Don’t take that tone with me

We’ve been busy in the FarisWheel camp, lately! Here’s a quick run down of what we’ve been working on:

FarisWheel Productions - Graphic Design
I just finished a website for national singing sensation “The Cactus Cuties.” If you haven’t heard these girls’ rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, you are seriously missing out! The’ve gotten over 5 million hits on YouTube in 3 months!

I also just completed an album cover for Texas Country veterans, Honeybrowne. Fred Andrews, the band leader, songwriter, and singer, is a great cat to work with.

At the Amusement Park Studio
I’ve created a new track for Bobby Bookout that is a rendition of an old Frank Sinatra tune. I can’t wait to debut it… we’ve twisted and mutated it like only the Amusement Park can do!

I’m finishing up mixing The Archers. They are a screamo band based in Lubbock. I really dig these cats. Check ‘em out!

We’re also finishing vocals for the up-coming This Soul Divided EP. The tracks sound great and I can’t wait to start mixing them!

And, last but not least, we found a few spare moments to mix a tune by Amy and Scott called “I Forgot.” Those of you who know our past, the song is a continuation of the 100 Love Sonnets spirit. Look for a new musical project soon!

Visual Art

I had the pleasure of being included in a gallery exhibit of musicians who are also visual artists at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, TX. I have two sculptures (Bite and Brian No. 3) and four photographs in the exhibit. Ben Mercado, the Chief Engineer at the Amusement Park Studio, also displayed his photography and painting. The show will be up for a month.

There’s an old quote that says, “A plumber always has leaky pipes.” That’s because they work so hard fixing other people’s problems that they never have time to work around their own home. Well somehow in between producing websites, album covers, music and graphics for countless others, we’ve finally upgraded our own pipes. FarisWheel.com is reborn! Please check it out and let us know what you think.

I’m at the SXSW Interactive Festival right now soaking up the good vibes. Just heard a talk by Josh Grober (Daring Fireball) and Michael Lopp (Apple). Inspiring!

Ever since I was a kid, I was turned on by album art… Those great album covers of the past (Zep - Physical Graffiti, Kiss- Rock and Roll Over and Triumph - Just a Game are a few of my favorites) were like a window into a new world for me. It was because of a TV ad for a record store in Shreveport, Louisiana, that I began my musical and artistic journey. The album covers started hitting the screen and I was blown away. I made my dad take me to the record store and I bought a Kiss album. It was all over.

I decided I wanted to be a guitarist. And I wanted to make album covers. Both came true. I get the pleasure of creating art for some great musicians, most of which are up-and-coming. The latest projects I’ve completed are an album cover for new artist Andy Eppler and a website for country music hall-of-famer Johnny Lee.

Andy is a fantastic singer-songwriter I met while teaching at South Plains College. He has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard and is a massively prolific writer. He even decided to release 6 albums in 6 months once… and he did. They were home-done jobs, but the fire was there.

I had the pleasure of recording Andy for some of his latest CD and I did his cover. Here are some samples of the art we went with. By the way, you can find him on iTunes or visit his site to purchase his CD.

I ended up using about 150 layers in Photoshop on the outside of the booklet. Each photo (taken by my Chief Engineer Ben Mercado) had to be knocked out (they were originally on a black background) and was heavily treated. Ben took the photos at multiple angles which allowed my to place Andy in the depth of field easily.

The photos were taken outdoors and the sunlight washed them out a little. I used color burn, screen and multiply, along with various levels of opacity to create a stark, vintage, Pink Floydian look for the photos.

Here is a sample of what I did in Photoshop for those of you who like to look at how I treated the layers: Andy’s photo layers.

The background came from a painting Andy had done that we took a photo of when it was backlit by sunlight. That allowed us to capture a greater amount of brush strokes. We took the picture in my dining room. Then I altered the color.

I added the dirt from a photo of a West Texas road. The flower pots actually sit in front of my studio. And that was it. About 40 hours later we had a cover. To see more of my work, visit my gallery. Peace.