Here They Come...

Over a short but much needed out of towner, I ran into an old friend. After a brief catching up over a drink, we started talking business. It turns out he and his wife are in the process of opening a bike shop. Not just a bike shop, a real, brick and mortar, BMX shop for the real heads(he's a long time BMX staple in the industry, even through the down years). For those that know, a true BMX shop is pretty hard to come by. Most are watered down, buy your complete bike here type shops catering to families or at least selling a wide spectrum of bikes. From his description of there plans it will be much like a skate shop in that you can buy everything by the piece giving you the freedom to do what you want. I grew up skateboarding and I always figured that bike shops were much like skate shops, that i until a few years ago when I started riding. No, I'm not a BMX convert, I ride a road bike, particularly a rode bike I built from scratch and have since built s few more, it's sort of addictive. When I started, I had no idea about what a pain it would be(I refer you back to the previous statements). So when he told me about their plans, I knew I had to get on board. I don't live in the area anymore so I can't physically lend a hand, so I offered the next best thing that I could think of, art. So I asked if he'd let me do the identity work and maybe so other art for shop promotions. He was pretty stoked at the offer and here we are. (above is the logo and below is the art for the first t-shirt)

Best of luck you guys and please, let me know if I can help out in any other way.

Finished Work

I've wrapped up another book project. This one is for Thomas Nelson Publishing in Nashville, TN. Above is the cover art and packaging for the audio book, box set for the new Chris Seay release, "The Gospel According to Lost". Chris uses the popularity of pop culture hits as the basis of gathering correlations between scripture and these popular productions.

One More Thing

I've launched the new site and couldn't be happier, at least for now. Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, it's quite different from my last site. Let me know what you think, visit mborum.com you can also still visit my old site if you prefer the look of it at meborum.com. I'll be updating both with new work when projects are finalized.

Branding and Identity Development

As mentioned in my last post, I have a new client from Australia. 4GMetals is a scrap metal recycler just outside of Sydney that contacted me about developing a new identity and handle some of their branding needs. The branding is still in the works, however I have just gotten final approval on the mark. Let me know what you think and I'll be back with more news on this and other clients in the near future.

Search Continues

I just finished my new site, as well as some new projects from a new Australian clients. I'm uploading the site as I type and will have updates about the new clients projects as soon as I get the all clear to send them to print.

This site is vastly different from my last, being that it is a totally different layout and much more conservative in appearance than the avant garde look of my last effort. That being said, I am really happy with the results. Hopefully it will garner more responses in my quest for in house employment. Wish me luck.

New Work, New Site.

I've been working on a new site lately. Yeah, I know, the last site was just finished a month or so a go, but I thought maybe the avant-garde style of my current/soon to be previous site was holding me back a bit in my search for a full time in-house art director gig. My soon to be previous site was an experiment in what a very simply coded HTML site could be, not to mention the design was something completely new and as much design as I study, I'd never come across this style or look before. I was and still am very happy with the work but knew not everyone or maybe not even most would get it, but I felt that someone would. Possibly a Boutique Ad Agency, focused on high design, but here I am 2 months later still doing my thing, contract and freelance work. Don't get me wrong, contract and freelance isn't a bad gig, just not necessarily what I'm wanting to do for too much longer.

I truly feel that the best place for me is working in someone else's shop, focusing all of my efforts on the creative, the concept development, the final product. After all, that's what brought me to design. So, stay tuned for the new site in the next couple of days.

Recruiters

Through the various connections I've been able to make over the years in the creative world, I've managed to find myself a creative recruiter. This is certainly a new one for me. I'll let you know how it goes, hopefully great.

It's been a while!

It's been a while since my last update, but I'm back. A lot has been going on over the last couple of months.

To start, I gotten myself engaged to my long time girlfriend Erin. As of now the the plans are still up in the air but I think the tentative date will be mid summer of next year.

I had a couple of great trips out of the Music City, some urban, some suburban and most recently an awesome camping trip to a same island on Norris Lake, where I found out that both of my puppies are swimmers. I know, it surprised me too. Old friends, good times, sorry no pics.

Currently I'm finding myself in a bit of a career shift and luckily I have a friend that has hooked me up with a great recruiter, however if anyone is looking for an art director, I might be your guy. Have a look and let me know what you think. http://www.mborum.com

And lastly for now I guess, I haven't had a ton of time to paint but I have started a new 30 x 40 pen and ink on paper.

Obviously still a work in progress, back soon.

Finished!

I finished the illustration I've been working on, off and on for a few weeks now. I hope El Jefe likes it, being that he's planning to have it tatooed fairly large on his upper arm to be the start of sleeve. STOKED. I'm really happy with the final outcome. I don't do a lot of overly detailed illustrations anymore, so I'm happy with it.

Drawings I did instead of going out of town.

This is the general idea I came up with for a friends tattoo. He'd ask me last week if I'd draw him a whippoorwill in "my style" for his next tattoo. The next few images are what I came up with. I went through a few different looks before I was happy with it.

This was my initial illustration I did to define the over all detail over the bird and then I drew and redrew the bird until I ended up with the style and detail that I was looking for. This is how the begin most of my paintings and drawings, start with photo realism and then redefine the subject into my strange version of reality.

This is what I've come up with so far. It will stay black and white(pen and ink), but I'm still not done with it just yet and I've started a painting of the same image that will be in color. I've included a few details below.

Painting coming soon!

This picture says it all

Although this is an AWESOME invention, it sadly and clearly illustrates my feelings about NOT making the Atlanta this weekend. A lot of different shit came up at the last minute and consequently was not able to go. I missed a great show opening at a new gallery downtown(the name slips me at the moment, sorry) of a friend of mine and great artist, Tim Gassler. Congrats on the show!

There were several other shows by the likes of John Tindel, Michi and many others opened this past weekend. I did take the unexpected free weekend to do some illustrating, images to come shortly.

Back logging a little

I'm going to do a little back logging today because so much has been going on lately. I started this blog last month to show some of my work and to talk about what's happening in my daily life, but since then, I've been so busy that I haven't had time to even think about it. Now that I've added a link from my site, I'm having to do a little back logging of what's been going on.

The busy parts I mentioned above were from work (presentation for an existing client that sends us tons of work, we just needed some face time with the group as a whole to introduce ourselves to the new folks and catch up with some that we already work with), next was updating my site with new paintings (finishing a few also) and last but not least being interviewed by 105F2.com. 105F2 is a great creative forum and I was luck enough to have been chosen for this month's profile. Then of course the everyday goings on of running a creative studio.

Lastly, I'm headed back to ATL for a much needed weekend of gallery shows, bikes and as much trouble as I can fit into 3 days. Check back, I'll have a ton to update when I get back.

Meutre Hermosa 2

Meurte Hermosa 2 is a 24x24 acrylic and ink on wood panel.

I experimented with layers of wood on this one. I cut out the head and body and nailed it to the panel for depth. It worked out pretty well and will be used again.

Deep Fried Creative

Well it looks like we've own one. I illustrated and printed these promo poster for my creative studio, IDC. Long story short my business partner enter a series of 3 in the American Advertising Federation's Nashville ADDY Awards competition and we won. They're working pretty well as a promotional tool for our studio. Come by an see us sometime if your in need of any creative work or a good laugh.

18x24 one color prints on various colored paper. I also used stencils and spray paint for the first time on print made posters.

Last Night

Last Night is a 36x48 mixed media wood panel diptych. She's not quite finished but be cause I so stoked at what I coming up with, it's spawning other works. Keep an eye out.

My ATL

Atlanta is a 24x24 mixed media on canvas. The collage build up added some nice texture, even though you don't see much of it.

This is my favorite to date. It shows every element of my love/hate relationship with the city.

Meutre Hermosa

Meurte Hermosa is a 12x12 canvas that I recently finish and wanted to share.

This was my first chance I taken to use several elements and characters that have appeared in other paintings of mine all at once. There's the gold, metallic faded background, skulls I've been using a lot lately running cloud and my favorite little birdie. I really like the way this turned out.

Another new painting

In the close-ups below you can see I chose to use minimal brush strokes, as well as flush white faces and pencil drawn features to emphasize the lack or blissfulness of emotion. The stitched features are a statement about society's stance on children being/or not being seen and heard and variety of little cute costumes they usually forced to wear. These themes and characteristics are becoming more a part of my work.

This a new set of paintings I've been working on for a little while now. I'm trying to incorporate multiple styles and various pallets into my work. These pieces are a bit softer than past works in the same vein. These paintings now hang in a friends home and a very happy there.