Tilteed

How did you come up with “Yellow Bellied Bastard” and what is your interpretation of the illustration?

This illustration has two ideas behind it, the first is relatively simple; I wanted to do a design that was a follow up to ‘Guilty Pleasures’ as it was Tilteed’s best selling tee of last year. Tilteed has been good to me so I wanted to do something that fitted with them as a brand/company. It’s like Guilty Pleasures’ naughty twin.

The second was more personal. As my style has grown and changed I have been pulled away from my ‘doodle’ style a little. I wanted to take a step back, I like doodle shirts a lot, they allow me to pour out a lot of me. This tee shows a bunch of cowards (hence yellow bellied) reaking havoc on each other. It also has a dude riding a hermit crab (remember the black unicorn?) which is one of my favorite animals. There are many personal elements and hidden meanings in there but I’ll leave them up to the buyers to find when they wear it.

I recently discovered that you’re on a mission to create and sell one hundred 8” x 8” paintings. How did this idea come about and when did you officially start the project?

The project started in August 08. Originally I was approached by an Art Director and he wanted to do an exhibition in LA with a 100 artists producing 100 pieces at $100 each. It didn’t work out but by then I had produced 10 and sold all but one of them. So I continued….

How do you come up with the subject for each painting? Do you keep a notebook full of ideas or do you decide what to paint right before getting started?

I have always had sketchbooks, I have doodled my entire life. I refer to them a lot. However, they are mostly in the UK now and I live in California so I have to draw inspiration from here. A lot of the paintings seem to be centred around animals but that wasn’t intentional. Some ideas have been floating around for years and some just happen as I draw them out.

I see that you already have 32 that are either for sale or already sold. About how many hours a week do you spend working on this project?

I don’t spend a specific amount of time on these, it happens randomly. If I have a free day in my schedule I’ll do one or at least start one. It’s like my little addiction and I am sure it’s going to take me a while to finish. So far most of them have sold, I only have 7 out of the 32 for sale right now.

Do you have a personal deadline for when you want to complete 100 paintings?

No. I do tend to do them in sets which has been interesting because every new set of 4 is slightly different in style or color to the last. The most recent 4 are all very blue and I am not sure why that color is so prominent. Maybe I am having a ‘blue period’.

What do you plan on doing after completing your 100 paintings project? Are there any new projects that you have in mind?

Well letting these paintings go is hard, packaging them up and sending them away is weird but also exciting. I scanned them all and I’d like to publish a book with all 100 paintings in it. Once it is complete I will start something else, not sure what but I’ve enjoyed having this as a little side project. It has also lead to other commissions and one of the paintings has become an iPhone case!