From Design to Art — How I landed a live painting gig at TikTok HQ in Culver City, LA
On Feb 22nd, hundreds gathered at the TikTok Offices in Culver City, Los Angeles for a day of industry lead workshops, discussion panels, and presentations.
This is the story of how I landed a gig, doing a live painting workshop at one of the top social networking applications in the world.
In early December of 2019, Ben Lee (serial entrepreneur and good friend), contacted me about an event he was planning at the TikTok office in LA. He specifically requested that I be a part of the event and contracted me out to do the initial branding and design.
With my experience in Blockchain and the piled up years of conference attending.
I was totally down.
During the Xmas break, I designed out the initial visual package, and whipped up a website, to handle the RSVP registration.
Over the next few weeks as promotion started, I began to plan out what I wanted my involvement to look like.
Since Nov of last year, I had really started doubling down on Fine art, opening a gallery in the newly renovated Downtown Las Vegas, Fremont District.
Coming from the Silicon Valley world, with years of product design and application development. I’ve started to redirect my focus back onto my passion of painting and the business of fine art. Using TikTok as a primary vehicle for exposure, in just a few months I amassed a fanbase of over 80k followers on the platform. Fueling my passion, and giving me the energy to keep creating.
Since most of my TikTok content is based around my Art tutorials and demonstrations, I thought…
Why not just do a Live Painting Workshop?
And thats how it went down.
On the day of the event, I stretched out my canvas, set up my easel and waited for the 2pm mark to hit.
As people started to gather, I busted out the paint brushes and started to get down.
The focus of my workshop was to talk about my history of design and art. I started painting when I was 16, doing street art in my hometown in Northern California. After highschool, I decided to move to San Francisco to study Web Design and Interactive Media.
With over 10 years of industry experience I’ve worked in just about every position. From leading the UI Design, Branding, Art Direction, to my solo projects developing mega hit applications for artists like Snoop Dogg, Major Lazer, and David Choe.
And even founding a VC Backed Company in 2015.
For me Art isn't just about producing a pretty picture, its about everything in between.
I approach my painting with a design eye, planning with a specific goal. Either to produce a user experience or to fit a specific theme.
The crowd got to see it live, I talked, answered questions, and banged out a super fresh piece of art.
I even let some people come up and splash some paint on the canvas.
Over all the event was a success.
I had an amazing time, and this ultimately has to be one of the highlights of my 2020 so far.
Im grateful to be part of such an awesome experience. And can’t thank my team, Ben Lee, and Lindsey Bond enough for including me in this historical event.
… Until Next Time
Photos by Rick R.L
Thanks for reading!
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