Minneapolis Foundation Street Painting in the IDS Crystal Court!

This is going to be a great time.  Looking forward to getting started next Monday.  Here is the information for the street painting project at the IDS Crystal Court.  

EVENT NAME: THE MINNEAPOLIS FOUNDATION KICKS OFF CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION WITH MASSIVE STREET PAINTING IN CRYSTAL COURT

Date: Apr 6, 2015
Start Time: 12:30 pm
End Time: 08:00 pm
Event Type: Arts & Entertainment
Cost: Free
Contact Person: Brendan Kearin
Contact Phone: (612) 598-7667
Address: IDS Center Crystal Court 80 S 8th St Minneapolis, MN
Contact Email: Brendan@mcfarlandcomm.net

Details:

The Minneapolis Foundation Kicks Off Centennial Celebration
with Massive Street Painting in Crystal Court 

Award-winning Artist to Spend Two Days Creating 3D Vision of City’s Future to Commemorate
Foundation’s 100th Anniversary
WHAT: In a live art marathon that will kick off The Minneapolis Foundation’s 100th anniversary, award-winning artist Shawn McCann will spend two days creating a large-scale, indoor street painting depicting his vision of the future of Minneapolis. McCann’s image will feature an optical illusion to create a 3D effect when it’s viewed from a certain vantage point. The piece will remain on display on the floor of the Crystal Court for just a few days, creating a temporary “must see” for Twin Cities residents.
WHERE: The Crystal Court of the IDS Center, 80 South Eighth Street, Minneapolis
WHEN: The Minneapolis Foundation will host a press conference at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, April 6, as McCann begins work on the street painting. Foundation President and CEO Sandra Vargas and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges will deliver remarks during the event. McCann will work on the piece throughout the day and evening on April 6 and complete it on April 7. The street art will remain on display in the Crystal Court until the end of business day on Friday, April 10.
WHY: The Minneapolis Foundation, which is housed in the IDS Center, commissioned the 3D street painting to kick off a season of community events celebrating its Centennial. The Foundation was established in 1915 to enable residents from across the community to pool their charitable giving for greater impact. One of the first community foundations in the world, The Minneapolis Foundation was a pioneer in a philanthropic movement that now includes more than 1,800 place-based foundations worldwide. By the end of 2015, the Foundation will have granted an estimated lifetime total of $850 million to improve the lives of Minnesotans and people around the world. Learn more about the Foundation’s history and upcoming Centennial events at www.mpls100.org and in the enclosed press release.
WHO: Shawn McCann is a Twin Cities-based artist whose work encompasses street painting, murals, fine art, children’s books, installation art and commercial illustration. Learn more about his work at www.shawnmccann.com.
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Robbinsdale Mural is complete!

It was an honor to have worked on the Robbinsdale mural over the course of September.  The fact that this is one that is my back yard is even better.  Special thanks to Lisa Botkin and Laurie Haycraft for the added help!  Here are the final pictures.  Also a huge thanks to Brett at the Robbinsdale Sherwin Williams who were kind enough to donate the paint for this project!  You guys rock!!!!!

Worthington MN Mural

The start of the mural summer kicked off this year with a great project in Worthington, MN for the 2014 Windsurfing and Unvarnished Festival.  This year it was the National Championships and it was a great time throughout the entire 9 days I was there.  Thanks to Gail Holinka, the VFW, and a grant thru the SMAC Arts in Legacy grant, this is what was able to be created.  Also thanks to Jasmine for helping out!

Wahpeton Mural

Well, I have officially worked on the largest mural I have completed to date!  This mammoth project was 2 years in the making and with partial funding from the National Endowment for the Arts "Our Town" grant and the remaining from the City of Wahpeton and their beautification fund, this 135ft long 35ft tall mural was completed a matter of 5 short weeks.  I couldn't have done it without Lise Erdrich and Circle of Nations School for helping secure the grant, the city and also my assistants, Elaine Klocke, Caleb Schmidt, Olivia Schmidt, Sam Klocke and even my mother Karen for helping create this lasting piece in my hometown.  It was such a great time creating the piece and really hope that the community enjoys it for years to come!

2014 Art in Bloom Street painting of "Mr. Bumble"

Well, it is always better late than never, so I will be updating my blog here with some recent projects. This first one was a fun street painting I did for the Art in Bloom Friends kids day at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  This is a creation from the famed children's book "Mr. Bumble", original book by Kim and Doug Kennedy.    Had lots of fun creating this and the kids creating next to me was a blast as well.  Look forward to the next one next year!

Matisse Mural at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

After a busy last few months, it is good to get a post up finally.  I have been working on a number of different projects and am looking forward to sharing more about those soon.  In the meantime, here are the images from the completed Matisse Mural I did at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for the new Matisse show that opened this last weekend.  It was a blast working on it and coming up with an image that was a mashup of some of his pieces.  Here is the completed mural which was 12ft tall by 25 ft in width.

Another fun element of the Matisse show was creating a fun photo opportunity featuring one of the paintings in the show.  Here is a detail of the photo booth!   Also here is a great writeup Tim Gihring  did.  Homage to Matisse: Shawn McCann channels the master to accent the exhibition

And this is how you have fun with the Matisse Photo Booth!  Love the poses Katie, Kim, Courtney and Emma!

Photo Courtesy of Katie Hill

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.

Art Craze In Brookings, SD

Here is a fun little post on a quick 6 hour street painting demo I did for some kiddos in Brookings, SD a few weeks ago.  The piece ended up being 16ft wide by 20 ft long before the rain moved in.  Always working around the weather :)

3D street painting in Wilhelmshaven, Germany for Wilhelmshaven International Street Art Fest

Here is the finished piece I did for the Wilhelmshaven International Street Art fest in Germany a couple of weeks ago.  It was such a great time being there with 40 other artists from 12 different countries.

Street Painting for the new "Street Stix" pastels at Wet Paint

Here is a quick 3 hour street painting that I did over at Wet Paint in St. Paul for the launch of street stix pastels by richeson.  The first image is what was finished in between the rains.  The second image is what it looks like today after a month of being out in the weather.  They have held on pretty good so far.

New Street Painting Vine video created 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!"

2013 Artisphere Festival street painting

Hello everyone.  Finally getting this image posted from my recent trip to South Carolina for the annual Artisphere festival held in Greenville, South Carolina.  Had a great time recreating one of the featured works by festival artist Amos Amit called "Night and Day".

Minneapolis Institute of Arts "Art in Bloom" family day chalking

Another fun and wonderful day of street painting at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts Family Day for Art in Bloom this year.  Was fun creating this quick 4 hour piece for the kids to enjoy!

MeccaFest 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!

TerraCotta Mural at Minneapolis Institute of Arts

After a week and a half, I am pleased to see that the mural at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is done.  It was a great time working on it and definitely am glad that this one will be staying up a little longer than the Rembrandt mural that was done earlier this summer.  The mural itself is in the TerraCotta Warriors shop on 2 at the end of the exhibit, so if you happen to be down at the MIA before January, check it out and let me know what you think!

Here are a few pics of the mural

The finished mural

Progress on the leaves

This was about half way thru

Here the tree was looking a little bare

Minneapolis Institute of Arts Rembrandt Gala Mural

I am finally back posting again. After a whirlwind spring full of projects, I am happy to finally share some pictures of the latest and largest mural to date that I have worked on. With a little over a week and 3980 square feet, I think it turned out pretty cool. I will be posting a more in depth post about the process of creating such a large mural in another one soon, but wanted to get this up and running. The theme behind this mural was one of back alley, graffiti laced amsterdam dance space. It was created in the US Bank Gallery at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and am pretty sure the walls haven't looked like this before :) Stop back soon to see the process shots of the project! And to make the project even more cool, the piece was lit up in black lights for the Rembrandt gala Friday night. I think you will be able to tell which one is the lit up one!!!!!

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

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.

Scottsdale Street Painting

Had a great time in Scottsdale, AZ recently on a fun 3D street painting. Here is the final piece! And to top it off, My brother Cory was finally able to see me in action for the first time! He is in the pic as well!  More info on the piece here