Dissection of aTaco Time Commercial

If you're not a Tivo addict, and you live in the Northwest, you might have seen this local commercial for Taco Time, this month. The franchise has three new drinks they're promoting. The concept was to get three local artists to do their interpretation of the drink, summer, the Northwest, etc., and jam out a painting in their style for the commercial.

I got to do the commercial with local artists, Jeff "Weirdo" Jacobson, and Angelina "179" Vilalobos. Check out their sites when you can. These two are always working something cool around town, and probably have some shows in the works, as I write this.

I did a few pages of rough thumbnails (below) before picking four to color up. The above color comp (scanned and cranked out in photoshop) is the one that was picked.

I was actually working on these comps while down in Cali, a day before heading to the San Diego Comic Con. My cousin Larry let me work on a spare wacom tablet while he worked on his comic pages. My bro popped off these shots on his phone while we were hanging in his studio (Thanks Dre!)

The commercial was scheduled the day after I got back from the Comic Con. It was a two day shoot, shot in a space in lovely Georgetown. There were a couple of time lapse cameras in the rafters, and some other floaters that were set up for other shots. It was all pretty spontaneous. After everything was set up, we came in, they rolled the cameras, and we went to town on the canvases.

It was a really fun shoot overall. Just kind of weird to have to stop your work flow in between set ups. Really gets you out of the zone for a few minutes, but then, back to it. With all the starting and stopping in between painting, I think we all got in 8-10 hours of actual painting. Kind of an aggressive schedule, but it just makes you think differently while you're executing the work.

Here are Jeff and Angelina chillin' with local artist Memo Diaz. Memo was in some shots as the "art critic", and you can catch a glimpse of him in the long version. There are no cameras that can capture the power of Memo's presence, which is why he'll eventually get his own movie as an artist/bounty hunter.

They took a lot of footage with this Bolex, too. Unfortunately, I don't think much of that was used, except for a few frames in the long cut. You can see some of Tom Price's storyboards in the background. Tom's a local board artist that used to teach at the Art Institute of Seattle. I had the pleasure of taking his class back in the old AIS days.

Dave Leonard was the man at the helm on the shoot, and made the whole experience go pretty smooth. You can see him above working out a shot that was a cool idea, but didn't make the cut. You can see in the monitor how they lined up the drink with the painting.

Anyway, all in all, good times on the shoot. Here's the link to the actual commercial.

http://www.client.moderndigital.com/leonard/tacotime/cactus_coolers_web30.mov

Also, here's the long version with some more added footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbJwrPHww2U

Hands On @ Twilight

Next week, West Seattle's Twilight will be putting on a group show called "Hands On". All artists were asked to make some art without using brushes. Yup. No brushes, just hands. Really old school. Finger painting. Back to basics, full circle. Should be interesting.

Twilight Artist Collective

4306 SW Alaska St. Seattle, WA 98116 p 206.933.2444
Located across the street from Key Bank, between Edie's Shoes and Easy Street Records.

Fem-Probe-Droid

Haven't done a digital piece in awhile. Thought I'd mess around with a sketch that was a left over idea from Tasty's sci-fi show.

While I was sketching this out and coloring it, I got to thinking about all those speed painting pieces I always see online, in various forums and bulletin boards, etc. I've seen tons of gorgeous speed paintings, but I've never heard anyone say what the official time is for a speed painting. Anyone care to chime in on what the over/under is for one? I'm just curious.

Just to clarify, I'm not trying to say that this piece should be called a speed painting. This one took two hours of messing around on the cintique, and most of that time was spent dorking around with some new brushes. I have to imagine that a speed painting should be wrapped up in 30 minutes maybe? I just think it's interesting that there's so much focus on speed painting techniques. There are even tutorials on it. I get that idea that you need to get your speed up in a studio/deadline situation, but where are the books on generating great concepts and ideas? Again, I'm not saying I'm an uber genius when it comes to ideas. For christ sake, I just painted a probe droid with boobs, so count me out. These are all just stupid thoughts that role around in my head while I'm working.

Mystic Sons of Morris Graves

This Thursday is a tribute show for local artist Morris Graves. Dozens of artists contributed art that was inspired, or an homage to the local artist. You can read up on Morris Graves here, or read up on the Mystic Sons here.

There's more info on the show here.

The Morris Graves Centenary exhibition opens with a festive reception on First Thursday, August 5 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at 3 galleries in the Tashiro Kaplan compound: Rock?DeMent, the Corridor, and Angle galleries at 306 S. Washington St. Following the reception, the exhibition will remain open for public viewing on Saturdays from noon to 6:00 PM through August 28.