Seattle, and Warhol!

This weekend, March 4th-6th 2011, I'll be tabling at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle! Please find me at booth #313 at the Washington State Convention Center. I'll have plenty of new prints to check out. Last year was fantastic so I can't wait to get back. If you're out of state, start driving now and don't shave til you get there. You'll fit right in!

Emerald City Comic Con
March 4th-6th, 2011
Washington State Convention Center
Seattle, WA
www.emeraldcitycomiccon.com

On Thursday March 10th, I'll be back in San Francisco for "Warhol Reimagined" at Project One Gallery. I've got a brand new Warhol tribute painting in the show and I'm proud ot be in the line up with so many great artists. You don't want to miss this show. Here's the information:

Warhol Reimagined Project One Gallery
March 10th, 2011 – 7pm-2am
251 Rhode Island, San Francisco, CA 94103
www.warholreimagined.com
http://p1sf.com

I, ROBOPRIEST.

Last weekend I made a guest appearance as a "ROBOPRIEST" in Selene Luna's one-woman show, "Sweating the Small Stuff" at The Dark Room theatre in San Francisco. The whole concept came from a discussion on Twitter in which @seleneluna and I were trying to figure out how to tag-team wedding gigs. Selene is a brilliant actress/comedienne in Los Angeles but it's a little known fact that she's also an ordained minister. Here's the original brainstorming tweet that started it all:

Selene seemed to like the robot idea, and I really only needed an excuse to make a two-person robot costume, so I got to work sketching out ideas. I had a lot of help from my pal Adam Davis, who sported an inspiring robot costume at the Automatic Art Show last year. Adam and I worked through some sketches and I came up with these loose ideas:

Once I had a solid idea for the costume, I started buying supplies and bugging all my friends for help. Jim Coursey from "Ants Climb Tree" made great robotic audio for ROBOPRIEST's speaker-eyes. Here's an initial test of that:

The skeleton of ROBOPRIEST was made out of hula-hoops and chipboard. I then covered the whole thing in 1" low-density foam and fabric. A few weeks and a dozen hot-glue sticks later I had a workable costume. The robot is designed so that Selene can "pilot" it from atop when the hatch is open. We used a Piggyback Rider harness to attain the proper combination of height and destructive authority.

ROBOPRIEST's appearance at the show was a great success. I had a lot of fun building this thing and being half of ROBOPRIEST. There are lots more photos of ROBO's construction in my Flickr set.

Huge thanks to Selene Luna, Jim Coursey, Adam Davis, Merin McDonell, Rusty Hodge, Simone Davalos, David Calkins, The Dark Room, Gary and Susan at Cushion Works, Eidelyn Gonzales, and all my friends for putting up with me while I obsessed over this.

Fall '10- APE, NYCC, Dinosaurs and More!

It's been a crazy year so far! Last month my artwork went public in the BART system. Around that same time I got weirdly internet-famous for drawing cute animals on YouTube. And THEN I did the 15th Anniversary poster for Laughing Squid which spawned a great interview on PsPrint.com. But that's just the primer for Fall 2010!

NYCC and APE

Things are really going to get nuts next week as I appear at the New York Comic Con in Artist Alley. It's been a while since I've been back to New York and I'm excited for the trip. I'll be selling art prints and making sketches for the masses so please come by and say hello. If you catch me early you can get in on my NYCC exclusive print, a chubby Wonder Woman pin-up titled, "BBWW". I'm only going to bring a few, so if you really want one, you can pre-order it on my web-store and pick it up at the show. I'm also pumped because I can finally accept credit cards on-site at NYCC thanks to the fine people at Square (it's the future).

New York Comic Con '10
Javits Center
655 West 34th Street, New York
Friday, October 8th, 1-7pm
Saturday, October 9th 10am-7pm
Sunday, October 10th 10am-5pm

The following weekend is the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco, my home turf. I look forward to APE every year and I hear that it's even bigger than it was last year. They've expanded the hall, so I think it's a completely different layout. Come find me and artwork. I think I'm going to open up the archives and bring some one-of-a-kind items.

APE
The Concourse
635 8th Street, San Francisco CA
Saturday, October 16 - 11am - 7pm
Sunday, Oct. 17 - 11am - 6pm

Dinosaurs and Art for Sale

Also, on the Friday before APE, I've got some artwork in THE DINO SHOW, a dinosaur-centric art show at Double Punch Gallery in San Francisco. It's bound to be a hoot, so come get Jurassic with all your favorite local artists.

THE DINO SHOW
Double Punch Gallery
1821 Powell St. (@ Filbert)
San Francisco, CA
Opening Reception Friday, Oct. 15th 7pm-Late
Show runs through Nov. 7th

In case you've missed out on NYCC and APE, you can still get my artwork online at my web store. I'm happy to announce that you can now choose from three different sizes of prints in my "Featured Items" section. I also have a "Sale Items" section where you can take advantage of my overstock prints at great prices. If you are looking for original artwork, I have an Etsy store with one-of-a-kind paintings for sale. Soon I'll be offering limited edition and oversized prints as well.

Case Study - BART Poster Series

Photo by Dan Rosenstrauch for the Contra Costa Times

Beginning in September 2010, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system featured my artwork for their annual Featured Artist poster series. The name of the series is "The First Ride" and consists of  three different images that explore children's imagination in the BART system. In each drawing, a young rider sees something unusual going on but the adults around aren't aware. The artwork is displayed in BART stations throughout the Bay Area until the end of October 2010.Here are the three images for the series:

The direction from BART was very open ended. They were interested in something that explored a narrative in the BART system. I chose a child's point-of-view because it best describes a sense of wonder, and it's inclusive to all ages. Each scenario is a window into a passing moment of imagination with the unusual architecture of the BART system interiors. Here's a process shot of one of the poster designs:

Here's a photo of the artwork in place at 12th St. Station in Oakland:

There's been a bit of press about the series. In addition to being featured on BART's website and blog, the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune ran stories about the series. BART has also started a "First Ride" story contest, where riders can submit stories about their first experience on BART. The winner gets a set of signed posters. It's been a great project and I love hearing feedback from BART riders about the artwork.

Artwork for Willow Garage, Recap

For the last couple of months I've been creating artwork for robotics company, Willow Garage. Initially they hired me to create a poster promoting their community-driven robotics software, ROS and their real-life PR2 robot. Since then, I've created over a dozen spot illustrations for the Willow Garage blog and another poster for their software upgrade (see above). I love robots and it's been a pleasure to make artwork for actual robotics scientists. You can learn more about Willow Garage, ROS, and the PR2 at www.willowgarage.com.

Final Open Studios for The Local 303

I've put off posting about this for a while, but I guess it's time. Sadly, we are closing shop my studio space, The Local 303. Time had run it's course on our tenure at the building and now it's time to move on. We've had some great parties, fantastic art openings, and some seriously creative times at 1890 Bryant St. #303. Huge thanks to my studio mates Matt Delight, Jason Dryg, David Garvey, and Soma FM for sticking it out all this time and being some of the best friends I've ever had. Thanks also to to our wonderful neighbors in the building. We're grateful to everyone who's come to our openings and supported us the last four years. We do plan on showing together occasionally as "The Local 303", so don't forget about us just yet!

The Local 303 will be showing together one last time as part of Open Studios at 1890 Bryant St., this coming weekend. Here's the info:

Spring Open Studios - Apr 24th & 25th
1890 Bryant St., #303 San Francisco, CA 94110

Friday Evening
April 23, 2010 - 6pm-9pm
Saturday and Sunday
April 24-25, 2010 - 11am-6pm

Here's a link to my "Local 303" Flickr set. I'm going to miss it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/josh1/sets/72057594060860765/

"ROBOT POWER" Poster for Willow Garage

Robotics firm, Willow Garage hired me to create this poster for their booth at the upcoming Robogames 2010 event. The poster features one of their most advanced robots, the PR2. The thing is loaded with sensors to help it navigate through your messy living room, and it's articulated arms move with unreal fluidity and speed. One of the PR2's latest achievements is the ability to seek out a wall outlet and plug itself in! Besides the impressive hardware, Willow Garage is pushing it's open-source ROS robotics software platform. "Box Turtle" is their latest release, which is what all the turtles are about in the poster.

There are more images from the process of creating this poster in my "Robot Power" Flickr set here

.

4/2 - 4/4 Wondercon, SF

Wondercon '08-awww 1, originally uploaded by Josh Ellingson.

Wondercon is fast becoming my favorite comics/pop culture event of the year. It's easy to get to (especially if you live in San Francisco), there's almost as much awesomeness as I take take in three days, AND lots of people show up in costume!
You can find me in "Artist Alley," Table AA12 at Wondercon this weekend. I got all kinds of new stuff to show you.

Wondercon
Friday, April 2nd
12pm- 7pm
Saturday, April 3rd
10am -7pm
Sunday April 4th
11am - 5pm

Moscone Center South
747 Howard Street
San Francisco
http://www.comic-con.org/wc/

3/13-3/14 in SEATTLE for Emerald City Comicon

If I could grow a beard in time, I'd be sporting it for the Northwest's favorite comics and popular culture convention, The Emerald City Comicon! Come find me in Artist Alley where I'll have brand new prints of my work, the sort you'd normally only be able to get your hands on at prestgious big-city galleries! Don't let my lack of facial hair fool you. I'm a fancy San Francisco hipster destined for greatness...any minute now.

Regardless, please stop by and say hello if you're there. Here's the info:

Emerald City Comicon
http://www.emeraldcitycomicon.com/
Saturday, March 13th 10am-6pm
Sunday, March 14th 10am-5pm

TURF #3 Guest Variant Cover

Tommy Lee Edwards asked me to create a variant cover for issue number three of his upcoming "TURF" comic. Tommy Lee and BBC television personality Jonathan Ross teamed up to create this four-issue limited series for Image Comics. The story takes place in Prohibition-era Manhattan and involves mobsters, vampires, and aliens.
I very honored to be included as a guest artist for this series. Other guest cover artists include Jim Steranko, Bernard Chang and Duncan Fegredo.
More info at:
www.turfcomic.com/