Murphy’s Law had its way with my website today. I was up late last night making changes to the site when all of a sudden the site had an e-heart attack and died. We’re talking totally dead, get the body bag b/c it flatlined. Any of you who may have happened to visit the site today saw what I saw – a blank white screen of death.

I saw that maintenance was being performed on my site, so I gave up trying to fix it at 4AM. Woke up 6 hours later, nothing gives. I messaged Media Temple for support and waited. I got a cryptic response a couple hours later and waited. Then another cryptic response, then more waiting. I’m not a true web guru so I don’t understand the in depth nature of relative paths vs hard paths and how Wordpress uses them to connect to the database. Finally I got tired of waiting, so I called Media Temple and waited. After 25 minutes of being on hold, a representative picks up the phone. I refresh my website, and voila it started working before I could even tell the guy my problem. Apparently they moved some things around during maintenance, and my exact cluster and group number were still affected. He continued “You can fix the hard paths by logging into SSH and replacing all instances of /sa/32/t56/dtr/~… etc etc” yeah, I don’t know how to to do that, so I’ll just be glad it’s fixed and pray it never happens ever again.

I found it quite ironic that it was fixed while I was on hold. Now that’s customer service!

Anyway, minus a couple features the site should be up and running once again. Sorry for the momentary MIA.

Stavesacre is back with a brand new EP after a hiatus of sorts. Supposedly this EP is a set of farewell songs intended for the fans that have supported the band over the years. Personally, I hope the guys in the band hear how good these songs are and realize they still have some creativity and momentum left in the Stavesacre tank and they give us another full length. As with any band this deeply ingrained in my past, I should note that I’ve loved this band since Absolutes, I feel like that album and Speakeasy are the bands best, but they’re followed very closely by How to Live With a Curse.

The new DVD/EP combo is a welcome addition to my collection because I honestly hated to see this band go. I remember exactly when they announced that they broke up, I was in a hotel waiting to catch a flight to Seattle the next day. The news came not as a shock, but it still was a bummer nonetheless.
Read the rest of this entry »

A site that’s dedicated to microwavable foodstuffs? Sounds good to me!

United Plates on Heat Eat Review

Artist: Maylene and the Sons of Disaster
Album: III
Label: Ferret
Release Date: June 23, 2009

How have they done it? Did they mixed melody with melting riffs? Slowed down yet maintained the edge? This is my take on III and I love every second of it. Read the rest of this entry »

SeriousEats.com featured me! This is the post that caught The Food Network’s attention, so thanks to team Serious Eats!

If you’re looking for a tasty recipe, you should peruse and then bookmark/grab the RSS feed for this site. Great read for the food lover.

The epitome of a quick and dirty sketch. I did most of the work directly on the board. His clown hair was the most enjoyable part of the process.

With George Washington, I went for quick and immediate. I execute all of my sketches freehand, and for this one I spent less than 10 minutes blocking in the idea and the forms. I rarely have a full idea of what I want the final painting to look like, only a basic color scheme. However, for this one I had a solid mental image of what I was hoping to accomplish, so the sketch needn’t be too in depth.
Read the rest of this entry »

After much delay (most of which was out of my control), I can finally begin to unveil the next project. I am continuing in a “pro America” theme with this project as it felt like a logical follow up to The United Plates, yet at the same time it’s intent and execution is at a polar opposite of what I tried to accomplish with the previous series.

With The United Plates, I was focusing on the tongue-in-cheek nature of the idea and while keeping the illustrations simple in an attempt to prove to myself that I could pull off such a large series sets. Obviously, I love to work in rather large series. With US Presidents, however, my goal is completely different. First, this is the debut showcase of what I call my “signature style.” I’ve always loved drawing people, but finding a style that was all my own and one that I enjoyed creating was always the challenge. I’ve moved away from the flat nature of screen printing and opted for gouache and watercolor on board. I’ll be posting a more in depth blog in the future regarding style.

What I love about this current series is, while it logically flows as far as topic goes, it’s almost a complete u-turn as far as style, medium and overall mood are concerned. I doubt these paintings look like what anyone expected me to do next… and I love that. As you may have noticed, I’ve only published George Washington thus far. Instead of blasting all 44 paintings onto the world at once, I have decided to post one a week for the next 44 weeks. I think it will be a great showcase displaying how the pieces progress as I work through the series since they’re going to be completed as I go along.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy George. Be sure to stop by my website every Monday as I will be uploading a new piece each week as well as the accompanying sketch. Prints of every President will be for sale soon, more than likely in August, so keep your eyes out. Thanks for watching!

All original pieces are also for sale.

Posted via web from Shorthanded Studio