Rejection

I thought it might be fun to share some of my rejected art submissions from over the years. Hold on to your butts.

First up, we have my first ever mural pitch for Downtown Iowa City. This was designed to go in the ped mall hallway next to the Graduate Hotel. The mural that Drew Etienne got to create for that space is one of my favorite murals in the city and I’m happy that he was selected.

Later, when I applied to create a mural for the alleyway behind Elray’s, I repurposed the Dunkleosteus from this pitch to work in that space.

Here’s a rejected nature themed mural sketch that I made for a rec center in Kansas. These two images would have been painted on adjacent walls that meet at a corner. The requested theme was wildlife native to the area. Look! I drew fish again!

This rejected mural design was for a wall in the New Bohemia neighborhood in Cedar Rapids. The requested subject matter revolved around the immigrant population that originally settled the area.

I got to paint one Herky statue this year, here are my two other design submissions that weren’t picked.

The following are two fully developed designs I was paid to make as a finalist in the selection process for a mural in Cedar Rapids. I love when a public art selection committee sort through the first round of applicants based on their portfolios and then pay a group of finalists to develop a pitch for the piece.

The prompt for this mural on the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation building was “A vibrant and inclusive Linn County where all people thrive.” If I had been selected, painting this four-story mural would have been a tough job.

Thanks for reading! Remember, rejection is part of being an artist. Keep your head up and keep moving forward!

New Video!

UI Stanley Museum of Art
Community Artists: Iowa City Mural Tour
”Discover the stories behind some of the most recognizable murals around Iowa City. Hear directly from the artists about their creative process, techniques, and the impact of their work on the community. This video is part of a curriculum aimed to inspire K-12 students!”

I got to be part of this great video highlighting Iowa City mural artists as part of a project by UI Stanley Museum of Art, the UI Libraries Keith Haring Curriculum Development Workshop, and Iowa City school district art teachers. This fall, myself and other participating artists will be working with elementary school art students to plan their own mural projects!

I Painted a Herky Statue!

I’m truly honored that I got to paint one of the 100 Herky Statues for Iowa City’s Herky On Parade 3 organized by Think Iowa City! My Herky is Lucha-Mania Herky dressed in his Mexican wrestler mask and championship belt.

Lucha-Mania Herky, Herky on Parade III statue by artist Jonathan Sims, sponsored by Think Iowa City is seen on the streets, Thursday, May 23, 2024, in Iowa City, Iowa. PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cress/Think Iowa City

360 degree turnaround gif of Lucha Mania Herky.

This was my first time painting a three dimensional statue of this scale. It was a fun and challenging process. I spent a lot of time climbing up and down a step ladder and sitting on a gardening seat to paint all of Herky’s various angles. I enjoyed pushing the cartoony aspects of the painting and adding little details like the metallic gold championship belt and the Iowa flag tag on the back of his singlet.

Time-lapse gif of my Herky painting process. I painted Herky in my temporary painting studio at ReUnion Brewery’s Juice Factory brewing facility.

Lucha-Mania Herky, Herky on Parade III statue, is seen photographed in studio, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, in Coralville, Iowa. PHOTO CREDIT: Joseph Cress/Think Iowa City

Johnson County "I VOTED" sticker designs 2024.

Two of my designs are finalists in Johnson County, Iowa’s “I VOTED” sticker contest! You can VOTE ON THEM HERE.

I made my brother solve a bunch of riddles to earn his birthday present. (Part 2)

In 2014, I subjected my brother to another gauntlet of riddles before he could get to his birthday present. My previous blog post is an updated version of one I wrote shortly after my brother solved those puzzles. This one is being written in 2024, ten years later. I’m reconstructing these events from photos, computer files, and my memory. Please bear with me.

For this second set of riddles, I wanted to lean even more into the idea of numbers stations. I like the idea of information existing in plain sight that only the person with the correct cypher can understand.

It’s about a month before my brother’s 24th birthday. He comes home to find a green envelope with a question mark painted on it waiting for him in his room. (He lives several states away and my parents planted it there on my behalf.) Inside the envelope he finds a birthday card made by me. It’s printed in full color on two layers of cardstock glued together. The thing is covered in puzzles and clues.

There’s a Word Find, a Crossword Puzzle, and several hidden messages that require a red lens to be read. I erred on the side of solvability with the red lens messages. This took some trial and error.

The back of the card is one large red lens hidden message. It tells him to follow @kingofclues on twitter. It also instructs him to carefully cut the card open along the bottom of the back of the card. When he does that, he finds two pieces of a cipher wheel. The outer ring jumbled numbers and letters. The inner ring has numbers 1 through 38 with a set of symbols below each of the odd numbers. Now there’s a lot in front of him to start solving. This set of riddles is less linear than last year’s. Here are my crazy brainstorming notes.

He follows @kingofclues on twitter and the account starts tweeting at him. “Shall we play a game?” The profile picture for @kingofclues is an actual photo of me dressed as the Riddler when I was 12, the year Batman Forever came out starring Jim Carrey as the Riddler.

The word find is my brother’s name and a bunch of names of Batman characters. The Crossword questions are about some of my brother’s favorite video games, movies, shows, and also questions pertaining to his birth date and the year he was born.

@kingofclues tweets out links to articles and youtube videos about numbers stations including this one:

Along with a few quotes from it. “This is an example of radio being used to talk to one particular person.” and “You encrypt the message which allows you to use this public broadcast medium to send a private message.”

On July 13th, @kingofclues tweets “STAND BY FOR TRANSMISSION…” and then “TRANSMISSION #1 https://soundcloud.com/kingofclues/transmission-1”

On July 18th, @kingofclues tweets “STAND BY FOR TRANSMISSION…” and then “TRANSMISSION #2 https://soundcloud.com/kingofclues/transmission-2”

This is my online version of a numbers station. I used a sound clip from Tekken as my “call-up” to signify the beginning and end of the transmission. A robotic voice reads out a string of numbers that only Alex can solve with his cipher ring set to the correct position. The puzzles in the birthday card have given him those positions.

The red lens message near the word find says “To decode transmission #1, read what is left behind.” Solving the word find leaves a series of letters uncircled that spell out: which one of these letters is most magnetic? The letter “L” has a sliver of metal embedded in the paper. Alex discovers this by using a magnet. If he lines up the magnet icon under the “1” with the “L,” he can decode transmission #1.

The red lens message near the crossword says “To decode transmission #2, unscramble the purple block and match with X on the wheel.” After solving the crossword and unscrambling the purple boxes, he gets: trumpet. By lining up the trumpet icon under the “27” with the “X,” he can decode transmission #2.

Transmission #1 reads, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX. MY AVATAR JPG HAS A SECRET.” And transmission #2 reads, “PICSECRET PASSWORD IS 3RD WORD IN DECODER INSTRUCTIONS FOLLOWED BY HIGHEST NUMBER ON DECODER.”

Alex takes apart the cipher wheel to see the instructions that told him how to assemble the two pieces. “Push a thumbtack through the center of both wheels to build your secret decoder.” He downloads @kingofclues’s profile picture and runs it through PicSecret with the password “thumbtack38.” The text embedded in this profile picture hosted publicly by twitter is the code to redeem Alex’s birthday present, an Amazon gift card. Happy birthday, bro!

I made my brother solve a bunch of riddles to earn his birthday present. (Part 1)

The following is an account of the digital scavenger hunt chain-of-riddles I sent my brother, Alex, for his 23rd birthday in 2013. I was inspired by Numbers Stations, various ARGs and methods for hiding secret messages in different file types like when text is embedded in an image file or methods for converting an image into sound and back again. I wanted the scavenger hunt to be fun, mysterious, and at least a little challenging.

In the mail, my brother receives a Heroclix figure of The Riddler. On the bottom of the figure is a sticker with a QR code which points him to a shared Google Drive folder containing RIDDLES.ZIP and a readme file. The sticker also instructs him to download RIDDLES.ZIP to his laptop and supplies him with the password to unzip that file. The password is “mcmxc” which is the roman numeral for 1990, the year Alex was born. My original idea was to affix a micro SD card to the base of the figure but because it’s 2013, I could not be certain that he would have a device that could read the card.

The README file.

Within RIDDLES.ZIP is a trail of files gated by password protected zip files.

Catch the Magritte reference? The first file, 1.JPG, has a QR code which sends him to a secret page on my website. That page contains the clue to unlock 2.PDF’s password protection. “The number one song in America on August 16, 1990 was ______ by Mariah Carey.”

2.PDF has three questions about Alex’s birth date. Answering those gives him the password for 3.ZIP.

3.ZIP contains 4.JPG, 5.ZIP, 6.WAV (1:50 of strange high-pitched noise), and a program called PicSecret.

4.JPG is a magic eye image that I made using easystereogrambuilder.com. There’s text hidden in that image. This was the biggest snag in creating the whole sequence. The hidden image is really hard to see and I had to mess with it for hours to even get it that legible. The hidden message is “jordan 23”. 4.JPG contains a second secret message. The program PicSecret is one of many ways to hide text inside an image file. This method is known as JPG Steganography. Running 4.JPG through PicSecret with the password gets Alex the password for 5.ZIP, “bukowski”. Charles Bukowski was a writer born on August 16th in 1920, 70 years before Alex.

5.ZIP contains a program called MultiMode Cocoa and instructions on how to use it to convert 6.WAV into an image. Slow Scan Television (SSTV) is a method of sending an image over radio waves as audio used mainly by HAM radio operators. It’s a lot like sending a fax. After waiting for the program to play out the 1 minute and 50 seconds of horrible screeching, Alex receives the following image:

Turning the Heroclix dial on the Riddler figure to the right position gives Alex the password to run 1.JPG through PicSecret. The secret JSTEG message hidden in that image is a code for $25 at Amazon. I really like the idea of giving him the pieces to solve the final puzzle right in the beginning (the Riddler figure and 1.JPG) but the knowledge to unlock it at the end.

Alex Sent me a text that said “Wooooooo! Thanks Jon!” attached to the following image:

Let’s quickly run through that again. He received a Riddler figure attached to a combat dial with a QR Code on the bottom. That gave him a ZIP file to download. A JPG with a QR code led to a webpage with a clue to unlock a PDF. The PDF contained clues to unlock another ZIP file. A magic eye puzzle in a JPG gave him the password to run that same JPG through a steganography program to get the password for another ZIP file. That gave him a program to turn a WAV file into a JPG via a slow scan television process. That image gave him the settings for the Riddler figure combat dial which was the password to run the first JPG through the steganography program to receive his birthday present.

I had a lot of fun concocting this scavenger hunt and I know Alex had fun solving it. I hope it made him feel a little bit like Batman.

Odin by Skelenaut

I couldn’t resist the urge to draw something METAL! My new Odin designs are available on T-shirts in my threadless shop.

Skelenaut® Long Beach T-Shirt Pre-Orders!

My new SKELENAUT® t-shirt is coming out this April, just in time for ICECREAM! And yes, it's a homage to one of your favorite bands from the mid 90s.

Pre-ORDER NOW!

Click here to learn about ICECREAM - THE IOWA CITY EXPO FOR COMICS AND REAL ECLECTIC ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

Shirts printed by Jonnie 5 Apparel

New Merch!

Check out my new Threadless shop for T-shirts and more! To start off, I’ve added my old screen-printed designs to the shop. Most of these have been unavailable for years. I’ll be adding new designs to the shop periodically.

2023 Year of Beer

How’s it going everybody? It’s hard to stay on top of posting my work online as the products I illustrate for are released to the public. Here’s one big post to catch up on all the beer labels I got to make in 2023!

SKELENAUT! My very own signature beer! I’m ultra-proud of this one. I’ve already posted it on the website but technically, it came out in January (and then again in the past couple months!)

Cherry Crushes. This is a somewhat simple design inspired by Cherry 7up commercials and package designs from the 90s. I'm happy with how the cartoon cherries look.

I got to re-design the Dr. Dank can this year! It’s one of my favorite ReUnion illustrations presently.

Des Moines Challenge IPA. I didn't design the coyote logo, just a simple graphic design job - fitting everything together and creating the background and typography.

This one was a fun challenge. ReUnion brews this American Light Lager specifically for the college crowd at their downtown Iowa City location. They wanted something very *AMERICA* with a classic/mainstream look to it.

We typically do a new minimal design for each year's iteration of Imperial Banshee. For this one, they wanted a black on black look. It’s really nice in person.

Cobbler Gobbler is a tasty, fruity sour. I'm proud of how stupid this cartoon turkey looks. I get disappointed when a client wants a cute looking turkey. The real animal is a nightmare and it’s a bummer when I don’t get to revel in drawing it that way. I also got to make this cool 60's TV gameshow set inspired layered background.

Domo Affogato! The beer is delicious and I got to design a weird espresso robot for this collaboration between ReUnion, LUA, and Court Avenue Brewing Co.

Hash Stash! I’m very proud of this stony, hazy, sparkly design.

Thrilla in Amarilla! I'm honored that I got to design a label for John's Grocery's 75th anniversary. We've got a gigantic, looming Tank Puncher and Dirty John himself, the original proprietor of John's Grocery, ready to rumble with the John's building in the foreground.

I got to design a custom beer label for my alma mater's homecoming alumni event. I feel like fewer than 200 people have seen this can in person.

Guys. I've drawn so many dogs this year. This can and its rejected first draft account for many of them.

Boba Fett Cosplay

Hey there! I’m a big nerd who has been fond of the Star Wars character, Boba Fett, for years. I made this Boba Fett costume in my spare time.

My finished Boba Fett costume. Photo by Ryan Bentzinger.

Here are my initial plans for my take on Boba Fett. I originally wanted to make a Boba Fett costume with black clothing before the second season of the Mandalorian came out (which featured an older Boba retrieving his armor and wearing it over black desert clothing.) I opted for a cape instead of a fake jetpack and added my own twist on the shoes and pants.

My initial sketch and notes on the project.

A visual inventory of all that I planned to craft myself.

The helmet is an off the shelf prop collectible. The vest, belt, decals, and LED electronics were purchased from Etsy sellers. I bought the pants, shirt, socks, gloves, shoes, and nerf blaster. I made the armor with SKS HD cosplay foam and acrylic paint. I also made the cape. I altered the vest to fit the electronics behind the chest piece, added snaps to the vest to attach the cape, and other stuff.

After my first test wearing the full costume, I realized that the chest armor was a little too wide so I cut down the chest and stomach armor and touched up with paint job.

Me and Andy Warhol at a Halloween party. Notice the ridiculous drinking tube I rigged up so I could drink beer with my helmet on. It ended up being a pain to deal with.

With Hollow Knight, D&D Dungeon Master, and Crocodile on Halloween.

New Mural - Alter Ego Comics in Marion, IA

I recently completed a new mural on the outside of Alter Ego Comics in Marion, IA. I’ve been a patron of Alter Ego since I was 12 or 13 years old and I am honored that I got to immortalize owner Erin Tapken’s loveable pug, Paxton Rhubarb, in this Roy Lichtenstein inspired comic book art mural!

The mural! A painting of a female superhero close-up. She has brown hair and is wearing a blue mask and a smiling pug dog wearing a winged Thro-style helmet. The painting is roughly in Roy Lichtenstein's enlarged comic panel style with half tone dots

A wide exterior shot of the Alter Ego Comics building including the completed mural.

Animated gif showing progression of the mural painting process.

Terrible Flags of Cedar Rapids

The city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa just unveiled their new city flag!

In 2019, the city accepted flag design idea submissions from the public. I made 32 very bad designs and submitted them to the city's website. My new book, Terrible Flags of Cedar Rapids, collects these flag designs along with their descriptions in all their ridiculous glory.

Buy it now at RAYGUN in Cedar Rapids, Next Page Books in Cedar Rapids, or my website!

You can also buy apparel and wall art featuring select artwork from the book!

terrible-flags-of-cedar-rapids-8-jeans-frog-tshirts.jpg

North Liberty Fairy Trail - Summer 2021

I had the pleasurer of designing and illustrating 11 trolls and fairies for the city of North Liberty. They’ve taken up residence along the North Liberty Recreation Trail between Penn and Cherry streets! Each of the characters represents a different good trait or virtue. People can see their pictures and read their stories by using QR codes near each door. Kids also have the chance to write and submit their own stories about each character. Give them a visit in person or CLICK HERE to learn more!

Dunkleosteus Mural Downtown Iowa City

This month, I’ve been hard at work on a new mural in Downtown Iowa City. It’s almost finished, here’s what it looks like so far!

I’d like to thank Elray’s Live and Dive and the Iowa City Downtown District for this opportunity!

The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History wrote an article featuring the mural.

Follow me on instagram for regular updates!

Super Heroes of History Day 2019

This Saturday at the National Czech and Slovak Museum & Library I will be running a workshop on making comics. All ages welcome! I hope to see you there!

Facebook event page here!