts. These feathers are from the rear end region of a Scarlet Macaw. They are 100% poop free and worthy of being next to your face.

Greg models some Emu feather earrings. Also a good pic of his tat. I tattooed everything there except the hawk. Gotta give it a little touch up soon. 

The Winter Solstice Rabbit Harvest. Mike (in the back) looks a little disturbed. Killing ain't pretty, but we did our best to do it respectfully. 

 Meat face. Personally, I find this image both fascinating and beautiful. I tried to save this batch of skulls, but some critter decided to eat them. We're going about it properly this time, I just wanted to see if I could leave them out. We really try to make use of every part of our rabbits. We save and dry the feet, I'm working on brain tanning the pelts, we preserve the skulls. The only things that really get "wasted" are the entrails, which I leave out for the feral cats to eat, and the cooked bones.

BBQ rabbit, so delicious.

They get along.

Rabbit Season

I'll let the pix do most of the talking. But first, an intro: Haven't been working too much with 2-D visual art lately, there's just so much shit to take care of around here. Late fall brought an excellent harvest of eggplant and chili and bell peppers, but with colder weather approaching, the garden needed a crop change. We pulled all the summer veggies out and popped in some cheddar cauliflower, romanesco (the most badass veggie ever), brussels sprouts, golden and chioggia beets, and a few lettuce/baby greens patches. Really hoping everything turns out, I've read that Brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, etc family) can be kind of difficult to cultivate.

Also new to the backyard mini-homestead... Rabbits! Picked up two does and a buck about 2 months ago from a lady on craigslist. Both does are with litters right now, and we do plan on eating them. They're really fucking cute and it's going to suck to kill 'em, but that's the way she goes. Fuckin' way she goes...

Mama Charlene (we only named the breeders for record keeping's sake) with her few days old kits. 

Probably a week old here.

Three and a half weeks old and hopping around. Getting meatier... The brown guy in front looks exactly like its pep pep. 

Charlene and mini-Charlene.

Our other doe, Blackie (Twin Peaks style). She gave birth on Oct. 7.

Also, we planted a cactus garden. The Old Man of the Andes on the far right didn't make it, and the prickly pear got stomped by a very drunk friend and is attempting recovery. 

And I leave you with this gal we skinned a few weeks back. Our boss found her fairly freshly dead on the side of the road near his house and kindly bagged her and gave her to us. We'll hopefully be getting some coyote soon too. The pelt is in the freezer right now, but brain tanning will be happenin soon. 

More dead critters coming up in December. First rabbit slaughtering day will be on Winter Solstice (the 21). 

Oh yeah

This place. Have some months old things. Not much new art lately, but I have some relief printmaking ideas floating around in my head. It's just a matter of gathering all the materials, of which I have none...