New Years Eve at Vibe Vessel in Austin, TX

It is early morning Dec 31 2019.. artist Will Teran and I, accompanied by Mimosa Joe, are boarding a plane from Albany NY to Austin TX to spend New Years Eve live painting at Vibe Vessel thanks to our friend and partner in paint ER

flying through the sky in a can full of strangers is a process i meet with great odium however once you are through tsa and into the terminal the airport is one of the greatest places to do some quality people watching and garner inspiration to fuel future painting endeavors

collaboration sketch with Will Teran

and during lay overs they let you gamble at the bar!

We arrive in Austin, rent a car, meet up with some friends, have some celebratory drinks and around 8-9pm make our way over to Vibe Vessel to get set up for tonights live painting. There were 16 or so artists all jamming out on the wall that spanned about 30 feet long by 8 foot tall. I teamed up with another partner in paint by the name of Skele In the photo below Skele is painting (to the left of the dragon) what is starting to look like a horned head in his signature style

Excuse the lack of progress photos ----- it was New Years Eve and what you cant see in these few photos are the hundreds of people in the open air warehouse directly behind us. it was a good time

outcome of our collaboration! Skele went in with one of his characters and I hit it with details and some rusto stock black line work NY to ATX, head home, head south There is a much bigger reason for my visit to Austin this New Years. In the 200 or so days Ive spent in Austin over the past 2 years many of those days were spent at the HOPE Outdoor Gallery. An open air graffiti park for all to come paint whatever they would like, as big as they would like! It is a painters playground however on Jan 2nd .. 2 days from now .. my birthday .. they will be closing the park forever at 8pm. No more entry from the public.. gates and fences get locked and in the coming months the demo team comes in and starts building the next chapter of the property. This is a monumental day for the Austin Arts Community and all of those form around the globe who have visited the HOPE Outdoor Gallery. It is as monumental as it is sad to see this street art staple close down so soon.

Stay tuned into the next blog to live through the final artist paint day at the HOPE Outdoor Gallery