After the Baby Tattooville artists finished under deadline at 10:30 PM Saturday night, the truly dedicated guys at Paper or Plastik proceeded to take possession of the canvas and then work throughout the night on a limited edition giclee on canvas. Mission accomplished – the prints (18” x 24”) were distributed to attendees Sunday at noon.

Since there’s so much going on in this collaborative piece, we’ve broken it down into several detail shots – where possible we’ve identified the artists behind the primary work in each shot.

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Science Fiction and fantasy illustrator  extraordinaire Michael Whelan started Baby Tattooville by asking each attende to make some basic shapes/lines on a sheet of paper.  Over the next day and a third he’s been feverishly working to transform those original first steps into original pieces of art for each attendee.  After the jump enjoy a quick look  at some of the pieces he’s created. The results are impressive both in their variety of subject matter and high quality.  That’s all for Saturday night, tomorrow’s the wrap-up.

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If there’s one event that symbolizes Baby Tattooville it’s the Art Jam which involves collaborative work from all of the artists across nearly the entire duration of the event.  The joy of the Jam is as much about the spontaneity and ever-changing landscape of the piece as it is about the finished result. After dinner, the artists had one thing in mind – The Art Jam.   The hard-deadline for completion was 10:30 PM – after that the printers needed to whisk the piece away to begin the time-intensive process of scanning the piece and producing a limited-edition print for the attendees in roughly 12 short hours (the medium has not been announced though rumors are swirling).

While the piece had largely taken form prior to the last few hours, a growing huddle of artists continued to refine and add subtle touches.  In particular Bob Dob seemed to agonize over his second main contribution to the piece – an adolescent linked to the brain of the large gray bird (done by Ana Bagayan).  He continued to tweak the shading looking to get it just right.  Additionally, Joe Ledbetter gamely stepped in to perform reconstructive surgery on an unfinished area left by another artist  which was located almost directly in the middle of the piece.  As time got short, a blow-dryer was sought and delivered to speed up the process.

Just after 10:30 PM the Art Jam piece was done and ready for transport to the printers.  Just before that happened though, the artists posed proudly with their joint work.

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Saturday night at Baby Tattooville was all about the Beyond Baby Tattooville art show reception at the Riverside Art Museum.  Attendees and participants made the 2-block trek to the show which showcases the work of artists from both years of Baby Tattooville. There was also a special show within a show featuring art for sale from this year’s featured artists. Event attendees had the opportunity to purchase these pieces before the general public.

Beyond Baby Tattooville offers a compelling and fairly broad representation of low brow / post surrealism and is the start of an important collaboration between the annual event and the museum.  Both able bodied and the slightly injured (Tim Biskup was nursing a sore ankle after a slight mishap) unwound after a day full of demos, show and tell, and casual interaction between collectors and artists.    Enjoy our coverage of the show after the jump.

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Here’s a quick update on the collaborative Art Jam piece from Baby Tattooville.  These are shots of a morning work session featuring the duo of Dave Cooper and Bob Dob.  Look for  more updates on the progress and transformation of this piece as we head to completion this evening.  Pop Cling will take the finished piece and turn it around into prints for distribution tomorrow morning.

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Bob Dob presented his army of custom Luey figures.  These are hand-customized versions of his figures which were released last year  by STRANGEco.  Great stuff – all Baby Tattooville attendees will receive one of these customized Lueys.

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Brandi Milne, Ana Bagayan & Dave Cooper are presenting and discussing the hand-done drawings created for the 43 Baby Tattooville attendees.  Brandi created gorgeous colorful drawings on vintage matchbooks.  Ana drew black/white portrait drawings and Dave Cooper created individual pencil drawings for all the attendees as well.

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Saturday morning at Baby Tattooville.  Mark Murphy intro’d the Beyond Baby Tattooville booklet created for attendees by his company Murphy Design.  Done in a just-in-time fashion all digitally the booklet features art from this year’s featured artists and has blank pages for signature / sketch gathering.

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It’s 5am as we post this but a late night ‘Art Jam’ session at  this year’s Baby Tattooville art  retreat capturing the spirit and anxiety of the collaborative process (in unscheduled and unpredictable turns) has us motivated.

One of the challenges in a collaborative piece featuring contributions from so many artists is the need to mesh the parts into a cohesive whole.  This task was squarely front and center as they worked past 2 AM on Friday night. Black paint was added and blended  over the brighter yellow background areas apparently to reduce the hotspot effect and lend to a more balanced look.  Part of the process involved the potentially sensitive issue of altering others’ work — whether it meant changing the siren’s hair from a bright orange to a more subdued dark green, adding a gorgeous ethereal eye to the bull or  the difficult  yet holistically aimed   decision to wash out a  roughly rendered character.  The session ended with attendees curious as to what changes would come next – the only certainly is the unexpected.

See this process unfold in the photo gallery after the jump.

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The first night of Baby Tattooville, the 2nd annual limited edition art retreat organized by Baby Tattoo books, was all about the ‘Jam’.  The collaborative ‘Art Jam’ that is.  Painter extrodinaire Michael Whelan contributed an intricate yet abstract fossilized crevice-like structure showing through in the diagonal corners of the canvas.  In discussing Shag’s contribution with his trademark angularity, Jeff Soto remarked that Shag could  hold his own with any painter at the event except for perhaps Michael Whelan – noteworthy praise.  See more of Michael’s Art Jam contribution after the jump.

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After cocktails, everyone headed over to Jeff Soto’s nearby studio for a light dinner and the beginning of the ‘Art Jam’ collaborative piece.  Dinner was provided by Fred Eric of Tiara Cafe who worked throughout the night creating delicious finger food.  Pizza was also available if people so chose (we hovered around Fred’s table).

Being in Jeff’s studio was just as enjoyable as last year – very cool to see work in progress both in terms of unfinished paintings and completed sketches.  After dinner, the featured artists posed for a group shot in front of the blank canvas for the ‘art jam’ – over a day or so they will transform it into a collaborative painting whose form will emerge with unpredictable results.  We’ll be bringing you frequent updates on the progress.

Jeff Soto laid the foundation background strokes and then Joe Ledbetter plunged in with some background splashes and then with the help of a hair dryer to speed up the drying process, proceeded to render one of his beloved characters.  Ana Bagayan and Brandi Milne soon joined in afterwards.

After the studio visit, people piled back on the buses to return to the Mission Inn for a late night life painting session as well as more work on the ‘Art Jam’.

Be sure to click through for a loaded photo gallery of the evening at Jeff Soto’s studio.  This is just the beginning of our coverage — keep watching this space.

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Baby Tattooville ‘08, the 2nd annual limited-edition art retreat, began tonight at the historic Mission Inn in Riverside, CA.   The weekend long event features 10 spotlight artists — Ana Bagayan, Glenn Barr, Dave Cooper, Bob Dob, Joe Ledbetter, Brandi Milne, Daniel Peacock, Shag, Amy Sol and Michael Whelan — across 2.5 days of programming including a panel tomorrow morning and a collaborative ‘art jam’ piece.  The art jam pieces will be worked on until late Saturday night at which point Pop Cling will take it and create limited-edition prints which will be presented to attendees Sunday morning (12 hour or so turnaround).

DailyduJour is on site to bring you all the pics + and info you can handle.  We start with a look at the  pre-dinner activities (cocktails on the patio) with some familiar faces.

If you have any questions or requests, please post a comment.  We’ll be checking them. Enjoy the up-close coverage.

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