Every cover is an opportunity. I took this opportunity to do a little beach clean up at Maui’s Kahului Harbor with my family for an hour before coming into the office. In that hour we filled three bags of trash. We only made it about 25 yards down the beach, so there’s still a lot of ongoing work that needs to happen. Hopefully this cover will inspire more people to pitch in. Oh, and I just shot it with my phone’s camera (very unprofessional)!
Out of all the covers I’ve done in the last 3 years (see my favorites here) this one is my #1 favorite. It brought my family together to do something good, it was good for the environment, it inspired action, it communicated the lead story in a snap, and it’s just so freaking beautiful to look at. This is also the last cover I’ll do before leaving my job at Mauitime and moving back to Portland to seek new adventures.
Anhoo, I just want to thank Maui for teaching us so much and letting us have so much fun while we lived here. ALOHA!
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My good pal Tripper Dungan curated a show at Grass Hut and it’s Van Themed!!!
Finally right?
He was kind enough to have me in the show along with: Hilary Pfeifer, Bwana Spoons, Martin Ontiveros, Meredith Dittmar, Brett Superstar, Eatcho, Adrienne Vita, Aaron Barker, Chelsea Fletcher, Caleb Highley, Steve “ManVan” Mathews, and Shawn Wolfe!
If you can’t go see the show in person, go see it online right now >>>>
As if making a book for my son Camper about surfing, friendship, and trail blazing wasn’t enough, I made him some toys from the characters in the book. Owl Kahanamoku (maybe related to Duke) and El Capitan (He only speaks Spanglish) have really come to life do to a collaboration with one of my favorite artists in the world Joseph Harmon. Joseph, an epic illustrator, sculpted from some silly sketches I sent him and hand-cast the toys in resin. We then hand-painted a solid collection. Go see the whole collection at the Department of Awesome. I think some are still available in the shop>>>
You know this organization “The Society of Publication Designers“? I don’t really, but they just laid a good honor on me. They say I made one of the “Top Alternative Newsweekly Covers of 2011“. Thanks, but I’m pretty fond of these other ones too >>>
Last winter a made a book for my son Camper called Owl’s Surf Club. It was a real sweet project to do just for him. You can see it here>>>
Since then I’ve rewritten it and changed up the illustration style to be a lot simpler and smaller for little hands. The kinds folks at Scout Books made the books for me and now I have enough to be able to share with more people then just Camper.
Enjoy.
You can pick one up here>>>
Since moving to Hawaii from Oregon I’ve been going through an artistic identity crisis. For the last ten years I’ve been painting pictures of elk, loggers, mushroom hunters, and giants evergreen trees. Now that I live in a totally new ecosystem I have no idea what to paint. It’s not simply that I don’t know the icons, it’s more that I don’t have experience living in this new environment. For example I haven’t caught a single fish even though I try every week, I even broke down and bought a fish from a fisher woman, got it home and had no idea how to clean it or cook it. I treated it like the trout or salmon I know how to deal with and the poor fish ended up smelling and tasting like burnt hair.
So I’ve been trying to start from scratch. I say in my head “I don’t know anything” then try to paint. A lot of ugly work has happened and I’m sure not going to show anyone. However, I finally started down a path that feels right.
Every Sunday I go surf at a beach park with the family called Launiupoko. The waves are totally different from what I’m used to in Oregon. They move different, they feel different, and they ride different. The folks I’m in the water with aren’t they type I’m used to either. A typical surf session in Oregon is head to toe wet suit with a white wet bearded faces poking out. Here I surf practically naked with old buff Hawaiians, slick Japanese ladies, and kids starting as early as 6 years old. What stirs me up the most is how elegant these people surf. They are the most graceful surfers I’ve ever been in the water with.
So these new paintings I’m working on are totally inspired by the beauty of surfing here in Maui. They’re painted on paper stained by local coffee and cell vinyl paint. The ones that are for sale are at the Department of Awesome here >>>
Last June I whipped up this little design riffing on some old skate/surf company logos for a special limited edition shirt for the show I did with some friends at Hurley’s )(space (read all about it here>>>)
Now the shirt is available for everyone online, so if you like awesome shirts, go get one already>>>
Since relocating to Happy Valley Maui I’ve started a new thing called the Department of Awesome. It’s a blog, an artist residency, and a creative services agency.
Although I’ll continue to post new projects here, the majority of my time will be spent over at the Dept. of Awesome. So start following by clicking the “like” button on the Facebook page >>>
In early May I was asked by the fine folks at Pinball Publishing to art direct some employee portraits. So I came up with a crazy papercraft special effects photo shoot that made the employee portraits tell a little story. The story about the simple Scout Books, or the “Little Books for Big Ideas”. These pocket books are great, I always have one on me and it’s basically saved my life on occasion.
I assembled a team with Jessie Bazata as the papercraft expert and Alin Dragulin as the photographer/videographer. With the team of volunteers (see list below) we made this totally unnecessary, but radical photoshoot happen.
We had a blast making this and now Pinball has their employee portraits to do whatever they want with.
Here you go world, enjoy!
Scout Books: Papercraft Photo Shoot: Behind the Scenes from Scout Books on Vimeo.
Papercraft Crew:
Jessie Bazata, Whitney Phu, Rory Phillips, Sean Garrison, Justin “Scrappers” Morrison, Francois Vigneault
Photo Shoot Crew:
Alin Dragulin, Justin “Scrappers” Morrison, Julian Gese, Priscilla Phitsanoukane, Andrea Raijer, Amy Morrison, Camper Morrison
Models:
Laura Whipple, Nicole Lavelle, Francois Vigneault, Dave Authier
So I made a design a while back in response to the black wave that hit Japan. I made prints to sell, and organized an art show will all my art buddies to raise money for Surfrider Japan. It worked and I was glad to help in the little way that I could. A couple months later Hurley had the same idea and I was honored to be in on the project.
Score a shirt HERE>>>
Read what the LA Times had to say about it HERE >>>
