Stenciling in some time...

Lately, it's been rough finding a few hours here or there to do anything, much less create some art on the side... but somehow, some way... I managed to sneak in a minute or two per day, and nail down some visions that had been trapped in my head right where they belong: On paper and canvas!

The piece to the left here began some time ago as a digital work, and if you've been following along since 2004 or so, you'll recognize the basics here... I had wanted to throw in the '40 on the first Disturbingly Kool tee, but opted at the very last second to incorporate the Valley Custom-style creeper... This time around, well... it needed to be the '40, and I broke out the Mylar, frisket and tape, and began the process of creating stencils and masks, oh my!

I poked around the studio and garage for a few days as well, rounding up texturally interesting items, and a piece of expanded metal called to me, as well as some bubble wrap... and pretty soon, I had the background texture flying! Mixing paints, inks, and then mixing different mediums into those paints, I began to just go on "auto-pilot", letting the layers build themselves. I'm stoked about the result, and hope you dig it, too!

Next up was the painstaking task of cutting the stencils and masks, and figuring out a good system for layering them all, as I wanted to get this as detailed as possible, and have as much depth as I could, but still retain that flat, stencil look that brought this whole project on in the first place...

If you check out the detail shot to the right here, you'll see what I was after, as well as a slight shift in the stencils, a product of a very late night, but one of those "happy accidents" Bob Ross used to speak of. I learned a LOT about creating work in this manner, and will DEFINITELY do more... it's a blast, and really is a ton of fun to put down the stylus and mouse, and just attack materials with an X-Acto knife, some brushes, an the trusty Iwata twins... There's just that almost Zen moment when David Lee Roth's voice is drowned-out by the hum of the compressor, and the paints manage to somehow eek out of the air brush, loaded with extenders and matte and gloss medium. It's almost crazy to think that it had been so long since I created anything without the aid of computers, and shocking how different of a tan you get between a momitor's glow, and the lighting out in the shop!

I hope you dig this piece, as it's one of my favorites! (so much so, in fact, that I had it scanned, and am offering limited-edition print of this monster over on my site at www.problemchildkustoms.com) If you get time, please check it out, and if the mood strikes, pick up a print so that I can buy some more supplies!

Thanks again for checking it out...