Once every few weeks in my Illustration class, we have an in-studio assignment, to be completely finished within the span of about four hours. Usually they revolve around some concept related to illustration. Yesterday’s had to do with “street art” as an alternate means of illustrating a concept. We had the class period to come up with a “social issue” relevant to Portland and create a piece of work on a giant piece of cardboard. I chose to speak on the topic of beards, something that has been on my mind since I have recently shaved (it’s getting warm out). It’s sort of a joke on how it seems like every dude in Portland has a beard, like that’s one of the things that the city is known for now. It’s also an homage to a conversation I had with my roommate a few days ago where she said in order to work at a coffeeshop in this town, it was nearly a requirement that you have a beard, or at least a mustache.

A few words on the details: I was able to snag a cheap HELP WANTED sign from a shop down the street and I found all of those now-outdated “SUBMIT” fliers in my locker at school, so I decided to use them instead of recycling. The little stenciled face underneath “32A” is a quickie two-color stencil I made of my Illustration teacher, after which I tried to get everyone in class to spray it on their piece (5 people did). Also, you may notice the smaller beard stencil that is sitting below my signature in the lower right corner. That’s actually a stencil modeled after my own beard which I miss terribly. I make reference to it because you’ll be seeing that stencil again next week in a use that is just as awesome as it is horribly disturbing, so keep your peepers peeped for that.

Tags :: Schoolwork