October 24th, 2009 by Trevor
The good ol’ Goodjoe is hosting another t-shirt contest in behalf of the Fender Music Foundation. They’re looking for shirts that best suits their message “Give. Music. Life.” The first 10 to submit a design will be getting a free Goodjoe t-shirt, and the winner gets $300 cash from Goodjoe as well as a Squier by Fender Deluxe Hot Rails Strat Electric Guitar with a decal of the winning design displayed on it. Pretty cool, huh?
The design that I have submitted for voting is called “chalkboard guitar”. Whenever I think of school and education, I think of chalkboards. I took a picture of my wife’s guitar and used the pen tool in photoshop to make paths so that the curves of the guitar would look nice and smooth. Then I did some texture-erasing to it, and this is what I came up with.
You can vote on it at the Goodjoe Fender Contest.
October 21st, 2009 by Trevor
This was a fun piece to work on. It has a little bit more symbolism than I usually put into my work, which is what I think sets it apart from the rest.
The viewer can look at this design and see two opposing perspectives:
1. Swimming against the current. Sometimes the only way to express our true individuality is to not do what everybody else is doing. The turtle that is swimming against the current has hope in his eyes and a smile on his face, happy with the decision he has made to be different. His shell is decorated with a pattern of arrows, suggesting that he is will to push forward in order to obtain his goals, no matter what the those around him are doing.
2. Going with the flow. This turtle has decided that sometimes it’s better to not get too caught up in “plans” and “goals” but to just play things by ear. He has a tic-tac-toe grid on his belly to show that he plays his hand according to the circumstances given to him at any given moment.
You’re welcome to support it over at the Goodjoe! 
October 18th, 2009 by Trevor
I actually made this design in anticipation of last years Halloween derby at shirt.woot, but they made it a “costume” derby instead. It’s been collecting dust on my hard drive ever since…
This is the first design that I made using the technique that I like to call “erase-art”. I put down a blog splotch of ink on the image (on a separate layer) and start erasing it away until it leaves kind of a grungy, sketchy look behind. I did that with the grass that the horse is kicking up, the fence off in the lower left corner, and the lighting that is coming from the horses eyes and nose, and the pumpkin’s face. I’ve used that technique in other pictures since then, like The Leviathan, A New Calling, and Joan of Arc – Righteous Indignation.
