Presenting our first ever Kickstarter project! For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter, it is a site that people turn to to help fund the projects they are working on. Gregg was recently invited to do an installation for a huge contemporary art show, the G40 Art Summit through the Art Whino gallery, coming up in March in Richmond, and this is an amazing opportunity for us. Basically Gregg is going to be given a room to do whatever he wants with it, and to fill that space, we are going to need a lot of art supplies. Sadly, art supplies are not cheap. It is a hard balance for us to provide for all of our needs while getting anything extra, and so we’ve decided to Kickstart his installation material needs. With specific amounts of donations come specific giveaways, and you can check all the information out here. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/greggdeal/rally-for-art-supplies

We sincerely appreciate your time and consideration. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you very much!

Thank you so much, people.  We are thoroughly convinced that the best looking families on earth are fans of ours!  We sincerely appreciate everyone who participated through submitting photos and ‘liking’.  You warm our little hearts, everyone last one of you, including you!

We have a couple of quick announcements before we reveal the winner.  Our Christmas order cut off for pieces to be delivered by Christmas is December 1st.  We’ve also decided to start a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale TODAY!  Between now and Monday, November 28th, you can receive 20% off your order by entering the code HOLIDAYS2011 at the check out.

Okay, back to the contest, when we send out the top 10 photos, we still have no idea who is going to win because we can never predict which photos each judge will choose.  This was a tough choice for them, and we want to give them another quick thanks–THANK YOU, ESTEEMED JUDGING PANEL:

Kiersten of Mod Mom Furniture, inspirational lady and designer of insanely awesome eco-friendly and modern children’s furniture design (and my closet BFF).

Jill of Baby Rabies, the first blogger we ever worked with, and we’ve been in love ever since!

Beth Anne of Heir To Blair, an A-list mommy blogger who rocks our face off.

Janell of Isabella & Max Rooms, amazing designer, DIYer, and founding editor of House of Fifty.

Guilty Squid of Guilty Squid, THE self-proclaimed internet superstar.

Mireya Mayor, PhD (because a photo contest isn’t complete without a PhD on board), Host of Nat Geo Wild, Explorer/Wildlife Expert Expedition Africa, Author of Pink Boots & A Machete, Emmy Nominated Reporter, Speaker & Former NFL Cheerleader.

Jen of The Martha Project, a place where mediocrity & doing 90% of a job reign.

Ashley of Little Miss Momma, an adorable and crafty momma blogger.

JP of Japster, Inc., our go-to guy for all things programming for our site.  Bloggers, this is your man.

Gregg.  The Artist.  Insanely handsome and talented artist and designer of Modern Bird Studios, ModTots, and Yankee Hipster (soon to be launched line of ironic, humorous, and typographical posters).

The Major.  Tony Fife.  Spreadsheet Super Dork.  He lives down the street from us.

And now…the winner of the Epic Holiday Photo Contest of 2011 is….and thank goodness for them because we are all safer….

BOOM!

But wait…

There was no way we could let this go.

Not when this photo got 381 ‘likes’.

The most ‘like’s EVER in the history of Modern Bird photo contests.

We are awarding a $250 gift certificate to this top 10 finalist:

Thank you so much to everyone!  We sincerely appreciate all of your participation, support, kind words, and patronage.  Happy Thanksgiving, and Happy Holidays!!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and participated in another super fun and exciting photo contest!  The Top 10 photos have already been sent to our panel of judges, and the winner of the multi-colored 12″ x 24″ piece will be announced tomorrow.  Huge thank you to the judges who have the very difficult task of narrowing this list down to one!  Our esteemed panel of judges is comprised of the following individuals:

Kiersten of Mod Mom Furniture, inspirational lady and designer of insanely awesome eco-friendly and modern children’s furniture design (and my closet BFF).

Jill of Baby Rabies, the first blogger we ever worked with, and we’ve been in love ever since!

Beth Anne of Heir To Blair, an A-list mommy blogger who rocks our face off.

Janell of Isabella & Max Rooms, amazing designer, DIYer, and founding editor of House of Fifty.

Guilty Squid of Guilty Squid, THE self-proclaimed internet superstar.

Mireya Mayor, PhD (because a photo contest isn’t complete without a PhD on board), Host of Nat Geo Wild, Explorer/Wildlife Expert Expedition Africa, Author of Pink Boots & A Machete, Emmy Nominated Reporter, Speaker & Former NFL Cheerleader.

Jen of The Martha Project, a place where mediocrity & doing 90% of a job reign.

Ashley of Little Miss Momma, an adorable and crafty momma blogger.

JP of Japster, Inc., our go-to guy for all things programming for our site.  Bloggers, this is your man.

Gregg.  The Artist.  Insanely handsome and talented artist and designer of Modern Bird Studios, ModTots, and Yankee Hipster (soon to be launched line of ironic, humorous, and typographical posters).

The Major.  Tony Fife.  Spreadsheet Super Dork.  He lives down the street from us.

And now, announcing the Top Ten Finalists in no particular order:

Who is your pick for the winner?

It’s been a roller coaster of a year, hasn’t it??!!  Many ups–meeting new people, art shows, the launch of our kids’ line ModTots and getting pregnant with baby #3, (and then there was that time we got a call from the producers of The View on October 11 because Whoopi wants to use us for a segment in December, but it isn’t confirmed yet, so we aren’t telling anyone until it is confirmed because we don’t want to jinx it, so until then, you haven’t heard a thing from us; and if it doesn’t happen, we may weep a thousand rivers.)…. and some downs–it’s still a tough economy for so many households.  Regardless of the ups and downs, the holidays are upon us, and we’ve decided to have some fun with another photo contest!

Presenting the Epic Holiday Photo Contest of 2011!!  We will be accepting photo submissions from anyone interested in entering.  Photos can be of any subject you want–kids, couples, weddings, pets, parents, fruit, grandparents, sisters, neighbors, brothers, and they do NOT have to be holiday-themed.  You have until Monday, November 14th to get us your best photo to be judged against the other photo entries.  Photos can be sent to contest@modernbirdstudios.com with Photo Contest in the subject line.  We will post all photo entries on our FB page on Tuesday, November 15th for everyone to look through and ‘like’ their favorites.  It will be up to you to get your friends, frenemies, families, neighbors, acquaintances, pals, BFFs, blogging friends, co-workers, mailmen, babies’ daddies, ex-spouses, high school friends, college roommates, cousins you don’t claim, former boy/girlfriends, etc to ‘like’ your photo in any manner you can think of including using your FB pages, your blog audiences, shouting on street corners, streaking through crowds, picketing at Target, etc.  This, of course, means that they will have to ‘like’ Modern Bird Studios first!  Boom.

Everyone will have until Monday, November 21st at 1pm EST to get as many people to ‘like’ their photo as possible.  At this point, the top 10 most ‘liked’ photos will be put before a panel of judges, and the judges will choose the winning photo to be created into a 12″ x 24″, multi-colored piece.  Our esteemed panel of judges is comprised of the following individuals:

Kiersten of Mod Mom Furniture, inspirational lady and designer of insanely awesome eco-friendly and modern children’s furniture design (and my closet BFF).

Jill of Baby Rabies, the first blogger we ever worked with, and we’ve been in love ever since!

Beth Anne of Heir To Blair, an A-list mommy blogger who rocks our face off.

Janell of Isabella & Max Rooms, amazing designer, DIYer, and founding editor of House of Fifty.

Guilty Squid of Guilty Squid, THE self-proclaimed internet superstar.

Mireya Mayor, PhD (because a photo contest isn’t complete without a PhD on board), Host of Nat Geo Wild, Explorer/Wildlife Expert Expedition Africa, Author of Pink Boots & A Machete, Emmy Nominated Reporter, Speaker & Former NFL Cheerleader.

Jen of The Martha Project, a place where mediocrity & doing 90% of a job reign.

Ashley of Little Miss Momma, an adorable and crafty momma blogger.

JP of Japster, Inc., our go-to guy for all things programming for our site.  Bloggers, this is your man.

Gregg.  The Artist.  Insanely handsome and talented artist and designer of Modern Bird Studios, ModTots, and Yankee Hipster (soon to be launched line of ironic, humorous, and typographical posters).

The Major.  Tony Fife.  Spreadsheet Super Dork.  He lives down the street from us.

So, to recap:

*You have until Monday, November 14th to email your photo to contest@modernbirdstudios.com — with Photo Contest in the subject line — to be entered into the contest.
*All entries will be posted to our FB page at the same time on Tuesday, November 15th.
*You have until Monday, November 21st at 1pm EST to get as many people as possible to ‘like’ your photo.
*On the afternoon of Monday, November 21st, the top 10 most ‘liked’ photos will be put before our panel of judges where a winner will be chosen.
*We will announce the winner of the 12″ x 24″, multi-colored piece on Tuesday, November 22nd.

Entry rules:
*One photo per person.  This photo does NOT have to be holiday themed.
*Open to ALL people, that means ALL people, in the US and Canada only.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us at contest@modernbirdstudios.com or leave a comment below, and we will respond to it.  Boom.

Introducing Gregg’s latest personal piece, The Reverent Child.  The piece is 13.5″ x 14″, spray paint on a cabinet door.

What do you think?

Since our acrylic style is so insanely cool, we had no choice but to dedicate a blog post to this most recent acrylic piece.  This particular piece is a custom-size, 18″ x 24″, commissioned by Kimani of his sister who passed away.  We were humbled by the opportunity, and we hope we did his beautiful sister justice.

The piece is painted on both the inside and the outside of the acrylic.  Originally Kimani wanted to do a gritty background on the wood portion, but then he opted for a natural look that Gregg put a clear coat on to bring out more of the wood grains.

So, what do you think?

Gregg is showing in this year’s North Capitol Main Street Art Walk that started over the weekend.  He created two really cool pieces that needed to be all-weather proof since the show is outside.  His medium of choice is wood, but for this show, he switched to 3/4″ PVC sheets, which is basically plastic.  The spray paint is already water proof and could endure a good rain storm.

The two pieces are Untitled.  They are buildings with cool architecture, and he put them into a composition that makes them almost abstract. Clean modern lines mixed with the gritty uncontrollable drips in the back provides a juxtaposition that he is in love with.

The show runs through August 27th, and if you happen to be in the DC area, his pieces are located at 1837 1st St NW in DC.

Untitled #1 (left)
48″x16.5″
Spray paint on PVC
$650

Untitled #2 (right)
48″x16.5″
Spray paint on PVC
$650

If you are interested in purchasing either one of these pieces, please contact us at info@modernbirdstudios.com.  You can check out more on this and Gregg’s other personal work at www.greggdeal.com.

What do you think of them?  Aren’t they cool?

The caterwaul. A scream. A screech. A wail. The way the face of a figure becomes distorted and changed when emotion becomes involved.  This is Gregg’s latest personal piece.  He loves portraits, and even more so when those portraits can become more than a portrait, but a representation of emotion, humor and human form vs. the grittiness of the medium he uses.  The juxtaposition of a face sculpted in paint with the dripping, spraying and splattering of spray paint.

The Caterwaul
12″ x 24″
Spray paint on wood
$350

What do you think?

If you are interested in seeing more of Gregg’s personal work, please check out his site, www.greggdeal.com.  If you are interested in purchasing this piece, please send an email to info@modernbirdstudios.com.

Here is the latest in Gregg’s personal work, Art Is So Cliché.  He’s been playing with the image of the human heart which embodies so much literally and figuratively.  He’s a big fan of wheat pasting, a process that allows him to control the mediums with printed material, drawn material, and collage, and he decided to use the shape of a heart to hold images that create the story of this piece.

The things in our heart can be beautiful and terrifying, and this image embodies that–terrifying images coupled with whimsical ones, skulls, hope, faith, and Natives.  It’s bleeding, it’s alive, and it’s art; and it’s one big cliché.  Like much of his work, it’s personal, ironic, and humorous.  This piece is commentary on the state of art, the heart of humans, and the heart of all of us as collective. Art Is So Cliché.

12″x12″
Spray paint on wood, mixed media
$200 (+ shipping if you live outside the area)

To check out more of Gregg’s personal work, check out his personal site, www.greggdeal.com.  If you are interested in purchasing this piece, please feel free to contact us at info@modernbirdstudios.com.

Gregg has decided to start a series of personal pieces called ‘Life Lessons’ that include funny, ironic, and somewhat truthful statements.  Since he has a graphic design background, he also loves to work with fonts, and so this series, ‘Life Lessons’, allows him do to just that.  Introducing the first of the series, The World Owes You Nothing:

You can check out more of Gregg’s personal work at www.greggdeal.com.  What do you think?