Catalina Island as Animated Rare Digital Art

Catalina Island is available as rare digital art by Joe Chiappetta on Ethereum Network.

I drew this sitting peacefully at the end of Avalon's main pier on Catalina Island. The artwork contains 3 drawings in 1 piece through the modern-day miracle of GIF animation. This landscape is as rare as it gets, as an edition of only 1 and can be bought with credit card or Ethereum on the MakersPlace market for rare digital art.

At Catalina, my wife, 2 youngest kids, and I had an all-day-long family outing at this Southern California haven and it was a most wonderful time.

Joe Chiappetta
http://SillyDaddy.net

Rare Digital Art by Daughter

Sunny Duh-Light is rare digital art by Anna Chiappetta on MakersPlace.

My youngest daughter, Anna, has just released her very first piece of rare digital art on the Ethereum network through the MakersPlace gallery based in San Francisco! Sunny Duh-Light is an animated super rare edition of only one that can be bought with Ethereum. If you are unfamiliar with rare digital art, think cryptocurrency meets collectibles.

We live in sunny Southern California, which explains the artwork's title. I bet you can also identify some of the local desert climate imagery in this cool artwork. Of course as a dad I am very proud of my daughter, and I think this work is quite fantastic. I hope you like it too!

Portrait of Alon Goren

Portrait of Alon Goren is rare digital art by Joe Chiappetta, available as an edition of only 1 on Ethereum Network.

I drew this portrait of Alon Goren while he was speaking on a panel at the Crypto Invest Summit (CIS) in Los Angeles. Alon is a Founding Partner of Draper Goren Holm, Co-Founder of Ownera, CIS (re-branded as LA Blockchain Summit), Security Token Summit, LA Blockchain Week, and probably all sorts of other cool things. On and off the blockchain, he is definitely a fine fellow to know!

Alon's influence in the crypto space has been an entirely positive one and the world could benefit from more folks like him. The more you hear him talk, the more you realize that he is an insightful champion for tokenizing art on the blockchain and selling these digital assets as an innovative new paradigm for artists. I share his zeal to help people and bring economic opportunity to the masses, marking a bright new future. It is one of the reasons why I am very active with rare digital art markets like OpenSea, SuperRare, Dada NYC, and pixEOS.

This rising of rare digital art has already gathered impressive market momentum. In the past, digital art has not been regarded as being collectible. While digital art has existed since the 1960s, it has traditionally been very difficult to monetize or verify its provenance in an immutable manner. Yet now there are solutions to these issues and it has begun to transform the art industry. This will create a whole new economy through blockchain technology.

The rare digital art industry is barely 4 years old. While still in the very earliest stages of growth, art is now being tokenized on the blockchain, and such art is also known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These art tokens are traded internationally and have real-world value, representing specific artworks. Their ownership history is also recorded on the blockchain, verifying digital item authenticity and guarding against fraud/counterfeit items.

Despite the newness of this industry, some rare digital art markets have reported weekly sales over $50,000 USD for many consecutive weeks, and these numbers are growing. In fact, by 2024, online art sales are collectively forecasted to be over $9 billion annually according to a Statista study. So stick around. Things are about to get even more interesting.

Joe Chiappetta
http://SillyDaddy.net

Prescription: SoCal Hot Tub

Prescription SoCal Hot Tub is rare digital art by Joe Chiappetta, available on MakersPlace.

This conversation that my wife and I had some months ago continues to humor me to this day. Denise is not a comedian by trade. Yet by life, her sharp wit is highly impressive.

I drew this comic sitting in a chair next to the hot tub of our apartment complex in Pasadena while Denise enjoyed relaxing in the bubbly hot water. Later I colored and animated the scene. The side edges are intentionally left unfinished. Just as a partially colored drawing reveals the underbelly of artistic illusion, so too a profound statement can reveal the underbelly of life.

When a person is in a hot tub in any wonderful place like Southern California, on the surface it would be presumed that they are doing great. Yet of course, illusions are everywhere--especially in the shadow of Hollywood and the make-believe entertainment industry of LA. While a hot tub can be nice, and we should be grateful for such pleasantries, rarely is it a complete prescription for true health. However, that's a topic for deeper waters.

Joe Chiappetta
http://SillyDaddy.net

Once Upon a Time in Pasadena

Once Upon a Time in Pasadena is rare digital art available on MakersPlace.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found an American bridge to Mediterranean delights.
I found that every street can be more amazing than the next.
I found that a mountain backdrop makes everything wonderful.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found whales of fortune riding waves of home pricing.
I found all that glitters is not gold... it's also wildfire, sushi and real estate.
I found that fancy cars--both old and new--are as common as palm trees.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found the earth quake under my feet, and life goes on.
I found that people freak out more over a little rain than they probably should.
I found that persistently pleasant weather is not the best character-builder.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found a history of America I never knew.
I found the lure of fame and Hollywood appear to be just a stone's throw away.
I found talented people to be a dime-a-dozen, singing sadder songs than they should be singing.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found that rich cities still desperately need God.
I found more homeless people than there should be.
I found humanity.

Once upon a time in Pasadena, I found a man, and his wife, desperately needing God.
I found humility.
I found the real me.

Joe Chiappetta
http://SillyDaddy.net

Crypto-Lawyer in the Half Shell

Often--and perhaps even too often--I will draw a scene in my mind or a scene from California life and it will turn out to be a decent drawing, in and of itself. Yet because I have created so many cartoons throughout my career, I usually then ask myself the following question; "How can I turn this drawing into a good comic?"

Such is the case with this crypto-art comic featuring a turtle and a woman enjoying some time upon their Southern California balcony. The drawing started out as a quick and simple drawing of my wife reclining in her chair. In the background can be seen the mountains that ever-define the Angeles National Forest, which we have hiked through on many occasions.

Since my family had recently visited a pack of turtles on our walk through the campus ponds at Caltech (which is near our condo), I logically decided to infuse a turtle into my balcony drawing. Then I wondered what a conversation between a turtle and my wife might sound like. This was actually not hard to imagine, since at our previous Pasadena apartment, we had tiny little turtles as pets--yet sadly they all died. Nevertheless, none of those imaginings led me to good material for a comic.

Therefore my drawing just floated in limbo for a few weeks until I decided that the turtle should say something absurd, yet also topical to cutting-edge current events. And not coincidentally, there have been some interesting developments unfolding in the cryptocurrency space regarding various government regulations. My wife and I learned about some of these rulings at a great Blockchain Bash event in Santa Monica last week. In light of such things, I decided that this turtle must become a crypto-lawyer. That's when the comic sort of wrote itself.

Naturally, such a comic strip must be put on the blockchain. And it must be issued as a crypto-collectible. That's why you can now bid on the color comic and buy it using cryptocurrency on the SuperRare digital art market, which runs on Ethereum. With all the California references in this artwork, I also refer to this piece of rare digital art as Cali-Crypto-Lawyer in the Half Shell.

Below is the initial black and white digital sketch. The funnest part was just drawing this sketch here. The more disciplined part of the creative process was then coloring it and transforming that artwork into a finished 3-panel comic strip.

As alluded to previously, I think that my initial black and white digital drawing also presents well as a stand-alone piece of digital art. I drew it on my old Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone using the stylus. The app I used to draw the initial sketch on the phone is called Autodesk SketchBook and it is a pretty nice drawing app for mobile devices. That simple California scene was then sent to my iPad Pro, where I completed the comic using Apple Pencil in the Procreate app.

Case closed!

Joe Chiappetta