This is Egg Prizes 5th Installment. Egg Prize is a giant art dispensing machine filled with thousands of original artworks created by me. The machine gives the public access to purchasing one of a kind art at a low cost.
Egg Prize 2014 AKA Egg Prize 3.0 took a turn this year and got furry. The exterior of the machine was covered in long brown haired fake fur I purchased from a stuffed animal factory.
The Contents of the eggs were all cat themed magnets. Over the course of a year I began to explore the digital medium to design thousand of square shaped artworks.
Its getting furry here. Using the internet sensation of cats, I wanted to use cats as the base of creative content. After exploring 3D prizes in EP 2012, 2D hand illustrated art in EP 2013, this year I based everything on digital and photographic art.
I began creating thousand of meme inspired cat designs and applied them to magnet sheets. These are just a small fraction of the final products.
I sometimes would set a timer and only allowed myself to 5 minutes per design.
When forced to produce so many, you begin to expand your horizon and find new techniques
Many of the cat images were user submitted from social media
Even doodling on the back of a folder can help inspire creative content
All pink eggs, One furry machine
over 15000 eggs were distributed throughout the 3 week event. I wonder where all the cat designs went? I hope on there fridges.
It is weird being surrounded by eggs
Egg Prize 2012 was one of my most extensive projects. It required all forms of design and organizational skills. The premise of the project was to create a giant interactive art dispenser to help spread the love of art in highly populated social settings.
This is the full constructed Egg Prize Machine. 10 feet tall machine with an additional 10 foot pole with light up custom signage. The machine was built from scratch using steel, aluminum and pvc materials.
I used the geometric egg shape to help form this series of illustrations. These then were used to inspire the skin of the dispensing machine and also printed as stickers.
Here are 3 other poster designs exploring patters and simplicity.
Some sticker designs that were printed and put in the eggs as prizes
Living next door to a Goodwill warehouse had its perks. I would frequently stop there and purchase every small toy I could find. After collecting, I began gluing, painting, drawing etc on the toys. These toys then were later packed up in eggs and dispersed through the Egg Machine. I could not photograph them all, but I did document close to a thousand of these little creations.
Many of the prizes were spray painted bright or shiny colors to help give them a new presence
Picture of me working on the machine. Brad Lohman can be seen in the back, who helped extensively on this project
This is a picture of Todd Weatherbee on the ladder, commander in chief in charge of the machine construction
Egg Prize 2013 helped mature the Egg Machine to the next level. This year the thought process behind it was revamped and helped showcase the true power of the machine and its ability to distribute art.
This is why I decided to fill the eggs with mini works of art. I call them chippies. Around 10,000 of these one of a kind illustrations were dispersed out into the world during Art Prize in Grand Rapids, MI.
The exterior of the machine was wrapped in a tiled print of thousand of mini artworks. Each of these works of art could be found inside the eggs.
Only 5 of these were given out in an event that had over 1500 participating artists. Great Honer and recognition.
Sketch, finess, digitize
Final sticker design
They were printed on a clear backing and die cut to perfection
This is just a small amount of the mini artworks created. Every single one of them were scanned in.
Getting my hands dirty and working micro
Various updates were made to the machine. Including a more functional roof. This is me sculpting the styrofoam roof.
The egg machine in full swing
Set of egg shaped sticker designs I made for Egg Prize 2016
To help extend my skill and pursue my love of hand illustration, I illustrated a series of large graphic illustrations. It consists of 7 panels that all connect into one large work of art. Each panel depicts one of the seven deadly sins.
I also love to paint and keep my hand skills off the computer
After working with a lot of small toys during Egg Prize 2012, I was left with a lot of left over toys that didn't fit in eggs. This inspired me to utilize these toys and depict fictitious narratives.
I would first photograph the toys in various positions, then I would digitally illustrate a scene to help bring it more alive.