Saturday, July 5, 2008

Mustaches for Miracles

I cut this block for a charity benefit which is called Mustaches for Miracles.
[link]. it's a money raiser for Arkansas Children's Hospital.

I was in a slump for about a month after my gallery show and when i heard about the benefit i thought, hey, i could do some mustaches and coffee mugs. hence the last few pieces with people drinking from coffee mugs. i just pulled two more prints last night (still works in progress) of people with mustaches drinking from coffee mugs. they just need a little refinement and they'll be fine.


So this is "Just Trey". He works at Redbeard's Living Canavas Tattoo shop [link]. It's a relief print cut from vinyl and is about 6.5X7.75 inches.

so i went in there one day and asked some of the other guys to pose for me and they weren't really interested, and the guy who had agreed to pose was busy with a tat so i had to go back the next day to do the shoot. instead of bringing only my camera, i also brought in two of my prints. after the other guys saw my work, they asked me if i still wanted them to pose. i was PSYCHED! hellz yeah! and Redbeard, (the main dude/owner) has this awesome little naked lady coffee mug that he's gonna pose with, so i should have some good work to post here real soon.

and july 12th is when the mustache benefit will take place and some of my prints will be donated for auction. hopefully they sell. but i'm wondering if i could put them in a show and sell them too. i dunno how all that works. hopefully i'll get something out of this. even if it's commissions, that'd be cool.

and i also just bought some new woodcarving tools. from Warren Cutlery. a little place in new york. they're cheap japanese tools, similar to Power Grip ([link]), but they're sharper than hell. i ordered four different knives from ([link]) warren instead of getting a 'set' that would have extra tools that i'd never use. and the shipping was free b/c it was under 10 pounds.

anyway. i love my tools.

i'm off to carve.

"Upper Lip"











"Papa Doesn't Drink Coffee"

"Two Mugs"

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been using Warren tools for years...I don't think you can beat them.

Anonymous said...

How are you getting the cross hatching? It looks more like a drawing than a woodcut. I'm impressed.

Shawn Newton said...

re: joe t---
yeah no doubt! i love my tools. and instead of sharpening them i think when they dull enough i'll just order more. i suck at sharpening.

Shawn Newton said...

re: anonymous--

per the cross hatching... well, i draw the picture exactly how i would were i just drawing. then i cut out everything but the lines. and sometimes it turns out how i like, and sometimes no. but it's a lot of time consuming, mind numbing, laborious work. i love it. i lose myself in it.

Andrew Stone said...

shawn,
Very nice work. Your spontaneous draftmanship comes thru on the woodblocks quite remarkably. Good drawing, good composition. Nice work.
I had always toyed with the idea of doing portraits of friend and families favorite mug/cup instead of their faces. Now, I don't have to.
Andrew.