Pasadena Art Studio | Pasadena Art Classes | Vahan Yervandyan

If you happened upon 1068 N. Allen Ave, Pasadena, CA 91104, you'd find a small, sliver of an art studio tucked in between a couple other shops.  It's easily missed if you're not looking carefully.  This is the exact spot where SilverStreetz built his foundation and technique twice a week, for 90 minutes a session, from the beginning of 2017 to mid 2019.

Vahan Yervandyan is the instructor and owner of Pasadena Art Studio.  He also holds a Bachelor of Fine Art and Web Design degree, has nearly two decades of art instruction, participated in numerous art exhibitions including a personal art exhibition in Portland, Oregon; 2005, and another in Nova Art Gallery; 2007, and is a current art teacher at AGBU VATCHE & TAMAR MANOUKIAN HIGH SCHOOL.

Vahan's ability to work with all ages is impressive, his patience with younger students is incredible, and his technique and knowledge with multiple mediums is comprehensive.  Perhaps the most amazing quality Vahan exudes is the uncanny ability to instruct without any ego.  He does not impress upon his student any particular style or format.  Vahan is liberatingly open and has the ability to provide a student with a very wide channel in which to explore.  He trusts and allows the student ample room to find his or her creative path with the most minimal amount of outside influence.  This ability, combined with a profound and extremely strong technique is what truly make Vahan Yervandyan not only an amazing instructor, but human being.

As Sterling Molldrem continues his journey, it will be one that was firmly grounded by Vahan Yervandyan and his Pasadena Art Studio.  So, if you're thinking of exploring art in any capacity - if you're looking to tighten up your technique or strengthen your foundation or explore a totally different medium - this is the place to do it.  Vahan is the soul you should seek.

SteelCraft X SilverStreetz

SteelCraft is an outdoor food venue constructed with shipping containers and housing 7 delicious drink-and-meal-churning vendors.  Foodies and other hungry citizens can choose from Smog City Brewing Company, Tajima Ramen, Waffle Love, DeSano Pizza, Pig Pen Delicacy, Steelhead Coffee, and Rainbow Juices.

The property is not only doggo friendly but also artist friendly and features a seasonal-rotating wall mural.  In early May, SilverStreetz was kindly invited by the SteelCraft team to throw up a wall mural to ring in Summer 2019.

Working in the evenings, Sterling Molldrem would get home from middle school, finish his homework, jump in the van and roll out to SteelCraft.  Working a few hours a night, he live painted the mural and completed the piece on 5/18/2019 with a signing get together slated around summer solstice.  The work measures 7' wide x 6' high and utilizes Golden Acrylics.  It provides the backdrop for all of SteelCraft's live music and other interactive events throughout the year.

To say SilverStreetz enjoyed himself painting on the property would be an understatement.  The SteelCraft team is comprised of a super friendly and generous bunch.  Super big thanks to DeSano Pizza for hooking up the pies.  While live painting, the patrons coming through were positive, friendly, and showed nothing but love and respect.  Thank you so, so much for providing the opportunity, space, and trust in a 13 year old, up and coming visual artist based out of LA.

Both SilverStreetz and SteelCraft are making waves.  Do not fall asleep on these two brands and keep them firmly on your radar.

Burning walls at 13

Marking the second wall mural thrown up by @SilverStreetz this one measures 13' wide x 6.5' tall.  The large piece of mural art was completed over the course of about 3 days mid way through 2019.  This creation sets another milestone in Sterling Molldrem's young and rapidly evolving creative form.

This burner also managed to catch the eye and praise of Montana 94's sole distributor, Spray Planet.  The crew at Spray Planet was even kind enough to feature SilverStreetz in one of their Instagram stories.

Undoubtedly there will be many big things to come for the youngster Sterling Molldrem SilverStreetz as his voice, humor, and intelligence continue to take shape.  Do not sleep on this dude.

 

Jordan Airforce 1 x SilverStreetz

These new Jordan Airforce 1 x SilverStreetz kicks draw from Sterling Molldrem's vibrant and colorful mashup of logos, brand names, movies, and graphics to deliver new articulations of sport style, hype beast, hip hop paraphernalia, and other various street culture.

These custom hand painted basketball shoes are just one of the latest design creations SilverStreetz has released for his fashion footwear collection.  Incorporating Angelus paints and Nike Airforce 1’s as a canvas, Sterling Molldrem has once again demonstrated why he is one of LA’s youngest and most interesting artists to watch.

Available for purchase at www.slvrstrtz.com

Chuck Taylors

Converse All Stars is arguably one of America's most iconic shoes.  Ever since the first pair became available in 1923, Chuck's have continued to shape pop culture and fashion more than sports.  The Converse brand not only played a role in the athletic arena, but the sociocultural impact continues to live through film, television, music, and art.

In 2015, at age 10, Sterling Molldrem aka SilverStreetz took out a Copic marker and created a piece that would unwittingly become his first shoe design.  Dubbed, Joker Kicks, a snippet of Sterling's creative was isolated, digitized, and printed direct to a pair of Chuck Taylor's.

Cop yours here www.slvrstrtz.com

Adobe Photoshop and Digital Art.

These pieces are some of Sterling Molldrem's first digital illustrations when he became serious (at age 13) about exploring Photoshop CC and how light reflection effects an object.  He wanted to try and incorporate how light and the various angles of light reflect and create various shades and textures.  Sterling really started playing around with the Wacom Intuos tablet around age 11 and 12.  He didn't really dive deep into the Adobe Photoshop YouTube tutorial rabbit hole until age 12 - 13.  Among some of the treasures he retrieved from that rabbit hole was the artist Chiworld1234.

The image above is a boy in a beanie holding a candle.  As the boy lights the candle and looks forward, he is unaware of the monster lurking directly behind him.  A monster that only becomes visible with the flickering illumination of a candle.

The image below obviously takes place deep in a swampy forest of Feffernoos.  This particular forest monster, also known as a Heelyadoor, is snacking on some poor soul as the green sun sets directly behind.  The over arching theme of this particular illustration is very apparent - don't go wondering into forests on Heelyadoor.

Sterling Molldrem has a fantastically, bizarre brain as evident by the multitude of drawings, paintings, and sketches found on his Instagram page.

An Interview With A Young, Gifted, Up And Coming Visual Artist.

Sterling Molldrem is cleaning up after spending about 3.5 hours straight spray painting his grand parents’ workout room.  While cleansing himself with turpentine, he answers some questions asked by his father.

Dad:  So, how are you feeling today?

SM:  Goody.

Dad:  What was your first memory of creating something?  Anything?

SM:  It was a drawing done with pencil and I munched a bunch of creatures together into one character.  One freaky character.  I also did 3 more of them.

Dad:  You used to ask your mom and I to keep every stupid paper roll towel core, cardboard box, and empty tissue box that we came across so you could make “arts and crafts”.  You used to love making crazy sculptures – some bigger than you.  Why did you stop creating large sculptures and go full on draw mode?

SM:  I don’t know.  I just; I don’t know.  Seriously.  I don’t know.

Dad:  One of your very first mediums was spray paint.  You begged me to buy you spray cans.  Then you proceeded to teach yourself spray paint technique.  First you got super discouraged and then Ibu kind of cheered you on.  How do you manage to encourage yourself when a piece isn’t going the way you want it?

SM:  Touch your chalala and hope for the best.  Just kidding.  If you keep going and going, sometime you’ll get it right -- and you just keep pushing off from there.

Dad:  So much of your work is saturated with color -- just full of vivid coloration.  Using color seems to come natural to you.  Where does that natural flow come from?  Are you really, really thinking and plotting where you’re going to put which color and how many shades, or is more of it just coming from some weird kind of creative stream you just tap into?

SM:  I’m going to tell you like this.  All you have to do is think about it, think about it twice and then put it down.  Don’t over think about it.  And there you go.

Dad:  For some, art is a form of escapism.  Do you feel you’re trying to escape anything at the tender age of 12?

SM:  No.  That was always a stupid quote for me.  I never believed in that.  I always do it for fun.  I mean I don’t really have a drastic life so there’s no reason for me to escape.

Dad:  What inspires you?

SM:  I don’t really have a great inspiration.  I just see people, watch people on Youtube and I guess they inspire me.  But I don’t have one certain inspiration in mind.

Dad:  You’re constantly improving, and so far you have firm command over Copic markers, Microns, charcoal, acrylics, spray paint, oils, and Photoshop.  Which has been the most challenging and do you tend to focus on a particular medium more, if it is difficult or shy away from it?

SM:  If it’s difficult most definitely I focus on it more.  It’s always fun when you know it real good.  There’s no reason to shy away from it, you just have to practice it.  For me, the most difficult is spray paint.

Dad:  How important is commercial success to you?

SM:  What kind of question is that for a kid?

Dad:  What do you like to draw the most?

SM:  Imagination based drawings.  Still life has always been pretty boring for me.

Dad:  What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

SM:  All of them are good.

Dad:  This was fun dude.  How about we revisit these same questions 5 years from now once you graduate high school?

SM:  Yeh…that’d be cool.

WIP.  First Ever Bedroom Wall Mural.

His Moniker

SilverStreetz is Sterling Molldrem and Sterling Molldrem is SilverStreetz.

Sterling can mean, excellent, first-rate, first-class, exceptional, or outstanding.  It's also British currency.  Some think of jewelry.  As his moniker, Sterling decided to replace his name with "Silver" and follows it with his style of art -- Street(z).  Hence the moniker, SilverStreetz was coined.

Sterling transforms celebrity, friend, family member, or stranger into a humorous, hip hop, urban street illustration.  The young artist puts his own unique flare on Kim Jong Un, 6ix9ine, Dr. Phil, Kurt Cobain, or Donald Trump -- the list goes on.

Multiple Mediums

At the age of 12, Sterling Molldrem is a young artist already able to communicate his art through multiple mediums.  He has firmly grounded himself with the use of inks, markers, acrylics, spray paints, oils, and digital mediums.

Previously a competitive gymnast for 4 years and training 22 hours a week while also going to elementary school -- he had enough.  Gymnastics was out and ART was in.  Now dedicating an enormous amount of time to shaping his artistic creativity, Sterling exhibits an amazing rate of production.  Whether it's a daily doodle, poster piece, computer production, or wall mural Sterling is constantly creating.

Art prodigy?  12 year old art genius?  You be the judge.  Labeling Sterling's creative style is challenging.  One day he will be manually producing a still life oil painting and the next he'll be digitally creating a computer mash up of celebrity, politics, and monsters.  His creativity is bright, humorous, edgy, gritty, and saturated with color.  One thing is for sure -- Sterling Molldrem is well on the way to making his name known in the creative world, and at such an early age he's already charging hard.