New School Nation

I make my bread and butter as a web designer. Check out this Yuba City sports bar I just built a web site for

Yuba City Sports Bar & Pizza

The place is just incredible. It’s the largest sports bar in Yuba City by far, and from what I hear, probably the best pizza in Yuba City also. They may get the UFC fights, but that is still up in the air. The owners are cool young guys that are looking to make a great sports bar and place to hang out in Yuba City. The Happy Viking is part of the Downtown Business Association of Yuba City.

Adrian Lee is an artist I first noticed in Juxtapoz, I believe. Actually, it may have been a different art mag, but I found an ad for his new collection of gear and an art book in Juxtapoz. His tattoos are freakin’ brilliant, and his art work is completely bad ass as well.

I think he uses computer fonts for his paintings – something that I will take from his style. His lettering is great regardless. You need the skills to do anything cool with fonts, and he’s got them.

Check out more of his work at these three places:

Adrian Lee Tattoos
More Adrian Lee Tattoos
Adrian Lee Art Book, Shirts and Paintings
Have you had some work done by Adrian Lee? Leave us a comment!

I jumped in to Anvil Brand Tattoo shop in Marysville yesterday and had a chance to talk to Matt. He runs the shop alongside his father, who I didn’t get to meet. Matt showed me some of his work and gave me a few pointers on how to become a tattoo artist. He does both color and black and white and has some impressive stuff. The shop is top notch- it’s like a tattoo museum with tons of flash, paintings and illustrations by he and his father and some cool stuff they’ve collected through the years.

Matt’s got some sick lettering as well, and showed me a few things about cursive lettering and suggested some books on the subject.

If you are looking for a tattoo studio in Marysville, CA or a tattoo shop in Yuba City, check out Anvil Brand Tattoo right on the main street in Marysville, across from McDonalds.

Ever wonder if you could buy an army tank like this?

Well good news! You can! Check out www.tanksforsale.co.uk for your new army tank. If I had one, I think I would make it my daily driver. With gas prices what they are now, I should probably buy a vespa… but then I could be known as “that guy that drives the tank”. I think OBEY propaganda should buy a tank and paint it orange and black with Andre the Giant’s big old face on it.

How can I say this… WOW! I’ve seen cafe press and a few others, but seriously, this T-Shirt printing service is the best I’ve seen by far.

Custom T Shirt Printing – Design your own T Shirt

It’s a super simple process – just pick the T Shirt you want to print on, and then design the front of the shirt. You can use text, or upload images you upload yourself. You can print designs on the T Shirt sleeves as well. Then, on the back of the shirt, well, that’s where this custom T Shirt printing service shines. It has just about the largest printable area I’ve seen for a T shirt printer of this sort. I’m guessing it must be sublimation printing, which I’ve worked with before.

Sublimation printing is nice because the end result has a “soft hand”, meaning the shirt feels soft. Since you can order just one shirt, it has to be done like this. There is no way it could be done with traditional printing. Not to bag on screen printing, but I feel like it’s on it’s way out like a TV antenna. Sublimation printing is just so easy, so nice, and it remains vibrant after washing. So, if you want to design your own T Shirt, totally check out spread shirt.

Wow, I was just struck by the art work of Kenji Hirata. A Japanese painter born in 1992, this prodigy makes his own paint with fruits and vegetables. Ha! Just kidding, go check out his site to see what this guy is all about:

Kenji Hirata!

I am thinking maybe this is the guy that use to (maybe still does) have a huge picture hanging in SF MOMA (San Francisco Museum of Art), right when you walk up the stairs to the third floor. That was a japanese painter that worked with acrylics and had a similar style in my opinion. The piece at SF MOMA was real colorful, a green background with little mushrooms. Do you guys know?? Let me know! If it’s not Kenji Hirata, let me know so I can change this post.

Update!! – OK, so I am an artist but I’m not a big artist guru that knows every body who is doing what blah blah blah ANYWAY – the artist I thought was Takahashi Murakami, and I am sure someone out there is gasping and thinking “How in God’s green earth can this guy confuse those two?” Well, put up a Kenji Hirata painting next to a Barry Mcgee painting and it’s pretty obvious who’s who…but I still think these guys have similar qualities. Which is probably a compliment to the younger and more underground Kenji Hirata….

Now that I think of it….someone help me out here… was it Kenji Hirata that did those dope looking dragons in that San Francisco music store on Haight St. – like Urban Sound System or something? I think it was! And Doze Green had some stuff along with him. I think I know his older work!! That’s kinda cool. But maybe it wasn’t him at all. But if it was, I remember thinking, “how will this guy evolve his style?” He went way out to left field, but I’m still feelin’ it.

Moving to the Sacramento area a few years ago was in many ways, well, less cool than living in San Francisco. But, at least I was closer to the home of my absolute favorite band, the Deftones. I really can’t imagine a doper band than Deftones, and I’d like to spread the word, so below I’ve provided a link to my favorite Deftones T Shirt.

Deftones – Reich & Roll

T-Shirt
Buy at AllPosters.com

Check out the latest from expert tattoo designer Jack “horimouja” Mosher! I came across his work a while back when my own art work started becoming more tattoo inspired. Horimouja is just incredible. I’ve been able to learn a lot about tattoo art work by looking at his stuff. His line work is great; thin lines, thick lines, etc… It inspired me to bust out my ol’ hi-tec C pens to get some real thin linework going on. This book, 100 dragons by Horimouja, is a good example his work. His real name is Jack Mosher, I suppose his nom de guerre (name in war, I think it means) is Horimouja. I don’t know what that means, leave me a comment if you do!

MSK…Revok & Saber…NORM…um…maybe Augor…Mad society kings…money stackin kings…uh…art work rebels…that’s about all I know about these guys off the top of my head….7th letter…ok that’s probably about it. I’ll be putting together an area for link to their stuff here, here’s some stuff to start out with…

http://www.artworkrebels.com

Norm doing his thing in Venice:

Saber – I like that he’s working that brush first: