Fuck yeah! Really excited about this! First gig poster ever. I know the picture on the left is kinda small, but you can click on it to see a larger version.

A bit about the concept: The first thing that came to mind with the project was to have a large blue bird (symbolizing the Blue Cranes) feeding music to a bunch of baby birds (representing the audience). I ran this idea across Joe (Tenor Sax - Blue Cranes) and he had a different interpretation of this idea: The larger bird would symbolize Wayne Horvitz while the smaller birds would represent the Blue Cranes. He then went on to explain that the Blue Cranes perform an arrangement “Love Love Love“, one of Wayne’s compositions. A while back, someone had shown Wayne a recording of the Blue Crane’s version of the song and it was very well received. This opened up a correspondence between the two musical acts and eventually they set a date to play together in Portland. That date is Saturday, January 31st at The Goodfoot.

The Composition

The composition took on a few different forms along the way. The goal was to preserve the concept as much as possible. Sounds easy right? Well, not for me!!! This goes against everything I do when I paint. When I’m making a painting, I have no preconceived idea… I just create mess on top of mess - adding lines here and there until something emerges - kinda like a self created & administered Rorschach Test - only my paintings possess more colors and, when it really comes down to it, I have absolutely no love for psychology :).

Here are a few drawings in consecutive order. The third drawing from the left shows the actual wing used in the final design. I learned a very important lesson with this wing… Never draw on ruled paper again. EVER! The blue lines are easy enough to remove once scanned in, but the ink bleeds like you wouldn’t believe causing tedious cleanup work.

The Hat

This is the one distinguishing feature that I had to work with. A quick Google search produced a number of pictures of Wayne wearing a hat of some sort. So I had to figure out how to draw a hat. People never believe me when I tell them that I don’t know how to draw very well, no one ever listens, but here’s a bit of proof: I ended up drawing 5 hats until I got one that I liked.

Although it sounds like I’m bitching, there’s something to be said about drawing things over and over again: sometimes it produces things that you would not have thought about otherwise. Case in point: The Piano Hat. Hat drawing #2 shows me trying to add some secondary embellishment to the bottom of the hat ribbon which visually registered as piano keys. Due to the fact that Wayne is a pianist, this turned out to be a perfect fit.

The Music Staff

This part was fun… and only took two iterations to get to an acceptable state. The music is the first 6 bars to the melody of Love Love Love. You can see from the composition drawings above that this was originally supposed to be a worm, but I really couldn’t figure out how to get the notes into the shape of a worm while retaining the readability of the music, Oh well, I like this better anyways.

Design blue cranes, Design, poster, wayne horvitz

Made of Wet Boots and Rain

Figured I should update my site a little more often. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride! Just be sure to keep your arms, legs and head inside while we’re in motion. No need to adjust your seat into the full upright and locked position though… You should be comfortable, but there’s no need for decapitation.

Shiny Black Ravens

Actually, how ’bouts shiny Blue Cranes? I know it deviates from the lyrics a bit, but whatca-gonna-do? I was hanging out over at The Goodfoot last night when I was asked to do a Gig Poster for one of their upcoming shows. Totally stoked! Not only have I wanted to make a gig poster for the longest time, but I get to make one for a rad band too. I first saw the Blue Cranes at Gallery Homeland a few months back and the show was killer. Definately worth checking out live.  I’ve already started laying out the design in my head and I got a great feeling about this one! I’ll keep you posted with updates.

On Chimney Smoked Lanes

While at the Goodfoot, it was time for a solo session of Drink and Draw. What do you get when you cross-breed a few Oly’s, a 6″x6″ piece of bristol paper and a micron pen? Just take a look to your left… you can click on it too and leave comments and stuff… You know you want to leave comments and stuff. If I had to title this drawing, it would probably be something in the neighborhood of: “bearded man with under-bite reaches for intangible treasure while his third-eyed wrapped in peacock feathers stares into the great beyond”. And this is reason #3 why this drawing will remain untitled.

November Seems Odd

This is my guitar. There are many like it but this one is mine. My guitar is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my guitar is useless. Without my guitar I am useless… well, maybe not exactly… but it’s really cool! I’m stoked to have an electric guitar again… even if it is the cheapest, rottenest, won’t go in tune at all, impossible to intonate piece of s**t on the planet. It’s still awesome! I think it’s been 6 or 7 years since I had one and now you better watch out, cuz I’m gonna rock your face off! Wait, no I’m not. Yes I am. No I’m not. Yes I am… Reader, you’d better skip to the next heading while I sort this out with myself.

You’re My Firing Squad

Forward - Like a Flower that Only Desires to Blossom. This is the title of a new book from Jesse Reno. This is the second book I’ve put together for Jesse. Forward… features 40 full-color pages, is perfect bound (this is fancy book-people terms for paperback), and will be available for mass consumption in about a week or so. Check out the online preview and pre order one today! Related side note… I’ll be making my own book soon!!! I still have to hunt down a few pieces to photograph for inclusion, I’m hoping to have it together early January. Keep your eyes peeled.

November

Last, but certainly not least: HAPPY FRICKEN BIRTHDAY!!!! That’s right folks. November is the magic month whence your humble narrator was cast into this cruel cruel word almost 28 years ago… Oh it’s not that bad, yes it is, no it’s not…. Jesus Christ! Stop arguing! It’s downright embarrassing.

Art birthday, blue cranes, book, jesse reno

Yep…
that’s right…
HALLOWEEN!!!!

Art

They’re having one of these crazy WordCamp thingies here in Portland at the end of September… September 27th to be exact. So… if you like the WordPress, and you live in or around Portland, OR… you should sign up here. It costs $10… but they promise to feed you two meals, hook you up with a t-shirt and they even add your name to this cool list of attendees. I’m usually totally against paying money just to enter a building… but the folks putting together WordCamp PDX are really hooking it up:) See ya there!

WordPress

Invision2 Show + Release Party

This Last Thursday ( July 31st ) at The Goodfoot we will be having a release party for Invision 2 - A Collection of Visual Art from Portland + Beyond. There are a bunch of great artists in the new book and they will all have work on display. Come check it out from 5pm-2am.

Invision
Released: September 6th, 2007
Published by: Another Sky Press
Order: anothersky.org
Featuring the work of: Kendra Binney, Ryan Bodiroga, Paul Fujita, Chris Haberman, Scott Wayne Indiana, Tim Karpinski, Tom Keating, Charlie Alan Kraft, Asley Montague, Dan Ness, Jesse Reno & Keith Rosson.

Invision 2
Released: July 31st, 2008
Published by: Another Sky Press
Preorder: anothersky.org
Featuring the work of: Erik Abel, Ashley Anson, Damon Ayers, Jason Brown, Michael Fields, Justin Gorman, Jason Graham, Michael Edward McGovern, Russel Short, David Stein, Alisha Wessler & Eric Wixon.

DRAW

I have started up a new series of art shows that I will be curating (with friends) in the Portland Metro area. The first show is currently up and on display at The Life in Old Town. They have gallery hours on Fridays from 12-5 PM and Saturday from 1 - 5 PM. If your in the neighborhood during these times, you should stop by and check out the show. If there is no chance that you will be in town and still want to see the pieces - I have uploaded a few to the new DRAW site. The site is still in it’s early stages of development, but it is fully functional as is.

Art

After some strange-ness with my domain registrar, mfields.org is back online.

Art

Watch This

Actually, “first ever etching” might be more appropriate. I’m working on a collaborative etching with Shawn Demarest. Shawn provided me with a copper plate covered in what is known as hard ground (which is basically a waxy material that is resistant to acid) and a metal-scratchy-thing. I was instructed to remove the waxy stuff with the scratchy thing and produce a design. Here’s what happened (click image for larger):

On the left, you will see the etched plate. On the right (thanks to the miracles of digital imaging) you will see what a clean print of the plate would look like. By clean, I mean “without the aquatint” which is an etching process allowing for the creation of tones, shadows, and solid areas of color. Aquatint will be be handled by Shawn in her studio.

This print will be on display sometime in June, 2008 at Bite Studio in SE Portland. Check back soon for more details.

Thanks Shawn!!!

You can read more about the modern techniques involved in the etching process if interested.

Art angel, bite, etching, moon, portland, Shawn Demarest, studio

Please see this plugin before you read this article

Another WordPress tutorial!!!
Andy from Tokyo, Japan writes in asking:

Could you please tell me how you added the text navigation links to your gallery? I would be grateful… …Thank you.

Sure Andy, No problem, but first a little bit of background for everyone else:

Gallery Shortcode

WordPress version 2.5 added an exciting and very awesome feature: The Gallery Shortcode. This feature allows blog authors to add a gallery of thumbnails to their blog posts. Each one of these thumbnails is linked to an individual page which displays a larger version of the image and any other information that has been associated with that image (title, description, comments, etc…). A new template file was added to the WordPress Default theme to display single images. This template file is called image.php.

Image.php?

If your current theme does not have an image.php file, I would suggest that you visit your theme’s homepage and see if a new version has been released for 2.5+. If no new version is available, you can save a copy of the WordPress default theme’s image.php file to your current theme’s directory and modify it match your current theme.

Changing to Text Based Navigation

Now that everyone has a working image.php file in their current theme’s directory, it’s time get rid of those clunky thumbnail links! Unfortunately, I was not able to find any template tags which offered text-based links, so I had to create my own:

function mf_previous_image_link( $link_text ) {
    print mf_adjacent_image_link( $link_text, true );
}

function mf_next_image_link( $link_text ) {
    print mf_adjacent_image_link( $link_text, false );
}

function mf_adjacent_image_link( $link_text, $prev = true ) {
    global $post;
    $post = get_post($post);
    $attachments = array_values(get_children("post_parent=$post->post_parent&post_type=attachment&post_mime_type=image&orderby="menu_order ASC, ID ASC""));

    foreach ( $attachments as $k => $attachment )
        if ( $attachment->ID == $post->ID )
            break;

    $k = $prev ? $k - 1 : $k + 1;

    if ( isset($attachments[$k]) )
        return '<a href="' . get_attachment_link( $attachments[$k]->ID ) . '">' . $link_text . '</a>';
  else
    return false;
}

You’ll want to paste the above code into your theme’s functions.php file. If your theme does not have a functions.php file, you can make one from scratch. Basically, I have copied a few functions from a core wordpress file, gave each one a unique name and modified them to suite my needs.

The next step is to locate the following code in your image.php file:

<div class="navigation">
  <div class="alignleft"><?php previous_image_link() ?></div>
  <div class="alignright"><?php next_image_link() ?></div>
</div>

Change the above code to:

<div class="navigation">
  <div class="alignleft"><?php mf_previous_image_link( 'Previous Image' ) ?></div>
  <div class="alignright"><?php mf_next_image_link( 'Next Image' ) ?></div>
</div>

Save both image.php and functions.php and upload them to your server. You should now have text-based navigation links for all of your WordPress Galleries.

Image Page Template Hierarchy

The list below illustrates the logic WordPress uses to determine which template file will display the the larger images in your theme. Basically, WordPress first looks for image.php if it is found, it is used, if not, attachment.php is used. Wordpress will try to locate each file in the list before it defaults to index.php.

1. image.php
2. attachment.php
3. single.php
4. index.php

In Conclusion

I hope this helps you out Andy (and whoever else might be reading). Feel free to leave questions in the comments section. Thanks for visiting!

Tutorial gallery, shortcode, template, theme, wordpress

Last Sunday, I went to see Power Circus and Sallo play at Plan B in SE Portland. I brought along ye old trusty digital camera with the mission of taking at least ONE decent shot. I think I got a few, check ‘em out below.

I started out just wanting to take some decent pictures, but then discovered that while most of the shots didn’t really hold up well on their own (Dark, Blurry, etc…), they looked pretty rad when you advanced through them really quickly — like a really jerky stop animation. I have about 400 total shots for Power Circus and plan on piecing them together (with music) into a really jerky animation. Should be fun.

Photos

Photography