Sunday, December 14, 2008

Me=Fail. Wiley=?

5-color, green film, fail. One of my worst days in serigraphy class, 2nd to last class time, a nazi lab tech, I got really frustrated and scraped that design. But it’s all good because it was actually my plan B. I went to Plan A and did a 5-color (photo technique) for Usugrow’s lotus design with “Namaste” printed underneath. I haven’t taken a picture yet but I’ll get to that. I’ve only made one print (on a black tank top for myself) but I have a bag of shirts I was going to use with this one. Still waiting for my instructor to give me a time I can come to campus and finish it up.

In the mean time, I give you Kehinde Wiley. His works can be found in Harlem, Brooklyn, Chicago, Sheboygan, Columbus, D.C., and Minneapolis, to name a few. I don’t have time to write out my review but I’d like to hear what you have to say. Do you think it works?


Saturday, December 6, 2008

I am the stone that the builder refused

I did not finish my 5-color serigraph yet, but it has to be turned in on Thursday। Surely I'll have it posted by Friday. In the mean time, here is another assignment in Illustrator. I had to create a comic book/coloring book cover. I spent 3 weeks on it, my lines got crazy messy, I trashed it the night before it was due and started over. I slept about 4 hours, woke up and worked all the way up until class. An hour before I needed to leave my house, I had no background, hence the lazy gradient mesh. Needless to say, this was not my original concept but it certainly got the job done. *If you click the picture, you get a larger view but keep in mind this was created for print in CMYK (in other words the computer makes the colors not to be viewed on the monitor but instead for the printer to spit it out, so the appearence isn't exactly the same).

Thursday, December 4, 2008

You've got to come Original

I have a lot of down time at my day job and pass the time sitting behind my laptop, browsing websites, watching YouTube videos, looking up other artists, entering all the freebie drawings at Apartment Therapy. I have tried several times to stop this mindless, pointless, direction-less web surfing at work. I need to try harder. Although I spend a good time enriching myself with artistic stimulation, and it's always good for artists & designers to spring board, I'd have to say it's much more fulfilling to complete something for which all brain storming was done entirely in your mind.
Last night my ridiculously old home desktop overheated when I was getting ready to start my last serigraphy design of the semester. It forced me to work through my head and through my sketch book and my own hands. After drawing, I spent a good 2 hours cutting film. The result is a mere 5 inches, but will be a 5 color print and my key to an A. I'm very excited about this design. It's actually a gift for Rima (my close friend/ex-sorority sister/future sister-in-law/boss). I'll post pics as soon as I'm done, but what are you looking at my crap for? Go create something on your own! :-D

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Illustrator class work

The following designs are not in my particular taste, but I suppose class work won't be the only time I'm assigned to do something I don't like.

For my Illustrator class I had to create 5 black and white logos using my initials. Honestly, I'd never use any of the logos I created for class because I don't think any of them are really me. For graphic design I'd use my sofisiphunk logo, which I just realized I've never posted (I'll get to that later). These were really just a means to play with different styles.


Next I had to choose one of the logos and do it in color . I chose the one with the bumble bee despite how cheesy and lame it really is.
Finally I had to do a business system with that logo. For all you planning on stalking me, sorry to disappoint but that is not my correct information. Business Card

LetterheadEnvelope

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Note cards & another T-shirt

The semester is coming to an end so I've been working almost non-stop. There should be a lot to look at here over the next few weeks. When I've been working so much sometimes I can't stop my mind or my hand... from drawing on everything :-)

Self portrait on bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker

Usugrow's lotus design, hand cut red film. My ink was too thin so this is the ONLY one that came out clean. Om. very clean lines & perfect registration. I pat myself on the back.

Friday, November 14, 2008

3 NEW prints!!

I've been neglectful the past month. I was in a slump but I pulled myself out of it. Last night in serigraphy class I did a ton of work and I wanted to share it with you. Next week I'll have 2 more prints to share. My screen for them has already been prepared I just ran out of time. I'm really enjoying screen printing but it's super messy.


I absolutely LOVE the Gnarls Barkley logo. Photo exposure



Once upon a time I was not a dog lover. That old me would punch the new me in the face for printing my dog on a shirt. But Winston is sooo cute and even Rose McGowan loves Boston Terriers! Green Film



This is the heart tree I posted before, only I remade the stencil. Cut paper. I take crappy photos and for that I apologize, but I'm very satisfied with the results.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

I love Halloween

I procrastinated on the decision for a costume until I got off work yesterday. I originally wanted to be Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, but then I discovered it wasn't so original. Wanting a costume cheap as free, I was teetering on Wednesday Addams, the Mad Hatter, and either Columbine or Magenta from Rocky Horror. I ended up deciding on Mia Wallace, Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction. But Mia Wallace was not good enough, no. It had to be Mia Wallace just after being revived from her drug overdose. So aside from the black wig, white dress shirt, and black pants I went barefoot, did *lack of oxygen* makeup, a bloody nose, and a syringe sticking out of my chest. I had a lot of fun.

Being that my costume was so last minute, there weren't any short black wigs to be found in the entire Quail Springs area of N OKC. So I bought a long black one that originally had a crazy braided bun and 4 long braids hanging down the back. My sister proved her worth and helped fix up my wig (she's in cosmetology school). This is what it looked like after we got the braids out.

She told me not to tell people she cut it because "it would look so much better if it were real hair" but i think she did an awesome job considering I gave her 10 minutes and we had to flat iron it and curl it afterward. Reenactment



Saturday, October 25, 2008

I've been a slacker, but the wait is well worth it I promise

I can't say enough good things about Audrey Kawasaki. She does a lot of her work on wood and it's a medium choice for her that's very purposeful. She works with the integrity of the wood grain and her paintings in no way seem forced. Since canvas is now easily accessible to artists, if you're painting on another medium there should be a reason for it. Don't do it just because you want to do something different. Her girls are very lovely, sensual yet innocent, natural, and provocative, they really have a soft glow and enticing demeanor. I think it's in the eyes and mouth. Eyes are the window to the soul, so focusing on projecting all you can with eyes in a painting gives an approachable quality. The mouth of course is the part of the body that can be innocent and sensual at the same time, the tool we tease with.
Painting/drawing the essence of sensuality can be very tricky. There are always exceptions but keeping the subject classy is often a target missed. Either the subject is displayed too conservative to seem as they are sharing something personal or they are too sleazy. Audrey has impeccable perception of how much to show and some how the unconventional boundaries she uses on the wood are almost unnoticeable. The subject are simply missing body parts but the eye isn't drawn to that negative space, it stays right there in the eyes and toggles back and forth to the mouth.
I like to review work and share my thoughts with people but I have always felt composition seems like such a weird topic to analyze. For a viewer of art, it's definitely a good way to deepen your appreciation for an artist and for a piece, to look at all the elements and to really see the intentions. But we can break things apart so mathematically and I highly doubt that all great artists put these compositions together consciously adding them up in the same way. For many artists I think their vision is so intuitive that they can create without the equation. Of course sometimes things don't work or work in the way you intend, so you have to tweak it, but I really do think that Audrey is one of these artists.
Her work on canvas is just as good. This last piece for example, seems like choreography from modern dance. It's animalistic and intelligent.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Just Check him out


Usugrow. No review necessary, just purely awesome.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Turn the button with your head


Do you remember that children's song that went, "Hello my name is Joe.... my boss said to me hey Joe are you busy, I said no, he said turn the button with your right hand" Then you pantomime turning a button with your right hand and the song goes on until you're out of limbs...
Well, I guess the song is really saying, at some point you have to draw some boundaries and know when to turn down extra work you can't handle. Thing is, when I was a kid I loved that song. I thought it was so much fun and I'd actually pantomime turning buttons with every body part I could possible move seperate from my hands and feet, like my elbows. So maybe that was a signal to my parents that I was constantly going to keep myself busy. Sigh.
Ok, in short basically I haven't posted any finished projects because I have about a dozen in the works and haven't completed anything in the past week and a half. I'll probably post some other artists for you to explore later on this weekend.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Process of Paul







1. preliminary sketch 2. crap, he looks a lot like my friend Brad 3. looking kind of not english







4.-6. ok, Paul really does have kind of a lazy eye, hard to paint that on purpose










5. Alright, tired of messing w/face shape 6. makeup training helped me figure out shading


7. Finally finished, touched up Ringo a bit as well.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Topsy Turvy Design



I no longer dance or act, and so I'm really just stretching to find an excuse to make a purchase like this... But I LOVE these hats. LEFT: Mina, RIGHT: Lady Divina Top Hat from Topsy Turvy Design. I can't remember how I stumbled upon this web page but I've been hankering to create a mad hatter's costume for Halloween ever since. There are several beautiful models on the site, and the website design alone is very original.
Never the less, I'm in awe of these hand made custom hats. When I was 17 I had the lead role in A Curious Savage and went above and beyond what I needed to do for that character (an excuse to dye my hair powder blue). This was also around the time I was really into LCT and studying theater makeup and period hair styling. Never quite got finger waves down. Anyway, I made my own hat for this play and it was extremely difficult. I don't have any pictures but it looks similar to this green one, only it was egg shell and had some gaudy costume broach and feather. I had no idea what I was getting my self into, especially since at that time I had never sewn a pleat. It was incredibly frustrating but I'm also incredibly stubborn so it was completed and I'm sure you could find it somewhere in the dusty costume department in the basement of Lawton High.

Friday, October 3, 2008

1st attempts at serigraphs


Practice Cuts- Both of these are from Red Film
FYI: The film has a clear layer and a red layer. You cut the red layer like a stencil, expose it onto your screen like a photo negative, lay your silk screen on top, and pull the ink across. The Egyptian looking one I mixed a metallic in and the weird abstract one I blended the blue and green on top of the screen. Sounds simple right?
That's what I thought. I did these, yup simple, and then for my first actual assignment I thought I'd get creative and experiment.

I made the stencil using cardstock, after being advised not to. The stencils are supposed to be really thin so the ink comes through easily but I wanted something that looked really rough. I cut rough and jagged, and I used the cardstock anyway. I also mixed my own shade of reddish brown and used a really deep chocolate in the tree trunk. I liked the rough look and on my first few prints it was just the tree. But being that I had to use so much ink to get through my thick stencil, I decided to experiment further and remove the stencil. Then, the ink was on the screen in the lines of the stencil, and I finished the print by pulling thin layers over it.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Latest Ad Design


Here is my latest ad design. It'll be 1/4 page in the Gazette for the next 2 months. That's one of Jaime's paintings that are on sale. Check her out because it's way better in color!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Ringo


Not unlike any other art student, my painting instructor 2 years ago had a strange method of teaching. That is to say, he didn't really teach; he just commented a lot. Mostly he said you have to learn from experimenting "pushing the paint around on your canvas" and there was no right technique for anything. Still, it would have been nice if he made suggestions. So I'm still learning. I'm working on people and getting dimension and depth in their face. To focus on that I've decided to stay in black and white but vivid colors in everything else (same with the Buddha interpretation). Here is Ringo in his Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band gear. Paul is nearly finished and already a massive improvement. I've been taking photos from the beginning phase on him so that'll be a bit more interesting to look at.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Useful, Demented Design in the Kitchen


Perhaps I'm a bit slow picking this one up, but perhaps I'm not the only one. Raffaele Iannello designed this, the most aesthetically amazing set of knives you could ever hope for. If I had an extra $70 lying around and didn't already have a pretty decent set, I'd definitely be ordering this in red.
But I am a bit of a freak in general.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sports and Art?

Since I hate football, pretty much every American would discredit anything I have to say about sports so I usually just don't talk sports. However, I do talk art as often as possible. I want to share with you the closing of an article in the April 2008 issue of Juxtapoz (yes I am an avid reader and subscriber) written about Mark Chiarello (Art Director for DC Comics) doing water color portraits for the book, "Heroes". This book is about the Legendary players of the Negro Baseball Leagues. Before this book was written, Chiarello did a set of trading cards back in the 80's. Remember that time, when the true effort to educate on discrimination began? Before that most people didn't really know anything about segregation unless they experienced it. So Chiarello is talking about taking his trading set to a convention commemorating the Negro League,

"and I saw one of the great players of the the League, the late Leon Day, and I showed him the set of cards. I remember him not saying a word, just shuffling through the pile, obviously looking for his card. When he got to his he stopped for a minute with his head down. Finally, he looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, 'I've never been on a baseball card before.' "

Is that not beautiful? In this article Chiarello also talks about the misfortune that illustrators aren't the superstars they once were since photography has become so readily available and reliable. However, I think Illustration is making a come back. Graphic Design is in high demand and illustration is a huge part of that. Everyone wants custom work for everything. I am not an illustrator, but I hope whatever area I fall into will give me moments of fulfillment like Chiarello's with Leon Day.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I can relate to that sentiment

"Making art is a really lonely process. You spend a lot of time by yourself, hunched over a desk. It's a lot of solitary time and it can be a bit of a head trip." -Travis Millard

All my life I've had hermit tendencies. My mom told me even as a toddler I enjoyed my time to my self. For the most part it unnerves my family and peers. People hassle me for not being social. I guess they think I don't appreciate them. I let it get to me and started feeling like I shouldn't be this way. So I went through a phase of being extremely social. But I've realized that spending more time on my own is the only way I can truly be who I love being. It's the only way I can create with integrity.

So I'm working on a sgt. peppers lonely hearts club band series. I'll be posting Ringo and Paul this week.

Friday, September 19, 2008

2 1/2 years

David Minjarez, who has been a close friend of mine since we were 12, asked me to paint a buddah for him in the spring of 2006. I started immediately, finished it & was dissatisfied, painted over it, repainted it, still didn't like it, started over on another piece of canvas but didn't like the size, started it on a canvas board, finished it, repainted it again and finally this past weekend I have a completed interpretation of buddah for my friend David.

*I took this with my camera phone so please excuse the poor photo quality.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Jeff Soto & My Welcome

Hi and welcome to my art blog. I hope you enjoy my sharing time.

Jeff Soto is one of my favorite discoveries. According to his resume, he received his BFA in 2002 but I distinctly remember finding his work in Juxtapoz during my freshman year (2003-2004). Of course this may not seem as big of an accomplishment to many people who are disinterested in the type of artists featured in this magazine, but to me it's inspiring. He didn't waste anytime after finishing his education. I hope I can say that one day.
I'm also very much in love with his style. The darkness of his characters and the dismay they seem to bring into an otherwise very bright and cheerful atmosphere, the relevance of environment and childish creativity. Mostly I love how so much is happening in one piece without seeming visually, too overwhelming for the viewer but simultaneously overpowering in subject. It's a very abstract spin of action in repose. It's as if each work is literally a window into a world from a very active mind that is perceiving and reinterpreting the real world. He successfully regurgitates the perspective of imagination. I've actually seen many artists attempt to imitate his style. But they fail, and being imitated, however much annoying it be, is a great compliment to an artist.
These two images (w/o permission, please forgive me) I snagged around my first discovery because they were the two pieces that I first fell for.