Art Interruptions is an annual public-art program, run by the City of Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture, for purposes of vitalizing selected Seattle neighborhoods with temporary Art Installations that create discovery and surprise.

I had the good fortune to be one of 7 artists selected in 2016 to activate the Rainier Valley East-West Neighborhood Greenway, which is a pedestrian path that runs through a neighborhood, connecting parks at each end.

My contribution to this project is a series of mini-murals tucked away behind street signs. When approached from one side, these look like ordinary signs, but peek behind them, and here's what you'll find:​

Was that fun? Yes it was! :)

How did this project come about?

The City of Seattle maintains (and periodically updates) artist rosters, and when opportunities like these come around, artists can apply to the projects with specific proposals. (In business jargon, it's an 'RFP'). The proposals are reviewed by an panel of jurors comprising of citizens, artists, and city officials, and artists are selected based on the match between the proposal and the site/audience requirements.

My original proposal for this project was to traverse the neighborhood and create surprise/discovery by painting whimsical little vignettes on various surfaces (corners, sidewalks, rocks, poles, utility boxes) etc. The panel loved the idea, and I was selected as a project artist, only to discover that actual painting on public and private surfaces was a no-no (too permanent, invites graffiti, has site permission issues, etc).

After much discussion, we concluded I should create temporary art primarily on Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT)-controlled surfaces - in this case neighborhood street signs. (And only particular kinds of signs that would not distract from pedestrian or traffic safety - e.g. no Stop signs, or School Crosswalk signs). 

The process involved:
* Identifying the most appropriate signs
* Finding a way to exactly measure the signs
* Creating designs that, as far as possible, took advantage of sign location, shape, or other attributes
* Finding a way to economically create 20+ designs 
* Finding a medium on which to render the designs so they could be temporarily attached and eventually removed
* Overseeing the fabrication
* Painstakingly trimming each design to fit it's intended site (ever notice those rounded corners on street signs?) 
* Finally, site installation - every one of these signs is 10 feet high!

​Here are some process photos:

For this project, I realized I would have to design everything digitally. (If I painted with real paints, I would have to scan the paintings before they could be printed on adhesive vinyl. By painting digitally, I could skip the scanning step altogether and save lots of time in the process). The above images show two designs in progress, hand-drawn on a computer. (The one on the left is Escher-inspired - Escher makes it look easy, but, trust me, repeating patterns are HARD!). Even with digital designs (hooray for UNDO), I did twenty designs taking about 4-6 hours each (=80-120 hours), meaning I was sitting in front of a computer for almost 3 full 40-hour work weeks. (Don't let anyone tell you artists don't work hard! :) ).  

Overall, this was an intense, but fun project. The art will be up Sept - end Dec 2016 so go see it anytime.  More details on the City Website. 

Many thanks to the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture and the Seattle Department of Transportation 1% for Art Funds for making this project happen.

Click below to see more details.

​If you made it this far, maybe you'd like to get a copy of this special Dragon print based on one of the Mini-Mural designs...?

"Ombrophobia (Fear of Rain)"
https://www.etsy.com/listing/466524174/ombrophobia-fear-of-rain-fun-dragon

Available in 3 different ready-to-frame sizes.

"Eye-Guy from Outer Space" is the second art piano I have created this summer, this one as part of Seattle's Pianos in the Parks program. 

Eye-Guy will be stationed at the north end of Downtown Bellevue Park (nearest Bellevue Square Mall) through Aug 13th at which time it will be auctioned off (for a good cause) to the highest bidder.  Make sure to check it out if you are in downtown Bellevue. (P.S. Here's a link to my other Summer Piano)

Here's the behind-the-scenes story:

Meet Mr. Tubehead:

Mr. Tubehead is a temporary art installation I recently created, as one of 6 selected artists, for the City of Auburn's Pianos on Parade annual summer art program. Mr. Tubehead invites viewers to "let their hair down (or up!), get goofy, and have lots of musical summer fun".

The inspiration for Mr. Tubehead started with a visit at the local hardware store. While wandering through the plumbing section (don't ask), I came across PVC pipe elbows (for the record, they are sewer pipes) and I loved the smoothness and curvature of the material, and the fact that certain types of elbows slot firmly into other elbows, much like building blocks, and can thus be used to create solid wavy shapes. This fact was filed away in the back of my head, and when I came across the opportunity to create an art-piano for the City of Auburn, I knew right away that:
1. I wanted to use the PVC sewer pipes in some way
2. I wanted to create a goofy looking piano to capture the spirit of goofy summer fun that the pianos are supposed to bring to their immediate environments.

Similar to the Robot Piano I created in Summer 2014, I decided this too would be an anthropomorphized creation, but this time I went back to my earliest cartooning roots, and decided to turn the piano into a black and white cartoon figure with the PVC pipes for hair. Hence the name, Mr. Tubehead.  
 
Mr. Tubehead will be on display at 144 E Main Street, Auburn WA  till Aug 10th 2015. If you are in the vicinity, be sure to check it out!

And now, here are some behind the scenes photos of the making of Mr. Tubehead: 

I was recently honored to be selected by the Spaceworks Tacoma program to create a mural at one of their rotating mural sites in downtown Tacoma. 

The finished mural is titled "CELEBRATION" and features 80 feet of Dancing Robots!  

Why 'Dancing Robots' you ask? Because, for me, this idea embodies - and celebrates ! - three things that make us, as a species, quintessentially human:
First: Our universal love for music and dance
Second: Our insatiable thirst to learn, discover, build, create (which leads us to build things like robots)
and Third: Our unique ability to ... smile at images like this. I mean, Dancing Robots?!? What could be more wacky! :)

The dance movements I chose to depict in the mural are actually based on dance forms from a variety of different cultures, regions, and eras so they truly reflect a culturally-diverse cross-section of human dances. (Note: not obvious from the images below is the days and days of preparation this project took!!).

Here's the making-of story in pictures, no words:

Many, many thanks to Spaceworks Tacoma for making this project happen!

The mural will be on display for a period of ONE YEAR (May 2015 through April 2016), after which the site will be repaved to make way for the next Spaceworks Mural. Check it out if you are in Tacoma, it is located close to the Tacoma Art Museum and Museum of Glass, on 11th between Broadway and Market. 
Directions here: https://goo.gl/maps/voi34 

Phase 2 of my residency project was to start tapping into the imagination of community kids and create fun creatures for my 35 foot mural painting. (See this post for details leading up to this point).

Back in September we collected over 200 drawings of imaginary creatures from kids aged 1 through 14. Here is a sampling of what those drawings looked like:

The process of incorporating these drawings comprised of the following steps: 

1. Identify the submissions that were most suitable for the mural
2. Plan out where in the mural the various creatures would go, paying attention to overall composition and density.
3. Make localized decisions about the look and feel of each creature, trying to avoid too much replication of color, texture, or creature attributes, while maintaining the essence of each child's drawing
4. Paint the creatures.

All of these are, of course, easier said than done :)

To identify the best prospects, I first sorted the drawings by age. One of the first things I had noticed in the submissions was that there is a remarkable change in kid's drawing ability around age 5-6. Older kids submitted much better rendered creatures and if I focused only on the quality of the drawings, this would edge out our younger contributors. Sorting by age allowed me to first look for the best entries within each age group. Additionally I wanted to make sure to find and incorporate any themes that were popular across age groups (examples: unicorns, flying cats, girl-creatures, butterflies...).

There were so many good submissions to choose from that it took me several days of sorting, grouping, weeding, winnowing, before I managed to identify the 80 strongest prospects. (I had originally planned to do less than 50, but there were so many deserving entries, I just couldn't leave them out!)

The next step was to try and figure out where to put everything, with a balance between land, water and air creatures, and trying to populate the landscape evenly. For this a large printout helped: 

Once I had the creatures roughly laid out across the landscape, I could start painting. For each creature I first sketched out some loose doodles till I found a form that seemed 'just right':

I then tried to figure out the colors based on where the creature was located in the landscape. This part is where the painting gets technical. 

For the overall image to read correctly, both as a landscape, and for the creatures to look like they are a part of the landscape, I have to be careful in my use of color and apply copious amounts of color theory. For example, I painted the landscape with cooler colors in the back and progressively warmer in the front to create a sense of space and depth. The colors for any particular creature have to fit the immediate local environment (otherwise it will look visually skewed). Since I am working with a limited number of light-safe colors, the color choices for any particular spot in the painting quickly become even more limited. The challenge then is to have multiple creatures next to each other without repeating the colors too obviously. Needless to say, figuring out the colors of the creatures took some concentrated thinking and planning, causing my per-creature painting-time estimate to mushroom by a factor of 4 to 6 (multiplied by about 75 creatures!!!)

[[[ To see the full set of transformations of kids drawings into fun creatures, see this facebook album. ]]]

But in the end, it was all fun. Here is a time-lapse video of some of the creatures being painted:

Several weeks later, after all the creatures had been painted, the last step was to weatherize the painting surface by putting a few clear coats over the paint, followed by a few coats of UV-safe varnish. The varnish layer is removable and also protects the underlying layers from graffiti. 

(Note; Varnishes are toxic - always use protective gear)

Once the varnishes have cured (which takes about a week or so), the mural is ready to install:

Here is a panorama of the installed mural:

Or better still, come see it in person. Click here for directions!

The Redmond Mural is being filled up by fun little critters based on designs submitted by kids. In this second Phase of the Permanent Installation Artist Residency project at VALA, I am taking the designs submitted by kids and re-imagining them as creatures that live in the imaginary landscape. See the full critter album, updated daily, on my Facebook Art Page (and please 'LIKE' the page while you are at it :) ).

The folks at the Redmond Reporter were kind enough to do a feature article on both my mural project and me(!) and then wonderful enough to put it on the front page. Read the printed article here and the online version here.

As Artist-In-Residence at VALA Eastside, I will be creating a giant painting 35-feet x 6-feet for permanent installation in Redmond Town Center (RTC). I call it a painting and not a mural, because I will be working with brushes and fine-art materials, not the usual spray paints and rollers that are typically employed for large scale murals. 

Painting outdoors in October in the Pacific NW is not a good idea so we decided I would paint on plywood panels
which would be subsequently installed on the site.

The site itself is oddly shaped so before I could start, the RTC management commissioned the creation of plywood panels sized to the site. [Technical note: The plywood used here is half-inch MDO (Medium Density Outdoor) plywood, which is specifically designed for outdoor usage, and is most commonly used for highway signs. It is generally weather resistant]. 

Plywood comes in standard 4' x 8' pieces. To fit the space required piecing together about 7-8 boards of plywood cut to size. A backing frame was also built on the site to support the plywood. 

Removing the panels and moving them indoors was easier said than done, as plywood has significant weight. [Technical note: Three-Forth inch MDO is stiffer than half-inch MDO, but also weighs 50% more, which is not a trivial matter if working on pieces like this alone. For most painting or murals, half-inch MDO should be good enough, unless you specifically need the additional thickness and strength]

Although MDO plywood is designed for outdoor use, the plywood still needs to be sealed with some form of latex or acrylic primer (your local paint store can make a recommendation). Generally two coats are recommended, including on the sides and back. This took a couple of days to finish. Getting the sides was tricky as it required lifting the panels off the ground and keeping them there till the primer dried.

I previously created a maquette (smaller, scale model) of my intended painting. In order to reproduce the maquette design, I would first have to transfer the design from the small scale to a larger scale. For this I used the time-tested method of gridding both source and destination and transferring the design one grid at a time. 

For the panels, I first sketched out a grid by drawing horizontal and vertical lines spaced 1 foot apart. (For lack of a 8-foot long ruler, I ended up using a piece of metal frame that I found lying around):

On my computer, I then sketched a proportional scaled grid on top of a photo of my maquette design:

Printed out, I now had a gridded design I could simply copy onto the larger grid using charcoal. 

The advantage of using charcoal is that it creates temporary lines that can be easily brushed off, removed or moved around. The downside is, you can lose the charcoal lines just as easily. The last step in transferring the design is to cover the charcoal lines with a thin layer of paint (in this case Raw Umber) which becomes permanent as it dries. 

Finally the design is captured and the panels are ready for paint:

On goes the paint:

[Interlude: How to paint a mountain in 8 steps:]

Sometimes to get the right effect, you have to do some crazy things, like making 8000 (!!!) of these vertical strokes:

At this point I realized I needed a better way to document the progress on the mural. So I purchased an inexpensive Interval-o-meter for my camera, set that up on a tripod on a timer, and started taking photos of the mural every thirty seconds. Later I transfer the photos to a tool like Windows Movie Maker, and turn the stills into a video. It takes 4 minutes of stills to produce 1 second of time-lapse. The following time-lapses capture the progress for the next 2 weeks of painting. You will see a lot change in the few days, and very little change towards the end.

( 1,500 individual trees. I must be crazy!)

Keep your eyes peeled below at around the 7-second mark:

That completes the first phase of this project, which was to put in the landscape background:

The second phase of this project is to take a large number of drawings of imaginary creatures contributed by kids and find a way to populate the landscape with creatures inspired by those drawings. More about that later!

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as the artist-in-residence at VALA Eastside, a non-profit arts organization based in Redmond. 

As part of this residency, I will be creating a permanent art installation in the heart of Redmond Town Center.. 

The space for this permanent artwork is located behind a water feature in Redmond Town Center that is extremely popular with kids and families.

 I therefore proposed that the artwork created in this residency be not just kid-friendly, but also involve community-kid participation. 

The project we finalized upon is for me to now create a mural of an imagined  northwest-landscape (titled 'Imagination Northwest') that will be populated by imaginary creatures inspired by drawings submitted by kids from the local community. 

As a first step I came up with a maquette (scale model) of the mural. 

Here is a progress-animation of the creation of the maquette:

On Sept. 20th, we (myself, VALA, and Redmond Town Center (RTC)) set up a booth at RTCs Goodfest event and invited visiting kids to submit drawings of any creature  they could imagine

There was tremendous and enthusiastic participation from kids ages 1-14. (Yes, even 1-year olds participated). Over the course of the day we collected 180 designs from kids.

My thinking at the start of the project was that I would be able to transform sketches kids made into something fun and colorful. 

(However turns out the kids are pretty resourceful, detailed, and colorful in their drawings, so I am going to have my work cut out for me) :)

To create the actual mural, RTC commissioned the creation of plywood panels sized to fit the site. These panels will be removed and moved to the VALA Art Center and Studio Spaces in Redmond. Over the course of October, I will be painting the mural inside VALA, taking the design from my maquette and incorporating into it creatures based on the kid's drawings. Follow along my blog and facebook page to see the project as it progresses.

In the meantime you are invited to come to my artist reception on October 10th at VALA. More details here: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/1475633479356789/1482823261971144/