I Wanna Give You a High Five & a Hug

This lady is bad ass. I want to give her a high five and a hug. I was looking for images of owls for a new piece and she came up.

California Visit

I had a break from work and New York last month so I flew out to the Bay Area to visit my families. While I was there I slept a lot, ate good food, visited nature, and did some painting with my brothers Shaun and Miguel from TYS. Here's an apple from my sister.

This image above is a piece I painted at an event that Miguel hooked me up with at UC Berkeley. It was a pretty large canvas so I rocked one of my Elegy images. By the end of the night I gave it away to my folks Ras.

Heres Miguel rocking his dope abstract styles.

Miguel and Shaun's finished pieces.

Vanessa

The homie Vanessa helped me out with some photos for my newest works for the Elegy series. I fortunately have been booked for a show out in Sacramento, California in April so I am in serious work mode creating new pieces. The first image below is a sketch for a new silk screened poster for my series. The other photos are just ones that I am using in other pieces.

Paper Mask

This past week I did a 3 day workshop on mask making with a small group of my students. I had never made a paper mask so it was the first time for me also. With help from a book from the library, I managed to create this "Muerto" mask. It is constructed from brown paper bags, newspaper, glue and water, paint and fabric for the facial hair. As soon as I finished this one I started making another one. I want to practice as much as I can so I can start creating a nice series of masks. Let me know what you think.

In Progress January 2011

I had an idea/vision for these four pieces on red/orange paper the other week. Here are two that I started last weekend. They've become a part of a sub-topic for my Elegy series, based on Mestizo/Native peoples recognizing our interconnections with the animal world. I am using pencil, charcoal, ink, marker, graphite and acrylic. The ink isn't sitting well on this type of paper, so I might stop using it. I might substitute it with oil paint sticks. I love using those, but haven't in years because they're hella expensive and take a long time to dry.

Cattle Skull

The collection of dead animal remains grows. Here is my newest piece that I bought off this guy on Craigslist. Full grown cattle skull. The other horn is there, it just needs to be screwed back on. I had planned on painting the skull, but I'm liking it the way it is. In addition to my antlers that I am collecting, I think this piece will help make a dope altar.
My other joy is seeing the people's faces as I walk down the street with this stuff. "Oh honey, it's just another Latino carrying a large cattle skull on the subway." Sweet.

Fabeon

A couple of shots of my good homie Fabeon, a great teacher/mcee. Going down the line of my friends to use as models/reference for new pieces.