2:54

This past Monday, I had the pleasure of seeing the great 2:54 headline at the Mercury Lounge, NYC. I was introduced to them through the also great Wild Beasts, who did a killer remix of their song "You're Early." Upon watching the music video for the original track, I was an instant convert. Watching the clip for "Scarlet" solidified my fandom. Their exceptional debut album (mixed by Alan Molder) was just released on Fat Possum records - buy it on iTunes, Amazon MP3, or listen on Spotify.

It was a genuine thrill getting to meet Colette, Hannah, Joel, and Alex, and being able share some of my art with them. I hope I helped make their current US tour that much more fun & memorable - they certainly made my night an amazing one. Can't for the next tour!

Thumbnails.

Raw illustration.

Photoshop explorations.

Final poster.

Signed poster!!!

EDIT: 7/17/12

You can see my 2:54 artwork on SPIN magazine's website, as a part of a photo-journal of the band's recent tour!! Awesome!!

Here's a screencap:

Metric

Last night I had the honor of seeing Metric play at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. They put on an amazing show as expected and their new album Synthetica sounded great live. I've had an unusual amount of creative momentum lately, starting with the Zola Jesus show at the Guggenheim, and continuing this past Monday seeing 2:54 (post coming soon), so working off that I conceived and executed a Metric poster for the Williamsburg show in the span of roughly 36 hours. It was exhausting but exciting and COMPLETELY fucking worth it. I made color prints of the poster on tabloid paper a few hours before the show, and made sure I had enough for each member of the band and a copy for myself. Anyway, when the band exited it the stage I was dragged by a friend through the crowd to the front of the venue (prints in tow), and since this event was being filmed, I obnoxiously held up the poster I made to a camera that was sweeping the first few rows of the crowd - it seemed to get the camera's attention. The band then came back out for the obligatory encore and tore through "Gold Guns Girls", during which my friend gave one of my prints to the bass player, Josh. Then, for the final song of the night, lead singer Emily Haines and guitarist Jimmy Shaw went acoustic, playing a gorgeous version of "Gimme Sympathy" - but not before my friend handed Emily one of my prints, which she commented on in front of the entire audience, making eye contact with me from just a few feet away. Surreal. Nice to know I have a few eye witnesses, too. After their closing number, I howled in appreciation but didn't actually think Emily would take the print with her - sure enough, exiting the stage she picked it back up, turned back to look at me and mouthed "thank you." So... life = complete.

Since I love showing process, I posted the first thumbnails and sketches I cooked up, leading to the individually drawn portraits on separate pieces of paper. Once each portrait was scanned, they were arranged and modified in Photoshop, and all given Terminator eyes.

 

EDIT (6/22/12): Video proof of my encounter with Ms. Haines...

Also, here's a scan of the one remaining poster I gave out that night to some fellow fans (who happened to be from NJ if I remember correctly). After I left, they stayed around and got it signed by Emily! I attached a pic of all the band's signatures from a recent KROQ session they did to confirm its authenticity.

EDIT #2 (6/23/12): I stumbled upon some lovely photos from the Williamsburg show by a photographer named Ken Grand-Pierre, which included 2 pictures of Emily holding my poster! He also wrote a nice review of the gig and even mentioned my brief encounter with Ms. Haines. Thanks to Ken for taking the pics, and for letting me post his work! Check out his social media.

Warpaint

I've been an absolutely huge Warpaint fan since seeing them open for The xx back in 2010 - their show at the United Palace Theater in NYC remains one of my favorites of the past few years - a great example of Support Act + Headliner harmony. In any case, I've been itching to do a more thoughtful, labored Warpaint piece for a long time. They were one of the first bands I thought of when beginning my "band poster" kick. I knew I wanted to create something that directly acknowledged the name of the band (at the risk of being too on-the-nose) - the potential, in terms of visuals and imagery, was just too rich to ignore. One way or another, I decided that the first member I'd depict in this inevitable series of Warpaint posters would be singer-guitarist Theresa Wayman (maybe its because I love her song "Shadows" so much). Working from a still taken from the music video for their incredible, self-titled track "Warpaint" - I wanted Theresa's state and expression to be somewhat ambiguous (is she awake? alive?). Additionally, the paint itself was quite literally finger-paint that I dragged over tracing paper with my own digits. That tracing paper was then scanned, layered, and slightly manipulated over the scan of the illustration. I debated whether or not I wanted the paint to be contained by the frame of the face (i.e. more realistic) or if it should be layered in such a way that was vaguely omniscient and/or ethereal. I went with the latter, which seemed fitting, given that the drawing by itself already had a hint of that quality.

Big Black Delta

Big Black Delta, the solo project of former Mellowdrone frontman Jonathan Bates, continues to be one of my favorite new acts of recent times... so of course I had to do a Big Black Delta poster. This one is pretty straightforward: as with all of my work as of late, I wanted to create a graphite portrait, in this case of Bates, which felt especially appropriate since he alone is the grand architect behind all BBD music. Playing into the UFO lore and Space themes that Bates is so inspired by, I essentially layered the original illustration/portrait with a telescopic photo of a nebula. It was a simple solution, but seemingly the best one since it (hopefully) conveys the idea that all of this music is bursting and radiating from one person's brain. The more abstract background embellishments that surround Bates on the original drawing were directly inspired by the incredible work of Caspar Newbolt & Version Industries who have thus far done all the official artwork for Big Black Delta.

Thumbnails

Raw scan of the graphite illustration

Final image

"Prometheus" illustrations

Have you seen Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" yet? You should. A highly cerebral and visceral film you will NOT be able to shake easily. I plan on doing more "Prometheus" related drawings soon, but these few were completed slightly before its June 8th release. The first is based on a frame towards the end of the movie, depicting main character Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace). I also included some Photoshop explorations, attempting to take the portrait in a more deliberately poster-esque direction. 




 Next is a piece based on the brilliant bit of viral marketing for "Prometheus" that featured Guy Pearce (who happens to be one of my all-time favorite actors) as Peter Weyland, giving a TED Talk in 2023. I wanted to create a poster that was elegant and uncluttered (not unlike Apple's general aesthetic) - one that hints at the colossal kind of event this might be in the universe of "Prometheus", since TED is so prolific and Peter Weyland is essentially the Steve Jobs of Ridley's fiction. I'll likely be revisiting this one with slight adjustments as time goes on.

Austra

Continuing with the band posters theme, here's the one I did for the band Austra, easily one of my favorite groups right now. I'd rank their debut album, last year's "Feel It Break", in my Top 5 (or Top 2) of 2011 without question. The initial idea for this poster (the blood-soaked hair), as seen in the thumbnails, was inspired by their song "Trip" which has some great, evocative imagery in its lyrics. Once I decided on that, I sought out reference of singer Katie Stelmanis, ultimately working from a still taken from the music video for "Lose It."

Thumbnails:

RAW pencil illustration:

Photoshop explorations:

Final image:

I love the idea of the blood-drenched hair and the nose-bleed being separate events, the latter being a last-minute idea that came from the still I was looking at. I don't know if that theme comes across or not, but if it does, hopefully it adds some intrigue to the piece. The various debris and typography that frames the image was an attempt at a.) acknowledging the title of Austra's album ("Feel It Break") and b.) drawing the eye back to Katie's face, which should be the visual anchor, despite the downward motion of the overall illustration.

Zola Jesus

I've been a fan of Zola Jesus (a.k.a. Nika Roza Danilova) since she went on tour opening for The xx with Warpaint. I had tickets to said tour when it rolled through NYC in October 2010, but sadly, I arrived late and missed her set. However, I still sought out her music beforehand, and was instantly impressed: it's hard not to be blown away by her song "Night" on first listen. Since then, she's released the "Valusia" EP as well as a full-length album titled "Conatus." She writes and sings in a grandiose, operatic fashion... which isn't a coincidence: Nika is an Opera-trained singer who eventually abandoned the idea of pursuing a traditional career in Opera. This influence combined with her seemingly innate dark, moody sensibilities makes for some very powerful and memorable compositions. Despite her young age, she has already completed impressive collaborations with M83, Pictureplane, Former Ghosts, Orbital, Prefuse 73, and LA Vampires. In short, she's a remarkably talented and unique voice, even in 2012's colorful musical landscape.

So when it came time for me plan an independent study for my final college semester, I was strongly leaning towards a music-related project. Ultimately, I decided to illustrate and design posters for my favorite bands, and Zola Jesus was one of the first that came to mind. Nika's inherent photogenic qualities and ethereal aesthetic made her an obvious choice. I also finished posters for Steven Wilson, Atari Teenage Riot, Big Black Delta, and Austra - all of which I'll be posting on this blog if I haven't already. Each of the posters are meant to be the kind of thing sold at a merch booth during a concert, but I still aimed for a design that could be appreciated by someone who had never heard of the band/artist before. In other words, I hoped to strike a balance between maintaining a fine art feel while still accurately promoting the band/artist to those familiar and unfamiliar with them.

This led to me creating 2 main versions of my Zola Jesus poster: one "generic" version that isn't show or album specific, and a "Divine Ricochet" one which directly advertises her recent concert at the Guggenheim featuring JG Thirwell and the Mivos Quartet. (Divine Ricochet is the name of the concert series that Zola Jesus participated in) Here's a rough breakdown of the poster-creating process.

Initial thumbnails and ideas:

Raw scan of final illustration:

Photoshop explorations:

Final "generic" design:

Final "Divine Ricochet" design:

Interestingly, Nika has expressed a slight frustration in her music: she writes huge-sounding songs but does so primarily through keyboards and software. Ideally, she'd be recording her tunes with massive symphonies. While she has yet to do this, she came as close as she ever has on May 10th, 2012 when she, JG Thirwell, and the Mivos Quartet played live at the Guggenheim in NYC. I was lucky enough to get a ticket the day of the show, and couldn't be happier I did. With JG conducting the quartet through Zola's songs (which he arranged for strings specifically for the event), and Nika herself singing with great presence (despite her demure figure), the one-of-a-kind performance soared. The combination of the strings, the vocal, and occasional backing-track of electronic beats was often emotional, and always captivating. The crowd was appropriately respectful and reverent throughout - the gravitas of the music heightened by the iconic interior structure of the Guggenheim.

After the show, I walked around a bit aimlessly and eventually grabbed the setlist (which included an encore/reprise of opening number "Avalanche" in which Nika deftly went into a very high vocal register I'd never heard her do before). After leaving the museum and mingling on the sidewalk directly outside the entrance, I handed out a few "flyers" of my poster design on black and white 8.5x11" paper. Everyone seemed to be happy to receive them, including one fan who asked for an extra. A little later on, I found that same fan again, who asked me if I drew the flyer I gave him. I told him "yes" and asked if he liked it. He also said "yes" and mentioned he'd just gotten Nika to sign it! (!!!!) I of course freaked out and asked if she seemed to like the drawing: the fans responded affirmatively. They each got their copies signed by her, and proceeded to share the proof with me:

(EDIT 9/1/12 - Thanks to David for the hi-res scan of the signed flyer!)

Apparently, it was their 3rd time meeting Nika, and they had nothing but nice things to say about her (they were "Fan number 1" and "Fan number 1-and-a-half" respectively - awesome). They felt bad that I had missed her, but I was too taken aback by the fact that she had a.) seen my art, b.) signed it, and c.) acknowledged it in a positive way. They also asked me to sign their individual "flyers" which was of course my pleasure. At the beginning of the night, I imagined my best case scenario would be getting the high-quality, full-color print of the poster I brought to a Museum staff member (who could maybe pass it along). I was elated by the way things had actually turned out.