AND THE WINNER IS….

A little while back, artist extraordinaire Brian Ewing released a print titled La Nouvelle Morte. This amazing print grabbed my eye along with the rest of his incredible pieces, so I shot Brian an email and suggested doing an interview for the readers of Drymounted. A few days later, he answered some questions for me and even wanted to throw in a print as a giveaway for you all. How could I resist that offer? Now it’s time for one of you to win this print!

The rules are simple:
1. Leave a comment in this post BEFORE Wednesday July 20th at 5pm PST.
2. Be sure that in the comment, you leave your real email address. The email address will be used to notify the winner’s shipping address, so please make sure it is valid. If it is not and the email is not answered within 24 hours, a new number/winner will be selected.
3. Please, no more than 1 comment per day. This will allow you to leave a total of 3 comments.
4. After Wednesday July 20th at 5pm PST, the total amount of comment numbers will be placed into random.org, and a random # will be selected by the site. Whatever number is selected, that comment number will win the free print. For example, if there are 100 comments and #15 is picked, the person that left comment #15 will be the winner.
5. By entering this contest, you agree to have your email address added to Brian Ewing’s newsletter subscription database.
6. Please be aware that new comment posters will need to have their comment approved. Please do not post multiple times, as I will approve your comment as quickly as I can.

1. What artists do you look up to from the past and what up and coming artists have your eye?
That’s always a tough one to answer. I grew up skateboarding, I worked at a comic book store, went to a fine arts highschool and listened to punk rock and metal. There are so many artists who created amazing work for those genres…I’d be here all day trying to mention them all.

Here’s a mishmash list of artists off the top of my head (and my bookshelf) with some new artists that are doing amazing work:
Mucha, Kolo Moser, Klimt, Jim Phillips, Pushead, Ed Repka, Kozik, Coop, Dave Johnson, Adam Hughes, Justin Hampton, Jermaine Rogers, Jay Ryan, Tara McPherson, Faile, KAWS, Kevin Tong, Martin Ansin, Tom Whalen, Two Arms Inc, Munk One, Aaron Horkey, Jeff Soto, Ken Taylor, Daniel Danger, Todd Slater, James Flames, Jason Edmiston, Rich Kelly, Olly Moss and Mike Mitchell.

2. What was the one event that persuaded you to cut ties from the day job to focus only on art?
I’m not sure I can narrow it to one event. I was really tired and stressed from working at Hustler – my last day job. It sucked. It shouldn’t have sucked but it did. It’s PORN for chrissakes! I had a shitty boss and I worked with a few assistant art directors that would hire me to do their work because they never learned how to use photoshop. It bummed me out. I was hired with the plan to be groomed as an art director but the lady who had set that in motion quit and my moving towards art directing was killed because of that. She’s a rad lady and we still stay in touch. So I don’t blame her for splitting. The only thing that kept me sane was doing concert posters in the evening after I crawled home from work every day.

After a trip to Italy, I put in my 2 weeks notice. I had $200 bucks in my pocket, rent due and a really pissed off girlfriend. She wasn’t thrilled that I worked around naked ladies all day but she was less thrilled about me not making any money. In my last two weeks there I abused their resources (computer and xerox machine) and hit up every band, manager, publisher and label. I sent about 250 people an email explaining what I do and a link to my website. Some people told me I sucked and others said they’d keep me in mind. Out of all those people I got one job – from BYO Records to draw an album cover for a compilation they were putting out. After I finished that job, I emailed the other 249 people and showed them the new project and that someone took a chance on hiring me. I’ve been working ever since.

3. You have worked with countless musicians and bands. If you could work with 1 band or musician that you’ve never worked with before, who would it be and why?
Nick Cave, Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen. They’re all storytellers. When I listen to their music I can visualize scenes or images from their songs. If it were a younger band then that would be the Gaslight Anthem or Alkaline Trio. For the same reasons, of course.

4. You have accomplished so much throughout your career. Is there any one accomplishment that eludes you?
I’d like to be able to have a loose outline of the next ten years of my career. Making money as a full-time artist. That’s eluding me right now. Hahasobsob.
Making sense of everything and maintaining the successes (big and mostly small) that come my way. There aren’t any tutorials on how to live as an artist. When I was younger and starting out – I knew less. So it seemed like I could produce more work in short time. Now that I’m older it feels like it takes me longer to produce work because I want to use all the things I’ve learned.

Other than that I just want to become a better artist as far as ideas and technique are concerned. I just went through some old sketchbooks with a friend, and saw ideas I wasn’t technically capable of illustrating. Some of it was bad or just typical of my work but there were some that either I or the client rejected, but have a lot of potential.

5. What can we look forward to seeing by the end of 2011? Shows, upcoming projects, etc?
Argh…there a few projects I can’t mention. They keep jumping in and out of limbo.
• I just finished an Avenged Sevenfold pull-out poster for Guitar World Magazine. Can’t wait to see that on the stands.
• I’m finishing up a book cover for GC Records. The owners wrote a novel that deals with racism using a sci-fi angle. I can’t wait to have another book cover under my belt.
• I started a subscription pack and am creating new pieces for my subscribers. That’s been a major kick in the pants to do new work just for myself.
• I’ll be at the San Diego Comic Con this July at Booth #433
• I’m printing a new sketchbook soon. I personally love looking at an artist’s sketchbook to see how an image went from a sketch to final piece. So that’s what the sketchbook will include.
• I’ll be doing more concert posters throughout the year as well.
• There’s more I just don’t wanna jinx myself.

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“La Nouvelle Morte” is the most recent release from New York Artist Brian Ewing. The title roughly translates to “The New Dead”. Ewing took his love for Art Nouveau and Heavy Metal as inspiration for this new screen printed art piece.

The print is a heavy helping of shiny metallic inks on top of a soft Conventry Rag paper. Check out more images RIGHT HERE.

La Nouvelle Morte by Brian Ewing
18″x24″
Coventry Rag 335 gsm
Hand-Titled
Signed & Numbered edition of 125
$75 at the Brian Ewing Store

Tags: Art Print, Brian Ewing, La Nouvelle Morte, Skull, The New Dead