Undertow

Final Toyhippo Deck for PUSH 2012

2012-02-01T21:15:00.000-08:00

Aww yeahhhh....here's some rad shots of the Toyhippo deck that was painted for the PUSH show this year mentioned in the post below this one. Big ups to Kari Rowe for the pro photos and Saba (her dog) for providing a very curious demeanor throughout the process.

Skate Deck Sneak Peek...

2012-01-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a snap shot of part of a Toyhippo deck that will be auctioned for charity for the PUSH 2012 show in Bend, OR. The proceeds from PUSH benefit the Division Street Skate Project. You can read more about that through the appropriate link. We did a Toyhippo board for them last year, and it's exciting to be able to contribute another one this year.

Testing The Waters Book

2012-01-15T22:53:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to throwing together some cool documentation of our TTW show. We've always had the images online, but it was nice to get a book together for our purposes. Pretty simple screw-post bound, ink jet print. Thank you Canon i9900 for your time and services. A few images below of the book. The cover art matches the graphic we used for the event tees.

July 2012 Art Show Announced

2012-01-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

Finally. A year and a half after our last show at Nemo, we'll be firing up yet another art gig at Gallery 135. It's a killer space located on the first floor of IDL's spot in the NW Parkblocks. It's gonna be killer, and we're stoked on it already. Thanks to Jake & Scott at IDL for giving us the thumbs up and being excited enough to work with us. We're definitely humbled to get a chance to show our stuff in their rad space. It's going to be July 5, which is the first Thursday of that month. Bring your Skip-Its and bowl cuts, it's on!!!

We'll have more news as it comes. Pics of Gallery 135 below.

Toyhippo Art At Bishops

2011-11-13T17:17:00.000-08:00

Happy blustery Sunday Portlanders. Last night, we hung a little section of Toyhippo art at Bishops Barbershop in the Pearl. Looks pretty sweet, at least compared to the mid-90's hairstyle photography they had in the space prior. The multi-panel piece is still for sale for $500 in the shop, as well as the 6 wood blocks for $15 a piece. Head down to NW 10th and Everett to get a bowl cut and check out the art. We're honored and lucky enough to have it right next to a Buff Monster illustration on the adjacent wall. Here's some photos below.

London Sticker Tags

2011-11-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a long, long time. We've taken a major break over the summer. Portland is too nice in the summer to be sitting around inside painting and sharpening your rollerblades. Had a chance to go to London in May and lay down a few stickers. Here's some shots of those. More news to come soon!

Toyhippo Deck For Charity

2011-03-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, the Division Street Skate Project in Bend, OR had their annual PUSH event with tons of skateboard graphics to raise some dough. We were asked to submit a board, so here it is below. We don't have any other photos of it yet, but the show turned around great. We're all just raiders at heart, aren't we?!

HERE is a link to the DSSP facebook page where you can browse around and check out more pics if you'd like!

Toys In The Attic Photos

2011-01-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Hope everyone had a great Christmas break. Steve from Toys In The Attic posted some photos on facebook of the event, so we're just passing those along. They're pretty ballin' if we do say so ourselves. We weren't able to make it, but it looked pretty killer. There's a couple photos with our screenprints in the background, and you can check out the full album on the Toys In The Attic Facebook Page.

Again, congrats on the event, and it went for a great cause in Toys For Tots.

Toys In The Attic: This Friday

2010-11-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

The toy-inspired art show we mentioned just in the below post is this Friday. It's in Minneapolis and it's benefiting a great cause, Toys For Tots. Undertow will have their set of Super Soaker-themed prints ready to go. There should also be some swag: stickers, rings, & buttons there as well. If you're in the area, make sure you check it out and bring a toy for donation. We won't be able to make it, but we know it's going to be awesome.

www.toysintheatticshow.com/

Toys In The Attic Show: Screenprints

2010-10-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

There's a killer art show going on December 3rd in Minneapolis called Toys In The Attic. It's a printed poster and art show benefiting Toys For Tots. Each artist(s) was requested to make their prints 12"W x 12"H, and based around a toy theme for the show. With us at Undertow being so watery and all, we ran with our own version of Super Soaker guns that we all remember and love. Our version was called the Undertow Blaster, and each Utow character has their own gun. Each print is a set of 15 for the show, and are 2 colors each: 1 character-specific color, and a subtle gloss pattern.

Check out a few pics below, and you can check out the entire album on our facebook page. Like I said, there's a set of 15 for each print for the show, but we may have additional prints later for sell on our site after the show.

Ohb Art For Sale

2010-10-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

We got the Toyhippo art that remains for sale up on our flickr album a couple weeks ago, and last night the remaining Ohb artwork was posted as well. Stuff looks pretty good, make sure you check it all out and inquire if you're interested at all. We still need to post the prints that are available and any other items we might be forgetting. We got a lot of stuff left over from the art show still lying around, so we'll see what we can do about that.

That's it for right this second. Hope you're all enjoying your football season! Weather starting to change in PDX now. Definitely not summer anymore...*slumps in silence*

Going Pink For Breast Cancer

2010-10-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

Obvious announcement, but it is what it is. October is breast cancer awareness month and Undertow supports!

Buy Stuff

2010-09-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

Good news humans. You can now buy artwork, apparel, and merchandise from our site. It took a little while longer than we wanted, but we were able to finally get some of our swag on here for sale. If you take a look at the links column to the right, you'll see the BUY STUFF section where you can inquire about artwork for sale, our two Utow tees, and the Utow character rings for the ladies (or men with small fingers). The two tees in the apparel section feature the black event tee from our Testing The Waters exhibit, as well as the cyan blue tee that we also sold at the exhibit, but is not an event tee exclusively. Perhaps that made sense, just check em out. We have a limited supply left of the cyan ones so get one now. All purchases from our site directly uses paypal.

As far as the artwork for sale goes, currently we only have Toyhippo art pieces up for purchasing. We are working on getting Ohb and Whalington pieces up as soon as possible, so art from all characters can be inquired about and purchased.

Additionally, we've placed a link to our Testing The Waters exhibit under the CREATIVE section in the links column now as well. Definitely worth browsing if you haven't seen photos of the event.

I think that's it for now. Hopefully more updates to come when more art becomes available.

Special Portland Blogs On Undertow Rings

2010-09-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Our buddy/merch girl at our art show/stylish serpent diva, Heather at Special Portland recently threw our Utow character rings as well as the gold Ohb pendants on her jewelry blog. She runs a jewelry/goodie store on NE Alberta called Special. There's a lot of great stuff in there and definitely worth checking out in your very near future. She shot photographs of our rings and Ohb items we had at our Testing The Waters show. Check out a couple below, and see the rest of her blog post HERE.

www.specialportland.com

WE'RE BAAAAAAAACK

2010-08-15T23:37:00.000-07:00

Took a nice little break there from the responsibilities of Undertow for a few weeks and chilled out. We all went on vacation, spend some time with family, and got very sunburned. It's time to get back in the swing of things a bit though and get right to it. We've got some merchandise to post on the site soon, which would be t-shirts and some character rings. Those will be for sale, obviously. We've also got to get our art work in order that wasn't sold at our Testing The Waters show and put that for sale on here as well. So yeah, a lot to take care of.

All those things will be on the site soon so stay tuned. Hope you've all had a great summer!

Vacation

2010-07-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

We're all takin' off for a few weeks. Much needed break from work and real life. One of us is heading to Mexico, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. Another one of us is heading out for a month to Italy. When we come back, we should have some cool photos perhaps. We also should be able to get some tees up on here for purchase. Check back soon. Take care.

King Volt Magazine Exclusive

2010-06-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

Super fresh art/apparel/sneaker site, King Volt Magazine did a cool little special on Undertow recently. Just had a chance to chat with them about the art show we had at Nemo, as well as our overall breadth of art and apparel. You can check out any of the entries on Undertow at their site, www.kingvoltmagazine.com. They've got all sorts of goodies to look at and browse. Make sure you check back here and at their web site because they'll have more Utow stuff coming up in the very near future.

Undertow AJ2010 Article on Counter Kicks

2010-06-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

We were contacted pretty early on after our Testing The Waters art show about doing an exclusive article with Counter Kicks on the Air Jordan 2010 project we did with the Jordan Brand. The article was posted today on their site, so head over there and give it a read. It's got some good tidbits for sure, and we wrote it ourselves (yeah, big boys). Big thanks to Counter Kicks for being up for whatever we wanted to do and for being big supporters of our shoes.

Art show photos

2010-06-08T01:30:00.001-07:00

I know most of the attention around the site lately has been centered around the AJ2010's we did, but we got some newly uploaded photos of our entire art show to post. The three of us were pretty freakin' busy throughout the show, so we didn't get many shots of the show while it was actually taking place. Mostly got shots of the show coming together and installations of the art work. We still have more to upload later as well, but these will definitely work for now. Check out the photos below and jump all over the links to the albums.

Art show Flickr album HERE
Facebook page with art show album HERE

Testing The Waters video montage

2010-06-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Check it out. Thanks to Alex Mertz for throwin' this together. It's true about the spooning and scissoring. We'll have more updates on the show and more photos soon.

Undertow "Testing The Waters" from alex mertz on Vimeo.

Undertow Air Jordan 2010's

2010-06-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

Felt like this topic needed a post to itself. If you made it out to our Testing The Waters art show last night, you're well aware of our only public edition of the AJ2010's we were auctioning off for St. Mary's. We were lucky to collaborate with the Jordan Brand on this project, and they turned out pretty awesome.

They've been getting some attention around the digital interweb since our show. A few posts on them here, here, and here. Like I said, as of right now these were the only pair available to the public and were successfully auctioned off at our show last night at Nemo. So they're all gone. However, I'm not sure what's happening with them in the future or if more may be released at some point. I suppose that is TBD.

For now though, we're posting a handful of photos of them for people who may be curious. The shoes themselves rock, but even more so when placed in our little aquarium tank display we built for the show.

And then there were none...

2010-06-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

Wow. Did that really just happen? What an amazing experience at our debut art show last night. I think it still hasn't really sank in for the three of us yet. We're pretty proud of ourselves though for somehow finding a way to pull that off.

We got a lot of people to thank and I don't want to leave anyone out, so if you helped us in any way for this show, you rock. Big ups to Jordan brand and Nemo HQ for allowing this entire thing to occur. Two powerful forces there bringing two awesome cultures and vibes together for something like this really made the evening. Thanks again, we owe a lot of tees or side hugs to a lot of people.

We got more photos to come in the next few days. Still doing a lot of editing and resizing and such, so stay tuned!

Art show production begins...

2010-05-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Started painting up Nemo last night for our Testing The Waters show (yes, it's friday the 4th) last night. We were there pretty late trying to get in as much as we could. This week is going to be nuts trying to get everything together. It's looking pretty sweet though so far. So check out the pics below, and check out a few more on our facebook profile HERE.

Undertow Fitted Cap

2010-05-26T22:23:00.000-07:00

Just had this one produced this afternoon. Pretty sweet. Unfortunately, it's only one of one for now, so it won't be available to to anyone else but me (Toyhippo). Big thanks to the embroidery dude who had a large beard and left me staring blankly after discussing his process of "digitizing" artwork.

2 Weeks Till Art Show

2010-05-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are. We got exactly two more weeks until the art show finally goes down. We've still got a lot of work to do, but we're so pumped and ready for it to finally happen. Still need to frame a lot of art work, design some signage for inside the show, finesse some things, but overall we're getting there. We've been doing a lot of work passing out flyers and putting the word out there to all of our friends and contacts, so hopefully more than 10 people show up. If you're reading this, you better be there. It's gonna be awesome. Free door prizes, raffle, a giant handsy wave...what more can you ask for? Oh yeah, we'll have snacks and drinks as well. Here's a link to our facebook invite.

Nemo Tweet

2010-05-17T17:31:00.001-07:00

Nemo threw us some backhanded love today by tweeting our art show for all the babays. I say backhanded because they still find it comical to refer to us as Undertown. Thanks a lot KB.

Taking-art show-invites-to-stores Day

2010-05-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

Today was our day to get out and get some art show invites in the faces of some potential consumers and whatnot. We spent a lot of time around Hawthorne and 23rd, dropping knowledge and introducing ourselves and what we're about. We mostly just discussed the overall concept behind Undertow and how our show is centered around our collaborations with Nemo and the Jordan brand. Big thanks to all the places that let us chat with them for a bit and drop off some invites. Here's a photo below of some invites on one of the cashwraps to prove we aren't completely full of it. Hope to see a lot of you guys at the show in 3 weeks!

Art show invites have arrived!

2010-05-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Just to prove we're actually having an art show, here you go. 500 5 x 6.5 invites to pass out at eddie bauer and burlington coat factory.

Official art show announcement

2010-05-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

June 4th. Be there. Spread the word and bring a single lady or two...

Custom somethings for the art show

2010-05-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

We're pretty pumped around here about a special project we've been working on that will be on display and for sale at the art show (June 4th for the babaays). They're a pair of custom Undertow somethings. We can't reveal what or any details about them, but we can tell you that we've been doing a lot of shopping lately for deals on skechers shape-ups. Those and high-top watersocks were definitely high on the list to customize for the show. Take a peak at the teaser below, and make sure you check out the finished product when the show rolls around.

Undertow T-shirts

2010-05-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Designs are done for the first set of the tees that will be available at our art show (June 4th duh ppl). So far we're thinking of doing the white design on a bright blue shirt, but things could change. You never know, we might decide to embroider the design on a mock turtle neck instead. Take a look below.

Snow Day Flashback

2010-04-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

Our ol' plywood sign had a good run. We tossed it out though when we moved out of our rowhouse. Here it is looking quite handsome back in 2008 right before the Portland blizzard that left me stranded in a Wendy's parking lot.

Tagged stickers around PDX

2010-04-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

Well if I wasn't just going for a pleasant Sunday stroll with my camera and unassuming eyes yesterday when I happened upon a plethora of Undertow stickers in northwest Portland! It was so surprising I nearly choked on my lollipop!

Anyways, a couple pics of what I found below. You can also view all of them at our flickr album HERE. We also have an album up on our facebook page that you can check out as well. The link for that is on the right, and don't forget to "fan" the page for support. For everyone human than becomes a facebook fan of Undertow, Whalington allows another harmless penguin to go free during Tuesday brunch.

Updates from Utow

2010-04-10T02:10:00.000-07:00

Toyhippo here. It's past 2 AM Saturday morn and I'm still up illustrating stuff for some art. Felt the need to put down some thoughts a bit on Undertow in general. That, and I've been unable to pry myself away from cataloging my entire C&C Music Factory album collection all evening.

But I digress. For those of you that aren't aware, we've got our first art show coming up on Friday, June 4th. It's less than two months away now. It's a daunting feeling, but very exciting. We've got several surprises up our sleeves...err..tentacles....fins..? Anyway, we're gonna let it all hang out because once you're in the animal kingdom, you have no shame.

I think a lot of the surprises we've got are going to blow some peoples' minds. We all can't wait to just get in there and execute all the ideas we have. We actually had to get together and whittle down a lot of them because it was beginning to be overwhelming. Could have turned into a circus very easily. It still might actually, but hopefully it's a tame, well-coordinated circus.

We're gonna have lots of art (shocking), merchandise, free snacks, free drinks, prize giveaways, and a lot more that I so badly want to divulge to everyone right now, but I'm having to practice some serious restraint. I mean it's gonna be June, weather is likely to be beautiful, we'll probably have the roll-up door open, and it's possible my pants will come off at some point if the ladies (or Garth) play their cards right.

Overall though, I think we want to just have a big reason to celebrate the 3 of us finally getting together and doing something we all love doing. We've talked about having an art show with our own work for a few years now, and now we're actually doing it. It's been a huge blessing for us to even have this opportunity.

Client work is great, but our personal art is something that really reflects our passions and personalities to the point where you really have a vested interest in each piece you create. I know for me, each of my pieces revolves around a personal event that I experienced or observed. That will make it even more fun to see other people interact with those experiences and see what sticks and what doesn't. It's going to be a learning experience for all of us that we can all soak in.

Anyway, it's getting too late for this crap. I'm so tired that this is starting to feel like a drunk, rambling, facebook message or something that I would really regret the next morning. Have a whale (yes) of a weekend and don't forget the date, June 4th. We reserve the right to choke, tailwhip, or bite in half anyone we know that pulls a no-show.

Undertow Stickers

2010-04-05T00:15:00.001-07:00

Lasered (is that a word?) out some stickers over the weekend. Gonna be posting these all over Portland soon. Ohb has already volunteered himself to tag all urinals in every bar we go into. Not sure what part of the urinal, guess that will be a surprise.

We do have some extras if you're interested. You could put them on your back windshield, notebook, snowboard, laptop, or you know...maybe two for your boss's side mirrors. Just tossin' out some ideas here.

Toyhippo work in progress

2010-03-29T19:37:00.001-07:00

Just a sneak peek at a Toyhippo painting in progress. Gonna look pretty sweet! Still got a few more layers of colors to go to put the finishing touches on. Hopefully I don't spill my entire bottle of Mike's Hard all over it...

Undertow also gives back to the ladaaayyys....

2010-03-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

As you all know, the three of us creatures at Utow have always had a strong presence in the hearts and minds of all the females out there. This is especially true during mating season when we each swim for warmer waters in hopes of finding another dame to accept our request to bump n grind before turning on us and trying to eat us. Such a bummer when broads be gettin' all territorial.

Anyways, the hunnies are sure to love our latest accessory: Undertow character rings. The pics below are still prototypes for now, but final versions will be available at our Nemo art show (June 4th) and can be purchased as a set. What makes them cool is the ability to layer the rings with their translucency, especially with the ocean wave ring that can be added to any character to create a mini scene.

These creations will be coming to you courtesy of Ohb himself. His 8 limbs + 1 sq ft of colored acrylic per limb + secret magic tricks = about 800 rings in 5 minutes. Take a gander at the photos below and get ready to wear all 4 rings on all 20 fingers at the same time.

Trevor Loves Undertown

2010-03-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks old, but got this tip from our friend Steve. Trevor Graves of Nemo HQ dropped us some love on his twitter feed after our art show pitch. He did make one apparent demand: we must change our name to Undertown...

Links fixed

2010-03-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

Good news everyone. UTow and Flickr were able to come to a cease fire earlier this week, and ironed out a peace treaty for our art links (on the right) to be viewable again this evening. Once again, Flickr had disallowed linking through frames, so we were stuck with our images floating out there and were not linking to our site.

This has all been resolved, and links should now open in new windows.

Toyhippo tuned his magic ear/antenna/things to a couple respected internet message boards and was able to resolve the issue by following the tech advice from some massive online dorkwad. Thank you lord dorkwad for saving Undertow.

That is all, spread the good news.

Thank U's

2010-03-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

A few Thank U's we made for a handful of people at Nemo. Shots were taken with a 1998 cellular device, forgive us. We are but mere creatures of the water. Technology is a little behind the times in the Pacific.

Flickr Hates Undertow

2010-03-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

So as many if you who follow UTow know, we've been ghetto-rigging our image hosting for a while by just linking to our Flickr sets in an effort to A. just make this easier on us since we like to have our art on Flickr anyway and B. save time by not having to upload our stuff to another site in addition to Flickr. Well this may all be changing soon as it appears Flickr will not allow us to simply link to our sets without getting an error screen that looks like this:

We haven't really found out a way around it, so we're gonna have to find a way to host our images elsewhere I suppose. Annoying. For the time being you can still follow through to the art by clicking on the "please click here" link that still takes you to whichever set you clicked on. Sorry for the inconvenience, we're working on a solution, except Ohb who won't stop clogging Whalington's blowhole with his tentacles.

If anyone has a good suggestion on a simple site to host images, do drop a line.

Art Show Announced

2010-03-06T12:29:00.000-08:00

We sat down with Trevor and Carey from Nemo Design yesterday with heated negotiations for an Undertow art show in their studio. We gave them an ultimatum: Let us have an art show in your studio, or our feelings will be really hurt. They were in a very sympathetic mood. That, and they knew we were going to blow out an awesome show.

So mark your calendars for the first Friday in June, which I believe is June 4th. We have a lot of work to do.

Thanks Trevor, Carey, & Heather H! (and everyone else I can't list individually)

Undertow, just havin' a ball...

2010-03-03T17:38:00.000-08:00

We'll be here all night ladies...

Actually we will literally because we have to get this book printed (updates soon). Suck it.

Workin'/Drinkin' tictacs....

2010-02-21T23:53:00.000-08:00

Working on some UTow t-shirt ideas on some napkins at Life of Riley. You know they replaced the calamari here with prawns now. Horrible move. Also, hot waitress alert....

Undertow Whaleshes You a Merry February?

2010-02-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

New Stuff

2010-02-12T23:10:00.000-08:00

Earthlings,

Just wanted to give a quick heads up that A. I've downed an entire bottle of champagne tonight working on Undertow, and B. the links section has been revamped a bit. Had a long discussion with a close friend last night about the direction of utow and so forth, and decided it's better to have our creatives split up based on project (art, design, print, etc...) instead of splitting it up based on each character.

I think this will be more conducive to viewers seeing Undertow as a whole and processing it by design style instead of trying to process three different characters at once. So to the right you should see Art, Design, Prints, and Apparel I believe. Who knows anymore after this much champagne.

-UTow.

Art & Concepts Book

2010-02-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago, we wanted to throw together a small book with just some general ideas and concepts for new works of art. Most of the designs in the book were pretty much only in the computer, save for a couple that have actually been executed so far. The overall intention of this book was to actually get something in print that we can show to prospective galleries while making art for an eventual show. It's a little bit of a chicken or the egg kind of deal. I need to get art, but there is no show yet. I need a show, but I have no art. You get the idea.

The book was covered in a blue fabric-y (scientific term) material that we lasered the crap out of, and then to top it off we put pages in it for good measure! The first half of the book is a section with Ohb designs, and the second half features Toyhippo. We did use a double-sided matte paper that is honestly way too thick for this, but we had a box of it lying around so we put it to use. Having a nice inkjet printer and some hunnies around for encouragement helps. Also some vodka.

Check out the photo gallery of the book HERE. Or you can use the link on the right side of the page.

Diving Right In

2010-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

So I guess this is the first official post on our new site. It's pretty exciting. Undertow has been a long time in the works and it's nice to finally get our feet wet (shameless). From concepting, to designing, to planning and preparing, it's satisfying to finally feel some accomplishment with how far we've brought it even up to this very undeveloped point. It seems like it took us a good half a year to even get our name and logo nailed down, and that all started two years ago. Yeah, there was a lot of staring at sketch books, mocking each others' ideas, crying ourselves to sleep, and overall exhaustion of creativity along the road to this point. But we wouldn't have had it any other way with how much that hard work has paid off.

We're already really busy with working on new artwork to come, as well as planning our first art show sometime in the early part of summer. We will make sure to throw out any new developments out on the blog here to keep our die-hard fans (yes I said it) posted. You can check out the links on the right side of the page for artwork of each character. More links will be added under the "undertow misc" section as more items are developed. I will be posting soon about our Undertow Art & Concepts book that we put together a couple months ago, and I also plan on profiling each Undertow character in an attempt to pull back the curtain on each of their qualities and personalities.

A facebook page is in the works as well, so make sure you are on top of that whenever it comes available and become a "fan" as they say around all the cool crowds, I've noticed.

I think that is all for now. Should be fun. Stay tuned for more and thanks for your initial support if in fact you do have any. If not, I truly apologize. Go make your own anti-aquatic animals and try to ruin our lives if it makes you feel better.

-UTow