Flock Yeah!

RGB Guitars

A year or two ago, I painted this guitar for my friend Ryan. I'll be doing another one soon, hopefully it will be even better than this one. I remember at the time when I was painting it, I was really infatuated with cherry blossoms. What else to say? One day I hope to play it. I am really no good at music. I think I lack the patience to learn. I've "studied" 4 musical instruments in depth and today can't remember anything. It's sort of depressing to watch other people say "oh im not really good", crack their knuckles and bust out a mean Hendrix jam. I get upset whenever I watch that scene in Back to the Future where Marty lays down those heavy riffs at the prom and the simple 50's teenagers are blown away by the futuristic music. I wish I could do that.. Come to think of it, I see the same expressions on peoples faces when they see me play, so maybe I actually am just being humble here...

Link: RGB Guitars

It looks like my old friend and rising star Mike Bertino has been creating comics again. I got to peruse his almost-complete first issue of Pinwheel this weekend and it is pretty fucking rad. I've loved his Trigger comics since back when we were both just figuring stuff out. One of the best times I had was when I stayed up with him to make shitty 24-hour comics. Here: you can check out some more images on his blog.

Process, Miscellaneous

I thought I'd post about some recent work I was doing, as well as some loose ends I've been wanting to share.



First off, here is a photo of my latest drawing in progress. You can see that there is a random element to the way i work on my drawings. I try to hold on for as long as I can to the sense of being lost in the drawing, letting the randomness pull me into places that I wouldn't otherwise, until I finally am able to control it. This means no sketches, no pencil lines that are later erased. This is basically a way to keep myself from burning out on process. In art school they teach you to build from a solid foundation such as skeletal underdrawings, and in my experience crosshatching was generally frowned upon. It all depends on how you look at it, I guess. I use crosshatching sometimes as a sculptral outlet. The other good thing about crosshatching is if you fuck up, you can always add more lines and the mistakes makes it more interesting. Another trick I use is to start with details and build around it, and if im drawing a figure, i'll start with a weird area such as the arm pit or elbow.



During my last year of art school, I was convinced that I needed to send out postcards to promote my work. What I ended up with was a box of 1000 postcards reproduced in poor quality, with an outdated mailing address. money down the drain. This "wallpaper" was my wife's idea of efficiency. Not bad!



Here's a drawing Kaz Strzepek traded to me. I have been carrying an old monster manual around with me from which I've been drawing inspiration, and at comicon we decided to trade drawings of Mindflayers. Maybe you're noticing a theme. Maybe I can get Kaz to scan the drawing I did for him. It was a mind flayer punching a blob.

Finally...



If you're in L.A., you should go to fellow igloo and good friend Tom Neely's art opening at Black Maria. If you can't make the opening, be sure to go because it's going to be crazy and badass. Reception is Saturday, September 15th, 7-11 pm, show runs from September 15 to October 15, 2007. You can find more info by clicking the links below.

Black Maria Web site
Tom's Web site

What I like to do on Tuesday nights

Cowabunga to All

Levon Jihanian
Originally uploaded by Jacob Covey

Here's the ninja turtles drawing i drew in Jacob Covey's sketchbook at the Comicon San Diego. I used to be a big fan of these bodacious green dudes and it's nice to know that a big chunk of that ninja turtle money is going toward funding new independent comics artist through grants.

I've really been liking Jacob's cover design for Fantagraphics, which includes that huge Popeye book and the Dennis the Menace books. Not to mention he is responsible for that amazing Beasts book that came out earlier this year.

San Diego

If you're going to San Diego this year, here's a quick list of what I'll be selling at the Igloo Tornado/Sparkplug table:

Mini-Sketchbook yet untitled (full color!)
The Only One There Could Ever Be - Illustrated book of personal poems (color?)
Henry & Glenn #1
Henry & Glenn #2 (Hall&Oates)
"Superhero" t-shirt
A new t-shirt
a bunch of prints from years gone by
original art

I'll also be there signing books and drawing pitchers.

Also for sale will be Tom Neely's new Blot book. Serious hardcore inkblot action.
Sketchbooks by the other igloo tornado members (we might have a "pack")
new t-shirt by Scot Nobles
More Original Art.

Levon

Notes

Hey folks. I wanted to drop off a few quick notes for you. Here they are.



I'm in an upcoming gallery show that starts this Saturday at The Public Trust gallery (Formerly known as the Art Prostitute Gallery), located in Dallas Texas. I love the guys at Art Prostitute: Brian and Mark. They are the nicest people ever, and have always been supportive of my work, featuring me in their magazine alongside the likes of Kozyndan.

You may have noticed a video on my home page. I'm starting to experiment with video and what better way to begin my foray than ripping off Hillman Curtis? It's sort of stupid except that my cat shows up a few seconds in and I just had to share it.

I got 4 pieces into the upcoming American Illustrator 26
annual. This is something I've been trying to accomplish for a few years now and it's a pretty big personal accomplishment. I don't know what this all means but I'm pretty stoked.

Lastly, I haven't really been actively creating new work in these recent months because my mother is very ill. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days, months, year, but I have been physically and emotionally exhausted. Unfortunately too exhausted to make blog posts. Not sure when the next post will come, but know I'm thinking of you!

The Public Trust
Art Prostitute
American Illustrator

Weapons Dept.

When your friend calls you up and asks you if you want him to make you a flail, that's pretty cool (If you don't know what a flail is, please consult the dungeon master's manual). Months later, when he calls you up and asks you if you want spikes on your flail, that's also pretty cool. But when he shows up at your house to deliver the flail to you, that is TOTALLY AWESOME.

This is Marc.



This is the flail he welded for me. Also, he made me a ninja star. Thanks Marc!

It's Christmas-Buy Me Shit.

one eye



souther's chess set


billy's wilma bares all


gary panter drawing

And here's a picture of my tree. I got the one with pink flocking. It's the best tree ever!!!!!!!!

Halloween!!!!!

YouTube Minefield

Every single one of these links is worth clicking on. See you in a few days!!!

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The Ghost of Adolf Loos Haunts Me

There's a constant struggle in my brain to determine if I am for ornament or against ornament. I have a tendency to like art with deer in it but then I end up hating myself in the morning. Anyway, my co-worker from my day Job, Elana, designs and sells these postcards. They are pretty brilliant, I must say. My favorite is the one with spatulas.

Rosebud-design.com

Pinwood Derby: 20 years in review

When I was 8, my mom got the idea that it would do me good to enlist me in the quasi-military institution known at the cub scouts. I remember a few things about this period in my life:

* My troop leader had a blonde moustache.
* The other kids were all catholics and often reminded me that they disliked me, unsolicited.
* I had a horrible pinewood derby experience.

For those of you who don't know, The pinewood derby is a contest of crafstmanship, creativity, and fair play where children are handed a block of wood and four wheels, and are asked to create awesome cars which are raced against each other on a downhill slotted track. I wish I still had my old car. It was a testament to a child who obviously had no idea what he was doing, and definitely didn't have any help from his parents. I cut out notches from the wood block, and drew the number 7 on either side (for luck) and two wobbly stripes down the center on raw unsanded wood with worn out markers. Ok I'll fast-forward through the story. We all got trophies for one thing or another. I still have my "Third Place, Best Effort" trophy on my mantle. I display it as a badge of honor, like a battle scar. It was a huge failure that really changed my life, maybe for the better. Who knows. All I can say is that the story scores me huge pity points with the ladies. Pity is underrated.

I have re-visited this experience a couple of times in my life. I live around the corner from the park where the races were held and where my scout troop met each week. In art school, I did an art project where I built some new cars, portraying my scout troop experiencing horrible tortures and deaths, burning in hell with the motto "Be Prepared" written on it in flaming letters. But when Art Prostitute invited me to create a car for their exhibition at the Scion Space being held this Saturday, I saw it as a chance to redeem myself, to cleanse myself of all these bad feelings, to truly grow and learn from the experience in the way it was meant, and to win this thing.

My Very First Blog!!!

Actually I have had several blogs in my life (something some of my closest friends don't even know.) I don't know what's more scary: The idea that people might not ever read this, or the idea that a lot of people–people I actually know–will read this. What's even more horrifying is that everything I am typing has been said in 50,000 other "my first blog entry" posts. Insecurities aside – thanks for stopping by and reading this.

A little about me: I'm an artist, I've lived in Los Angeles my entire life, and I'm married to the perfect person. How fascinating that was! Watch this space for interesting things I discover every day. I feel pretty lucky to live in a place where there are so many things going on all the time. I'm looking forward to sharing them. I'll also show you some glimpses into my process as well as some sneak peeks into my upcoming projects.

Oh yeah..welcome to my new site! I "boringified" the design for a few reasons.. 1) to make my life easier and updates faster, 2) to not distract from the content, and finally, 3) the old design didn't really match what I've been doing lately. A lot of people liked the old robot site, so I didn't see any harm in keeping the old version up online. You can find it by clicking on the link at the bottom there..to the right..the bottom right corner, see it? next to the igloo tornado link. There you go. Thanks again and stay tuned!