Tempt One

I first met Tony Quan about 22 years ago after seeing his art around town. He was a student at UCSC where I grew up in Santa Cruz. His stuff would pop up, and, the quality of the work was amazingly clean. Almost as if it'd been painted by a sign maker:

It turned out he was one of the original Los Angeles graffiti artists who'd started back in the early 80's. He belonged to a crew named STN (Stomping The Nation), and had a vast knowledge of graffiti and street art. I finally met him at a party, and, went on to tell me how he was a 'bomber'. In other words , a graffiti artist who's intention was to get his name everywhere.

The more of his work I saw, the more I noticed that, while having great letters and outlines, his 'fill' techniques were like nothing I'd ever seen before. He would employ methods of 'misting' paints together while painting and even go as far as create his own custom colors mixing the paint in the cans. The local kids even tried to copy his stuff, which pale in comparison.

Original


Copy

Tony has since been stricken with an illness that keeps him pretty stationary and doesnt allow him to paint much anymore. While there've been fund raisers and the like for him, he still fights on day to day. He's been working with technological means in which to able him to paint again, and, hopefully soon I'll be able to post some of his new work.

Scribbles And Jibberish!

Most times as I write, whether it's a treatment, an idea or a script, it all comes from pieces and fragments that are sketched, jotted on napkins and scribbled on some object. An it does NOT come easy. It seems to be a constant battle for sift through dozens of lame thoughts searching for something special that just might connect with a reader/viewer etc.

I have the habit of telling myself that no one will ever care about anything I write or say for that matter, but, I always remember and live by the edict of "who cares, just do it anyways" because, it's juts so damn fun!

Tea Kettle or Hitler?

Billboard on the West side of LA has folks in a bit of confusion as to what's going here. What do you see? Read more here:

1985 Volume #5

Helen Kellers letter to Hitler

Timbaland Skecthes

This project has been on hold for the past year or so, but I still have some of these sketches lying around. My guess is the toy company was reluctant to devote and market a toy based on a Hip Hop producer ( which is a sort of nebulous notability), but could also be because of vinyl toy sales slumping.
Anyways, came away with some cool ideas and artwork:

Osamu Tezuka

Dr. Tezuka was known as the Godfather of Manga. Not so much as it's originator, but really the person who brought into a serious literary form. His years in medical school had primed him to write mostly from a physicians point of view. And most of his subjects centered around disease.

One of his most popular was Ode To Kirihito, which focused on a doctor who is infected with a disease that causes the patient to develop animal type features, which the doctor himself ends up contracting.


He had a method of keeping his characters pretty simple and expressionistic, while rendering detailed, almost photo like backgrounds. Another volume of his work which is recommended, is his account of the Life Of Buddha titled 'Buddha' which he spent 8 years on, and is compiled in 8 Volumes.

Happy Holidays

Not exactly that time of year, but, I just stumbled upon this Christmas Card from a waaaays back, using the cast of characters from 'Blurb':