The painting was going up on the side of some relatively new residential townhouses and featured an interpretation of the Kansas City Chiefs. The artist was engaged in getting the mural outlined, while his girlfriend supported his efforts lounging in the afternoon sun.
It was really exciting to see this type of work going up in the 'burbs, rather than the usual dilapidated downtown structure. Reaching out to the artist later, we asked if he would be interested in doing a brief email interview about the project and himself.
Evan Brown, tell us about yourself and background ...
I am a Kansas City based painter and illustrator with an absolute and utter obsession with what I do.
After graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in Illustration, I formed Doodle Dood LLC, a business that centers around my desire to use creativity to promote positivity, growth and change in the minds of kids and adults alike.
I always draws and paints his work traditionally out of my love for the fine arts and desire to bring the art and illustration worlds together.
With a deep passion for incorporating nature’s optical intricacies and vibrant color pallet into my imagery, I aim to take my viewers on a whimsical journey through the unknown, working to visually stimulate non-visual sensations such as thought, sound, and consciousness.
Most importantly, I enjoys all things out of the ordinary and want nothing more than to create stuff that makes people smile!
How did you fall into this project?
I actually fell into this project because the client reached out after seeing another one of my murals over at the Iron District in North Kansas City.
For this project we were looking to both celebrate the Chiefs' recent super bowl victory, and find a way to drive some attention to Harbortown Villas, the town home complex that the mural is located at.
All of my murals are hand painted and freehanded from start to finish, so there was actually very minimal planning that went into it. I put together a few black and white sketches, had the client reference the work on my website to get a feel for what the colors will look like in my style, and then I just went at it.
With my style, I do not plan the colors out in advance (unless requested) because I find that part of the fun and the reason that my color pallets end up so unique, is that I get to do all of the color balancing as I am working. This makes each piece feel a lot more organic and function like an active painting rather than a cold, pre-planned concept. That works totally fine for other people, but for me it kinda kills the fun.
Is there a life dream or long-term project you are looking forward to?
I honestly don't like to look too far ahead because it kinda spoils the fun. I find that the whole point of building something is to enjoy the process of building it, not to build it blindly until one day I reach that "thing" I had been chasing. I have found that, with that mindset, when the "thing" originally being chased is achieved it is simply replaced with a new "thing" anyhow. That said, my two big goals that I have written down and always go back to and reference when I need to re-group are to have my own solo show at a larger national or global art gallery like the M.O.M.A. in Chicago, and to win a Caldecott Medal for one of my children's books.
About Doodle Dood LLC
Doodle Dood LLC met its inception in the summer of 2016, as Evan Brown was sitting alone in his dorm room at George Washington University while fulfilling a summer internship in Washington D.C.
At the time Brown was unhappy with the direction that his work was going, and in an effort to totally rebrand his style he decided to open up an Instagram account and begin a daily drawing project.
After hundreds of daily drawings, and an overwhelmingly positive reception for his new body of work, Brown concluded that it was time to bring his product to market.
Beginning with the release of a coloring book line, Brown’s curiosity quickly led him to begin pushing the boundaries of traditional art and design in just about every way possible.
Since 2016, Brown has built a prolific body of drawings and paintings that now serve as the framework for the line of products that he distributes through Doodle Dood LLC.
Whether it be repurposed 3 dimensional objects, canvas paintings, public murals, apparel, merchandise, accessories, and most recently, the development of his own kids book… there is certainly no shortage of what you will find coming out of the studio of the Doodle Dood.
