GREATEST: Blue the Great
The multi-disciplinary artist who's been tapped by everyone from Nike to ScHoolboy Q.
Spanning everything from ancient mummies to the debris of 21st-century Pop culture, Blue the Great’s paintings are as compelling as they are cryptic. The LA-based artist, photographer and DJ’s artful, almost curatorial eye hasn’t gone unnoticed. Blue-chip collectors want his art on their walls, and he’s been tapped for collaboration by everyone from Beats by Dre to Kendrick Lamar.
Prolific and medium-spanning, the Texas-raised Blue has created his own parameters of what an artist should be: ever engaged and always creating. “As an artist, sometimes I get bored with one medium, so it’s about constantly learning,” he says. Blue’s defining power as an artist is that his curiosity is untethered and free to roam.
How are things?
Everything’s great. I’m just chilling right now—actually, not chilling, I am just finishing this animation. It’s my first one.
Tell me more about it.
I am always trying to learn new things and actually apply my art to other mediums. I grew up watching old-school cartoons and I’ve always wanted to make one, but just thought it would take too long. So, I’ve actually been teaching myself how to make my art move. It’s just a 30-second tester, but it came out way better than I thought it would. I colored it myself and right now, before you called me, I was just finishing the last little bit of the sound on it. It’s kind of crazy to see an idea become a reality in that form. It’s totally different from painting.
What’s the audio like that you added to it?
I ripped a bunch of sounds from Super Mario World, which is my favorite game ever. It has some beautiful sounds. I ripped some sounds from that then I did the rest of the sounds myself and kind of pitched them up.
It took so long to get it to this point. The process is pretty long. I jump back and forth between my hobbies and the stuff I have to do, so it’s not something I have been sitting down working on every day for six months, but I did start it some time ago.
Did you just watch YouTube videos on how to do it?
Pretty much. I watched a few dudes animate simple things like walk cycles, and then I watched this one guy talk about pull, squash and stretch objects. It is literally the first time I tried to animate anything, and I was learning as I was going. You see it evolve and become better as you go, because you are actually learning more and more how to do it. This is my first time animating anything with balance, so yeah, it’s definitely a learning process, but I feel like a lot of it is common sense. Especially because I grew up watching hella cartoons.
Do you get lost in the process of it?
As a rookie, you spend 10 hours coloring a 30-second video and then you are like, ‘What is this for again?’ But it’s cool because you just have to commit your time to anything you want to be great at. I imagine things will come from this, whether it be fun stuff or work. It’s just another thing you can say, ‘Okay, I am versed in making things move.’ As a painter who is constantly creating things, it just makes you a bigger threat—like I can do anything, jackknife.
I feel like learning one thing builds on other new things that I am trying to do even if they are unrelated. Do you feel the same?
There are definitely big cheat codes. I draw so much and fill tons of sketchbooks, and going into animation, my brain is already operating differently than other people. When you animate you have to think of your character or object in 3D. I know how to draw a little bit, so I can already make more advanced stuff coming in as a rookie. Not saying this is the next Akira or anything, but it’s definitely cool to see my style come to life. That was just an idea that literally had no voice, and I am watching it come to have a story.
I’ve noticed that the characters in your paintings seem to have a story behind them. Can you tell me about that?
The other day I had this kind of, I don’t know if it was an epiphany, but just a realization that I draw and paint a lot of self-portraits, and it’s something I do for a release. I tend to make a lot of things that show how I feel. My realization the other day was that a lot of the ‘mummy’ characters I draw that are faceless are really just reflections of me. The mummy portraits of these people are usually a story of what I feel at the time. I don’t know if I am attaching some kind of idea to it, but that’s how I feel.
What is your process when doing a painting?
A lot of times, I just start painting. I have a loose idea of what I want to do—like, very loose. I push through and develop it as I go. I say, ‘Oh, this should have flowers growing out of it.’ I like to add and subtract as I go along. I don’t want to be committed to any idea, because if you have other ideas, I don’t know if you feel bad about abandoning the idea, but I feel like you are not locked into anything. This doesn’t have to be a painting of a girl holding a flower. It can be whatever it needs to be if I am feeling that. Very seldom do I draw something that I want to make into a painting. Most of the time I just start painting and see where it goes.
Do you have any structure to this free-flow style?
It’s a lot of free flow. Sometimes I’ll start a background—with real life I like to start with a background. I don’t always do it that way. Sometimes I’ll just start painting a portrait, and then I think I should add this for a background. For the most part, I like to start with the background and then build the subject, but I really jump around a ton when I paint. If it’s a flat painting, with just base colors on there, I like to add my shadows all together. I don’t want to do just the face shadows. I want to go through the whole shadows of the painting. Then I’ll go highlights. I like to add the highlights at the end just to make it super crispy.
So you must have confidence going in that it will inevitably work out?
I’ve been working on trying not to be too worried about the outcome. I’ve been doing this for so long that if I fix what I need to fix, it’s going to look good for the most part. I didn’t go to school for painting. I learned a lot in school about art, but I don’t have a rule book. I am not a trained painter from wherever. A lot of the stuff has been done through trial and error. I love error; I love the human hand in painting. I like seeing people’s signature that made that painting their own.
What was the most impactful thing you did before you got into painting—like working in advertising or making t-shirts ?
Dang! It’s such a balance. The t-shirt thing taught me that first off, I didn’t need to go to college to be successful. Advertising was crazy, because I get these gigs now and know how the system actually works, which is insane, as opposed to just wondering how artists are getting money to do these big campaigns and knowing there is a whole setup. But I think all of them are pretty even. Being able to take things and use them to your advantage is important.
I made t-shirts and had a clothing line that was going really well. Well enough that I could believe in it. I started going to the MAGIC tradeshow when I was living in Texas, and I would come out to Cali or Vegas to see these people really doing it. And they didn’t go to college. So I feel like they all go together. The t-shirt business taught me how to hustle and make money when I didn’t have a job.
I don’t know if people lack commitment or are just scared of success? I feel like I really could have been an astronaut if I wanted to be an astronaut—it’s just about committing.
Working in the advertising industry allowed you to see behind the curtain. Do you think that insight gave you confidence that you could make a living off it?
Right before I moved to California I was debating whether to do advertising or art. I didn’t know anyone who sold paintings for a living. That sounded like some old-school shit. Advertising showed me that there are a bunch of different ways to do this and that people are getting it in multiple ways.
Where did you work when you were in advertising?
I never had an advertising job. I got the interview for all these spots, and I was doing art direction at this internship that was being used on real-life clients. That’s how I saw that I do have great ideas, and this digital social media stuff I was doing before was right on target. Now, people were doing what I was doing years ago. I think I could have killed it in advertising, but I am kind of glad I didn’t do advertising because this painting shit is working out pretty well.
What are some of your fears with art?
One is that, as an artist, you never know when you will get paid next.
But don’t you feel that based on the work you’ve done and how you think, an example being the animation you just learned, that no matter what happens, you are good at adapting?
I am always experimenting with things. My brothers, they do the same things I do; when we were kids, we used to be on Napster learning how to do stuff. We would be out making things, making little movies, making soundtracks to the movies. It’s easy for me because I feel like I have been doing this my whole life, figuring out how things work. Things that you are passionate about, you will become committed to; and things you are committed to, you will actually end up progressing in.
Where did you sell your first painting?
I had never sold a painting before I moved to California. I’ve been in California for six years. I wasn’t that good at painting things. My drawing skills were not where they are now.
Commitment can help you achieve what you want to do. I grew up skateboarding, and back then, you just had to figure it out on your own. Now with YouTube, you can learn anything you want.
We got YouTube, which is a big cheat code. I am 32, so most of my life I didn’t have YouTube, and I feel like I have learned so much shit off YouTube. I learned how to develop film off of YouTube. Now my homies hit me up to teach them how to develop film. The skateboarding thing, I can relate ’cause, I mean, I was a black kid in Texas. My homegirl was the only person I knew that skated, and I was 21. I used to skate when I was a kid, but I didn’t know how to ollie. I learned how to ollie. It took hella long. Took about a year. Then I started kickflipping and heel-flipping. I don’t know if people lack commitment or are just scared of success? I feel like I really could have been an astronaut if I wanted to be an astronaut—it’s just about committing.
Speaking of film and photography, do you shoot a lot?
I did my first photoshoot for a music artist a couple weeks ago. I’ve never gotten paid that much money for photos before. I shot them on film, found the locations and I developed the film the same day. I taught myself how to do all these things that, before, were just a hobby of mine. When I DJ, people give me money and it’s so weird. Like the first couple of times, I was like, ‘You are going to give me money for me enjoying myself and having some drinks? Tight!’ I think that’s the goal—having income coming in from just having fun. That’s the life I am trying to live.
Interview by Evan Goodfellow
Photography by Patrick O’Brien-Smith