Raphael Saadiq

I had the honor of painting a shirt for the legendary Raphael Saadiq and meeting with him after the John Legend concert in Durham this weekend. Saadiq asked me to do a piece of James Jamerson, a legendary bass guitar player from Motown and Saadiq's idol.
If you dont think you know who Saadiq is, you probably do... I made a playlist on Imeem of some of his hits from when he was with Lucy Pearl, Tony! Toni! Tone! and from his solo career...

Saadiq, TTT, and Lucy Pearl playlist

But besides the music he's made with T!T!T! and Lucy Pearl he's also produced for and worked with artists such as D' Angelo, Joss Stone, Musiq Soulchild, John Legend, Kelis, Mary J. Blige, Teedra Moses, Anthony Hamilton, Earth, Wind & Fire, Q-Tip, The Roots, and Floetry just to name a few....
So as you can imagine, doing artwork for such a musical genius was quite a big deal for me as an artist...and as a fan. Turns out the man is really down to earth and cool peoples to chill wit!

ALSO! A friend of mine, Pierce Freelon, founder of Blackademics.org did an interview with Saadiq while he was here with us in Durham.
and I'll soon be posting a link to the Saadiq's interview with Christopher "Play" Martin when I get a hold of it.

BY THE WAY! his new album "The Way I See It" is incredible. Being that I am jus a lil young buck it took me a while to fully appreciate the magnitude of this album, but none the less it is deff one of the albums in my small collection of legally attained albums (thats the bootlegers version of a compliment, lol, meaning it's worth paying for even though I coulda got it for free)

Much love and thanks to Raphael Saadiq!

"The truly blessed are best at sharing their blessings..."

Fall Semester ID Studio Final Project

*****UNDER CONSTRUCTION****** Check back in a day or two for better pictures and more description....
For my final project, I had to create a working prototype of one of my earlier projects. I choose to do my Safety Torch from October. I changed a few things about the design and simplified the electronics so I could actually get it made in the month I had to do it. Here is the final product...

Fall Semester 3D Game Design Work

For my 3D Game Design Class we each had to model different parts of Black Beard's pirate ship the Queens Anne's Revenge using the program 3Ds Max by Autodesk. I was assigned to replicate a small artifact cannon from the ship, a sea turtle to swim around the ship and Lt. Robert Maynard of the British navy who was the one who killed Black Beard. These are the screen shot images from each model...
Our last project in class was to make a game level with the Unreal Tournament 3 Editor program. We got to do whatever we wanted and so I felt like making a crazy purple and yellow themed amusement park that's been hit by bombs.... dont ask why... I couldnt get it just right cause its hard to do outdoor worlds with this program but it turned out pretty good for the time I had to do it in...

Dont you wish Ferbies were real?...

They are so cute and cuddly and as long as you dont get them wet they stay that way forever andeverandeverandever.... dont you wish you had one?
well looky here!
now you can have a real live version of those cute lil ferbies!
“Mommy, will you buy me a Pygmy Tarsier for xmass?!”


















awww just look at those bedroom eyes....lol

Blog stealing! Kehinde Wiley

This is a video i stole from Travis McCoy's blog about Kehinde Wiley...



When I first started painting portraits, one of my art teachers told me to look Kehinde up and I did but then kind of forgot about him since I put my painting on pause. but I have been re-inspired again!! This man's work really intrigues me... I want to be the Julie Pitts version of this cat (no not a COPY cat) but I like what he does with portraits and how he goes way beyond and puts his own funky twist into it...
wait how old is he? I've got some time right?? cause this aint gonna be easy...
WISH ME LUCK!!!
n please send me your thoughts or suggestions
JPAirbrush@Gmail.com

Cornell West Reaction to Obama

First Friday Street Art Gallery

Ahhh I'm in love with the artwork... and so so very jealous that my own is not this freakin awsome...

Featured Artists:

• Mathew Curran
  
• Bart Cusick
  
• Joseph Giampino
  
• Sean Kernick
  
• Victor Knight III
  
• Garrett Scales
  
• Matt Scofield
  
• Derek Toomes
  
• Ben Tuttle
  

Visual Art Exchange - Window-Down: Beyond Street Art

It's the Obama signal!
Told you he was a super hero.... lol

Gym Class Heroes Concert

^Shirt I gave to Gym Class Heroes at there concert tonight. Hope they liked it! I didnt get to give it to them in person. Which I was really dissapointed about.. a lil heart broken. I had been lookin forward to meeting them for like 2 weeks but I feel blessed that I even had the opportunity to get my artwork to them and go to their concert. I thought they were never gonna come to NC!! and the concert was AMAZING! Travis was a lil sick and he still gave a great show. I had so much fun! I was exusted afterwards cause I was so amped up in the concert!

GCH if your reading this, PLEASE LET ME KNOW THAT YOU GOT MY SHIRT! send me an email, call me, myspace message, or leave a comment here! just let me know u got it!! please!!
Also, Thank you for putting on a great show last night even though yall were tired after touring non stop for the "last too long". lol. I wanted to hear some more from Papercut Cronicles and some tracks from For the Kids. but anyways... I hope yall are resting up for your next show, yall deserve it.

Sample airbrush BroChure I did just for GCH!

Video Share!

I lovvvvve this video... I had to share it. I love T-Pain, this man knows what he's doin.... Pay special attention to the video during the chorus.

I think this is what I wanna do with my degree. 

T-Pain Ft Ludacris - Chopped N Skrewed

click "watch in high quality" under the video or else it just aint the same

Question: What/who is the black and white face paint guy that is in every T-pain video?? 

I donno who he is but i likes him!

3D Computer model class update

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle model (Sea Turtles are Julie's favorite animals)

textures still not right. but I've got a new project now so ill have to finish his skin later...

pretty much finished "th-th-th the cannon!" (DJ Cannon look what you've done to me...)

COD Halloween Bash!

The annual College of Design halloween BASH!!! each year is a different theme. this year was

"MasqueRAVE disco Bloodbath"

My last minute costume was a "RAVE Ninja!"

Here you can see the Rave Ninja quietly scouting out her surroundings...
Sam's studio mates costumes.. Sam is the Obama Terrorist (yes he's an Obama supporter)
Me and Sam
Me and my mentee Blade
Me and Korry!

ESPN Road Trip: NC State Special

Watch from 0:51 to 1:16 & 5:21 to 5:29

So there's an exclusive online show on ESPN called Road Trip that travels to different campuses on a big game day. They people from the show wanted to do a little piece about our free expression tunnel on campus film some art students painting the ESPN Road Trip logo... Saul Flores, Samuel Davis III and I got the chance to skip class Thursday afternoon and paint the logo for Road Trip crew while doin some lil comedy sketches... If you can't tell what hes saying at the end it's suposed to be like the chorus from that T.I. song whatever you like... Yeaaaah. lol
There was a lil part they filmed with just me and the host where he came up to our painting and tried to touch it and I got to act all mean and swat his hand away like "Ey! Dont touch!" but I guess they took that part out... :-(
Needless to say we had a BALL, and got a few cans of free paint in the process...

Here are some pictures too...

It wasnt the best but I'm really proud of it considering we only have like 2 hours!
Thanks guys!

IT'S A GIRL!! Baby Myyah

My best friend (tho I consider her my sister) Mari b.k.a. Alize gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl Wednesday night October 15th at 9:47pm. Myyah is about 5lbs 7oz and has a full head of hair as you can see in the picture above. Mari was lucky to go through less than 4 hours of labor while using no medication, shocking the doctors and nurses at UNC hospital.

Myyah is my third "niece" in the past year and some. The other two being Shanasia Wise's daughter Julissa and Toni Wright's daughter Kylan. Though soon I will have my first nephew. Toni is expecting baby Kameron in December!

More pictures soon to come of all my lil babies!

Video Share!!

Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another Way to Die
I love this song and video. A Keys looks beautiful... like a bond girl. notice they still havent had any FULL black girls be the sexy bond girl in a movie yet. but Hally and Alicia will do for now. its hard to find ladies prettier than them anyways...

"Personal Safety Torch" ID Project

Sorry I dont know how to make the pictures any bigger on this page. so just click them and they will get bigger in a new window.

Completed Friday Oct 3rd 2008. But I still have some work to do on it before I put it in my portfolio.

By the way a design portfolio is what gets me a job. It shows examples of my work and abilities as a designer. College grades are not a factor when employers are looking to higher a designer. That's why most design students try to go above and beyond what might get them an A on their projects. and its also why design school is so dang hard!

PackHowl Concert

This week was homecoming for NC State. WOLFPACK!!!! Woooo! GO PACK!!! (I love this school)... Unfortunately, this week was also crunch time for my Industrial Design project that I had been working on for about a month and some... So while the IRC and UAB and Student Gov had spent all this time planning awesome homecoming activities, in the end I really didnt get the chance to participate in any of it! which was a bummer. BUT since my project was due Friday afternoon, I did make plans to go to the Pack Howl concert at Reynolds featuring NERD and Common!! If you know me, you know that I love the Neptunes, Pharrell, NERD...the whole shebang, and Common's poetic genius and consciousness... So needless to say I was super stoked to celebrate finishing my project Friday by going to the concert.

Monday: It's down to the last 5 days. Time is ticking. . . I try to plan out my time so I can get my project done on time and still get sleep and food, working out, watching TV or any other type of relaxing was out of question.
Tuesday: the grind begins... I am spending most of my time on the computer modeling so for entertainment I found a play list on IMeem of every song ever produced by the Neptune's or the features Pharrell...about 500 songs
Wednesday night: I had planned to be mostly done by Wed night but of course, everything has taken longer than expected. the good news is that I manage to get about 4-5 hours of sleep.
Thursday night: again I had prayed that things would go well and I would be done the night before my presentation. and I again, I fail... :-( Looks like me and a few other of my studio mates are in for an all-nighter in the Cyntiq room (a dark lil cubical with 6 tablet computers for drawing). the night is characterized by intense working, pizza, poky sticks, energy drinks, malt beverages and unstoppable sleep deprived giggling. lol. (BTW by now I had made it to like song #450 on the Neptunes playlist but stoped there so really focus)
Friday morning: ok now its really crunch time. its 10am, I have class at 12:25pm and Critique is at 1:30pm... the printers arent working... and I havent finished all my layouts... "theres not enough time!!" I start freaking out and go home real quick to calm down and clean up. It helps and I come back to finish and present my project calm and collected (though about an hour late and still very sleep deprived)
Friday afternoon: 5pm RELIEF! ! omgness. I was so happy to be done. I wanted to see the Homecoming parade at 6:30pm but decided that the concert is more important and I'd rather take a quick nap before so i can enjoy it more. 6pm...sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.......
Friday night: Pure Horror and DEVI STATION!!! I wake up from my short nap at 10pm! the concert started at 8:45pm.... I am on the brink of tears... after all week of looking forward to this concert and getting hyped up to see Pharrell, I almost sleep through the whole thing! It still hurts now just to think about it....
I rush to the concert. No time to change clothes and get cute, no time to shower, no time to eat... I just wanted to get there ASAP. When I arrive, its intermission and I find out that I have already missed NERD and that they were incredible.. which I really didnt want to hear at that time. One of my friends got to go up on stage with Pharrell. But I missed it. I missed everything!...except for Common.. which I was really happy about but at the same time beating myself up for sleeping through NERD...
Common preforms and is great! so sexy! so eloquent (but in a manly way) lol. and I get up front to show him my friend Daniel Harris's painting of him from a few years ago.
After the show, Dan gets us back stage so that we can meet Common and give him a copy of the painting he did.As you can see, I got to meet Common! and touch him, and yes, that is his arm around me. lol. I think he eyeing me when I first came in the room...dont be jealous! lol. Dan and I got to talk to him a little but he was kinda tired and sexy--i mean busy cause a lot of other ppl were waiting to see him too. He's a really chill dude tho and acted jus how I thought he would be.

So the lesson is: dont be sad because you slept through half the best concert of the year because in the end, you might get to meet Common!!! lol