First Thursday with CuriousDoodles and Diskgrunt!!!

Fresh off the Press! Tweet and Qwack cards!

I've been pretty busy the past two weeks, mostly printing stuff for other people, so it's been nice to have the press to myself the last couple of days, allowing me to get my "Tweet" and "Qwack" cards printed up! These will be available in my shop soon but if you happen to be in downtown portland for First Thursday art walk you can swing by to visit CuriousDoodles and I. We'll be between Kearny and Lovejoy on 13th from about 5pm till 9pm (weather permitting).

I'll also be showcasing a set of limited edition "Monsters v. Robots" wood panel prints tomorrow ( more on those later). So come visit and check out all the great artist and crafters. Thnx.

Reunion Shirts that Don't Suck

This is the second Reunion shirt to come out of The Pull this summer! Super low run ( only 15 shirts made along with a handful of posters) but a lot of fun to draw and print. This was originally design for an AA slate shirt, but do to the hastiness of the job we ended up using these heather gray shirts. While I still like the design, the line work doesn't pop as much as it could and part of me would love to see a second color. Click the image below for a closer look at the details of the illustration!

And speaking of reunion shirts that don't suck, check out this shirt CuriousDoodles recently printed at The Pull.

If anyone needs custom tee's designed/printed, let me know.

Minor Changes to the Blog

I've been pretty frustrated with the way images appeared in my blog, making most of my comics unreadable unless you clicked on it to open the full size image in a new window/tab. Finally, after a few complaints about my last post, I decided to take some time to fix it.

So I switched over to Edit Html and found 2 interesting things.

1) Blogger/Google set a scaled size for an uploaded image to display in your post

For my post blogger set the image size to 400px x 160px, really to small to read.

I simply adjusted that up to 600px x 250px But then I got a large fuzzy image.

That lead me to this second bit.

2) Blogger/Google creates a custom preview image at that scaled size. So you need to adjust your link to point to the original image and not the preview.

Great right? Wrong… Depending on your blogger template your post is probably now being cut off because it extends beyond the Post border. I found a quick easy tutorial at BlogBulk that shows how to edit your template to widen your blog. I've set mine now for a total size of 750px. This expands the post area to 600px and squeezes the side bar down to 120px.

Let me know what you think of the changes. I'm editing some of my more recent post so they fit this new standard better.

How to speak midwestern...

I just got back from visiting family in Illinois, and I have to say the amount of beef and cheese I ate was pretty absurd... I think I'm lucky to live where I do, there's so many healthy options for groceries and restaurants and a culture that promotes both eating right and respecting where your food comes from. My whole visit, I kept thinking about Food Inc., but there didn't seem to be much of a choice if you didn't want mass produced food.

i Heart Art PDX - Promo Silkscreen Flyers

I Heart Art PDX is a unique collaboration between Etsy.com, PNCA, and the Museum of Contemporary Craft that's goal "...is to support and advocate for Portland’s vibrant community of makers by fostering dialogue, inspiring activity, and offering access to resources that are otherwise difficult to find."

I was approached by Isaac Watson on doing some promotional flyers for them to hand out during this weekends "Super Colossal Spring Sale" that Crafty Wonderland is hosting at the convention center. Given that I missed the registration deadline for the craft fair, I thought this would be a great way to get some exposure there for my press, The Pull, while helping out the I Heart Art PDX organization there.

Everything about this project was done pretty last minute and in the middle of another print job. I was supplied the logo artwork and ended up creating the lil' monster illustration and adjusting the flyer layout to fit all the elements in. Once the design was done I was able to get 300 flyers printed in about 9 hours. That's not the fastest I've done, but but given I was working on my own, and throwing in a flash dry between color hits, I think I did pretty well time wise.

If you want to get one, be sure to swing by Crafty Wonder Land this weekend and visit the I Heart Art PDX table. On the back of the flyer are dates for various workshops being hosted throughout the spring and summer.

When I finished up my print job and started cleanup, I cracked open a Full Sail "A Light-Bodied Nonetheless Hella Good Limited Edition Lager" and was greeted with a very satisfying message.

Slo-Mo Beardo

Mr. Boom-Boctopus

Say me fantastic!

What's breakfast without...

diskgrunt vs. the mountain

This past weekend I tried my hand at Skiing up at Timberline. This was my first time on skis and I'm left with several scrapes, bruises, bumps, aches and pains. But I did succeed in falling less enough to want to head up again. So watch out Mt. Hood... I'm not done yet!

Pimple Puss and T Shirt Sale

Sorry for the lack of postings lately, I've got two comics in the works and some exciting news about my press coming soon... I hope to have more updates in the next few days. Please enjoy the pimple puss doodle above till then.

Oh... I also want to let you know that my Penguin and Polar Bear T Shirts are now on sale for $18 solo or the pair for $30 in my Etsy Shop. Get'em while supplies last!

Appropriate Attire

There is a lot that can, and should, be said about Lucille Battin, more so then I can put into a small comic. The one thing I would like to add though, is that the kindness and openness that Lucille received the world and those who came into her life is one of the many traits I see carried on in her children and grandchildren. I always feel privileged to have been welcomed into such a loving family when I moved out to Portland on nothing more then the promise of a couch. The Watsons and Battins have welcome me into their homes and lives with the kindness I can only assume they inherited from this loving woman.

In the wash...

Last week was kind of tough. I had to be at work super early on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to help setup and start some webex meetings. On top of that I was leaving work late most nights that week. By the time Friday mornings 5:30am wakeup rolled around I was seriously shower impaired and kept forgetting, as I dosed in and out consciousness what I had washed already. I'm seriously surprised I didn't drown a little...

OnStar branches out...

Beep & Boop Valentine's Special

There are moments in every robots life were the p-ram is blasted out, the preferences dumped and unfamiliar commands are issued as if some crazy love struck admin is sudo’ing thier heart out in a bash shell.This is one of those moments. Beep and Boop bot are meeting for the first time, and the binary floating around them is a flurry of terminal commands ushering in this new love…

Just in time for valentines day, the Beep and Boop Bot shirts are available now in my Etsy shop, singles for $20 or buy them both for $35. Each shirt is hand silkscreened with waterbased inks. And yes, the binary does translate to things like

Boopbot:~ Boopbot$ mkdir ~Library/Application Support/Heart

Your welcome to decode and descramble it all…

Robot Stationary Roundup

Looks like my "Beep & Boop" pocket notebooks were included in this great round up of Etsy Robot Themed stationary goods by We've Got Paper.

There's some great cards and items included in their list, check it out!

Resolution #3

Resolution #3 - Read More

So I've started this resolution off with Malcom Gladwells "What the Dog Saw" , a holiday gift and so far am enjoying it. That said, my yearly reading went from 20-30 books to like 3 or 4 books. I'd like to get it to at least 1 a month. Any must reads you might suggest for me? I also would love some must read Graphic Novels, Zines and indy comics suggestions. Pass'em on!

Resolution #2

Resolution #2: Dance More

CuriousDoodles got me started in swing dancing about 2 years ago and I've been off and on with it since. We just broke our longest off spell ( about 3 months) and had our first night out on Sunday with the Stumptown Dance crew over at the Masons Rite. Now I just need to keep it up...

2010 Week of Resolutions: Resolution #1

Resolution #1 - Floss More

As I ring in the first week of the new year, I'm planning on posting at least one resolution each day. Starting with one I know my Dentist would very much like to see... As I look at this drawing, I think I might need to add manicures and drawing hands more frequently to my list...

POOP

So the other day I made my way down to Reading Frenzy, a Portland indy zine and comic/warez store near Powell Books. I happened accross this rather silly titled book called "Poop" by one Sam Sharpe. What initially caught my eye was the either hand painted or messily stenciled title on the book in blue and yellow paint. It's a small touch but it made me want to hold the book and feel the texture of the paint. Once it was in my hands... the collection of well drawn, single panel comics made me want to keep it. While the name "Poop" may suggest a rather crass book it's really filled with rather witty puns and visual gags covering such subjects as mermaids, luncheons, the counts sex life, vaginas and grocery shopping with Jesus.