The Great Draw

Wanted to share with you some really fun street paintings that I recently created in Dubuque Iowa.  The Great Draw was an amazing day long celebration of community and street painting sponsored and created by Outside the Lines Gallery.  Stormy and Connie were great hosts and there was much fun to be had!  Here are the two street paintings I did for the event.  The chalk box image was a 15ft x 15ft piece done on Friday and "Botticello" was 15ft x 28ft long and created for the event on Saturday!  This was another fun Art for After Hours project.

Street Painting Vine Commercial for Target

Had a blast creating this really fun Vine video for Target recently.  Gotta love them using street painting within it!!!!!  Hope you like

The title is "Mmmm, Summer!"

Sarasota International Chalk Festival 2012

Another grand time was had at this years International Chalk Festival in Sarasota Florida.  This years theme was "circus" and we were honored that the famous daredevil and tightrope walker Nik Wallenda was part of our street painting.  Here are a few shots of the festival and our piece.  More pics to come as I get thru them from our trip!  The piece below was designed by Anthony Cappetto and was worked on by myself, Anthony, and Wendy Stum.  We were the Art for AFter hours team!

Finished "High Wire" street painting 

Just hanging around :)

Part of the other street painters

Anthony Cappetto and myself working the wire!

Anthony, Wendy, Nik Wallenda, Denis Kowal, and myself

Nik Wallenda carrying Festival Director and Founder Denise Kowal across the rope!

Having Fun!

Street Painting fun in Carrollton, Georgia!

This month has been full of many wonderful excursions.  It started with working on a mural at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, worked its way to Georgia for a street painting, wound its way to Minot, ND to do a lecture and school visit and is going to be ending the month on a week long street painting event in Sarasota.  And that doesn't even count the other fun things that happened in between all of that!  Definitely am loving the creative energy that is being expelled currently.  Hopefully I can keep the energy and excitement going into November.

SO, back to the street painting in Georgia.  I had such a great time down in Carrollton, Georgia at MeccaFest and was really happy to have met so many wonderful people along the way.  As a project thru Art for After Hours, it was great to finally get a chance to get out of the Atlanta Airport that I so often am stuck at.  Thru the course of 2 days, I created this 12ft x 16ft 3D street painting of an Indonesian landscape.  Hope you like!

2012 Artisphere Street Painting

This past weekend, I was fortunate to have created another street painting at the Artisphere Festival in Greenville, South Carolina with Art for After Hours.  This was my third year being down there and I have to say that the festival is one of the best I go to each year!  The hospitality and the crowds were amazing as always.  Other than a deluge of rain on Sunday which prevented us from doing a third day of street painting, I think the street painting this year turned out pretty well.  The original art used for this piece was created by Daryl Thetford and was used as the festival poster this year!  Thanks to Daryl for allowing me to recreate his amazing art.

2012 Artisphere Street Painting by Shawn McCann
"News Person, Original Art by Daryl Thetford"

Was great to meet the artist himself, Daryl Thetford!

Crowds from Saturday!  lots of great art to see

The amazing artists I meet along the way : CREATONE

Myself with Anthony Cappetto and CREATONE in Mumbai, India 2012

After getting back into the groove back here at home the last few weeks, I am constantly reminded of the many wonderful people and artists that I run into on my adventures in street painting and illustration events.  Having grown up in a small town in North Dakota, I would have never thought that i would be conversing with and becoming friends with people from all over the globe.  Having such an amazing ability to converse and freely chat via social media and the internet, it really makes for an exciting adventure in the daily grind!  The inspiration and encouragement that one gets completely keeps the fires burning and can only hope it expands as more projects take me places i would have never dreamed.  One of those places recently was Mumbai, India where I was fortunate to have worked on a large scale mural.  Meeting so many wonderful people there like Rajat, Animesh, Anish, Pawan, Ashish, Vipul and Aseem to the artists that i got to work with like Julian Fernandez, with whom I would have not been able to finish the small mural without!

Then there was the collaborative group of street artists that go by the name CREATONE.  CREATONE is a group of 5 artists that are going to college together at the L.S. Raheja School of Art in Bandra that quickly became great friends, even if we saw each other for a few days!  The group is made up of Jatin Waghela, Ashray Dmanankar, Deepak Rathod, Pratik Patil, and Kiran Patil.  Seeing these guys work together as a creative force was exciting and their piece they created for TechFest 2012 really spoke to their ability as a team!  It is going to be fun watching these guys not only continue great things in India where they are already creating a name for themselves, but what will be when they hit the world stage.  Never knowing where exactly one will go with their creative endeavors is exciting.  Getting to share that excitement with all the wonderful people you meet along the way and see their journeys as well makes it even better!   

CREATONE in front of their finished mural

The atmosphere on the job site was always fun around these guys!  You never know what you would be looking at when you turned around!

The side of my mural and CREATONE's all lit up ready for TechFest to begin!

Hopefully as time permits, I will begin doing more blog posts about other artists that I have met along the way as well.  Having a great community of artists in my life is what makes it so great!

Great time in India!

Well, it is hard to believe that my Indian adventure has come and gone, but I can easily tell you that I had an experience of a lifetime!  From the warm hospitality of everyone on campus at IIT Bombay, to the atmosphere at Techfest, the trip was one that i will never forget.  Of course the main people I must thank include Anthony from Art for After Hours, whom I am one of their artists and was brought on board for this project.  I also am grateful to Rajat, Animesh, Anish, Aseem, Palash, Julian and everyone else that I forgot to mention!  There are way too many memories to start writing a book here, so I will let the photos speak for themselves :)

Finished large mural - 96ft x 15ft

Finished small mural - 25ft x 15ft

On my morning walk to work ;)

The artists from CreatOne.  Worked on Graffiti mural next to my piece

My trusty assistant Julian Fernandes!  He helped make the small mural come to life!

Sarasota International Chalk Festival

The full piece.  30'x40'

Anthony Cappetto with the AR birds!

Thought I would post an image of my and Anthony Cappetto's most recent street painting "Visions of Cambodia".  At 1200 square feet it was definitely a huge amount of work but one that was definitely worth it!  Plus, we were the first street painters to include augmented reality in the piece.  More information about that here 

WAMdemonium!

My view of the Weisman building!

With a crispness in the air, another fun time was had street painting this past weekend.  This time it was for the grand reopening of the famous Frank Gehry designed Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.  With the museum having been closed the last year for an addition on the building, there was lots of excitement in the air as the gala arrived Sat night!  This piece is a 3D stylized image of downtown minneapolis and its riverfront.  The image is on two separate planes and in total was 10'x16'

Artisphere 2011 in Greenville, South Carolina

Had another fantastic time in Greenville, South Carolina this past weekend at Artisphere!  Here is my piece that I recreated of artist Michael Madzo's "The Secrets that we gather" which was the festival poster image used.  Not only did the weather cooperate for the weekends piece, but was amazed how many wonderful people stopped by during the course of the festival.  Some of them even remembered the piece I created at last years event!  Thanks again Greenville for a fantastic time!

SEI Street Painting in Scottsdale, AZ

Had a great time in Scottsdale, AZ recently on a fun 3D street painting titled "Think Growth".  Not only was there perfect weather, but my brother Cory finally was able to see me working on a street painting live.   I am sure it was as exciting as I told it would be :)  He is pictured below with me on the finished piece!  More info on the piece here

Sarasota International Chalk Festival

Art For After Hours Final Street Painting "Skullduggary"
by Artists Shawn McCann, Anthony Cappetto, and Michael Macaulay

Its hard to believe that it has been a week since I was enjoying the beautiful weather and friendly atmosphere of the Sarasota International Chalk Festival. Having been my first time to a major chalk festival, it was a bit overwhelming to have so many street painters all in one location. I wish I had had more time to visit and watch so many talented people work, but we had our own street painting to create and so was kept quite busy with our huge 20' x 45' street painting. With the help of fellow Art for After Hours street painters Anthony Cappetto and Michael Macaulay, we worked over the course of 4 days to create a halloween themed "skullduggery" that was both intense and delightful to the visitors. Along with our piece, there were a total of 2 other exhibition pieces (large group paintings) and over 250 individual pieces. The following images are just a taste of what so many talended and amazing artists brought to the streets of Sarasota, Florida! Also there is special thanks that must be given to Denise Kowal for all of her hard work and dedication to make this years chalk festival such a huge success!







Tracy Lee Stum hard at work!

Edgar Muller working on his piece

Anthony, Michael, Shawn, and Rod from Art for After Hours

A great time in South Carolina and a book soon to release!

Sorry for my absence on the posts lately, but things have been very busy lately between the children's books and the street painting. Fortunately, I am back in the studio for a little while so I should be able to catch up on things now, ie, blog posts! So, the first fun little tidbit that I will share with you is the great time I had at Artisphere International Arts Festival in Greenville, South Carolina last weekend. It was such an amazing experience and the people couldn't have been nicer down there. Blog now did a post about it that you can check out as well by clicking here. As you can see by the pictures below, it was such a hard time being in such a beautiful location right down there by the river. Hearing the rushing water and the ducks and geese really made for a difficult working experience :) Now if I could just move my studio down there, things would be great!

The other image that you can see above is the cover of my forth coming childrens book titled "Staarabu was Wise, Anana was Gentle". I am really looking forward to the release of this book and should start seeing it in stores within the next month I believe! Until next time, hope you all have a great start to your weeks!