T-Shirt Thursdays, Round 06

With all the shark-week buzz going on lately, this one was a no-brainer:

And you can buy it here in my RedBubble store.

T-Shirt Thursdays, Round 05

Another Thursday, another new t-shirt:

And you can buy it right here in my RedBubble store.

T-Shirt Thursdays, Round 04

A brand new piece in the t-shirt store tonight. Special thanks to my agent Tess and my friend Lynn for their encouragement on this one. And to Cynthia for wanting to get together and draw last week.

Oh, and you can buy the shirt right here.

T-Shirt Thursdays, Round 03

Whoops, fell down on the job this week. T-shirt Thursday came a day late:

And you can buy it right here.

Alex Stewart, One Layer at a Time.

So I checked out the 24 Artists 24 Hours art show recently. It was held at a great gallery on Hastings called Sheppard's Pie. You can get more info on the event here.

I dropped by on Saturday night about 6:30, and painting, drawing, sculpting, glassblowing and recording were all well underway. I'd come mainly to see my good buddy Alex Stewart, and offer my support (and a can of Full Throttle), but I ended up meeting a whole bunch of great, very talented local artists, any of whom I'd gladly go see again.

Alex had several pieces started when we got there, and over the next few hours we watched him work on all of them - one stencil at a time. The whole process was mesmerizing to witness. I decided then and there to interview Alex for this blog.

A few pics, then, before we get to the interview itself:

Now that you've survived the 24 Artists 24 Hours show, what's next on the horizon for you? Besides sleep, I mean.

Hah, oh and sleep I did, next up is most definitely a few group shows! I’ve met a lot of wicked artists in the past few months and really enjoy the collaborative process.

What are your longterm plans, if any?

Future plans include many things mainly starting up my own studio and gallery, I would love to be able to help other artists in a more substantial way. That and I have so many ideas floating around in my head I would truly love to start working collaboratively more often and having a dedicated space for that would simply be amazing.

I'm really diggin' your multi-layered stencil technique. How'd you develop that? Did it come from your automotive painting, or is it more of a graffiti thing?

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how it all came together, as a kid I remember my mom making stencils to put on whatever she may have been working on, so that could be where it all came from. I could also blame it on my job or my addiction to graffiti, the first time I attempted a multi-layered stencil was just after a rather long session on stumble-upon where I found a video of Logan Hicks working, after that I was hooked.

How do you know when one of the stencil pieces is done?

I never really know when a piece is finished, I’ll cut a stencil one day, spray it the next, and have it hanging in my house for weeks. Then one day I’ll walk by it and think, “god, that is bugging me,” then figure out some way to change it. So I guess what I’m saying is that my pieces are never truly finished in a traditional sense. They keep evolving as long as they are in my possession. Though there are a few exceptions, The skulls from the 24 hour show in my mind are finished, I am beyond happy with how they turned out!

It's kind of a generic question, but how did you get started drawing and painting? On a related note, are there any other artists in your family?

I’ve been told that as soon as I could hold a crayon I’ve been drawing. But I first started painting when my grandmother attempted to teach me to oil paint, which as you can see by how I work now didn’t entirely stick, I just don’t really have to patience for it. I love oil paintings (I love my grandmothers paintings) but it’s just not my medium. I guess in a way that answers the second part of that question. Both my Grandmother and Mom are artists, so I guess I come from a line of artists.

What other artists inspire you? Which ones would you most like to drink with? (You can include dead ones if you like.)

Hmmmm, artists that inspire me. I could list far to many, so I’ll just list the heavy hitters, Jeff Soto, Logan Hicks, and 2:12 are the three artists who’s work I check regularly just to see what they are up too. They all work in different fashions, that in my mind blend together so well. So I guess if I could bump into all three of them in the same bar, I would seem like a teenage girl at a spice girls concert in the 90s....

Would you say there's an underlying message to your work?

I’m not sure if there is a hidden message in all of my pieces, some yes, but mostly I just paint what I find beautiful and interesting.

Have you considered any sort of merchandising? Shirts, prints, your own energy drink... ?

This I have put a decent amount of thought into, and am currently working on a few things. So you’ll just have to keep a eye open!

Do you take commissions? What's the best way for people to contact you?

I do take commissions, when time and demand allows it, I can take on about 2-3 commissions a month depending on what else life throws at me. The best way to get ahold of me is either by email (enlifestudio@gmail.com) or just find me on twitter (@Enlifestudio) and get me a shout.

Is there anybody in particular you'd like to give a shoutout to?

Far to many! Mainly my friends and family for putting up with my ridiculousness, more than I care to count have I forgone a social life to paint, and I thank them for not disowning me for it.

Side note, anyone who brought me caffeine during the 24 hour show... I am forever indebted to you!

Thanks, Alex.

T-Shirt Thursdays, Round 02.

Just wanted to tell everybody that last week's inaugural installment of T-Shirt Thursdays was a success, and that we're back this week with two new options:

How do those look, whisky lovers?

T-Shirt Thursdays

So the Agent and I were talking earlier, and we thought that adding a new t-shirt design to my RedBubble store every week would be a nice idea.

But I got a little overexcited and added two instead:

You can buy 'em right here.

See you next week.

900 Days.

Yep, it's true - Saturday marked the 900th day of my Thousand Days Project. Since January 1st, 2010, I've drawn/painted every single day, without fail. That seemed like an almost-ridiculous goal at one point, but the end is definitely in sight now.

I didn't do anything special for Day 800, because I was well into Birthday Shenanigans Week. Day 700 was the 1st of December, and in addition to chipping away at the numerous paintings I was doing at the time, I drew a quick headshot of a beautiful blonde.

So with all that in mind, I figured that Day 900 needed something out of the ordinary -  not a metalflake painting, not a dinosaur, not a sketchbook diary piece. But what?

Meanwhile, one particular illustration of mine has lain dormant for a long time - since September 15th of 2011, to be exact. This has been a long-gestating piece. I first started it in the fall of 2010, but it kept getting set aside in favour of other projects.

The first rough iteration of it looked something like this:

As time went by I slowly got closer to finishing it. In mid-September I did the blueline pencils:

This was scanned and imported into my Photoshop document, and the base illustration was set aside on my bar, waiting for me to do the final linework in ink. Anybody who's had a drink at my place since then has seen it sitting there, though oddly enough, I don't recall anybody ever asking about it.

I posted an in-progress picture online the night of the 15th, and walked off to a date with destiny. My whole world changed that night, and definitely without warning. Another story for my memoirs, I guess.

And I've seen that illustration almost daily since the fateful night, till it got to the point where it was just part of the furniture.

Until I was finally ready to finish it.

So without further ado (or cryptic remarks), here it is, the fruits of my labour of Day 900/1000:

Bret Taylor
Vancouver, BC

Dinosaur-a-Day Project, Day 14/29.

Protoceratops:

Dinosaur-a-Day Project, Day 13/29.

Okay, now that the Metal Flake Remix show is out of the way, it's time for...

... more dinosaurs. Spinosaurus:

(Another one I first saw in the Extreme Dinosaurs exhibit.)