abstrack africana

magda boreysza: art crush of the week - sept. 6 2011

2011-09-06T12:44:00.001-04:00

magda_boreysza - her blogsite, fox and comet

i spent YEARS avoiding my talents as an illustrator but recently i've come across many fine artists (online and in print) that continue to impress me, not so much with their skill as with the sheer force of their imagination which is the true genesis (in my opinion) for what is or isnt "art" to begin with. anyone can draw a swirly line, but when your swirly line becomes the equation between geometry and mythology, then shit, you've created a whole new aesthetic.

i may never draw as freely as i once did when i was 6, but at least these folks get me to daydreaming about it...

today, i add another inspirational talent to that list.

gone tumblr...

2011-05-04T03:45:00.000-04:00

i've pretty much abandoned this blog for the time being, posting to my tumblr account instead. i wouldn't worry about it too much, i've left blogger before and yet we always seem to end up once again in each other's arms...

art crush of the week

2011-03-31T09:29:00.000-04:00

the work of danilo rodrigues; great art, very vibrant...

current art / design sites that intrigue me...

2011-03-22T07:18:00.004-04:00

the fox is black -- >

eight hour day blog

tourist magazine -- >

street art utopia --- >>

htmlgiant - - - - >

vintage photograph copyright law...

2011-03-21T18:45:00.000-04:00

the source

the content:

Copying Old Photographs: Infringement of Copyright Laws?
According to the U.S. copyright office, "photocopying shops, photography stores and other photo-developing stores are often reluctant to make reproductions of old photographs for fear of violating the copyright law and being sued." "Copy shops have been sued for reproducing copyrighted works and havbeen required to pay substantial damages for infringing copyrighted works. The policy established by a shop is a business decision and risk assessment that the business is entitled to make, because the business may face liability if it reproduces a work even if it did not know the work was copyrighted." In the case of photographs, it is sometimes difficult to determine who owns the copyright and there may be little or no information about the owner on individual copies. Ownership of a "copy" of a photograph is distinct from the "work" itself -- the intangible intellectual property. The owner of the "work" is generally the photographer or, in certain situations, the employer of the photographer. The subject of the photograph generally has nothing to do with the ownership of the copyright in the photograph. If the photographer is no longer living, the rights in the photograph are determined by the photographer's will or passed as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession. However, in the U.S. virtually all photographs published before January1923 are now in the public domain. http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm There also may be situations in which the reproduction of a photograph may be a "fair use" under the U.S. copyright law. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html But, "Access and use of unpublished materials or those created after January 1923 can be much more complex, since each of the four rights of the copyright holder can be controlled separately . . . it is possible to acquire a physical print of an image through purchase or gift, without obtaining any other rights to the image. The copyright holder may retain any or all of the four supplemental rights associated with subsequent use of the work." http://www.vintagephoto.com/reference/copyrightarticle1.htm (Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 12 April 2006, Vol. 9, No. 15. Reproduced with permission. [HCS edd note: introduction to article has been omitted by HCS, and title changed slightly from original.])

the ministry of artistic affairs

2011-03-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

- the dopest art group name, ever! them.

well... second best name. hard to beat 'the date farmers'.

mini rocketman car ad...

2011-03-02T16:39:00.002-05:00

i love this commercial!

Mini - Rocketman Concept from PostPanic on Vimeo.
Director: Mischa Rozema

Production: PostPanic

Agency: BSUR

Director Mischa Rozema returns with another trademark visually unique mixed media film, combining live action with 2d/3d animation, motion graphics, stock footage and visual effects.

BSUR approached PostPanic to help them create an extra special product launch film to match the distinctive new MINI Rocketman concept.

Most staggering is that the whole production took just 4 weeks from start to finish, including two studio shoots in Amsterdam and Munich.

current design sites i'm inspired by...

2011-02-24T12:53:00.000-05:00

1. rainypixels

2. the dieline

3. we made this

4. design is kinky

bbcX365

2011-02-24T12:35:00.000-05:00

johnny selman's website of current-affairs/politics posters... bbcx365

AYG!!!

2011-02-11T15:29:00.002-05:00

awaken your gods!!!
new illustration / collage series... posters are available;
contact me at upfromsumdirt@gmail.com for details.

the new banner

2011-01-22T20:27:00.000-05:00

my habit...

2011-01-21T15:39:00.004-05:00

i cant seem to kick it. i think i've finally created just as many bookcovers as i have poems now...

i met the walrus

2011-01-20T07:30:00.001-05:00

"i met the walrus"
- an interview of john lennon by jerry levitan.

i have so much art-geek-love for this video it's ridiculous!

written by josh raskin, illustrated by james braithwaite

I Met The Walrus from Paraskevi Koutouba on Vimeo.

the new mythium cover...

2011-01-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

i've done about a billion various covers since the fall... this is the one that's speaking the most directly to us...

the new blog profile

2011-01-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

this is how i see myself when the astral projection of me is looking
down at me asleep, dreaming about what i look like in an alternate reality.

2011-01-12T11:12:00.001-05:00

been a fan of nick anderson's editorial cartoon work since
he was at louisville's courier journal...
(go cards!)

new collage "spiritual summit"

2011-01-07T08:40:00.001-05:00

new, limited series poster print for sale, signed - $45.
(sans the artist's name billboarded across the middle!)

blogger, please...

2011-01-06T13:42:00.002-05:00

the blogger 'captcha' system knows me so very well!

below is the comment-message page i was given when leaving a reply on my latest favorite new blog-site the epedestrian...

maybe its a case of blogger-profiling... i 'ont know, but this time i embrace it; it's a beautiful thing!

i'm happy nappy!

emptying out my cache...

2011-01-03T01:07:00.002-05:00

graphic design work is slow-goings-on with black designers... i've done some good things and enjoyed it, but freelancing in a small market is absolute murder, regardless of race. and i've ran the gamut of online resources, from buying leads to crowdsourcing (hock, spit!) - things that have taken away from the visual art side of 'upfromsumdirt'... visual art has always paid off for me, whether its been solo exhibition, group shows or online panhandling. folks have approached me as an artist to ask me to create work for them in my own style that i think represents their needs, whereas trying to convince potential clients that my style could be helpful to them just hasnt panned out. folks are wanting imitative "web 2.0" and nothing original, unique and tailor made for them.

so... i'm done. the graphic designer is dead, long live the visual artist...

here are some of the last few projects and concepts that drew to a close in 2010... nothing special.
(names have been changed to protect the innocent... plus, not tryinta give free advertising to suckers)

logo samples december 2010

2010-12-29T23:58:00.001-05:00

motion graphics to make a baby to...

2010-12-26T11:03:00.001-05:00

flickermood 2.0
by sebastian lange
music by forss

enjoy!!!

Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.

art crush of the week: dran

2010-12-24T20:15:00.000-05:00

twas the night before christmas... and as always, i'm surfin' the web for creative inspiration.

dran's work is mighty fulfilling...

interesting business cards

2010-12-22T17:38:00.001-05:00

once again: interesting bizcard ideas... ...once again.

art crush of the week: samantha hahn

2010-12-20T19:03:00.000-05:00

samantha hahn is an exceptional watercolor artist!
i love her work... very inspirational.

check her work here.

vector tips

2010-12-19T07:08:00.000-05:00

tutorials at smashing magazine by melissa scroggins...

great stuff.

art crush of the week: pedro matos

2010-12-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

great detail, use of color and overall composition... beautiful work!

here is pedro matos' artist statement as it appears on his site:

ARTIST STATEMENT
Pedro Matos was born in Santarem in 1989 and currently lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. Influenced mainly by Skateboarding, Graffiti and other counterculture movements he was involved with, Matos started painting at the young age of 16, completely self-taught. Later on he applied for a BFA degree at the ArCo Art School in Lisbon where he's currently finishing his BFA while working full time on numerous shows and projects.
For the past few years, Pedro's work focuses on the portrayal of those who are downtrodden, unnoticed, unappreciated and often forgotten by contemporary society. His work is a mixture of intricate and detailed figurative painting and a post-graffiti semi-abstractionism. While still maintaining a traditional and realistic figurative approach to painting, one can find a unique sense of beauty and aesthetics inspired by the decaying of walls and abandoned public space in Matos' work.
Pedro has been focused on changing and challenging the use of these neglected and decaying properties with his arresting portraits. His work aims to catch the attention of passers by and helps to shine a light on the neglected property that could in turn be used to help the people Pedro choses to focus on in his subject matter.

his work

my favorite hero?

2010-12-07T06:56:00.000-05:00

seems to be a facebook game going 'round where folks put their favorite cartoons / superheroes up as their avatars. thinking about this has made me feel a lil sad... not at the game, but because no one single hero stands out to me as my favorite... that's a depressing feeling. i mean, i was a comic book junkie as a kid who would ride the market street bus down to the comic book store on 15th. tracing spiderman, daredevil and doctor strange onto typing paper is how i honed my abilities as an artist... i didnt have ONE favorite. it never occurred to me to HAVE to have a favorite. all i knew was this: marvel comics was vastly superior to dc... if you woulda handed me superman #1, i woulda shrugged and threw it in the trash.

now, i WAS a huge fan of the xmen, collectively. wolverine was my favorite in that bunch, but it doesnt feel right to say he was my favorite hero of all time. i've liked daredevil... doctor strange... the black panther... thor... ironman, the hulk, the avengers (as a whole), THE INHUMANS!... and many others at various times - mostly depending on their storylines, who the writer was and most definitely who the artist was: john byrne was my hands-down favorite comic book artist in my youth.

outside of that, i guess a good storyline was my favorite hero. solid writing; a plausible, well thought-out villain with a personalized vendetta against (insert subject of extreme hate and prejudice here) and i was sucked in... so... villains. villains were my favorite hero!

especially any story that dealt with doctor doom, galactus or the sentinels...

i have favorite moments with my cast of heroes. certain panels within their respective pages that stood out, epitomizing their personal history, the storyline or their own overcoming of adversities and frailties. or humor. give me humor that referenced something my 15-year old mind could wrap itself around and it was a done deal... so to that end allow me to present to you the comic book panel that has stayed with me and that i have reflected upon the most over the past 30 years.

powerman and doctor doom. it appeals to me on so many levels... i think it embodies my perspective on american history - you have 'the man' and 'the brother' in dialog with one another. one is attempting to marginalize the other while the other is going straight to what is immediately pertinent: reparations.

yeah, call me crazy, lazy, hazy... suspicious... second-rate, whatever makes you feel good about yourself, whatever you think will help maintain your 'advantage' over me... run the gamut of the inane banter highlighting incredulous beliefs until you turn blue in the face and have an orgasm... you done?
good... now... "where's my money?"

fuck trickle down... this panel represents the trickle-up-theory: sometimes you just hafta hijacked the technology stereotypically denied to you, fly it halfway across the world, knock on the door of the local demagogue and demand restitution. its the american way. so very beautiful.

when i die my people are gonna think i was into some freakshit...

2010-12-03T15:59:00.001-05:00

if successful as an artist, i think the end goal ACTUALLY IS to have your friends and family
question your attachment to "the real world". they SHOULD talk about you behind your back
with hushed tones, one leaning into the ear of another. not just the normal gossip like
"did you see what he has on?" or "i bet he aint combed 'at head of his in MONTHS!"

not that kinda talk. but the ones where folk google terms like 'skitzo' and 'psychological internment'.

my daughter says i'm a weirdo and that makes me happy.

i write. i'm a collage artist. i'm a daydreamer. if i'm not coming across as weird then something is
fkn wrong with me. i want people to say "ooooh, he's an artist... that explains it."

but i come from a strongly blue-collar background, so sometimes i hold my eccentric-ism internally.
any true 'weirdo' factor wont be fully revealed until i am dead and gone and someone pays a talented
hacker to break into my computer files to see what kinda shit i had stored on my hard-drive.

its deeply likely that Crys will dig up my coffin and shake the shit outta my decomposing corpse.

why? because i'm a collage artist. a digital collage artist. and being such you just KNOW i have
tons of nude women stashed in digital folders & thumb-drives. she is gonna flip and think she's
married a complete pervert. i mean, i probably am... or like to envision myself being one, but
the sad truth is that its all a front.

anyway, do you know how hard it is to find the right 'suggestive, naked pose' to deconstruct correctly
into a mess of artistic expression? i've spent DAYS agonizing over which 'breast-hanging-out' photo
to use for a particular composition. i hover over my computer screen in the dark like an old man
with a van full of velvet, candy and sex toys driving up and down moonlit streets searching to get
my freak on... Crys will sometimes walk directly behind me as i'm creating something and i hafta
shift a shoulder hoping she doesnt see me playing with a nipple that isnt her's... we have two very
large and heavy cast iron skillets nearby. i am not wanting to come out on the wrong end of
a complete misconception!

i dont have any real medical plan (thanks, obama, for gettin my hopes up!)

Crys is a completely understanding woman and an artist in her own right (and definitely a more
accomplished one that i am!) but at the end of the day, she's still "my woman" and beyond that
she's still "a woman" - an old-fashion, juke-joint kinda blues woman... i may not have the
immediate opportunity to get it completely out my mouth to explain "baby, please, it's art!"
before the hammers start flying! at which point i might not have the teeth remaining to clean it up
anyway.

i think it would be easier for me to defend my artistic sensibilities to, not just her but the world, if
i wasnt such a old-fashion prude to begin with. i'm the grandson of deacons and preachers... i was
called to be a conduit of 'da lawd' and lead people to 'salvation' (doing my best to hold back
the sinister mad-scientist rotflol reaction i'm having thinking about that!) ... i still see myself as
a spiritualizer for mankind's common good... (spiritualizer... really, ron? i think george bush has
permanently scarred the fabric of human communication, almost as deadly as text messaging has)

but yeah. basically my desktop is full of porn. and not good porn, the type to earn admiration
from bill maher, hugh hefner, billy clint...

(well... is there such a thing as 'bad porn'? ... strike that last sentence)

my desktop is full of porn. period. but my intentions (for your daughter, sir) are good. it's okay...
i'm an artist.

one day i'll be able to shed all of my inhibitions and fully claim my birthright as an artistic hedonist.

until then i'll be doing my best to keep Crys from reading this blog. not quite ready to have her
all up in my hard-drives, casting evil eyes, throwing stones, sharpening knives...

my art doesnt deserve to have a coward as its creator, but for the moment, that's all it's got.

art crush of the week...

2010-12-02T18:16:00.002-05:00

2-for-1

the book designers christopher brand and chip kidd™

drool-factors are often involved. pure designer-envy.

mr. brand's work:

and mr. kidd's:

Dr. Margaret Burroughs 1917-2010

2010-11-24T10:08:00.000-05:00

Chicago lost one of its greatest champions of the arts yesterday with the passing of Dr. Margaret Burroughs at the age of 95. Born in Saint Rose, LA, Dr. Burroughs and her family settled on the South Side of the city in 1922. She then went on to graduate from the Chicago Teachers College and earned her Bachelors and Masters degrees in Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago. Frustrated at the lack of options for African-American artists to showcase their work and hoping to bring Black history to the forefront, Dr. Burroughs founded the Ebony Museum of Negro History and Art, which would morph into the DuSable Museum of African American History. Today, the DuSable Museum boasts a collection of over 100,000 pieces, with plans to expand.
Dr. Burroughs was also a tireless community activist, spending Christmas Day at Cook County Jail with the Rev. Jesse Jackson for the past 35 years.

• original article taken from The Chicagoist

nike's chalkbot project...

2010-11-14T13:13:00.002-05:00

tom fishburne

2010-11-14T13:02:00.000-05:00

tom fishburne's work

the 'marketoonist'

art crush of the week...

2010-11-10T14:34:00.001-05:00

hope gangloff!

seriously, this inspires me to get my illustration hustle back up and runnin... love her work.

art crush of the week...

2010-11-07T08:05:00.001-05:00

david choe

multimedia, wall art, oil paintings, fucked up fotos of his friends anem, it dont matter - there is always
an interesting narrative to his artistic take on things...

him, here.

art crush of the week...

2010-11-05T11:40:00.003-04:00

old school memories.

calamity come, calamity go...

2010-10-29T04:48:00.000-04:00

so.

my harddrive gave up the ghost a few days ago. not "died". more "zombified".

my drive itself was saved, but it was corrupted (my closest friends would say "really?" in the perfect
mock of feigned disbelief). the process robbed me of several years of scans, downloads, photos,
cell phone pix and uh, the thievery of "found" internet photography - deconstructionism is what us
collage artists do for a living... also, i lost a great deal of my graphic design and visual art portfolio.

i'm deeply saddened, but its nothing to cry over. any 'crash' you can walk away from is a good one.

what had my heart pounding the most was the fear i had lost my literary archives, the remaining
sum total of 20 years of writing bad poetry under the radar. i've been an artist since birth, but secretly,
i first consider myself 'a writer' by profession (having never published anything but a few badly
written blog entries, such as this one)

i've nearly wept for crystal whenever she's had issues with her failing laptop (since replaced with
a shiny new laptop aching to also fail) because we all view our written words as something
sanctimonious. an underglorified, underappreciated gospel testimony to our innate sense of genius.

yes, i'm too is a genius.
miracles never cease.

anyway, it took a truly sanctioned genius, certified by apple itself holding court behind the
self-styled 'genius bar' of the local apple store to help me retrieve my literary opus.
to him, whatever your name was, i salute you sir.

but slightly scathed, i return to my full senses feeling rededicated to fulfilling my artistic hopes
and dreams. i've neglected my deeply creative passions in favor of the graphic design hustle
which has wasted more time and resources than its helped to produce. as a graphic designer,
i'm beginning to believe i completely suck. no... not 'beginning to'... i'm in full acceptance of this
as fact. my design concepts are far-reaching and overly creative. unusual. "unique", as i call it.
but the clients i drudge up (or the ones who drudge up me) seldom seldom seldom seldom seldom
seldom seldom rarely seldom seldom seldom want design work that is unique and original.
graphic design has helped keep the lights on a time or two, but has of yet to be as satisfying,
spiritually or financially, as being a visual artist has been... and yet i've done nothing to secure
gallery exhibitions for my new or remaining art pieces for 2 years now!!! (wow!)
so, that's what 2011 is gonna get from me:
death to upfromsumdirt design, long live upfromsumdirt the artist (or 'the cartoonist' as one
former acquaintance put it when my name came up in conversation).

but i'm an illustrator and a writer. i'm gonna sit down and watch 'lemonade' again for the billionth
time and re-approach the graphic design racket from the angle i'm the most natural with, where
my visual aesthetics has the greatest merit.

i see it as good fortune to have lost so many art files - because now, its time i reinvent myself
as what i've always been. branding my own personal aesthetic instead of branding myself
in hope and prayers trying to put a bigger head of cabbage in the roasting pan....

definitely, more to come.

abstrack-africana: the art book...

2010-10-29T04:00:00.002-04:00

this is the seed.

i'm devoting the remainder of 2010 to putting together a graphically rendered set of poems
to send out to publishers. the official title (for now) is:
abstrack-africana presents: you might also like....

i'm feeling good about this project. its past overdue.

2 cover concepts for Opulence

2010-10-29T03:19:00.001-04:00

sedate and not-so-sedate.

art crush of the week No. 1

2010-10-08T15:39:00.000-04:00

ellen lupton

for artwork that deftly balances the fine line
between 'visual art' and 'commercial art' - ellen is your girl!

inspirational flyers and advertising

2010-10-03T12:18:00.000-04:00

70 flyers

50 ads

das racist is my new fave...

2010-09-29T22:30:00.003-04:00

their website.

live, from tina fey, its sarah palin tonight!

2010-09-24T09:56:00.001-04:00

"F" is for....

2010-09-23T14:33:00.000-04:00

from Daniele Manoli's alphabet series on vimeo;
kinda what sesame street would look like if created in the 21st century.
check out the entire series when you can... (the letter "G" vid is pretty dope also!)

F from Daniele Manoli on Vimeo.

twitter background

2010-09-22T11:37:00.001-04:00

twitter says my background image is 'too big', so it sometimes helps if i load the image to a blog then download it back to my desktop - this reduces some of the file size and it usually works out.
so, this isnt 'vanity' when you see any twitter backgrounds, just 'business'... the image does lose a little sharpness, but i'ma live with it for now...

returning to what got me here...

2010-09-17T17:04:00.000-04:00

havent exhibited in nearly 2 years - how crazy is that?!?!
i swairfogawd im getting my act together for 2011, this aint makin' no kinda sense....

this is one of the first 'true' visual art pieces i've done since the spring.
i'll be uploading new work on flickr starting in october.

banner for mythium lit mag on blogger

2010-09-07T00:13:00.000-04:00

this was a lot of drawing, scanning and rendering... very proud of the way it turned out!

new banner part 2

2010-09-02T10:22:00.003-04:00

yeah, this works...

the new banner for my literary blog

2010-09-02T10:13:00.000-04:00

i was wasting time, waiting for crystal to leave for work so i can burn the house down to the ground.
not that i'm a pyro-head or nothing, i mean, i hear it's a lucrative career (if you have the right connections, alibis and if-needed high-powered law team) and all, but the house-burning thing is all just part of my larger scheme to rid us of our current mouse infestation... i blame it on our former neighbor: when she moved she took her two large outside cats with her and as a result the field-mice are reproducin' like HOTCAKES!
its completely disenchanting to walk to the fridge at 4AM and find yourself waiting in line for a glass of milk because the mice have camped out and you hafta take a ticket/take a seat to have your turn at the door... they've even set up both a complaint box and a request box... the fknlttlbstrds!

anyway, the result is i have to burn the house down and crys caint be here for that so i made a new banner for my lit-blog until then... its a photo manipulation and i used this one from shorpy.com as the basis for it:

this is how it turn'd out:

wish i could've gotten more of the street and background... still might go back and do just that.

great vintage photographs

2010-08-27T14:00:00.003-04:00

shorpy's

i have spent the entire morning
scrolling through 200 pages of
old images... only 400 left to go!

open title film festival logo design

2010-08-26T00:06:00.000-04:00

i've been on a creative tear here lately and have produced some mighty fine looking designs for actual clients, hope-you'll-be-my-clients, and just for the hell of it...

one such design has been for Catherine Weiss' Open Title Film Festival (read her blog here and the OTFF blog here - she's cool people and very creative... )

original concept:
Catherine was wanting something that referenced a cinematic marquee.

it was a rough-comp but my intention was to create a cleaner, polished version in illustrator. however nothing i did satisfied me so i began modifying my approach... i went from the illustration above to these two:

i was cool with these concepts and i think they would have worked for her purposes, but i have a severe case of design OCD and can never leave well enough alone... the above designs make for good 'banner' style logos, but they're too literal for me and i like more expressive/artistic elements... long deliberations are just part of the process.
i floundered through several more concepts before eventually arriving at this one:

Catherine has completely loved the concept, but the last one was me trying to nail it down - i'd read her blog and found out she had a thing for hand-drawn illustrations and since i've been trying to get back into illustration with my own visual art work it was a no-brainer.

meanwhile...

2010-08-10T00:23:00.000-04:00

...over on myspace:

dirt twit background

2010-08-07T12:17:00.000-04:00

best media writing according to ad-age...

2010-08-07T00:56:00.000-04:00

the death of photojournalism

whither magazines?

7 years as a freelance writer

no mas tv: doc ellis pitches no-no high as hell...

2010-08-02T18:45:00.000-04:00

james blagden

dopeshitfareal.

mary shelley aint got nothin' on xbox!

2010-07-14T09:28:00.001-04:00

its alive, igor, ALIIIIIIVVVEEeee!

logo designs and promotional materials

2010-07-10T12:22:00.001-04:00

rother davis 1937-2010

2010-07-07T06:42:00.000-04:00

"daddy's deodorant"

new banner

2010-07-02T01:40:00.000-04:00

for the online poetry board i operate... activity is waaay down from where it used to be several years
ago, before the internet became the "me-generation" redux and everyone abandoned the community
message boards in favor of the myspace/facebook-style information pages...
(stops and pours out a little liquor for fireseek, urban poetic, the international house of poetry, bluestripetree and a multitude of other sites fallen by the wayside)

the return of afrophysics...

2010-06-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

myspace/station...

2010-06-24T14:09:00.002-04:00

for all the social media networking sites out there designed to help you support yourself as a creative-type person, myspace still remains the one that benefited my talents... i've made more valuable contacts, design clients and art exhibitions via beleaguered ol' myspace than facebook, twitter, linkedin and the multitude of other online portfolios combined!

to that end, i've promised to dedicate more disposable internet time to the promotion of that account...
(their blog features kinda suck, but as far as manipulating code for the showcasing of your talents, myspace is still the most relevant towards that end, in my opinion - especially the ability to change backgrounds at the speed of light! i useta change backgrounds every 3 days back when i was on top of my art and design hustle... below is the one i'll be adding when i finish this entry... )

plus, i like myspace's 'top friends' feature, being able to keep or change the contacts that are the most meaningful to me at any given time. most of my fellow artists all have their own individual blogs elsewhere, but surfing their sites can be such an isolating endeavor... i mean, its entertaining and all, but after you've snooped through their portfolios that's usually the end of that... 'top friends' is engaging and peaks your curiosity to follow what others are doing (this is twitter's best feature also!).

now if myspace would only devote the bulk of its budget to combating spam and privacy issues (instead of trying to visually keep up with the facebooks), then i'd once again be in for the long haul...

how to make a book (if you lived 60 years ago)

2010-06-05T07:02:00.002-04:00

twitter background

2010-06-02T11:07:00.000-04:00

mythium covers for spring/summer 10

2010-05-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

mythium covers

when bad clients strike...

2010-05-22T07:24:00.000-04:00

great blog post concerning clients who ask designers for free mock-ups for 'upcoming' projects
instead of simply relying on your portfolio or what they already know about you as an artist,
photographer or designer...

send them folks HERE!

the stretch and yawn...

2010-05-19T07:29:00.000-04:00

been neglecting my visual art habit for waaaay too long... aint had a show in over a year.
this graphic design hussle is a hassle.

back to being a live boy/a living organism/once agin...

new art samples comin' soon!

i, dirt.

2010-05-04T05:02:00.000-04:00

return of the self-promotional material and a few older book design projects...

russell simmons

2010-05-01T08:15:00.000-04:00

bookcover concept for russell simmon's contest 'rich inside and out'

duck duck duck...

2010-05-01T06:49:00.004-04:00

rest in peace, malcolm mclaren...

she's looking like a hobo...

planet rock!

2010-05-01T06:47:00.002-04:00

mythium 2's FINAL FINAL, iswairfogawd!

2010-05-01T06:07:00.000-04:00

editing is finally about done, will be sending pdf/proofs out to contributors for final input in the upcoming week... meanwhile, i've finally nailed down what the backcover is gonna look like:

just in time to now start on issue 3 for fall 2010.

this literary love child of ours needs to get a job and help pay rent!

will be adding updates to mythium's homepage soon - mythiumlitmag.com - and to all the adjacent
social networking sites we're connected to (twitter, facebook, myspace, etc...)

saul bass

2010-04-20T19:25:00.000-04:00

graphic designer saul bass speaks on the creation of effective titles...

nope...

2010-04-15T11:53:00.000-04:00

the wrinkles have been nixed by management... back to the original...

new art

2010-04-14T22:29:00.002-04:00

spring cover final mockup #2

2010-04-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

basically the same. changes include adding crumpled paper effect (wadded some paper, straightened it out, scanned it, then photoshopped it into the image) to the front and back... also, completely revamped the back side with new artwork. i think this one's a wrap...

finished mythium mock-up 1

2010-04-07T00:53:00.000-04:00

issue 2.
at long last?

oxidate it or love it...

2010-03-17T19:24:00.000-04:00

shout out to the media assassin for hippin' me to this...

liquid liquid's 'cavern'

2010-02-19T16:36:00.001-05:00

waaaaay up, up, up from some dirt...

2010-02-18T19:06:00.000-05:00

2010-02-13T07:00:00.002-05:00

baby says 'no.'

2010-02-11T05:23:00.002-05:00

i knew it was coming as soon as i showed it to her, the way her lips pursed slightly to the side
- the universal african american symbol for "fool, please!"

but it was worth a try...

behold my hopeful cover design for mythium's second issue:

arcadedirt

2010-02-11T04:18:00.001-05:00

arcadedirt, originally uploaded by upfromsumdirt.

just trying out uploading from my flickr accnt... carry on.

potential "opulence" covers

2010-02-06T02:52:00.000-05:00

if i could redo some classics...

2010-02-06T01:50:00.001-05:00

my take on toni morrison's a mercy,

james baldwin's the fire next time,

richard wright's native son,

ralph ellison's invisible man,

and

audre lorde's the marvelous arithmetics of distance: poems 1987-1992,

faux-real books/graphic samples

2010-02-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

flexin' my skrenmph pt. 2

2010-01-28T00:55:00.000-05:00

website elements, backgrounds and banners/no coding.

flexin' my skrenmph pt. 1

2010-01-27T22:56:00.000-05:00

i like strong designs, i can not lie.

i'm the miscegenation of paul rand and pedro bell.

dirty broken pill

2010-01-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

addicted to twitter...

2010-01-27T00:04:00.000-05:00

i have spent the last 90 minutes tracking down font designers and sites... as if i know how to fkng design an actual font myself... i cant help myself, fonts is some sexy aminals! (yes, AMINALS. i'm sleepy as shit... forgetchu!)

these are two of the avatars i've currently been using on twitter...

eh. whatever.

im going to bed.

30 photoshop typography effects

2010-01-23T20:03:00.000-05:00

30 psd typography effects

"free fonts"

2010-01-21T13:23:00.004-05:00

ace free fonts

twitter background services:

2010-01-17T21:30:00.003-05:00

i'd be more than happy to create original designs and/or illustrations for your business twitter account.... contact me at upfromsumdirt@yahoo.com for questioning.
(damn... that sounds so criminal! ...maybe not 'questioning', but you get the deal,
right?)

new projx illustration banner

2010-01-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

the best cgi short movie ever!

2010-01-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

man, i can no longer complain about the cheesiness of CGI animation... i began seeing the artistry of it in the movie 'monsters, inc' - one of my all time favorites... but alex roman has taken cgi to a whole other level of performance. check out his 12 minute short: no film, no soundstage, no boom grip (whatever that is!) - just 100% the perfect pixels/all digital! - the interior renderings are amazing, but it moves 'outside' 7 minutes into it... it gets sci-fi-ish around the 10 minute mark; a great little film...

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

futura/art of facts

2010-01-10T12:41:00.001-05:00

dope graffiti-ist...

Art Of Facts (Feat. FUTURA) from 13thWitness™ on Vimeo.

society6

2010-01-08T19:25:00.000-05:00

discovered a new artist promotion site called society6. this is the blog header i created for it...

new logo and masthead

2010-01-08T07:57:00.000-05:00

been putting a lot of thought into how the 'dirt' logo should shape up: images of shovels and mounds of earth and other dirt-related utensils... but nothing that grabbed me. the image that DID continue haunting me was a rejected logo where a funnel drained rainbow fluids from the head of a figure. i kept wanting to adapt it to other projects/i loved it... so when the thought came to me "hey, why not keep it for yourself?" i easily obliged. so here are the preliminary mocks...

my daughter is still waiting for me to not make weird shit

2010-01-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

but i caint help myself... sorry J.
my first new weirdshit for 2010...

digital posters/event fliers

2010-01-07T21:02:00.000-05:00

you rack'm, i break'm.

digital banners...

2010-01-07T19:41:00.000-05:00

you need'm - - i make'm.

macaroni art aint got isht on rice art:

2010-01-07T12:04:00.000-05:00

here i am complaining about not having the time to create new digital artwork while artists overseas are PAINTING ON RICE FIELDS... meanwhile, i make time to blog.... tsk, tsk, tsk @me.

visual artists are the most beautiful people...