I’m also selling / trading some of the prints so drop me a line (ryanATryangroendykinfoDOTinfo) if you’d like to buy one. I’d probably sell them for, I don’t know… $20..? Something like that? They’re 19″ x 25″ screen printed posters and they’re signed on the back. And they’re super sweet. Here’s what it looks like:

But seriously folks, here’s some things I’ve been doing:

I’ve been extremely interested in the game of Chess lately. I’ve been playing correspondence Chess with friends and family who are also intrested in Chess as a result. If you’d like to get a game of correspondence chess gong via email with me please contact me. I’m up for a game any time. Here is a photo of me studying up on my endgame strategy.

I went to Florida with my family to surprise my Grandma for her birthday. I thought she was going to be so surprised she peed her pants but It didn’t end up getting that extreme. I saw some dolphins swimming around in the gulf which was pretty amazing.

I’ve been listening to Frank Zappa almost exclusively. I’ve gained access to his discography (which includes a staggering 79 albums) and have fallen in love with his music. Do yourself a favor and pick up as many of his albums as you can get your hands on.

I got a new tattoo. Name Brand Tattoo offers ‘Grab Bag’ tattoos to the brave, broke, and willing. Basically you walk in, pay them $50, draw a tattoo out of a cigar box that’s full of crumpled up pieces of paper, then get the tattoo you drew out of the box. Melissa and I decided to hit it up. Bill Falsetta did the deed and did a fantastic job. I got a fortune telling gypsy woman’s face in profile which I requested a beard be added to. Overall I feel like I was super lucky with this whole experience (I was mentally prepared to get pretty much anything tattooed on my body). Melissa got a griffin with it’s talons digging into a huge slice of pizza, if you’re wondering.

I swear I’ve been up to more than that but it’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’ve got tons of projects in the works so stay tuned.

This New Years Eve I had the privilege of going to a portion of the 24 Hour Puppet Show at the Dreamland. They ended up basing some of the shadow puppets on the illustrations I did for the flyer. It was awesome seeing things I drew come to life like that. Long story short the shadow puppets were all in the Demon Realm and they were trying to find the Magic Comb so they could cross over into the Human Realm. Please enjoy this photo taken in the depths of the demon realm.

This is of many pizza themed stickers I’ve done in the past year or so. I’ve been really into these lateley and can’t seem to help but stick them on everything in sight. I also made some stickers of sunglasses at the same time. You can cut them out and improve many faces with the addition of sunglasses!

SPEAKING of pizza, College Inn in Ypsilanti has started carrying vegan cheese. As if that weren’t enough, they have special pans to cook vegan pizzas in, special cutters, are super cheap, and vegan pepperoni. Basically, they’re fucking awesome.

The poster is roughly 16″ x 22″. The background is basically a black flood with a mixture of White and Metallic Silver overprinting it. Then, we left the white screen registered on press, switched the ink to Glow In The Dark ink, and printed that directly over the White ink 4 TIMES. The final result is a poster that glows more than I think I’ve ever seen a screen print glow in my life that only took 2 screens to make.

I got my hands on a few albums I wanted to mention, too. The Swipple 2008 “music” CD which was released for the 5th annual Max Fish Show and featured music from anyone who had art in the show. I also picked up a couple albums on the local label Bare Wire Technologies. HR – Bicycle (a weirder noisier side project of Laserbeams of Boredom) and Ambit – Strings of Autonomy (11 Programmed Sequences). They’re both amazing albums with equally amazing packaging by equally amazing guys. Keep your eyes peeled for a book of drawings from Bare Wire Technologies, too. Me and Melissa along with 9 other local artists were invited to contribute drawings to a book they’re putting out. I’ll keep you posted on the details as soon as it’s released.

In addition to having tons of art stuff at the fair they were selling a special beer I helped make with my friends Hollis and Logan. It’s the third time we’ve made a special beer for the event. We generally try to keep them pretty weird or ‘Shadow’ themed (but pretty much everything we brew is kind of weird so that’s probably not that surprising). This time around our Shadow Stout had: Filberts, Blueberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, Clementines, Roasted Beets, Dark Chocolate, 13 different kinds of malt, and a Lager Yeast. It turned out great! I couldn’t have hoped for a better beer.