Still Reppin'

FIRST OF ALL
Okay, all of you seemed totally chill with seeing a 60 LB WOMBAT SPRAWLED ACROSS MY FATHERS LAP. I guess wombats are more common where you are from because I had no fucking idea what a wombat was before I saw that picture. I thought it was a bat. BUT SINCE YOU ARE SO CHILL AND CAN’T BE PHAZED BY NOTHING I might as well explain. My dad was in Australia for a couple of weeks for business and meeting some old friends. He took some great pictures and saw a lot of cool stuff. One of the things he happened to see was a zoo with all the shtuff that Australia has that we don’t. He said kangaroo’s are weird and koalas are soft. He was in Perth too, I told him to go to a psy-trance festival but I don’t think he did. Lamer. The fun doesn’t stop there though, after Australia he hit up Dubai on the way back, the country that holds 80% of the world’s cranes and the world’s ONLY seven star hotel. Pretty rad. He didn’t stay in that hotel (something like $2,000 a night) but he did see plenty of cranes, an indoor ski mountain, and the man made islands. Dubai sounds like a pretty fucking gnarly place. I want to go. Paul Van Dyk was playing a concert while he was there too, which is pretty cool. Again, my dad didn’t go.

Alright, I hope that explains the wombat-ness.
END OF FIRST OF ALLZ

I would have thought that the more stuff I do in Philadelphia the more often I’ll update this blog. It seems the opposite has happened and I have been so busy that I haven’t had the time to update at all. That, and I’m lazy.

Right now I am currently on the train back from home to school after Thanksgiving vacation. I’ll start here because it’s fresh in my mind and I can practically taste the turk still. It was most definitely a delicious Thanksgiving. We had it untraditionally at my house this year accompanied by our family friends from California. The oldest son goes to school in Pennsylvania at Bucknell so instead of flying him back to California they all decided to make a trip out of his vacation and visit New York. It also gave their daughter a chance to look at some of the schools in New York and Connecticut. The last time I saw them was about six or so years ago at Stamford Sierra Camp. Gawd that place was so fun.

The first Friday of the month was First Friday and I didn’t decide to sell anything this time either but I did go down to Old City and walk around and check out the scene. My friend Jackie met the owner of a pretty cool store that sells a lot of hot brands at Sneaker Pimps last month and she scored a gallery show of her own this Friday. Crazy good deal on her part, not only did she get a bunch of her stuff shown on First Friday in a gallery but she also sold over 100$ worth of work…including a couple of skate boards she made that you can see in pictures from the Sneaker Pimps post.

After that I saw the “Art of Can” gallery in the same building where REAL WORLD PHILADELPHIA (OMG) was held. This show had art made from the modification of Red Bull cans. Some of the stuff was so cool. There was a train, a crazy angel, a dress, some faces, a massive canvas that looked like a painting and many other awesome pieces made from cut up Red Bull cans. Not only that but they were giving out free Red Bull too! NOT ONLY THAT but there was a DJ who was spinning a decent house set and I IDed some Röyksopp and Ratatat so I enjoyed.

I have started my final project for Drawing class, which is a perspective view of Philadelphia. I’ve spent six hours drawing it already and I’ve barely covered the layouts of two buildings. My teacher wants us to focus the most on accuracy of planes and edges rather than finished shaded walls or whatever. I’m actually really excited to continue doing it but it’s going to be a bitch and a half to finish. I’ll post it up when it’s done (which won’t be for at least a couple more weeks). The only downside really is that I am on the ninth floor of Anderson (The main School of Art and Design building). I have to take the slowest elevator ever to the eighth floor, and then walk across the entire building, and then up a flight of stairs to the dustiest corridor I’ve ever seen. I chose the top floor because I think it’ll come out the best in the final drawing, but it’s hard to breathe and takes forever to get up there.

I’ve also started work on another project for Newgrounds. I’m not sure how many of you are aware but over the last three years I’ve participated in the first two World Sketchbook Tours that forum member, Luis Castanon, has set up. Basically I give this guy my information and he mails me a page to do whatever I want with. It was cool being a part of something that wasn’t just the intangible web pages of the Internet and worldwide as well. Hundreds of people participated including some of the best artists on the site. Now, however, Luis is doing something different. This time he set up one of those DIY Munny competitions. You know those blank Kid Robot models that people paint up? It’s basically those, except the figure it slightly smaller than a Munny and called an ‘I,WZL’. Luis sent about 20 out to various artists and I was to slow on the up keep so I ended up buying my own. He just told everyone to design and paint it however you like and mail it back and I’ll decide the winners. I don’t care about winning again but being part of the competition is great. Also, it’s super fun paint. I’ll post my two when I am done with them. The finished pieces will sit in the Newgrounds office for all to see.

I’ve started getting into sticker street art as well. I have all the stickers I need I just need to paint them and put them up. It really is pretty rad though cuz it takes about a million hours quicker to put up your piece and it’s so fast there is almost no worry of getting caught. I almost feel like there are more possibilities with stickers too. But where they excel, they lack in places were graffiti doesn’t. I guess there is sort of that balance with everything though. More on this later.

I’ll end this post with what I started with. Thanksgiving was fantastic. The best part of it by far was seeing everyone I haven’t seen at all for the last three months. Catching up and telling stories and reminiscing and going mental in celebration make being away from each other for so long totally worth it. I am absolutely in love with my school as I am sure most of you are, but Wepo is still home and seeing everyone is fantastic. Having this short break before the long Winter Vacation makes me look so forward to the weeks to come, the holiday season and then spending it all with the Wepo crew.

We were also thinking about you guys Harry, Chris and especially Jeremy… even though you were off in far away lands.

I love you all, this train needs to get to Philadelphia.

To many words, here is a picture of my roommate: