<![CDATA[nealartistry.net - the artwork of Travis Neal

<![CDATA[nealartistry.net - the artwork of Travis Neal - WHATS GOIN ON?]]>Sun, 21 Apr 2024 05:57:24 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[2 MURALS FOR PARKWOOD OFFICES]]>Mon, 15 Nov 2021 18:07:23 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/2-murals-for-parkwood-officesNormally, this time of year means the mural season is over for me until the weather breaks in the spring, but not this year! I have LOTS going on right now- My SPACE CHESS piece for Noblesville, New windows for my buddies at KSR, a new mural project for an office building at Keystone Lakefront, and then this monster project.. I am working in 2 different building in the Parkwood Office Complex on the north side of Indy. Very glad to be this busy and super excited for the future!

So far, I have painted one wall for Parkwood, in their business cafe.. I adapted one of my favorite PP paintings to work here. "ONCE AROUND THE SUN" was ready for a primetime wall, and the pieces fell into place perfectly on this one. At 39' wide and over 10' tall, this is a big one.. but my next piece will dwarf this beautiful tree.

Stay tuned..........

]]><![CDATA[DEAN MARTINI]]>Tue, 21 Sep 2021 13:42:24 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/dean-martiniThis was a fun one!

One of my mural clients just happens to be the SWINGIN' front man for the DEAN MARTINI band, and he approached me with an idea he had. He wanted an image of 5 guys posed in front of a post-apocalyptic Vegas skyline background- in a similar style to a Frazetta piece or the cover of the KISS album DESTROYER.
After a few different iterations of said concept, I finally landed on this (see below)..

The flaming destruction of the Vegas skyline is pretty recognizable on its own, but the broken. leaning WELCOME sign makes this a dead (pun completely intended) giveaway. Then, of course, you have the boys strutting down the cracked street, with Ryan in the middle, holding up an old-school mic for a lightning strike. Perfect fantasy album cover artwork... lol

]]><![CDATA[WHOSYERCON 2021... GOIN' RETRO!]]>Mon, 08 Feb 2021 16:55:00 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/whosyercon-2021-goin-retroAnother year, another innovative piece for my buddies at WHOSYER GAMERS.. They run the largest free gaming convention in the midwest.. maybe the country? or.. the largest in THE WORLD? Not sure, I've never done the research. Suffice to say, it is a big deal in the gaming world, and it is free, and it is put on by some friends of mine.

Times and conditions being what they are, large gatherings of people are frowned upon.. Last year, this took them completely by surprise. This year, they were able to prepare and adapt the festivities. This goes for everything, including their logo artwork. The event will be online and virtual, so they altered the name to make it WHOSYERCONLINE, and based on the time of year (coinciding with March Madness) gave it the theme of MASKED MEEPLE MADNESS.

As they described their ideas for the event this year, my head flooded with ideas immediately. Regardless of the layout, I knew that I wanted to take the artwork in an old school pixel art style. I wanted to tie in the gaming aspect by giving the concept a gaming feel. As I started brainstorming, it occurred to me that mimicking an old video game welcome screen would fit this perfectly! *** For all you young 'uns, the WELCOME SCREEN is what you saw as your video game system (be it ATARI or COLECO all the way up to NINTENDO & SEGA) loaded the game after you inserted the game cartridge. It was an all-encompassing image meant to give you the broad stroke of what this game you chose to play is all about.

So, with my shiny little idea all ready for development, I set to work.
The pixel art style seems like it would be easy (I mean, it's just squares, right?) but it is actually pretty tricky (and tedious), especially if it is VECTOR pixelated art, not just a jagged bitmap file.. My point is that it's not just as easy as hitting export.. and since the process is so time consuming, I wanted to make sure that I only had to do it once. That meant making sure that the concept was finalized before starting the conversion to 16-bit artwork.

I wanted it to be colorful, and with hard contrasting lines to emphasize the jagged pixel edged look. Keeping with the MASKED MEEPLE MADNESS theme, I made 3 primary colored meeple figures the main focus and added masks to them. I built the scene from a worm's eye viewpoint to give the meeple pieces an imposing scale. I put them against a happy sunset colored sky and added a city skyline (Indy skyline, of course) to give the piece some depth. The finishing touches here are the title, copyright line and PRESS START text- essential parts of all video game welcome screens.

Finished artwork below.. Enjoy!
T

]]><![CDATA[BOTTLEWORKS]]>Wed, 16 Dec 2020 16:48:50 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/bottleworksI've always wanted to have the pleasure of driving in the morning traffic to get to my mural project, rather than on my way to sitting at a desk all day. This project at the new entertainment complex in downtown Indy- THE BOTTLEWORKS- was brought to me by my buddy Koda Witsken at Hue Murals, and it gave me the chance to live out my dream for a couple weeks. That is, until I actually make the jump into full time mural work... but I digress.

This project fit me like a glove, giving me the chance to show off my lettering and line skills. The end product isn't exactly FLASHY, but to the sign and lettering geeks like me, it's pretty damn sharp! Even the pics don't look like handpainted work. More like photoshop work done on a pic of a blank wall.... buuuut that is just how good I am!

I might have another lettering job to squeeze in before the end of the year, but not sure on that one yet.
THEN, WE SAY GOODBYE TO THIS WRETCHED YEAR and move on to good things in 2021

Sooooo, when you make it down to the Bottleworks (eventually), you can feel confident that you will not get lost in the parking garage because of these stellar lettering pieces..... ENJOY!

T

]]><![CDATA[FOUNTAIN LAKE VILLAS ((and the return of KINGFISH!))]]>Mon, 19 Oct 2020 17:38:10 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/fountain-lake-villas-and-the-return-of-kingfishThis is another one of those 'it's who you know' projects.. I was contacted by an old friend who thought of me for this project. Her property management company is renovating this apartment community on the south side of Indy and part of that was acquiring some of the surrounding property- including this particular building which will serve as their maintenance shop.
The interesting aspect of this project is that this building butts right up against a large car wash, and the wall directly faces the lineup of cars waiting for their wash. Essentially, it is a big billboard for this captive audience. Amanda recognized this fact, and decided to make this wall into something that will advertise as well as entertain.. She wanted the name logo and phone to appear, but left the rest open to me. I decided to make the fountain a part of the image and drape the name and phone number on scrolling banners above and below. Since the fountain artwork is so stylized, I decided to give the other elements the same look. Using an architectural draft look for the trees, and a cartoon look for the fish below the water level, I kept the colors bright. I'm not sur why I am always drawn back to the KINGFISH concept, but it is turning into one of my go-to concepts.
Of course, the inclusion of the name, phone number and logo made this mural a sign, so I had to file a sign permit before I was able to get to work.. and fortunately, the city issued the permit without issue, so I was able to wrap all this up before the weather turned.

]]><![CDATA[BRUCE 'THE PIANO MAN']]>Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:42:11 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/bruce-the-piano-manAs you all know, I am into murals the most... but I do enjoy stretching out into other areas every once in a while. CARICATURE being one of those areas. This project was a particularly deep stretch- I got to do a crowd scene, with action, lots of extras and even some celebrities!
Kierstin from MASHCRAFT contacted me for this commission, paying tribute to none other than Purdue's famous piano man, BRUCE BARKER. This guy has been a staple of entertainment in West Lafayette for 25 years. He is an impressive and charismatic performer who is probably best known for his weekly performances at THE NEON CACTUS, although he has performed at many other venues. One of which is MASHCRAFT BREWING in Fishers (which is how this all comes together).
She said that she wanted to have Bruce working the piano on the MASHCRAFT stage and then gave me a list of people that she wanted included in the audience (including her and her husband, Bruce's wife and younger self holding a fire extinguisher, along with several celebrities).
I loved working on this one- so fun researching Bruce and slipping in little Easter eggs for him (MHS Mavericks banner is for Bruce's high school) and figuring out ways for all these people in the audience to interact with eachother.

No progress pics for this one, but have a look at the finished product and see if you can identify the assorted celebs throughout the crowd!

Cheers-
T

]]><![CDATA[WOW! What a shitty year...]]>Thu, 24 Sep 2020 19:39:35 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/wow-what-a-shitty-yearThat's right- 2020 can suck it.

T
]]><![CDATA[BROOKS SCHOOL PARK]]>Tue, 02 Jun 2020 12:36:29 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/brooks-school-parkThe good people from Fishers Parks & Rec contacted me about being the premier artist for this new ART WALL that was erected in Brooks School Park in Fishers.
This freestanding concrete wall measures 40' wide and 5'tall (in 8' wide sections), and obviously has 2 sides. Their plan is to feature work from different artists and rotate them out on a regular basis.. What a GREAT idea!
I was honored to be the first artist in this program, so I knew I had to make it something really eye catching.

Their only request was that I incorporate the hashtag #INTHISTOGETHER somewhere in the design. I decided to make that message the primary focus and set to work on the concept. My favorite muse, Carole, came through with a great idea while I was brainstorming- a plane flying by with hearts coming off, dropping and drifting out across the landscape below. I went through a lot of different ideas, but that one really stuck with me.
In the end, I desided to have the hashtag message in huge text across a banner being pulled by a plane in one direction, then having the hearts coming from hot air balloons on the other end. With the planes and hot air balloons already a regular part of the air above Fishers, I wanted to include another summer sky reference and add some more visual interest with some fireworks. As my ey-catching element, I wanted to make sure the wall was very colorful, so I ran the background sky in vivid color, from a sunset to night.

Could not have asked for better painting weather, and I knocked this monster wall out over a weekend.. Not bad.
Thanks to Marissa Deckert for thinking of me for this project.. I hope to get another shot at this wall again sometime in the future!

Progress pics along with the final product in the gallery below..
Looks like this is going to be a very busy summer, so there is more to come!

]]><![CDATA[GORDON BUILDING]]>Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:53:22 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/gordon-buildingWell.. this has been an interesting year so far. Of course the big headline is the virus and the lockdown, but luckily, I was able to win 2 pretty major mural projects before the fit hit the shan. Also lucky that I have a studio space that can handle anything, making any off-site projects very convenient to work on. The latest off-site project being the mural panels I just finished up for THE GORDON BUILDING in downtown Noblesville.

This was a fun project for me because I enjoy the research and prep work nearly as much as the painting process. I was also part of a team of very talented artists on this project- each of us asked to give our own interpretation of some aspect of Noblesville culture- summed up in one word: "HIP-STORIC".

Initially, I focused on making my designs look like old-time ads, but with a modern flair. So I was scouring through tons of historical research on the city- the founding, events, industries, people, etc that MADE Noblesville. We (the artists) were all on the same page with this line of thinking, but we found out pretty quickly that the building owners had something completely different in mind.. They absolutely wanted to have a Noblesville feel, but wanted something more abstract, more funky than just a picture of a bridge, or a barn, or a (fill in the blank).

That was when the fun really started.. I realized that I had gotten very rigid in my thinking, so I began to break it down. "What does Noblesville mean to me?" My first thought was TRAINS, because of all the research I did for the LEVIATHAN train mural I did for the city last summer. I quickly decided that I didn't want to be 'that train guy' so I dug deeper.

Then, it hit me...
When I think of Noblesville, I think MUSIC. I have seen so many great shows and have so many priceless memories of the MUSIC CENTER (Currently named RUOFF, and will ALWAYS BE DEER CREEK as far as I'm concerned.. But I digress).
With my theme in place, I got to work on concepts.
From the start, I knew I wanted to have some kind of forced perspective and unusual angle in one of the pieces, and I wanted to make the other one all about the letter 'N' for Noblesville (or Neal, hehe). I didn't want to completely eliminate trains from the equation since that was my first thought, and since I already had so much research on trains. Plus, I was obsessed with the similarity of train tracks and the neck of a guitar and the idea of combining them somehow. I also had some other random concepts, but as soon as the building owner saw my initial music sketches, he was sold on them.

We were also trying to incorporate some element that all 4 artists use- a common thread that unites all of the panels- we decided that the color red would be a good choice.

The panel in purple, titled 'TRAINS AND TUNES', has the forced perspective I was after, with the guitar and player's hands and body. After several twists on the theme, this is how I settled on the train track/guitar neck idea, using the hand as the transition point between them. I love the way the sky and smoke transitions turned out- everything seems to have a glow to it. The common red thread is easy to spot here.

The blue panel, titled "4EVER DEER CREEK", uses my N theme. The shape of the clouds, amphitheater, and horizon have the shape of a cursive N, there is a repeating N pattern in the roof girders, and the solo guitarist on the jumbotron has the shape of an N. But even more than that, this piece was my attempt to capture the feeling standing on the lawn, in a sold-out show, when everyone has their lighters (or phones) going. I took this to a more whimsical level, using the same glowing light effect for lightning bugs and the stars, tying them all together. The red here is from the stage lights and the glow they cast on the crowd.

Here are the progress pics for each.. Enjoy!
T

]]><![CDATA[Resident Paint Party @ Bella Vista Apartments]]>Tue, 28 Jan 2020 23:43:56 GMThttp://nealartistry.net/whats-goin-on/resident-paint-party-bella-vista-apartmentsCarole and I had a blast with the residents at Bella Vista Apartments last weekend! Bella Vista really went all out with the catered food and drinks for their residents at this event. We painted "Day in the Life" and everyone's artwork looked beautiful. A big shout out to the staff at Bella Vista for having us and we hope to be back soon. ABC Paint Party can be a part of your next gathering too.. We will bring the party to you! Email me to find out more - travis@nealartistry.net
Cheers, T

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