July 10th, 2008
I’ve been incredibly busy as usual and putting off updating the blog. Sadly it’s been almost the last thing on my list of priorities in the past couple of months. They pushed back the date of the charity “Art for the Cure” event that I had planned on participating in and even though I knew the date was pushed back about a month ago I’ve managed to procrastinate doing the piece I’d planned. The composition could probably use some work… I came up with it in about a day after only 4 or 5 thumbnails. I promised I’d post progress in a previous blog entry so here’s a few shots so far:
final comp from my sketchbook, 8.5×11
Shitty scan job of the final pencil drawing on Rives BFK print making paper roughly 17×20″
I still haven’t quite mastered capturing the spontaneity and gesture of the pencil sketch in the final drawing but maybe I can still pull it off in the painting.
The painting so far.
This will be the first completely acrylic painting I’ve ever done that actually might look decent. I should have more updates on Sunday since this thing is supposed to be done by about Tuesday.
Other than that I have a bunch of photos and other things to post but it will all have to wait. The website is getting closer all the time. I’m almost to the production phase.
Tags: 12, 28, 31, 32, 34, 4
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June 9th, 2008
Rarely in the history of cartooning have we ever seen a cartoon star fall so tragically out of the limelight as we have in the case of Mickey Mouse.
In a box by pier 23 he whiles away the days looking for his next smack fix and finding creative places to store his leavings. The once great star and spokestoon for the Disney corporation fell into trouble during the great depression of 2008.
An art community I used to frequent before I became so heavily ingrained in advertising was having an activity to re-interpret Mickey Mouse. This was my sarcastic little poke at wholesome family entertainment.
After about three months of nearly fully (at some points, almost every waking hour) dedicated time to my company and an incredibly fast paced project I’ve been allowed some vacation time. I’m only on day one of my 3 day vacation but it’s already been great. I feel like I’ve gotten so much done in terms of restoring order to my system. On top of that I’ve had a chance to work on my website design, visual identity, paint and be lazy. It’s pretty much everything I thought it would be and more.
miscellaneous pictures
Looking at this picture of my computer setup made me realize how out of date my technology is. CRTs? Old-ass 4.1 stereo setup? 4×5 intuos 3 tablet? $20 logitech mouse from 6 years ago? I need to upgrade. My hard drives are filling up like an overweight person in a buffet line. Maybe I’ll suddenly become rich…
I got a new plant to replace the one that died. It’s already helped to improve my mood.
Here’s another mood enhancer for me lately. This is one of the greatest parts about my place and one of the things I’ll miss the most if I ever move (I should say: when).
Tags: 24, 26, 28, 30, 35, life, photography
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May 12th, 2008
I’m having a massive new-music-gasm right now. I’ve got so much to listen to and it’s all very good and very inspiring. The M83 album from my previous post is currently killing my last.fm statistics. Whenever I’m done designing the new wordpress theme and website design there will be a last.fm reader on the page so you can see how many times I listen to “Skin of the Night” in a week. I’ll probably be sick of it in a week but I reiterate: radical.
I was working on some hand-made textures and type this weekend and doodled this little guy. It’s pencil and acrylic, and actually must have spurred a few creative synapses in my brain because I’ve got the urge to paint traditionally again. Sometime in June (the 14th I think) I’ll be auctioning off a painting for “Head for the Art,” a charity event sponsored by my company. Since the crow was the last thing I painted and it was done digitally I’m considering doing a new traditional painting and framing it exclusively for the show. Of course, if I work toward that goal I will keep the blog updated with progress.
Here is another color study I did with color and a bit of the new mark I’ve been working on. I don’t think the texture is working out. I think I may have to stick with hand-made textures as opposed to vector texture (try to say that 10 times fast).
Tags: 14, 17, 18, 19, 23, 28, 3, 36, 7
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May 6th, 2008
Juggling all of my commitments is starting to get a little easier and I’m hoping it stays that way for a while. I could use some fun for a change.
Some things recently in the moleskin. I can’t wait to enjoy more of the nice weather. I anticipate more moleskinnery and artistry will take place as a result. I might turn the one up top into an oil painting. I bought some nice linen over the weekend. It might deserve a few more thumbnails and a color study before I put all of those expensive oil paints to use though…
the obsession never ends…
The guy with half a hand came from a commercial I saw at a friend’s house for a television show about how dangerous the logging industry could be. The guy was boasting about how manly he was on the commercial. I then felt compelled to record it in the sketchbook. Of course, pictured below it and completely unrelated: more mice. This time they’re portraying Hispanic gang stereotypes.
As far as free-time design goes, here is a color study I did using things from the morphology of this identity I’ve been developing—I need to add more than shapes—but it’s kind of a hodge podge of shapes (designed using the golden section) to see how the color palette I worked out might look.
Lastly, I have to recommend some more music. I recently discovered M83 put out a new album and it’s so boss I can’t even find better words than “boss” to describe it. It’s a bit of spacey electronic shoegazing goodness and I highly recommend it.
Listen to the full thing on Last.fm FTW
Tags: 20, 23, 25, 3, 7
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April 30th, 2008
So it seems I’m tracking at about a post per month on average. I fully intend to blog a bit more but right now I’m involved in a lot of time consuming activities. The biggest of which is a project I’m working on for SAP. It’s been a lot of late nights, frustrations and stress but it’s really coming together and I can’t wait to share it. Other than that I’ve been working on freelance as well as my own visual identity system. My ultimate goal is to get things well wrapped up by June on all fronts so I can spend some time away from the computer screen. I’m actually thinking about traveling a little.
But I digress. Onto the substance. Last weekend I thought I would work on my karma a little and participate in some charity events. I have never been into the community service kind of stuff but after pushing myself to take part in all of that last weekend I felt really good about what I’d done. Friday I went to a cancer benefit put on by my company at the record bar. Saturday I got up and drove over to the Historic North East in KCMO and volunteered with AIGA to help design a chalk square with the Restart homeless youth art program. Sunday I got up early and ran the Trolley Run to benefit the Sabates Childrens center for the Visually Impared. I ran what I think might be my record Trolley Run time, in fact. Four miles in 27 minutes. A blisteringly fast 6:49 pace (maybe not blisteringly fast but pretty good for me anyway). I felt very fulfilled after it was all over.
I don’t have photos from it all but I do have photos from the chalk walk. Here is our square in construction. I will note Chi Hiu, my partner, and I were less concerned with design fundamentals than we were with making sure the Restart Kids had a great time. They were both a little reluctant at first but after we got started they really got into it.
They decided we should do a giant Pooh for our “growth” theme:
Other people had some really nice designs. Some of the local design shops/agencies were represented. Here are a couple that were pretty gnarly:
Willoughby design
Barkley Evergreen
Many many more photos are up in a flickr set.
Politics
Among other things I’ve spent my money on in the past week or two, I donated to Obama’s campaign. I guess I felt compelled to do something other than voice an opinion and vote for the guy. A friend at work has been trying to convince me that my vote didn’t count. This may have been what motivated the decision. I just feel that that sentiment is fundamentally wrong. A vote is a voice and without a voice we’re stuck with another dumb-as-mud pandering politician who will snake his way into the White House. Sure there are levels above the popular vote that we as US citizens cannot control. There is certainly no guarantee that your state’s delegates or electoral votes will go with the will of the people but to me it seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy to eliminate the possibility of that happening from the beginning by not voting. Where is the optimism? Maybe it is cynicism I’m hearing every time someone tells me my vote doesn’t count. I can’t really hold it against the cynics. Al Gore lost the election even with the popular vote. It’s certainly happened a number of times. We have the right as citizens though. Why not exercise it? Vote for whoever you want, but please vote.
Music
So I was working on some freelance tonight when my itunes shuffled to some tracks I’d composed about 4-5 years ago. To my surprise they still sounded descent! It made me want to dabble again and maybe polish them up but it’s probably one of my lowest priorities at the moment. I thought I would share one of my favorites for now. I used to put these together in my free time. Most are about half finished and pretty rough. They’re all instrumental and electronically composed. I got a lot of inspiration from movie scores so a bunch of them are a little slow and moody. I used give them whatever working-title name popped into my head as I was listening and on that note, here is one titled Riptide:
Riptide (mp3)
Cheers!
I hope to catch up again here before June but until then, see you around, internets.
Tags: 13, 16, 27, 3, 4, 7, 9, life, photography, street art
Posted in illustration, music, politics | 1 Comment »
April 15th, 2008
Hey, again. So I’m finding it quite nice having some free time to do things for myself lately. I’ve done some site design for my mom’s piano studio that I’m now able to actually dice up and put on the web. It’s nothing too special but It’s a good step for her business. I’ll post the link if I’m not too embarrassed later on. Other than that I’ve had a chance to actually cook some descent meals, surf the internets, draw and design.
I discovered some great music too if you’re into low-key Simon & Garfunkel type stuff: Kings of Convenience.
give them a listen on last.fm if you’ve got some time.
Here are a few things that are going on in my sketchbook recently. The first two are referenced from photos and the last one is a bunch of crazy brain-diarrhea.
Tags: 33, 7, 9
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April 14th, 2008
Tags: 15, 21, 22, 29, 4, 6, life, photography
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March 24th, 2008
Things are moving along. I’m hoping I can wrap up some personal projects in the next month or so. This weekend I did some cleaning, saw some friends, watched some basketball, watched Chelsea Vs. Arsenal and found some time to draw. I also have some descent life drawings I think I’ll try and take photos of tomorrow.
ghosts:
I bought what I thought was a blue colored pencil but turned out to be conte. It’s got a cool blue sheen to it in real life. Kind of a happy accident I guess. I Didn’t anticipate having to spray-fix my sketchbook though. Oh well.
From photo reference. 60s clothing:
Spring is on the way. Every year around this time my demeanor seems to improve almost by default. Maybe I should become one of those neopagans that celebrates the equinoxes.
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March 4th, 2008
I’ve been back a week or two now and have readjusted to harsh temperature shifts of KC. 71 and sunny one day, 21 and threatening to snow the next. It’s weird. When you’re routine takes place for more than a week in any place other than where you’re used to residing you start to set into a new routine (or at least I do). Now that I’ve been back as long as I have I can say I actually did have a little bit of culture shock coming back.
While I was settling into my old(new) routine I saw (and photographed—although not very well) a lunar eclipse:
and fell in love with my moleskin. For some reason—maybe for its size—I feel more at ease taking it with me wherever I go. I’ve ended up with pages of life sketches montaged with other weird doodles:
I’ve been thinking up ideas for the new website design. Hopefully I’ll have some free time to realize them soon.
I almost forgot to mention Spring is around the bend. Let’s all piggyback-ride old man winter into the grave and push up the plant life that signals the changing of the seasons. Cheers!
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February 24th, 2008
I can’t say my return trip went without a hitch. The night before I returned to my hotel room to find a note under the door from the hotel apologizing that there may not be hot water until the repair men come to fix their heater. I’ve never had this experience at a hotel… So the morning rolled around and all I could do was give myself a cat-bath before heading out. I informed a member of the staff that I’d like to check out a little later because I’d be going into the office. Fine. So I get back from the office and my key-card doesn’t work. Then they get that worked out and I check out but they take forever trying to figure out how to print Mark’s old receipt (not your fault, Mark, if you’re reading this!) Finally Chee, Simon and some of the other people I worked with pick me up and we head to lunch. We had tapas at this spanish restaurant—delicious.
After that the trip went pretty smoothly. Changing trains with my luggage sucked but I made it to the airport with time to spare. If you ever go through Heathrow security make sure and use the restroom before you go to your gate because after you’re through the virtual strip search they stick you in a bare room with chairs and a few vending machines. The security search there was pretty intrusive but at least the personnel were courteous—a stark contrast to Chicago O’Hare security screening. I felt like an animal. I had to remove my hat, shoes, hoodie, belt and basically unpack my carry-on bag while a security officer yelled stuff about how cold and dark the holding cells were that they would throw you in if you were caught with anything suspicious.
Anyhow, I made it back just fine.
I thought I might now post some of the sketches I did in my moleskin while I was over there. I wish I’d had more time to draw but I wanted to see as much as I could see with the limited time I had to explore.
The first page
some airport/plane sketching
Stuff from Hyde Corner
Russel Square
Russel Square / Zeus from the British Museum.
A day or two after I returned my life drawing course started up. I thought I’d post some of that as well. A couple of these are from the previous semester. I was afraid I would be terribly rusty but I quickly got zoned in. All are 18×24″ on newsprint (with exception to the big pastel drawing).
This is my favorite model we’ve had so far. She’s rail thin but she always has really awesome poses. (45min. charcoal, pastel)
(Charcoal, pastel, 15min.)
(Charcoal, pastel on Canson 25min.)
(Charcoal, pastel, 15 min.)
(Charcoal, 5 min.)
(1 min. gestures)
(1 min. gestures)
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