holiday in cambodia

cambodia was amazing! it was truly a life changing experience. a majority of the time i stayed in small villages with no electricity, refrigerators or toilet. i hate to admit it, but the first couple of days i was a diva and bath with avian water. but after a few days i said eff it and experienced the culture to the fulliest. I got violently ill for a couple of days, but it was worth it. cambodia has so many children beggars. everyone told me not to give any children money, but once you see there face it's kind of hard to resist. the first day i gave a kid 2 bucks and he started crying. i looked up and there was a herd of children running after me. the city is filled with people and beggars. the villages have no beggars, just a bunch of kids who wants there picture taken. the only thing i hate about cambodia is the mosquitos. my uncle died from malaria so when i got bitten i was scared shitless. i slept with a thick mosquito net, a hoodie, beanie, thick paints tucked in my thick socks. I even used 40 percent deet, but somehow i still got bitten over 20 times.














me putting in work.










kids in cambodia are so grown up. village children usually start working at 5 years old. here's a kid pouring water in her tub with no parents in sight.








i started to paint at prey sar and a few minutes in a bunch of kids started to crowd up. i let them paint with me, and the hardest thing was to tell them i had to go. the look on there faces when i took my paint and brushes back was painful.







this is my dad's village prey taten. I stayed here about a week. a very peaceful place. when i walked threw the village people would come up to me and say do you remember me? a few thought i was my dad.

i tuck in my pants in my sock because of the mosquitos and red ants. not a fashion statement.














her name is chaquon. i told her not to tell anyone i gave her money. a few minutes later her whole family was asking me.


eating at restaurants like this is probably the reason why i puked all over the river.





here's a preview for my next post in thailand. me battling the famous youtube painting elephant.

leaving like sunday morning.

this is going to be my last post before i leave to asia, so i'll try to make it a long one. im coming back early february and ill update with tons of pics. Just finished my last painting for this year. in la at jefferson and 11th street.

There are tons of things that im going to be missing out on. One of it is the dream to reality fun raiser. The show is to help out a fellow dreams to reality member. Alvaro Sanz is going threw hard times in spain so we wanted to help him out in his times of need. The show is going to be january 17th at nucleus gallery. I want to thank nucleus for giving us the space and everyone who kindly donating a piece for the show. It's not easy to email people in this economy and ask them to donate a piece to someone they don't know. So we owe you guys one. here's a little history on us.





this pic was back when parts of bergamont station was being built. parts of bergamont was a graffiti yard.





me, twisto, and the legendary yepso in sf back in 99


and here's the one man who we are trying raise money for.














I don't have many pics in my archive, but that's a little history on dreams 2 reality.

when i land back in la, im flying straight up to seattle to my show at roq la rue feb 13th.

so merry christmas everyone and have a happy new year!

simmer down now.

i was told to simmer down on my stylization and my colors. This illustration is geared towards children, so i tried to follow the directors guide lines and make things normal. this was heavily art directed so when it was over i painted over everything because it looked too pretty. i felt like it needed to be more raw to work. still trying to make it more grimy, but this is how it looks now.
oh and here's the sketch i wished they picked.

brucelee!

im pretty sure this is fake, but i can't stop watching this!

nucleus!

everyone around the area should make it to nucleus tonight! my good friend david jien will be making his debut showing.
this guy is the mother fn truth! his work is really mindblowing!!!!!



also, i want to thank everyone who featured me in there blog all these years. i appreciate that very much!
this is the second time someone emailed me saying they featured me only to find out the piece was not mines :)
this is another artist study on my family portrait piece. does anyone knows the artist? i think he did a great copy.
adam's blog

lite em up!

i've done about 400 matchboxes since i've started school. for my show at roq la rue im planning to do 10 paintings and 300 matchboxes. 100 matchbox per frame. i've never had so much at one point that i've become really attached to them. i know it's a hell of a lot of matchboxes, and i would stop doing them if i felt like i was repeating myself. but i like the new directions they are going, so as long as they continue to evolve then i can't stop:) they are super fun too. im planning to show a small series at this year miami art basel too.

nunnery

this is an illustration for spiritual and health magazine. the article is about a western lady leaving the life of a city girl and crossing over to become a nun. this is my first oil illustration ever. recently i've been doing all my personal work with oils and using gouache and acrylic for commercial work, but when john contacted me he sent me reference of all my oil paintings. with the quick deadline, i used straight cobalt dryer as a medium. here's one of the sketches that the art director liked. just added do thats and it was a go.

wowsers!

this has to be one the most sickest breaking i've ever seen.


this guys painting's keeps on getting darker and darker every time i check out his site. technically amazing tho.

welcome to 1914

man, this month i've been sleeping every night at 8am. it's getting later and later. now i usually wake up at 4pm!!!! can't wait to go asia and relax. this is an illustration for weekly reader magazine. i had a blast working on this project. great article, and great art director.

red forest!!!!!!!

i forgot to take pics of this piece so i stole this image from 1988. from the album cover show. you were given an album of your choosing and ask to paint on it.



also check out thinkspace tomorrow. this show is going to be INSANE!!! the homie ekundayo, mike alverez, kmndz, and jeaneen will be showing. talk about all star line up right! get ready to be blown away.

lastly, i recently release limited edition prints of bigger than and relax.
both edition of 25. i have 10 more of bigger than and 14 of relax. you can purchase it here.
idrewhimstore

investment!

so the news been saying that everyone has been investing in gold lately. they say that money will go down, but gold will never go down. so here it is investors. sketch with gold paint! get it while it's hot!
i can't believe i wasted 15 minutes for that joke:)
but seriously, artwork is the best investment. forget gold!!!!! here's my recent investment. im starting to have more artwork from others than my own work.
jim salvati
the very awesome ekundayo
and someone who doesn't need any introduction.

the infamous david jien
here are some brainstorming sketches and close ups for my solo next year.