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art of Robert Liu-Trujillo Tag

Teachers 4 Social Justice – T-shirt art

Hey fam, I was really excited to do this t-shirt illustration for a historic organization. The “Teachers for Social Justice” San Francisco chapter is a dope community based organization that held an annual conference for teachers to share information about social justice pedagogy, books, songs, practices, teaching methods, and more in San Francisco California. I first went in the 2010’s but had been to conferences like it where we would give workshops to young people about murals, graffiti, and a way to combine social justice with art. Here’s some process art.

As a student of ethnic studies I was always really excited to learn at this conference and even more excited to illustrate and design the official tshirt for this years conference which was returning after a break during the pandemic. I started by trying to illustrate some kids I would actually see in middle or high school in the Bay Area now. Profiles with a simple color palette.

Instead of the name of the conference they changed it to have that on the back of the tshirt and the phrase “Ethnic Studies Everywhere” on the front.

And this is what it ended up looking like with the line work, and two ways to apply the color for a black or white tshirt. I did the lettering as well:)

Here’s the shirt done! I love rocking my joint to let folks know, Its not a buzz word like “woke” which means to be aware or “DEI” which meand diversity, equity, and inclusion and gets to the fact that Black and Brown people were excluded, erased, and kept out of so many industries for over a hundred years in the US. Nope, this goes back to my work around “ethnic studies” or learning about US and world history through the histories, stories, and lived experiences of Black folks and people of color in the US.

But more importantly, if you know an educator who is already incorporating social justice in their classrooms, or you know folks who want to learn please send them to TEACHERS For Social Justice and get them plugged in for the next conference.

Here’s a bit about what the Teachers for Social Justice do:

Who We Are.
Teachers 4 Social Justice is a grassroots non-profit teacher support and development organization in San Francisco.  T4SJ is project of the Community Initiative Fund.

Our Mission.
Our mission is to provide opportunities for self-transformation, leadership, and community building to educators in order to affect meaningful change in the classroom, school, community and society. See more about our goals, principles, and vision in the next pages.

What We Do.
T4SJ organizes teachers and community-based educators and implements programs and projects that develop empowering learning environments, more equitable access to resources and power, and realizing a just and caring culture.

Dig this? Check out more of my work

August 24, 2026
in Educational Resources, Ilustration
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READ print deal 2

Finally after many years I have finished this batch of four prints. They are prints to celebrate reading and to highlight a diverse group of kids relating to Science fiction, skating or sports, making or welding, and listening to music or audiobooks. Check them out individually below.

If you’d like to purchase this pack of four prints here is the…

LINK TO BUY

Dig this? Check out the last pack of Story Time prints

August 22, 2026
in Ilustration, Lettering/ Typography, Merch
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READ Print 8 – Hijabi

Here’s a new print featuring a young hijabi (hijabi wearing woman) listening to an audiobook. I started the READ series in 2020 an have completed 8 now. For this series my aim is always to depict more kids of color with an encouraging word or quote about reading. In this one I thought of a young Arab American woman listening to a book. You can get one of these prints for yourself, classroom, library, or office…

LINK TO BUY A PRINT

Dig this? Check out the pack of prints 5-8 here

August 22, 2026
in General, Merch
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Character 190 – Maya Gonzalez

This is a character of my OG Maya who is now an ancestor. I was thinking about them and wanted to draw or paint something. For those unaware, Maya Gonzalez (they/she) was a prominent figure in kid lit here in the Bay Area. She was one of the first artists I spoke to in the mid to late 2000’s when learning about how to be an illustrator/author. And I watched their career as an author, parent, business person, publisher, etc. They were fierce in their art, their advocacy for Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary folks, and their love for the community. They cofounded “Reflection Press” a radical Queer Kid Lit publisher in the Bay with their partner Matthew Smith. And they were one of the co-founders of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair. They just passed away and I just wanna show them some love. Maya presente!

If you were influenced by them and want to help their partner Matthew and their kids you can contribute to their GoFundme HERE.

Dig this? Check out all the incredible stories and art they have in Maya and Reflection Press’ store.

August 17, 2026
in Character Design
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Center for Cultural Power- Rooted In Joy

I am one of several artists who got to create a new piece for this “Rooted in Joy” campaign for the Center for Cultural Power formerly CultureStrike. The name of the campaign was Rooted in Joy, a 2025 climate justice campaign focused on uplifting BIPOC-led narratives around climate displacement, community resilience, and collective care. And I totally forgot to share it.

Some of the artists who did work around this campaign are Orion Camero, Ashluka Lukashevsky, Coz Con, Mayanthi Jayawardena, Loisse Ledres, Kah Yangi, Gabriela Aleman, Jazz Diaz, and many more AND we were partnered with a community based organization who does work around the issues in bold above. Mine was Movement Generations and there were others Like Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Food Access los Angeles, Push Buffalo, California Environmental Justice Alliance, and more.

Here’s a big about Movement Generation:

Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture.

So as happens many times when working on artwork for a campaign, goal, movement, or strategy ; the work develops and shifts. Not for the hell of it, but to communicate the message clearly. Often we only have a few seconds to communicate something to people and then they’re off to the next thing. Some may get a poster, song, film, oetc and llive with it for awhile. But usually its quick! This sketch process started with a bunch of ideas that turned into a sketch about the credo of Movement Generation which is a “just transition” or a transition from extraction, capitalism, destruction, gree, etc to a plan where the planet, people, and justice are considered.

So I depicted moving between something with manufacturing, solitary, less light to something more collective, outdoors, and nourishment. One favors the community, one favors the pockets of multi millionaires and billionaires. But, it changed to feature just the different types of folks sharing with each other.

So this is the final sketch and color treatment!

Heres a bit of process while painting this that was featured on Instagram. Here’s the link to the original post.

This is the final painting rendered with ink and watercolor, with a bit of digital collaging.

Dig this? Check out some artwork for other campaigns such as

August 14, 2026
in General, Ilustration
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School Visits- Jefferson Elementary (San Leandro, CA)

Last Spring I visited Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Oakland to visit my homie and principal there Heidi! I met Heidi 16 or 15 years ago through her partner; the Rad Dad author himself Tomas Moniz!

Heidi has been a teacher forever and she’s an awesome principal. High energy, positive vibes. Even though she’s new in this district, she knew everybodys damn name. She was announcing the program and sweeping up before it. She was on it.

This presentation was all about Black history month (my busiest time of the year) and a young student got up to introduce me. I’m blanking on his name but he did a great job. The students were exposed to people from the Black community who has achieved great things and or made positive contributions to their community.

I went through Fresh Juice/ Jugo Fresco and I spoke a bit about my work as an artist. Normal day and always fun to do since I dont recall ever meeting a visual artist or author of color in school.

Had a great time there and hope to visit them again, as well as more schools in the San Leandro area.

Dig this? Check out some of some of the other schools I’ve visited!

Art! Want some artwork for your classroom or library? See the prints in my shop

LINK to my shop

August 13, 2026
in School or Library Visit
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Character 189 – Green Me REDO

I’m on stuck a little bit so redoing old work helps me to get unstick and to stay in the process of making, trying, playing, testing. Here’s a redraw of an old character I made for my website, branding, all the things back in 2013. The original was based on a childhood photo and this was fun to redo.

The hand signal says I come in peace, but the spear says “dont start no shit”.

Here’s an old image of what my website used to look like (designed by my wife) w/ this same image.

Dig this? Check out this Collage of Characters from 2022-2024

July 30, 2026
in Character Design
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Art for Rethinking Schools Magazine

Ok, Its been over a decade since I worked for Rethinking Schools but I’m so happy to be back in the mix. In a day and age where books can be too long, and tik tok clips too short, and the internet filled with AI slop its nice to have a form of physical media that informs. About what you say? Read on….

Rethinking Schools MISSION and VISION:

Rethinking Schools is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization dedicated to sustaining and strengthening public education through social justice teaching and education activism. Our magazine, books, and other resources promote equity and racial justice in the classroom. We encourage grassroots efforts in our schools and communities to enhance the learning and well-being of our children and to build a broad democratic movement for social and environmental justice. 

Our Zinn Education Project — coordinated with Teaching for Change — has more than 100,000 educators who have registered to access our “people’s history” materials.

Here’s a bit of process art to show my thinking when ingesting, sitting with, dissecting, and analyzing former principal Gilbert Juan Armenta’s piece about how school systems continuously target Black children by overly discipling them, singling them out, punishing them, and trying to track them into special education. I know this experience intimately after being suspended from my school for “talking” as a 3rd grader!!!!

The cool thing about this article and the magazine is that it talks about real issues that teachers, educators, and others are experiencing in the classroom. They talk about race, gender, identity, politics, class, racism, and how to address these issues in a way that is radical, sensitive to the age group, and respectful. This is what drew me to the magazine years ago. See my old piece here.

Here are some color directions for this piece.

Heres the final painting, done in ink and watercolor. Shout out to AD Nancy Zucker for the call!

Wanna get this magazine issue? COP Volume 40, Number 4 HERE.

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Wanna peak inside the magazine? See it a little bit here.

July 13, 2026
in Art, Ilustration
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