Inspiring Artist - Cymone Wilder

 

Thank god for Maurice Cherry who has done so much work to highlight Black designers, artists, and creatives with his work. I just came across Cymone or "Simon and Moose". Wow, what a breath of fucking fresh air it is to see this person's work. She is Amazing. 

What's this bruh? This is where I share artists that have been inspiring to me in my work sometimes directly and other times indirectly. Check out Cymone Wilder's website here. You can see the many clients she work with , her personal work, merch, and more. Wow is what I keep saying to myself.

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I haven't highlighted that many type artists or designers who work with letters but I will do that more because I pull inspiration from them as much as I do illustrators or muralists. Cymone is someone you should watch and follow. Like now, do that now. Here is her IG.

You can read an interview she did with the Nashville Voyager (where she's based) and get a sense of what makes her do what she does. Stay tuned for more.

Did you catch the posts I made about these other amazing artists?

Bisa Butler

Elizabeth Catlett

Mira Nair

Victoria Ying

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Creative Mornings presentation!!!

Dig this? Check out my last inspiration board here.

Affirmations Sticker Pack

Yooo, just put these bad boys together in a pack. This is a 6 sticker pack of words and phrases meant to be reminders to self, motivational, and affirming. You can cop a pack for yourself or your team here.

Shop Link

This is some process from one of the stickers in the pack: PAUSE

This is the previous sticker pack: Multicultural

Step Forward Gold Sticker

 

Man many moons ago I did this painting and a whole series of pieces I called "positive wall affirmations". It was a great creative exercise for me since I do a ton of figurative/ portrait work. It's fun to play with lettering since thats how I got my start. But for folks who couldn't buy an original painting, I decided to approach some of those same positive sentiments as stickers. And so far so good.

Cop one here

The last one in the series was "Pause"

Video: National Sticker Day 2022

 

Here are some of the stickers I've made over the past year or two. They focus on affirmations, taking care of ourselves, and affirming cultural pride. If you haven't looked at my shop recently check it out here.

Pause Sticker process

 

 Hey this is a new sticker in a series of self care/ encouragement/ affirming stickers. Sometimes you gotta hit the pause button, or maybe you need to remind someone to do it. 

Wanna see some of the creative process? Check it out:

First I did a bunch of different versions of the same word using different font styles.  The check marks you see are from my homies and my wife telling me which ones they preferred.

I narrowed it down a bit and combined some elements to make it a more simple shape.

I decided on the color scheme and did some rough color versions. And I chose the bottom right one finally.

Then I painted in gouache. Scanned it and then brought it into Photoshop and to clean it up, moving the shadow and letters a tiny bit to make it more symmetrical. I also adjusted the color a bunch because it was tough to duplicate the screen color.

And then here's the final product. I get stickers from a bunch of different places, but one I go to often is Sticker Giant in Colorado who just shipped these to me. What do you think? Dig it? I DO!! I love how it came out and I hope others will dig them. Eventually I'll make a sticker pack of these:

Grow

Focus

Rest

Breathe

Pause

"_______" one more to go!

One day I'll make a video talking about these stickers. But for now i'll just say that many years ago I made a series of paintings called "positive wall affirmations" made to serve people by offering a positive message for the home, class, office, etc. The original one of a kind paintings did ok and made some folks really happy. But the stickers are a bit more affordable, especially if you're not an art collector. 

Anyways, thanks for reading. You can get this Pause sticker here or get a sticker sheet I made a year ago for self care here as well. If you know someone who is learning to make merchandise using their art, please share this post with them.

Breathe Vinyl Sticker

 

Here is a new sticker reminding you to "breathe". Its number four in a series of self care stickers aimed at getting folks to slow down and take stock of what's next and what matters. Cop one for you or for your team HERE.

The last one in the series is REST

Repackaging of the "Multicultural Sticker pack"!

 

I put this out at the beginning of the year as a pack, but now I just redid the packaging which I really like. This pack contains 6 stickers. If you dig, cop one for a friend.

Kindred Journey 44 - Jeanyee Wong

 

This was really fun for me to research because Jeanyee Wong was a type based artist and I love typography. Jeanyee was born in San Francisco in 1920 to Cantonese parents who then moved to the Bronx in NY when she was a child. She is said to have started drawing on any and everything when she was just 3. She studied Chinese calligraphy at a young age. Then she studied painting and sculpture at The cooper Union  from 1938-1941. There she studied woodcut with Fritz Kredel and calligraphy with George Salter.  

Jeanyee started as an apprentice of Kredel's and began working on her own in 1941. The bulk of her work work has been in book publishing as she worked for Oxford University Press, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Random House, Little Brown, Crown, Viking, Atheneum, Knopf, so many. She created type treatment, calligraphy, design, and illustration for many there. She also worked in advertising, created certificates, business cards, invitations, letter heads, etc. For many years she worked as a teacher at The New School, Pratt, and others I'm sure. 

She is known for her design of the "Seventeen magazine, NY Public library, and Mad Magazine logos and her awards from AIGA and UNICEF. But she was also highly regarded among the Society of Scribes as a generous teacher of students. She worked from her early 20s up until her 80s I believe and her calligraphy and artwork is incredible. Excellent! 

"You're never perfect. You can always do something more and improve" - Jeanyee Wong (1920-2017)

Sources: JeanyeeWong.blogspot.com ( Alex Jay), Society of Scribes, Librarything.com

Did you catch the last one this month? Its Spie of the TDK, FC, and TMC crew!!

REST Sticker

 

Fam, here is the latest sticker in a new series meant to remind, encourage, and affirm. This one is a gold vinyl sticker reminding you to rest. I know we all got shit to do, but in between wins and losses, don't forget to rest.

Cop one for you or a friend HERE.

Did you catch the last one? It says "Focus"

FOCUS Sticker

 

Here's a new sticker! Part of a series of stickers that are reminders or affirmations. This could be for yourself or as a gift to send to a friend. Cop one here!

If you missed the previous sticker "GROW" check that out too.

GROW sticker

 

Fam, I created an original painting with the word "GROW" back in 2013. Matter of fact, I painted a whole series of affirmations. In an effort to get back to making pieces that are not only affirming to me (hopefully you too) but to make it affordable, I plan to make some new stickers with affirming letter based art. I painted this piece on paper and got it printed with gold to add a bit of shine. I hope you like it. Stay tuned.

GET A STICKER HERE

Did you catch the last sticker pack? Here it is.

Sticker pack 1- Multicultural

 

Hey fam, here's a pack of stickers you can get to send to a loved one, student, or educator. This includes many of the Black, POC stickers I've been making over the past year. Hope you dig them.

BUY HERE

Africana Studies Print

 

Peace, I'm so excited to introduce this new piece to you "Africana Studies". This is a print featuring that phrase and an antique afro pick. The origin of the idea comes from Black, African American, African studies departments in colleges. I hope this print can apply to high schools one day as well, but this is basically an attempt to make a beautiful and affirming decoration for an office, classroom, or building that specializes in the study of Black culture. It could totally be in a home or bedroom but my aim is to reach educators specifically with this whether they be in a larger "Ethnic Studies" department or a sole focus of study at their institution.

COP one here!

Series: This print will be a part of a series of new prints focusing on Black, Asian, Raza, Indigenous studies or programs from an Ethnic Studies program. Stay tuned.

Did you see the "Ethnic Studies" print pack w/ stickers?

Black Is Beautiful Sticker

 

Juiced to share this with you all. A gold foil "Black Is Beautiful" Sticker!!  Cop one!

LINK

Here's a new sticker with a classic phrase "Black is Beautiful" first uttered before my mother was born in an effort to give African Americans pride. Not only in their skin color, but their heritage. The term "Black" is one of many used to describe humans with a darker skin hue but the descendants of Africans in the US did not create the classifications for race, we just flipped them and gave them new meanings.

For me personally, I started to use this phrase publicly as part of a series of drawings and paintings celebrating unsung figures of Black history here in the US and abroad. I love the feeling of affirmation the term gives and hope you too can resonate with it whether you consider yourself "Black" or not. We can all affirm the "Black Is Beautiful" as a statement of pride and a resistance to centuries of "anti-black" imagery, descriptions, and racist messages from the past and today.

Did you catch the last "POC POV" sticker?

POC POV Sticker

Here's a clear vinyl sticker of an old favorite. First I made it as a small doodle for my sticker sheet. Then I blew it up as a larger painting. And now I've shrunk it down to a sticker again with a clear backing that you can put on just about anything. "POC" means people of color, and "POV" means "point of view". Hopefully that is self explanatory.

If you want one cop it HERE.

Raza Sticker

Yo, just made a sticker with this image I illustrated back in 2016. You can cop the sticker and read a bit about it

HERE

Here's the original post (editied) that I wrote with this image which was created for Inktober in 2016.

Mixed Kid Sticker

New Sticker!

What is a "mixed kid"? To me, it is a person who comes from a background with mixed heritage. They can be Black and White, Latin@ and Asian, Indigenous and American, Caribbean and Australian, so many combinations of people are in the world and we all have an interesting story to tell about who we are and where are families come from. There are mixtures of heritage within one ethnicity or skin color, and there are people whose family are from various racial backgrounds. This is for all of you. Me personally I am African American, Korean, Mexican, and Apache and this phrase means something to me.

Cop a sticker HERE

If you missed it, here is the Blasian sticker and this is the original "Mixed Kid" painting this one is based off.

Blasian Sticker!

Yo! Super excited to make and share this with you. This is a term I've heard used for at least 10 years to describe an esthetic, couples, children, and people. "BLASIAN" or "Black" and "Asian" to me represents families and people who share both Asian and Black heritage. They could be specifically North American, but I believe the term could apply internationally to these mixed kids. Being a mixed kid myself (Black, Korean, Mexican, Apache) I identify with this term and hope you can share it with others you feel would love it.

If you'd like to get one COP IT HERE.

Stay tuned for more and please check out my Self Care stickers if you missed em.

VIDEO: Wexner Center for the Arts (Lettering)

Here's the second video I created for the Wexner Center for the Arts. This is a quick tutorial in calligraphy or hand lettering. There are so many different styles and fonts to choose from but this is just an introduction. Since I was a child I spent thousands of hours practicing my letters. Please share with any young artists in your life.

Did you see the last one I did about characters? Peep it HERE!

Ethnic Studies Pack

Whats up fam? You can cop this pack of stickers and prints for your classroom, home, or office! I originally made the pack to help fundraise for this network of Ethnic Studies educators in Cali-follow them here on IG. But now that I was able to raise a bit of $ I'm going to continue to sell this pack.

Ethnic Studies for those who don't know is an organized curriculum of books, films, lectures, music, and culture that explore all that US and American history left out about African Americans, Latin@S, Native Americans, and Asian Americans. It now includes curriculum about Middle Eastern Americans, and sometimes LGBTQ studies as well. I'm a product of ethnic studies and i'm very proud to support ethnic studies curriculum all over the US in EVERY SCHOOL. You want a print or a sticker?

BUY ONE HERE

Did you see the show I made the "Ethnic studies painting" for?