Things are gonna start happening for me now!

Related Designs:

So there’s a lot of new stuff coming your way from Ex-Boyfriend. We finally got around to posting my two newest designs, Eight vs. Ate and Transylvania Is 4 Lovers. I’m hoping to get at least one or two more up by the end of the week; I know it’s been a bit quiet in that regard lately. Don’t worry, though. I’m on it!

I also put the finishing touches on a new site design this weekend. Still a few minor things to do before that goes up, but I’m hoping to have it up later this week as well. The pitfalls of running a business with just two people!

Anyway, here are the new designs:

And just so you don’t think this post is all about MY shizz, here’s a pretty cool art blog I discovered via Thrillist.com a couple weeks ago: It’s called Ten Paces and Draw, and the concept behind it is that the blog contributors come up with a conceptual theme and then invite artists to work collaboratively on a piece that reflects the given theme. One artist starts off and creates a sketch inspired by the theme, and then passes it off to another artist who completes it. It’s a very cool idea. One of my favorite recent pieces is this collaboration between Kyle Fewell and fellow Baltimore-based illustrator Ariyana Suvarnasuddhi. Check out their other stuff; it’s very good!

So after a quick diversion into the robotic realm last week, I thought I’d wrap up this two-part series about my recent European escapades!

Previously I posted some pics of the cool art to be seen in Oslo, Norway and the choicest selections from Berlin’s East Side Gallery. This week’s focus is a bit more on Berlin’s excellent street art scene.

This awesome Japanese woodcut-style portrait decorated the side of a hotel across the street from the East Side Gallery facing the Spree River. We really loved the economical use of color and elegant contours and just thought in general it was great art AND marketing for the hotel; it’s hard to miss AND hard to forget.

After a couple of mis-steps seeking out the cream of the art scene crop that we’d heard so much about before arriving in Berlin, we asked the proprietor of Big Brobot, a very cool book/toy/comic/t-shirt shop in the Friedrichshain section of the city, if he could recommend any good galleries that exhibited more street art and pop art (as opposed to the truly awful installations we’d seen up to that point.) He kindly pointed us in the direction of the NeuroTitan gallery and shop.

After a couple of missed turns, we finally were pointed in the direction of the correct alley leading to the gallery. Once we stepped into the alley, we were greeted with some really wonderful pieces of street art, from spray can art to traditional media to paste-ups.

The alley then led into a courtyard that featured this very cool steam-powered sculpture of a steampunk bat-creature with flapping wings, roving eyes, and flailing proboscis. I really wish I’d switched on my video camera to catch it in action!

Finally, to get to the NeuroTitan gallery, we had to climb a few flights of stairs to enter the shop area before checking out the exhibit. While the exhibit was pretty “meh”, the trip up the stairs was awesome, with the walls just COVERED in really cool graffiti and street art. One of our favorites was the “Fashion Chimp” ad paste-up, done in the style of a 1930s-40s women’s magazine. Who wouldn’t want a giant, life-sized “fashion chimp” for their home?

That pretty much wraps up our 2011 European adventure. Sad as we were not to be able to make it to Tokyo, it was an excellent diversion none the less, and hopefully the planet is done kicking Japan’s ass for a few years and we can make it over there soon.

In OTHER Ex-Boyfriend news—AT LEAST two new designs are going to be up by the end of this week. If you or someone you know is into vampires, kitties, and/or kawaii-style art, be sure to check back!

ALSO: Be sure to tune into The Daily Show on Comedy Central tonight at 11pm. Our good friend Jackson Galaxy from Animal Planet will be sporting our very own Fuzz Aldrin this evening during Aasif Mandvi’s segment! Woot! Be sure to spread the word!

UPDATE: The Daily Show segment featuring Jackson Galaxy wearing Fuzz Aldrin tonight has been postponed thanks to some big political news today, but I’ll keep you guys updated about when it really airs!

First things first: many thanks to awesome artist D. Billy for his help in getting this design done. I had a bit of a blockage when I started it, and was trying to force it to be something it wasn’t. He talked me off the ledge, and inadvertently inspired me to steal a bit of his style to take it in a different direction to complete it. You should really check out his work here.

Now, onto the shirt. Here’s a close-up of the art:

Check it out on an actual shirt!

Now, without further ado, on to the kittens! These tiny balls of adorable were guests of ours for a few weeks until they’d beefed up enough to get adopted out at the MD SPCA. Say hello to Heidi and her brood, Biff, Cali, Gorby, Gary & Pepper!

Have a great weekend, guys! And if any of you are in or are going to be in the Philadelphia area with some time to kill next Saturday or Sunday, stop by the Art Star Craft Bazaar at Penn’s Landing to meet me at my booth—I’d love to meet you guys!

One of my goals for Ex-Boyfriend this year was to in some way film myself working on a design and create a time-lapsed clip of it to post on YouTube. I finally got around to starting this project about a week and a half ago, and finished the editing last night. It features most of the process that my newest design required—I had some camcorder issues, so I apologize for not including the actual sketching of the design concept. Just as well, since most of that footage probably would have featured more of the top of my head than the actual paper.

I also have to thank my good friend Gary for permitting me to soundtrack the clip with his band The Outdoors’ song ‘I’m Just Drifting’. If you like the track, feel free to become a fan on Facebook and visit their website. Their EP is excellent (Amazing? Sure, that works.), and if you live on the west coast, check them out live—they’re currently on tour!

Anyway, this one is for you guys, the fans—I hope you enjoy it

So I’ve been working furiously for about a week and a half on a new design that was pretty ambitious. It features a lot of different elements, two conflicting styles of art, all for kind of a weird payoff. But I think it looks pretty cool:

It’s called Robo Retro Carnival, and it’s sort of a synthesis of two of my favorite art and cultural movements of the 20th century: art nouveau, and futurism. Art nouveau poster design from the 1890′s and 1900′s features some of the coolest illustration and painting, with very dense and detailed work. In contrast, the space-age futurism of the 1950′s and 1960′s is all about clean lines, primary colors, and space (both figurative and literal), much like art deco in the 1920′s and 1930′s, but depicting artistic visions of the future.

So what better way to combine the two than with a robotic carnival?

I also decided to record myself working on this design, and hopefully will wrap up editing today and be able to post the video tomorrow. You won’t see much of me besides the top of my head, but hopefully it’ll be cool to watch this whole thing come together!

So much new art to share with you today, you guys. First, there’s Whale Trip, a lysergic odyssey of large proportions. Then, there’s International Boozing; the globe, re-imagined for those of us who do most of our cultural explorations with our livers:

But the art train doesn’t stop there! We have FIVE new designs from guest artist Hidden Eloise! The Last Red Rose, Baroness, The Pearl, Longing, and I’ll Make The Ocean My Home:

A new liquor store just opened in the neighborhood next to ours, and I of course had to scope out its beer selection. It was pretty impressive, and thankfully offered a different variety from the other stores in the area. I picked up two kinds, Allagash’s Tripel Ale (good, but not the best tripel I’ve had), and Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Marron. The PSM was pretty awesome; classified as a brown ale, but man, is it dark. Almost stout-y. And far be it from me to dump on Guinness, but PSM is much smoother and more complex, with a strong vanilla nose and flavor to go along with the oak-iness. Just a lot going on (in a good way), and a nice choice if you don’t like stouts much. Watch out, though—at 12% ABV, it packs a creeping wallop.

Also wanted to let you guys know about a couple new designs that just went up in the last day or two: Luchador Luchador, and Pho-King Delicious. Check ‘em out!

So much new art, you guys. A ridiculous amount. Not only do I have two new ones of my own in the can and more coming in the next week, but new guest artist Hidden Eloise dropped EIGHT beautiful new ones in my lap last week that I threw up last night. Here are a couple samples:

You can see the rest of Eloise’s designs here and here, and you can check out her online shop here to see her prints, jewelry postcards, etc. Now, everyone settle down and say hello to your new friend!

1. Where are you from (both originally and currently)?
I live in the North of England, in the rolling hills of Yorkshire. Not to be confused with “the” Shire, but pretty close none the less.

2. Has that at all shaped you as an artist, or otherwise affected your creative processes?
The forests around here are enchanting, old but orderly somehow, not brimming with life but with enough little creatures to make every walk interesting and surprising. Whether I actually walk the forests around here or look at them from my window and imagine I’m there, there is a lot of the land in my art.

3. Can you let us know about some other visual artists that you admire and draw inspiration from?
The three art movements that have influenced me more than anything are Art Nouveau, Japanese Ukiyo-e and the Dutch Golden Age. You can see all of them seeping into my art, especially my latest collection “War of the Roses”. For specific artists from those bygone days, I love Rembrandt and Utagawa Yoshitoshi. On a slightly related note, I adore Shin Yun-bok!

4. How about non-visual artists (musicians, friends, family, public figures, filmmakers, writers, etc)?
I think my art looks well while listening to Cocteau Twins (Ed. Note: Yes, definitely. Maybe something early, like Treasure, Garland, or Victorialand), though I don’t necessarily draw inspiration from their dreamy world directly.

5. Did you receive any formal art training, whether it be in college, or elective classes in high school, middle school and so on?
Before I spent many misplaced years in university (getting a degree in Architecture that I have exactly zero desire to now make use of) I spent a year studying fine art. It was a great year, practicing classical painting and sculpting and I did get some knowledge out of it. I am mostly self-taught though and the greatest learning period has been the last three years that I struck out as an indie artist.

6. What’s your creative process like? Do you work in silence, or with music/TV/some other background noise on? Do you have a specific space set aside for working on art? What are your preferred mediums?
First, I need ideas and this is something that cannot be controlled or easily quantified. I note down ideas and make sketches whenever and wherever they happen to appear in my mind and as a result I happen to have an impossible amount of notebooks! Sometimes my ideas are specific emotions that seek an image and sometimes there is a very specific image that I need to see on paper.

When I know what I want to work with my process changes radically. I work on every artwork persistently and analytically, with planning and many iterations until I’m satisfied. The whole process takes around 10 full days on average and during that time there is mostly music, some silence, no TV and as little background noise as possible.

I always start with pencil on paper and that could be anywhere in the house that I can find a flat enough surface. After the drawing is done I do most of the work at my desk and I paint most of the art digitally with my mighty Wacom Cintiq21UX, a tablet built onto a screen so I can draw with a digital pen directly. This is the technique I’m currently infatuated with and I’m still just scratching the surface of the possibilities.

7. Do you have any pop cultural guilty pleasures you’d like to admit to?
I like C.S.I. Las Vegas.  (Ed. Note: I’d like to make a snobby remark about this, but I just realized I’m a regular Gossip Girl viewer) It’s useful though! Never know when you’ll have to cover up a hideous crime… (Ed. Note: True.)

8. What are some of your favorite web haunts? Any blogs or websites you’d like to turn more people on to?
How about veganyumyum.com for animal-less eating? And then onto http://www.youtube.com/user/tedtalksdirector for something inspiring to watch during lunch! I think I have seen over 90% of all TED talks and I’m working on the last 10%!

9. Do you have any pets?
My kitchen-monster of a partner doesn’t count, I suppose. So no pets, not at the moment.

10. Beer, wine, or liquor? Which kind (ales, porters, pilsners, reds, whites, rums, vodkas)?
Some light white wine is as far as my relationship with alcohol goes these days.

11. If you had access to Doc Brown’s Delorean in Back to the Future, when in time would you go?
One of my hobbies is reading history. Especially history of the far east. So despite my better judgement, my heart takes me to 17th century Japan, just after the great wars ended. I would take in the sights and live the idealised dream for a short time, before running away as fast as possible, back to the future, to avoid the swift and terrible end that those rough and brutal times would gift me.

12. Cake, pie or cookies (ice cream and candy are also acceptable, but be specific)?
I am vegan for moral reasons, so pretty much all the sweets in the market are out of reach for me. So I make my own and I can be very specific in my desires! Currently in the fridge, wobbling blissfully, are a few tubs of vegan Japanese style caramel purin! Oh yes!

I know I’m off by a day, but cut me some slack; I’ve been laid low for nigh on two weeks by what has to be the worst cold I’ve ever had, and spent most of my weekend crying into my pajama sleeve over the fact that said cold prevented me from experiencing the Belgian Beer Festival being held mere blocks away. Plus, let’s not forget the high-maintenance kittens we’ve been fostering since Wednesday!

But enough of excuses; this week I’m happy to introduce two new designs in our guest artist series, courtesy of Milwaukee-based illustrator Matty Cipov: I Love Unicorns, and Tiger Owl.

Let’s go straight to the unicorn’s mouth for a little more background info on the artist, shall we?

1. Where are you from (both originally and currently)?
I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, raised in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and now I am back in MIlwaukee. I love it here.

2. Has that at all shaped you as an artist, or otherwise affected your creative processes?
The only thing I think being in the Milwaukee area, or the Midwest has done is that it has made me love our art scene rather than feel like I am lost in the fray of too many artists. Don’t get me wrong, we have a ton of good artists, but we aren’t overly choked with them like some other parts of the country are.

3. Can you let us know about some other visual artists that you admire and draw inspiration from?
Here is a quick list (if I think about it too much, it’ll be painful to compile this): JACK DAVIS… CHARLES BURNS… EGON SCHIELE…. DC COMICS… EC COMICS…  DANIEL CLOWES… JACK KIRBY…  AUBREY BEARDSLEY… and the list goes on and on and on…

4. How about non-visual artists (musicians, friends, family, public figures, filmmakers, writers, etc)?
Another quick list:  RICKY GERVAIS… CHARLES BUKOWSKI… LENNY BRUCE… TRACY MORGAN… CORMAC McCARTHY… RADIOHEAD… WILLIAM BURROUGHS… MARK BORCHARDT… MY GRANDMA… KISS… SCHARPLING AND WURSTER…  GEORGE ROMERO (circa the 1970′s and 1980′s)… STEVE COOGAN…  RICHARD PRYOR…  I could go on forever.

5. Did you receive any formal art training, whether it be in college, or elective classes in high school, middle school and so on?
When I was a youngster, I was always drawing. When I was in middle school and high school, I took as many art classes as I could wrap my brain around. And then for college, I attended the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where I got a Bachelors degree in Illustration. I’ve always wanted to be a professional artist.

6. What’s your creative process like? Do you work in silence, or with music/TV/some other background noise on? Do you have a specific space set aside for working on art? What are your preferred mediums?
I like getting right to final art. I don’t like letting sketching or penciling guide me too much. I like getting right to paint and ink and the process of building my compositions based off of the core ideas I might have, but allowing for tangents and experiments to mutate what I think the finished art will end up looking like. And when I am truly inspired, art making is a fast process. Because of that, I limit myself to just pencil, ink and acrylic paint markers.

And I could never work in silence. I always have something playing in the background.  It could be a food show… a comedy album… some crazy instrumental music… or possibly an episode of one of the most amazing shows ever: Parks and Recreation. That show always makes me laugh; it gets the giggles out of me more in 22 minutes than most hour and a half movies can. It’s good art fuel.

And yes, I do have an office in my basement, but dang, in the wintertime, it is really hard to be down there and draw. At this time of year, I prefer working on my bed.

7. Do you have any pop cultural guilty pleasures you’d like to admit to?
Not really. I am a major geek and always embraced all of the kitsch and corny stuff that brings me smiles. I don’t take myself too seriously and because of that, I don’t have too many entertainment bones in my closet. Just ask my wife!!!

8. What are some of your favorite web haunts? Any blogs or websites you’d like to turn more people on to?
I frequent far too many websites to even start this list. I have to keep my brain full of trivia… otherwise I think I might die. The internet keeps me full of facts and fun info and at times, confusion.

9. Do you have any pets?
Actually yes. Owing to my allergies to most furry critters, I have a pet cockatiel named Shadow. Many other parts of my life were enjoyed with pet turtles.

10. Beer, wine, or liquor? Which kind (ales, porters, pilsners, reds, whites, rums, vodkas)?
I enjoy a nice size glass of red wine most nights before bed. It helps me relax and shake off the intensity and over-thinking that I fill my days with all too often.

11. If you had access to Doc Brown’s Delorean in Back to the Future, when in time would you go?
I’d love to check out the 1950′s.  The comic scene… the toys… the candy… the decor… the movies… I would love to hang out in the fifties and have a whale of a time.

12. Cake, pie or cookies (ice cream and candy are also acceptable, but be specific)?
I go in and out of phases. Maybe a while ago, I would have told you I was more into cakes, or donuts. At the moment, I am most into all of the weird new fruity favors of gum that are coming out… but chocolate comes in a close second…. and who doesn’t love a slice of good pie????

Indeed, who doesn’t love a slice of good pie? You can check out more of Matty’s work at his Etsy shop and on his website. I encourage you to do so; it’s all very excellent!