The Beast

I have art news. A friend of mine, Zoey Stevens (http://www.zoey.com), invited me to create a piece for an upcoming group show opening tomorrow. The goal is to raise awareness and to fund research for a cure for type 1 Diabetes, the title of the show is 'Pre-Existing Condition'. I had an uncle that suffered from type 1, so I used him as inspiration. I am excited to be in the same company as Shepard Fairey, the artist responsible for the recently popular Obama portrait & 'Obey' street art. I've attached a low resolution version of my submission. If you want to see more detail, below is a link to the final high resolution version (large file ~ 30MB). A description of the art and information about the show is also below.

http://www.vincentburkhead.com/downloads/__TheBeast_Final_PRINT.zip

The Beast

My late Uncle Lowell Burkhead was a true original. He was an electrical engineer, woodworker, tool maker, inventor, visionary, caver, educator, writer, lover of nature, musician, organic gardener, mole killer, story teller, loving son, brother, uncle, and a type one diabetic. He held several patents for his inventions. Lowell was an inspiration to many. As a good friend of his once said: “Lowell was a lot of different things, but dull was never one of them”.

One of his strange creations is The Beast, a hybrid of two unlikely vehicles - a six wheel drive WWII era amphibious vehicle and a 1960 Ford Galaxy. The forty eight inch wheels easily weathered the brutal Iowa winters. The Beast is an apt metaphor for Lowell’s strong character and tenacity. Unfortunately another beast lived within him, one that eventually cut his life short at age 56. This piece is a celebration of my Uncle’s accomplishments, as well as a visual depiction of what was lost by his premature departure.

- - - - -

Pre-Existing Condition

The Light Gallery (www.thelightgalleries.com) of Costa Mesa, California will debut the group art show, “Pre-existing Condition” on March 20, 2009 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Gallery Location:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Costa+Mesa&state=CA&address=440+E.+17th+St.&zipcode=92627

The show was organized by Zoey Stevens (http://www.zoey.com) and Dereck Cruz of Type One Clothing (www.typoneclothing.com) as a way to both raise awareness about diabetes, and raise money to fund research for a cure for type 1 diabetes. Proceeds from the show will be gifted to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (www.jdrf.org) All of the artists participating in the group exhibition share a connection to diabetes, either by having the disease themselves or having a friend or relative with diabetes. Artworks featured in the show have been created specific to the event and express the artist’s perspective of the disease. Participating artists include, Vincent Burkhead, Shepard Fairey, Thomas J. Novy, David Stoupakis, Christina Christos, Anna Impullitti, Anthony Ausgang, Andreina Davila, Alone One, C. De La Luz Medrano, Mark George, Marcos Miguel Sanchez, the Molten Brothers, Ahnna Jade, Marcus Parrish, KRK Ryden, Big Toe, Frank Ippolito, Paul Torres, Tara Parrish, Rony Alwin, Julie Bossinger, Heather Ritts, Dereck Cruz, Gregory P. Rodriguez, Robert Holton, Joshua Ellingson, Ryan Boyle, Sean Brannan and Zoey Stevens. The show will travel nationally, stopping in Las Vegas, Nevada, Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas, Texas, and St. Augustine, Florida before returning to Los Angeles, California, where M Modern Gallery (www.mmodern.com ) will host the closing show. All original art works will be available for purchase as well as limited edition prints. Type One Clothing and Identity Board Shops will also offer limited apparel with proceeds to benefit the JDRF.

For more info visit: http://pre-existingcondition.blogspot.com/

The show will be traveling to multiple cities. For those in San Diego, the gallery opening is about 85 miles north, but still south of LA. I know that is a long haul, especially on a Friday, so consider this is more of an announcement than an RSVP request. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.

Analog Design (part 1)

The essence of the analog approach is rooted in adding hand-drawn or sketched images into the mix of imagery prior to starting a design. See above example, an abstract sketch has been digitized and added to an interface for a website. This adds authenticity and individuality to the design. The shapes compliment the circular background, and the organic patterns fit this brand very well. I added additional color by filling in the shapes within the sketch in photoshop. These can be manipulated for custom integration in any design. My advice is to keep them subtle within the design, they will create a bit of mystery on the page. Since they are created at high resolution, print usage is still an option.  If you have questions about applying this technique, email me. Thank you.  More on this subject in a future post.

> v <

Nigel & Baxter

This is not very creative, but here are our 2 terrors..

halloween 08: The Dead.

We hosted a party this halloween. 'Dead' was the theme. See pix here:

http://www.vincentburkhead.com/downloads/Halloween_08_gallery

> v <

Marginal Design

The next time you design a website, or Art Direct one, do not forget to include the margins of the 'page'. Screen resolutions vary widely, no matter your target audience. I always design for a larger screen size, while making it work for the baseline of 1024 px x 768 px. See the image, this file is 1600 x 1550 px.

As you can see, the margins are designed. The design and content remain centered on the screen even at the smallest screen size. To reduce the load on the page, the large background image of water ripples can be used as highly compressed jpegs. Abstract and biomorphic shapes are better to compress that representative patterns. See the basic effect here: http://www.adagencycreative.com this site is still in development, to be live soon.. If you have any questions, please email me.

> v <

Sketchbook Creatology

Greetings,

I'm pleased to announce my decision to start a blog about creativity. I decided to call it Creatologist. I'm happy to see it was available! My definition of the word is the merging of creativity and technology to help bring a concept to life. This applies to both commercial and personal work. The name is open enough, adds technology into the equation, and it does not limit my topics exclusively to the world of commercial graphic design.

Sketchbook Creatology:

If you are interested in extending the life of a doodle or sketch in your sketchbook, converting it into a vector file and editing it with adobe illustrator is one option. See below the original sketch using first pencil, then pen and ink.

I digitally photographed and imported the sketch into illustrator at high resolution, converted the file into vector, then colorized it using illustrator. 

Many color variables can be easily explored using both layers and filters in illustrator. Now the artwork is fully scalable to large sizes for printing on canvas or fine art paper. The opportunity for selling signed limited editions now exists. And the original pen & ink is still intact. Converting sketches into digital files offers an efficient way to explore many color variations much faster than by traditional means. This means you can produce more work, and share it with more people.

Technology is your friend if you know how to make it work for you both as a commercial Art Director as well as an illustrator or fine artist. For more detailed information about this process, feel free to email me.

> v <