Trina is artsy fartsy

Friday, April 5, 2013

In the Mind's Eye Art Show

Hello everyone! I've have been super busy with a brand new art show called In The Mind's Eye!
Unlike most art shows, where I only had a few weeks at most to prepare, this time, I was ready. I got the call from curator Phil Hyman over three months ago, and that gave me plenty of time to get some new fancy art work together.

It's no secret that I am a regular to this gallery circuit. I've covered two other shows by Phil in the past, which were The Outsiders Show and the Transitions Show. These shows are always amazing- not only do they pull in a great crowd of art enthusiasts, but they cost absolutely nothing to participate in. I can't express exactly how rare a gallery like this is. While most shows/galleries take at least 50% of an artist's sales, Phil Hyman's art shows take no profits from the artists. I really respect that... I really wish there were more art shows like this around to be a part of!

Anyways, I decided that this time I'd give the readers a sneak peek into what it was like as an artist to prepare for the show, and reveal a little "behind the scenes" stuff. I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend take a lot of pictures while he was at the gallery! It's hard to stop and take pictures myself when I'm busy running around.

Setting Up

First thing's first... and I do mean first. Writing my name on the official sign up sheet for the gallery. They use this list to keep track of all the crazy artwork that comes pouring in!

Part of the venue that was completely empty when I arrived. By the time the gallery opens, these walls would be filled with awesome original artwork.

The curator, Phil Hyman, took care of hanging most of the art in an aesthetically pleasing way. However, because I just brought in a butt load of crafts instead of ready to hang artwork, the rules were a little different in my case. The question remaining was- Where did I want my things to be displayed?

One of the scariest parts of "The Mind's Eye" show for me was staring at the vast empty room and trying to decide where I wanted my art to be located. This is a picture of me fussing over that very issue.

Luckily, I did eventually find a table I liked, so I stuck my flag in the ground and set up shop:

Apologies for the blurry pictures of my face. I didn't do it on purpose, I swear! I imagine that it's hard to capture my rapid scurrying movements, even for the most skilled of photographers.

Oh, and I almost forgot to reveal what I have been working so feverishly for three months on....

PILLOWS!

So.. Many.. Pillows!

Yes it's true, I am a pillow maker.

I'm surprised that I've gone this long on my blog without showing off my pillows! It has been a fascination of mine for a while now, but I feel like recently I really have finally hit my stride when it comes to constructing them.

The particular pillows I decided to put in The Minds Eye Show were made out of recycled t-shirts. I plan on covering my pillow collection more extensively in a future post, I have way more to say about them than this little paragraph can handle!

Shown here is only half of the pillows I had available at the show. Out of these six I sold half of them- My blue "nom nom" bunny, the Jack Skellington, and the black sheep. I wish I could show more of how cute the pillows were, but these pictures are the only record of their existence... I forgot to take pics before the show, of course! Oh well, such is life.


Also making it's public debut- a brand new bottle cap wind chime! It's so cute.. Here's me hanging it in the corner of the gallery for some reason... I guess I thought it would look good there?

My stickers and key chains served as ol' reliables. I had never displayed my stickers in a gallery before, but I think that they were received very well by the crowd! I still have hope that some of them will come visit my blog because of the awesome sticker they purchased or something.... (if that's you, leave me a comment! i'd totally do a dolphin-like flip and it would make my day.)

"Nervous System" Tape Sculpture and Yarn

Also tagging along was this lil' girl. I'm glad that I decided to bring them at the last minute! I made this tape sculpture some years ago, coincidentally in a work shop that was being taught by Phil Hyman himself! Since then, they haven't really seen the light of day. They've been chilling in the upstairs bedroom for a long time. Phil immediately gravitated towards them and gave it the most brilliant part of the show... he made sure that the legs were constantly moving around the gallery. It quickly became a collaborative effort between every single artist in the show, everyone's talented hands got to move my tape legs somewhere around the room. It ended up in the zaniest places! One of my favorites include putting it outside on the bench and watching people react to it as they walked past... Another great location was on an amp while the bands were playing- she sat perfectly perched in the middle of the stage, and I swear that those legs were glowing from all the attention.

Here's the legs chilling outside the
venue, greeting the lovely citizens of
North Charleston as they hustle
and bustle around town.
"C'mon In!!" The legs exclaim.

More behind the scenes- I'm busy cutting out flyers for the show!
My boyfriend and I ran all over the place passing these things out.

I also volunteered to help receive artwork as it was submitted to the gallery. Somebody had to be there to watch over all that precious artwork! I got to meet some great artists because of it, including two artists who I fondly describe as "The Big Wigs," Peter Scala and Fred Jamar. Here they come to deliver their stuff!

Peter Scala and Fred Jamar's work waiting to be hung on the screens. These guys are regulars in the Downtown Charleston art circuits and it shows. Got to admit that I was a little bit in awe, their artwork was of really nice quality. I suspect we will see more from these guys a little bit later...

I wasn't the only person setting my crafts up early! The super talented Mia Jenkins was also feverishly working to get all her work in order before the big day. She creates jewelry inspired by pop culture including Tardis necklaces, DnD earrings, and even some adorable Light Saber charms.

Personally, I think my favorite is her toy gun series. I want some of those tiny gun ear rings!

After being in the empty gallery for a while, things got a little weird.

To attract people to the gallery (and soothe boredom,) I spent a lot of time drawing my BF.

My easel and recycled board to lean on.. plus a little bonus "Trina is Artsy" doodle!

Apparently this picture of me is my "Artist's Face," the face I make when I'm seriously concentrating on a drawing, I guess!

Here's the charcoal sketch I came up with. It's my boyfrand all bundled up in his hoodie. You can never be too prepared for cold weather, you know.

The Show

Does this style look familiar to you? This awesome piece welcomed viewers to the gallery. It's done the same artist that made the giant wooden transgender sculpture at the Transitions show.

Dragging in the last of my artworks in my comically large picnic bag on the big day.... it was nice to see how the gallery came together once all of the artworks were in place.

An intriguing little contribution by Crystal King. My, has she blossomed as an artist! She has consistently been participating in Phil's shows... I even remember when she was just a shy artist showing her first ever piece in the Outsiders show and now she exudes confidence. You Go, Girrrlll!

"Metal Dancer" by Eric Doran.. a very elegant piece that still manages to resemble a Swiss army knife.

A collection of illustrations by various artists. The girl hanging from the moon is so cute and was drawn by Kailee Driggers.

Phil Hyman's contribution to the show- OOMPA LOOMPAS! These guys were definitely a crowd pleaser. Phil's process is mind boggling to me... he uses stencils and traditional painting techniques, I don't know how it works exactly but what I do know is that the results are magic.

More Oompa Loompas by Phil Hyman.

Clint Eastwood by Phil Hyman

Twiggy. I think it captures her likeness perfectly.

More Phil Hyman stuff- Happiness is a warm gun!

Like Father, like daughter! Phil's daughter Zoe also showed a piece in the gallery! It embodies the "Mind's Eye" and I love all the tireless detail she added into it. The silver designing is really cool and shiny in person.

One of Peter Scala's art works displaying.
His stuff vaguely reminds me of Picasso, but in a more modern, contemporary way.

I really like Fred Jamar's use of such rich colors. It was the first thing I noticed about these lovely paintings of Downtown Charleston.

One last pictures of my pillows in action. By this time I had already sold two of them! Later that evening, I had to say goodbye to my giant green luchador pillow (the only picture of it is here) and my black sheep pillow. Have fun at your new homes, guys!

Artist Tina Ballentine and others browse my collection of crafts.

My displays were old re-purposed art supply suitcases you get as a kid. Finally, they come in handy for something! Here they are keeping all of my bracelets and necklaces.

Another surprise reveal... a new series of hand made hair bows! I just can't wait to show off all of the (remaining) scrunchies in a future blog post.

Fish and Skull keychains still available.

My keychains and stickers being displayed. By the way, I also made some new troll face sticker packs to show at the gallery... this time the envelopes are golden, so fancy.

"Ugh, this light is too bright for my wine!" What an interesting portrait, I didn't catch the name of the artist.

A rather large recreation of a classic, but with a modern twist. That demon monkey looks so mournful!

Some incredible artwork by James Christopher Hill. He says that he is inspired by the artist Syd Mead, who drew the concept sketches for movie classics like Tron and Aliens. All I have to say about that is, Keep Gettin' Inspired, James.

An interesting digital art contribution. The print was incredibly high quality and smooth!

The colorful tie-die frames were made by Special Ed students of Cane Bay Highschool. This really shows how open and accepting these art shows can be. What wonderful contributions.

The gallery was hopping on Friday night! The turn out was great considering the message got out mostly by word of mouth

The "Siamese Twins" by Angela Morgane.

Tina Ballentine's recycled signs! She was able to get her hands on some awesome displays from her work, which she transformed into these awesome pop culture shields. I'm not sure which one is my favorite, they're all so cool!

My boyfriend and I's stick snakes gaurding Viktor Allan's vinyl stickers. I don't know which is more adorable, those stick snakes or Vik's weirdo monsters.

A gallery tradition- you must draw on the sidewalk with chalk!

The Theme- "In the Mind's Eye" of course.

Finally.. On the second day of the show,
I found a more suitable place for my
wind chimes. People were able to touch
them and hear their chimey sound!

I really wish I knew this artist's name, too- she was wonderfully talented and super nice... she was the one that bought my Nom Nom Bunny pillow, how perfect.

For the grand finale, Geoffrey Cormier and WAYANG Modern Shadow Puppet Theatre put on a live performance that was part puppet show and part live artwork. He used stencils to create colorful silhouettes on the surface of the screen. It was a pretty intriguing performance, and it cost nothing to be entertained for Free!

"All the sounds, hustling, bustling, and the people."

My legs resting on a bench after a hard day's work.

To conclude this mini cyber art show, I would like to say that community art shows like this are such a great experience for everyone involved. If you are curious about getting into your own local art scene, take a look around... check facebook, local newspapers, craigslist, any thing that may have a few clues on how to get into that local art scene. Because it's so rewarding to get live, instant feedback on your work. It's inspiring and it feels good to be around people with a like mind, too. Once again, thanks to Phillip Hyman for making all of this happen. Without him, the Charleston art scene would just be boring!

Until Next Time..

Photographs by Eyeball Art, Mystic Ghazala and my main man Kevin.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Site Update

Comment Moderation D:<

Traffic on this site is finally picking up! Yipee! Only problem is, my site is now being attacked by spammers. I'm getting 3 or 4 stupid gibberish spam comments a day at this point, and they always drop their little links at the bottom that lead to some raunchy mail order bride sites or something rude like that. So unfortunately, I had to disable automatic commenting on my posts. It was either that or put a CAPTCHA on my page, and that will happen over my dead body.

So, if your comment doesn't automatically show up on my post anymore, please don't take it personal. It's because I have to go through and make sure the spammers are not putting their ugly crap up on my stuff anymore. It makes me mad that I even have to do this- all because of some cruddy dude in his mom's basement is trying to hijack my site with his stupid spammy links.

If any of you have any suggestions on how I can further cut down the spam that'd be awesome. Because I have no idea what's causing it besides my increase in traffic.

Anyways, on a positive note- Got tons of new tutorials coming up, new crafts and works to show you, and there may even be a new art show write up in the future..... Stay tuned people :)

P.S Like my new drawing? It came "From the Mind's Eye..."

Friday, February 8, 2013

Handmade Art Stickers

Oh snap! I went on a crazy sticker making spree!

I'm super excited to finally reveal my new series of hand made art stickers.
I have ramped up my experiments with making my own stickers ever since I created the Trollface sticker packets a while back. Trolls are cool and stuff, but they aren't my original creations... I seriously needed a way to show off my own art, too.

So, I went back to my previous body of work, everything I've done over the past 10 years that was ever interesting or good, and dusted off an eclectic selection from my artistic career. Most of these pieces have been hiding on my ancient DeviantART account, back when I used to use that thing religiously. I soon discovered that some of these drawings were just made to be stickers. I hope that you guys agree! If you don't, then I'll have a lot of excess stickers on my hands.


Stickers come in four different sizes, Extra small to Large (shown here for scale.) Some stickers are not readily available in certain sizes, but if you contact me I can gladly make up some customized sizes just for you.

The Stickers

"Creepy Girl" sticker

This strange looking girl was drawn with Oekaki. I really like her lips for some reason. She was originally going to be normal looking, but at the last minute I decided that it would be much more awesome if she looked like a possessed demon instead. Ain't she just the dickens?

obese pikachu rocket funny sticker handmade original WTF

"Obese Pikachu" sticker

I have to admit that drawing morbidly obese characters is a secret talent of mine. This is an oldie but goodie, drawn in late 2004 on a group board (you can read more about these here.) I collaborated with another artist to create this image... I drew the obese Pikachu and they drew the rocket. Because nothing's better than a morbidly obese Pikachu strapped to a rocket being blasted into space. I wish I could give the collaborator more credit, but I can't read their signature!

Smiling Girl Cartoon Original Art Sticker

"Smiling Woman" Sticker

Speaking of groupboards, this was a drawing I did on one roughly two years after "Obese Pikachu." As an artist, I really like being able to see my improvements in my technique over time. Both Pikachu and Smiling Woman are really cool as stickers in their own ways, but with this drawing I can definitely tell that there was an improvement in my drawing skills! Horray!

skull skeleton sticker art original hipster wood cigarette

"Death's Designer Shoes Skeleton" Sticker

Ahh, the infamous "Death's Designer Shoes" artwork has finally been made it into sticker form! Many will recall the tale of the original piece, it was stolen from me at a high school "open house." Well, the joke's on them because I still got a picture of it, and now it's going to be stuck to the side of trashcans by trendy vagrants everywhere.

original art sticker painting burlap feet acrylics

"On My Two Feet" Sticker

Another one of my more serious works that has been converted into sticker form. Why suffer the stink of real feet when you can have one of these adhesive-backed art prints instead? If you're curious about learning more about this particular art work, I covered it exclusively in this blog post.

neko anime burberry hat sticker digital art

"Tweak the Neko" Sticker

I just always thought this little Oekaki drawing was kinda cute. I was also obsessed with the Burberry brand at the time, thus the very trendy hat. For some reason I was really into drawing nekos, too. Oh well... my loss is your gain.

phoenix pheonix sticker red flames mystic art

"The Phoenix" Sticker

They made my cousin throw away the original of this drawing once he was transferred, but this feathery legend still lives on. I think it will make my cousin very happy to hear that his Phoenix is still flying around out there, raising all sorts of hell, fire bird style.

original handmade stickers dog canine needle dog

"Needle Dog" and "Pug Ugly" stickers

Can you tell that I'm a dog person? These are some digital painintgs that used real (famous) photographs as references. Well, they are mostly real. The needles may have been added in after the fact, but who can really tell these days?

"Horny Deer" Sticker

This is one of my newer works, some of you will recognize it from my "make your own canvases" tutorial. The sticker versions of this drawing look just like the original, except they're adorably miniature versions. Who doesn't need a tiny horny deer in their life?

cartoon anime drawing sticker doodle original digital oekaki

"Andy" Stickers

This sticker is a throwback to one of my favorite illustrative artists of all time, Tessa Stone. I admire her style greatly, and inevitably it showed up in some of my work. Why is his name "Andy" you may ask? Who is this person? Well, whoever he is, his name conveniently fills up that blank corner of the drawing.

unique original artwork chattermouth toy

"Teeth on Fire" Sticker

I have no idea where the original is, but somehow I still have photographic evidence of this weird little artwork's existence. It was a mix of watercolor, printing inks, and charcoal. RIP missing art work, you'll live forever in sticky form now!

skull chattermouth toy plaid stilife sticker

"All Smiles" Sticker

Look familiar? That chatter mouth thing really knows how to get around. This was a more serious piece, a still life. You can tell I was over-eager to go "all out" for this life drawing because of my use of that nightmarishly plaid fabric for the background. Why must I always make things so hard for myself?

eskimoes black white ms paint oekaki art

"Eskimos Resting"

These Eskimos have definitely seen things. This design was one of the first I used to make stickers, way back when, even before my Trollface Stickers. I think I like these little guys solely based on the huge eyebrows of the 'Mo on the left. I bet they keep his face very warm during winter time.

girl white portrait painting original art red

"Rose Colored Glasses" Sticker

Now, you can take my teenaged angst with you wherever you go. This classic self portrait just oozes "tortured artist" realness. By the way, the tear means I've killed a man.

space woman letter better than ezra sticker original art

"Sincerely, Me" Sticker

I originally drew this space woman for a contest by Tessa Stone circa 2009. The assignment was to illustrate a song from a list of Tessa's choosing. I chose the song "Sincerely Me" by Better than Ezra. It was about a guy that was writing to a girl that had left him for a far away land.... in this case, she went all the way into outer space just to avoid him.

space ghost art cartoon fanart sticker original

"Space Ghost" Sticker

Space Ghost looks like he is having a bad day. Or perhaps his stomach hurts because he took such a huge bite out of his note card. I made this drawing into a sticker because I adore Space Ghost Coast to Coast... that show brings back so many good nostalgic childhood memories for me!

color rainbow face fabric portraits pattern artwork

Studio Art Stickers- "Seis Face" and "Ten Chins"

Who knew that you could translate fiber art into sticker form? These two artworks were originally a part of my AP Studio Art portfolio in high school (you can read all about it, here.) I really like how colorful these guys turned out, you can definitely taste the rainbow.

sticker grotesque weird WTF art original watercolor

"Genitalia Face" Sticker

Show me your genitals! This creepy drawing is a gift that keeps on giving... There are so many lovely mini pictures hidden inside this art to keep you guessing. If you're creative enough, you might spot a couple of them...

YOLO cardboard box cute girl pigtails oekaki artist

"You Only Live Once (YOLO)" Sticker

I was totally into YOLO-ing before it was cool. This is a self portrait I did around 2009... here I am sailing the seven seas in my cardboard box of imagination. Don't I look so happy? I don't do this style very often, but I am kind of digging it. Reminds me of illustrations for a story book or something.

All of these stickers were painstakingly hand made by me. I didn't print them out on adhesive paper, I personally added industrial strength double stick tape to the back of each and every sticker instead. This took me forever to do, but it was worth it. In my opinion, I think that using this special tape adds a lot of value to my customized stickers. They're seriously serious about sticking to things!

Some artists believe that "you are only as good as your latest work," and I agree with this to an extent. But on the other hand, there have been so many pieces that I've done in the past which have truly been sheltered from the world. Is it still considered old work if it's new to everyone else? My answer is, I don't care cuz I'm gonna do it anyways.

By the way, I have some new envelopes in the works for these stickers, similar to the ones for my Trollface packets. If you buy in bulk you'll definitely be getting your stickers in an awesome pocket keepsake. More pics to come soon... stay tuned!