Chet Philips

Daily Discoveries: A Cure for Bare Walls


Bare walls can be a sad thing, but the artists of the Etsy Dallas Spring Bash are here to help! Spice up your place and be inspired every day with some of these fabulous pieces from the Bash artists...

Clockwise from top left: F Scott Fetchgerald by Chet Phillips Illustration, Rainy Day Roses II by YLK Photography, Meadowlark Limited Edition Print by Bee Things, Amor by The Miscellany, and La Kiva by Seen Studios.

Show and Tell: Brodie and David



Since school has kicked back in and summer is changing into fall (well for at least this week), we over here at Etsy Dallas thought it would be fun to do a little Show + Tell about our summers. So everyone gather around and sit in a circle on the floor and let's see to what Brodie and David did during their summers.

Meet Brodie (below). Brodie is the feline friend of talented Etsy Dallas member, Jingle Bash artist and illustrator Chet Phillips. This summer Brodie kept a diary of his wild summer adventures.

What I did on my summer vacation by Brodie Phillips a.k.a. ChetArt mascot

June:

Despite warmish temperatures, I was indeed capable of a healthy dose of outdoor naps throughout June, replete in my owner-fashioned swing with pillow accessory. Neighborhood dogs kept barking to a minimum and my sister, Lily, gratefully kept her distance.


July:

Summer heat persists, requiring inventive nap techniques. The monkey grass provides a small amount of relief and the appropriate privacy needed to escape Lily's constant demands. I'm sure it will grow back properly with time. Ignorant neighborhood dogs continue to bark at cicadas, to little effect in calming their maddening cellophane drone.

August:

With continuous temperatures in the triple digits and a heat index that would melt paint off the side of the house, I grudgingly retreat to the cooler environment of the house. My attempts to sleep are continually interrupted by Lily's requests to play the games "name that bird" and "what's that squirrel doing now?"



What I did this summer with David of Ferrochie

David, the master designer of wood, used his weapons of choice this summer to create an oversized collection of chess pieces for his shop. We hear the Bishop is still a work in progress, but with all that detail on the Knight, we don't blame him.

You can find the Pawn in the Ferrochie Etsy shop, and see them in person and meet David at the Jingle Bash on November 20th at the Palladium in Dallas,TX.


Monkey Love for Our Own ChetArt

An Etsy purchase transforms into an "Automagical" experience.
by Chet Philips of ChetArt

Back in late December I was greeted by a super sized order of 20 prints from my Etsy shop - all monkey-related images. I noticed the buyer was Ben Chestnut, co-founder of email marketing company, MailChimp. I was proud to learn that he planned to pass them out as Christmas presents to his company's employees. Monkey like!


A few weeks passed and it became apparent that the collection of ChetArt Etsy prints lounging in cubicles and on walls around the offices of MailChimp were starting to work some subtle monkey magic.

In January, MailChimp's video impresario extraordinaire, Joshua Rosenbaum, contacted me with details of a project they thought would be just right for me. And how! The job was for a long mural banner to be used for MailChimp's presence at the annual South by Southwest conference in Austin. It would serve as a large announcement to the world of a variety of "Automagic" features the company offers. Read my blog post about the mural.


Their art direction was very straightforward: Invent a whimsical environment with a Rube Goldberg sprinkling of silly devices, add in some monkeys, Steampunk flavor to taste and… a unicorn. The resulting composition was greeted with happy Chimp screams from the entire crew. Read Ben Chestnut's blog post about the mural.

The folks at MailChimp were a total pleasure to work with and the job was satisfying fun. A job, I have to say, would not have happened without Etsy bringing Ben and me together in the first place!