Teatime with Animals

In 2010, my friend Melissa opened The Clipper Ship Tea Company, a tea shop in our hometown of Northport, New York. Soon thereafter, we serendipitously started a collaboration of artwork and tea with the Teatime with Animals series.  Each illustration I create will feature one animal famously indigenous to a tea growing country, and Melissa will blend a tea to pair with my image, based on the country and the colors/vibe of my art. Below are the first 3 (0f 8) Elephant's Teacup, Tiger's Chai and Snow Monkey Tea.  More to come!

ELEPHANT'S TEACUP. A brisk Ceylon Black Tea blended with Sri Lankan cinnamon and tropical island fruits. A finely balanced tea is a perfect harmony of sweet and spiced. This tea pays homage to the peaceful and tranquil beauty of Sri Lanka.

 

TIGER'S CHAI.  A majestic Indian Darjeeling Black Tea blended with bold Indian spices, delicate aromatic flowers and rich notes of vanilla.  An elegant and aristocratic tea that celebrates India and it's majestic Bengal tigers.

SNOW MONKEY.  A Delicate Japanese sencha green tea blended with soothing lavender, warm vanilla and sweet blueberries.  An aromatic tea that's a spa in a cup.  An ethereal tea blended in honor of Japanese hot springs and the whimsical world of snow monkeys.

-------------------------------------

We are creating custom packaging so they can be sold in tins individually and in a gift box with all 8 tins packaged together.

For more information about project, The Clipper Ship Tea Company and the teas, check out my site HERE

Prints and greeting cards are available thru my shop HERE

They Live: Alley Fight!

In John Carpenter's 1988 film They Live, actor/wrestler Roddy Piper plays a character called Nada, a homeless migrant worker in a right-around-the-bend America where shit really sucks. He stumbles upon a special pair of sunglasses a local church/rebellion HQ that, while wearing, turns the world back and white and allows him to see that ordinary looking people are in fact, skeleton-faced, alien invaders!  Subliminal messages in bold arial fonts are also revealed on billboards and magazines, citing such messages as OBEY, WATCH TV, CONSUME and SLEEP. It's a fun movie, classic 80s Carpenter, that has achieve cult status over the years, in part for the premise, and two scenes in particular - the bubblegum shotgun scene and the Alley Fight.

So, as a sequel of sorts to my Karate Kid: Final Fight print (sold out), I've teamed up with the Bottleneck Gallery to release They Live: Alley Fight, and a couple variants, check em out.

They Live: Alley Fight

Limited Edition of 50, 13x19", hand signed and numbered.

Available HERE

Nada wants Frank, a construction worker he kinda knows, to put them on, and see what he sees but Frank wants no part of it, Just wants to go about his life. Hence, FIGHT! It's a brutal, 6:20 minute long, battle of wills between two towering man, one attempting to make the other "see" the truth, one wanting to be left alone. Spoiler alert: Nada wins!

They Live: Alley Fight

B/W OBEY variant
Limited Edition of 25, 13x19", hand signed and numbered.

Available HERE

South Park paid homage to it in the infamous "Cripple Fight, episode from June 2001. Such a classic.

Check out the episode HERE

They Live: Alley Fight
South Park Variant
Limited Edition of 50, 13x19", hand signed and numbered.

Available HERE

Below are some details of the figures on the left side down the alley near the street.

 

OH waterproof stickers!! Available through my shop HERE

 

Here are some of the final pencil drawings of all the characters.

Oh, here's an 8.5x11" pencil drawing I did of Roddy in the classic Bubblegum Shotgum scene.

It's up for grabs if anybody wants, drop me a line, we'll work out a price.

Print shots below.

Thanks for checking out my work. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for updates.

Gandalf Stormcrow

 

"Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow?"

Gandalf is a badass, plain and simple.  This piece was created for "McKellen Me Softly" a one night only art show last month in NYC in tribute to geek icon and queer hero Sir Ian McKellen, to benefit Geeks OUT, a nonprofit organization out to rally and represent the growing community of geeks who are queer. Check out this link for more info http://mckellenmesoftly.com/

Available as a 11x14" giclee print, signed and numbered edition of 30.

 

I had a lot of fun creating this image and a breakthrough of sorts. After years of primarily using only digital for the final result, I went back to my roots and created Gandalf and all of the linework in traditional pencil. I think the result is more intimate and gritty, and exciting for me as an artist, hopefully you as a viewer as well. You can really get up in there! The background is digitally colored with traditional watercolors accents. Will keep experimenting this way, feel like it has lots of potential, and ultimately makes my work for "me".

Prints available through my shop HERE

https://www.etsy.com/shop/castlemcquade

Thanks for checking out my work. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram for updates.

Major League Soccer - Futbol Artist Network

 

I recently teamed up with Futbol Artist Network's Creative Director (& illustrator extraordinaire!) Daniel Nyari to produce artwork for the television show, MLS Insider.  Produced by Emmy Award-winner Jonathan Hock, the ground-breaking series moves to a new outlet -- KICKTV -- and continues to take fans behind the scenes of the MLS world returning with a second season of in-depth features, personal profiles, and culturally relevant videos.  FAN will use a series of artists to produce a new art piece to correspond with each week's new show.

 

This week's theme was Destroy & Create featuring Team USA's dynamic duo Michael Bradley of Toronto FC & Real Salt Lake's Kyle Beckerman.  Hats off to Daniel for coming up with the perfect concept, the playing card, highlighting the fact that they compliment each other very well in both the destroy & create roles while sharing the midfield.  Their intelligent play makes the two central midfielders strong candidates to represent the U.S. Men's National Team in Brazil this summer. MLS Insider provides a deep dive into the athleticism, acumen and artistry that each brings to the field.

 

  
Check out the MLS Insider article and videoHERE! 

Prints will be available through the Futbol Artist Network soon HERE

ODE to GEEK

When I was first asked to create a print for the Generation Geek gallery show in Bourges, France for Geek-Art, I was surprisingly stumped.  Not because I couldn't think of what to do, but because there were too many options.  The theme was Geek History from the past to the present, a pretty open topic, so... where to start?! My initial thought was to involve Godzilla. Then I decided to draw just a few more of my favorite characters from science fiction and fantasy from the last century; from books, comic books, cartoons, movies, video games etc. - the ones that inspired and wowed me from childhood to today. 

You know, just a few.

Then it got personal.  What happened next was this, a print depicting my own geek history, my ODE to GEEK. Limited edition print, size ranges from approx 16x24" (40x60cm) to 28x40" (70x100cm), available only through Geek-Art.

Check out my site for more pics and info HERE

Prints are available through Geek-Art HERE

Thanks for checking out my work.
Follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

Cheers,

PJ