Stolen!

Ok so I went over to the gallery where several of my paintings were being displayed and lo and behold one of them was actually stolen. Apparently the perpetrator walked right in and walked right out with it! So if you see the above piece by yours truly hanging in somebody's house well you'd better give him a pat on the back for good taste and punch him in the face for being a jackass. Then take the painting and return it to me! Shit, I'll even give you a reward.

Stencilling the Tokyo Commute

Here is how I stencilled my latest piece entitled the Tokyo Commute. This piece was done for the Tandoori Hotel art show (Aug 1, 2009).

Well first some background. I recently came back from a trip to Tokyo and although it was an amazing city I had noticed certain things about the culture there. Japanese men and women work extremely hard. They work long hours. It is common to work until 10 or 11pm on weekdays there. When they are off work often times it is expected of them to go out drinking with their co-workers. Because of this they often miss the last train home and are forced to sleep in the train stations. Here are some photos I took of Japanese business men sleeping in train stations. (remember, these are not bums, they are regulars like me and you).


here's another...

and another....

finally here is a link to a video i took on the morning subway of an entire row of Japanese Business people sleeping on the train.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fdJ0WY20f4

So basically I wanted to capture this part of their culture in my piece. In order to do this I used the above video. First I had to take individual frames of the movie and splice them together. Like so...

and now i use photoshop to stitch them together. Be careful of the problem areas where the seams occur. I had to match it up as best as possible...

We then desaturate the image to make it black and white. Take note of the trouble spots in Red...we will have to take care of those with some photoshop trickery.

here is a picture I took of the side of a taxi cab. it had the cute Japanese police mascot "pipo" on it. Not sure what the writing says since I don't read Japanese but it will still fit nicely in our trouble spot...

now i seperate each color into it's own layer. there are 4 colors: black, darkgrey, lightgrey, and white:

Now we have to decide how big to make this thing. I like making huge pieces because to me they are just more visually impressive. So i decide to make this particular canvas 8 FEET long. yes that's right, a whopping 8 feet. that way the people in the painting are almost life size. unfortunately there are no art stores that sell canvases that big, so I have to build the canvas myself. You will need 4 stretcher bars, primed or un-primed canvas, and a staple gun.

lay the assembled stretcher bars on top of the canvas like so. then using the staple gun, staple down the canvas in an alternating fashion. here is a little diagram for the order of stapling.. remember to stretch it as tight as possible...

annnnd..where finally done. my fingers were killing me after this..

ok now that that's out of the way we can begin tracing. print out each layer of the stencil. then I use a projector to enlarge the image onto large bristol boards. I then carefully trace each layer. here is a shot of what i'm talking about...

now comes the cutting. use a regular exacto knife. buy a pack of like 10 blades because you will go through them quickly..

....keep cutting away. maybe put on a good movie to help pass the time. but one that you've seen before so that you don't get too distracted. It also helps to have the printed out layers handy so you can reference them..

Once the cutting is done, it's time to paint. you will need the 4 different colors of spray can. i use Montana hardcore because it's the best. you will also need some thin caps. and maybe 1 big cap for the first black layer..

Buy yourself a filter mask and use it. Sometimes graff artists will not use masks because it's "uncool" or they simply like the "romantic" smell of the fumes. But don't be an idiot, those fumes are crazy toxic. Also, a pair of latex gloves helps to keep paint off your fingers. you can buy these at the dollar store.

Now then, the first layer is black. This is easy, just paint the whole thing black. use even strokes and just get it all filled in and solid looking. remember to paint the edges too.

then do the dark grey on top of the black.

then light grey ..

and finally white...

and here is the final product!
.
.
.
.
.

don't forget to sign it! i like to sign the back only so as not to take away anything from the painting itself..

and that's it! thanks for reading if you actually read this whole thing. You can see the piece in real life and in all it's 8 foot glory at tomorrow's art show entitled Tandoori Hotel! here is the flyer and some details. Hope to see you there!

-Dan aka. Danskee

NewYorkCity by Danskee

Thought I'd post some 1 year old art since my new show is coming up. This was from the "vapourscapes" show in 2008.

Did you Know...?

Break Up Flowchart

Tandoori Hotel

I’m involved in an upcoming show (august 1st) put on by 2 of my good friends Annaliza and Trevor (aka Kurly). If you enjoy art, please come out and support. thanks…

THE ZEN OF THIEVES AND ICON HAIR GALLERY PRESENTS:

~ TANDOORI HOTEL ~

Inside Edmonton’s most unique hair salon and art gallery… A collaborative art show featuring new paintings, drawings, graffiti back patches, graffiti jackets, cool collectibles and exotic photography by

Kurly
Lady Venz
Danskee
Photography by Dianne Cortez

Live music, Live Henna Art, Spiced up models, Indian cuisine, Cocktails and Live Kama Sutra (if the party jumps off…)

BE THERE OR BE SARI !!!***

Boy drank gasoline to copy his TV heroes

Boy drank gasoline to copy his TV heroes

A 14-YEAR-OLD boy drank gasoline for five years to obtain "energy" - just as his idols "Bumble Bee" or "Optimus Prime" do in "Transformers," the Sichuan-based West China Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

After the boy, in Yibin City, southwest Sichuan Province, had watched the animated TV series, he began to drink gasoline to become a "valiant fighter" like "Optimus Prime," his father told the newspaper.

"He began to drink gasoline five years ago, when we found he liked smelling lighter fuel," he said.

The boy's mother owned a grocery stall, selling small goods such as lighters.

In 2004, she often found lighters missing two or three days after she'd bought them. She later found that her son had been stealing them.

The parents talked to their son and asked him not to do it again. "But afterwards we found our motorcycle's gasoline was always disappearing, and one day when we found the boy had drunk a half bottle of gasoline stolen from the motorcycle, we were too shocked to say anything," the father said.

IQ dropped

They locked the motorcycle away after that but the boy began to steal gasoline from neighbors and was drinking more and more - two or three bottles at a time.

"Since my son started to drink gas, his IQ has dropped sharply and now he can't figure out simple addition and subtraction," the father said.

"Before that, he was a very smart boy, and he could even repair the television. But now he does not know the answer of 7 plus 17."

The worried parents finally took their son to hospital where they were told the boy had a mental disorder and a strong "gasoline dependence."

"The gasoline contains a lot of lead, which can do harm to people's brains. To make thing even worse, the boy is in the physical development stage, and the lead has caused serious damage to his body," Peng Houquan, a doctor from a hospital in Yibin, said.

"Transformers" is now a Hollywood blockbuster movie franchise and the second live-action film is currently breaking box office records in China.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" has gained 400 million yuan (US$58.4 million) in the country, breaking the record set by "Titanic" 10 years ago.

Interview with Hypebeast's Eugene Kan

Fellow Edmontonian and good friend Eugene Kan was recently interviewed by online magazine street level. Although some of you may not recognize the name, most of you recognize his work on Hypebeast.com. Bloggin ain’t easy and Eugene works harder than most people I know in his industry. Definitely an insightful read about blogging, fashion, and trends (and what creates them).

Nature of the Beast: An interview with Hypebeast’s Eugene Kan