Friday, December 24, 2010

Mariachi de Malaguas



NEW PRINT!...kinda. Originally, I completed it as a digital piece (YUCK) for an in-school assignment;but, as usual, I wasn't fulfilled come the final. Mostly because my heart is with printmaking, not the computer. Super psyched about my mastery of printing transparent colors and gradients in this piece...okay, just kidding...mastery has yet to come!


...although, this is the most delicious gradient I've printed to date. Its a good day when the gods of printmaking are on your side! :)

I also finished a second print which is a combination of the pieces I illustrated for the short story, Laura's House, for the recently printed issue of Instigatorzine, but I didn't want to piece it together digitally with the baby scanner I had to use for the print above...so please bear with me!


In other news, I've finally freed myself from the grips of lethargy and submitted a piece to the annual Postcards from the Edge show...which I'm reeeeally excited about! Its for an amazing cause and has a fun twist to it; its all anonymous...unless you purchase the postcard! For a pretty inexpensive amount (and, in effect, donating to a good cause) you could have yourself the art of some extraordinaire out there!

Keeping in line with the theme of the show, I won't reveal mine til after January 8th when the show comes down, but I will tell you that its titled Eye Keep Losing All My Teeth and Friends. Hope you can make it out to any of the three showings!

This will probably be my last post for the year! WHUUUT!? I hope you all have an awesome holiday filled with all your faves and the best times to ring in the new year. Hope you'll stick around for the adventures in 2011!!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Jillian Dillon


Jillian Dillon is now available for viewing online! Click HERE to watch it on Vimeo or check out the trailer (previously posted) above! Still spanning the festival circuit and making big waves! So incredibly grateful to have been able to be a part of the making. BIG news involving more work with Yvette Edery soon to come!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fred Tomaselli


Absolutely everyone must must MUST go to the Brooklyn Museum and check out the Fred Tomaselli exhibition. I went this past Wednesday and it was definitely one of the best shows I've seen to date. This guy's work is MIND-BLOWING...literally! I wanted to see so much more, but I walked out with a supreme amount of brain pain from everything that was already there.

The images online do his work little to no justice. You really have to experience them in person. They are SO perfect and reeeeeally smart. I can't even intelligently articulate how much you should go see this show. JUST. GO!

Check out Flavorwire's review of PART (yes, only PART) of the show HERE.

...there was also an interesting Norman Rockwell show that went behind the scenes of his process. He's definitely super talented (no denying)...but it kinda left me giving him the side-eye in a sense.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Laura's House

 


Here are my two most recent spot illustrations for the upcoming issue of Instigatorzine for the short story Laura's House by Lisa Sofranko. Currently, these are digital, but I'm in the process of converting them into a silkscreen print to get a better handle on my transparency overlays. For these new pieces, I purposely limited myself in terms of imagery in an effort to broaden my symbolic visual vocabulary to reinterpret the story in a concise and different manner. Check it once its printed!


The CREEPS Annual Zine Release Party was excellent! The turn out and distribution was incredible and exciting. Check out the NEW website designed by fellow CREEPS Joseph DeDalto and Michael Maguire (who also made super cool Goosebump POG pins for all the collaborators) and stay tuned for information on where you can get your own copy of CREEPS Annual. Thanks again to Nina Carelli for letting me be involved and being the bomb.com!

 

By the way, if you're into cartoons, the retro, hoarding, collaging, etc. and finding yourself free these days go check out Kenny Scharf and Dearraindrop's collaborative show at The Hole: Hot Glue Hullabaloo. It was INCREDIBALLZ! Kenny's Cosmic Cavern was like experiencing my childhood rolled up into a ball and exploded onto the surrounding walls. Blew my mind and left me with a Sour Patch kids taste in my mouth...which is never a bad thing! Check out Flavorpill's review of the show HERE and check it out for yourself before December 4th.

Its been really difficult keeping up with updating since the loss of my Macbook (RIP), but hopefully my pockets will run deep enough soon to heal my heart with a replacement!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Live Electronics


Since my last update, my friend, Narciso Espiritu, has invited me on board the illustration staff of a local literary zine, Instigatorzine, which is gaining popularity and expanding its distribution at a quickening pace! Above is my second submission for the upcoming October issue, which you can pick up at any of the distributors or order online via the website. CHECK IT OUT!...and lets pretend my first submissions never happened!

PRINT ACHIEVEMENTS
I finished it in two days and I only used 3 separations, which in my experience is unheard of. PROUD!

SAVE THE DATE October 20th, 2010!
Another collaborative effort I've been enlisted for by head creep, Nina Carelli, The CREEPS Collective, is having its Zine Release Launch Party and Gallery Exhibition (which I will be a part of) from 7:00 - 9:00 PM at CULTUREfix in the LES. Check out the FB event here and come out, buy a zine, and have a drink...or four! I'll be debuting a new wacky print that is developing deliciously.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Makin' Moves

YES! Finally, got those two new prints done! This first one required some perseverance...


I'm actually buggin' out a bit for showing this terrible ailment on the eyes, but it just makes me that much happier with the final outcome. This print was barraging me with challenges (the atmosphere versus the medium being the biggest), but I learned so much about screen printing in the process.


Done?...NO! I was okay with it at this point, but something didn't feel right...and when something doesn't feel right it just means somethings wrong, so....


...you fix it! Plus...
 

...IT GLOWS!


This print, on the other hand, came really easy...almost too easy. It was also one of those "I'm realizing as I'm making this that it means more to me than I originally thought it did" pieces, which is a fun plus whenever I'm making new work!

Gonna keep makin' moves and hopefully have BRAND SPANKIN' NEW pieces to share next week!...maybe good news concerning a newly acquired job? Lets not overwhelm my luck! In the meantime...

...my close friend, Erin Dodge, is one of five finalists up for the opportunity to be the new Chopsticks NY cover artist for the 2011 calendar year! You can view the all the finalists work on their home page AND vote for Erin in the process! Loca would be eternally grateful!

 
I also highly recommend making your way to the Whitney to check out the exhibitions Off the Wall: Part 1 - Thirty Performative Actions and Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield. I'm not someone who is big on performance art, but the show is very interesting and worth a look at.

As for Burchfield, Charlie Yoder turned me on to him at the print shop when he compared my Cloud of Hope piece to his work. His large scale watercolors are IN-CRED-IB-LE! My work hardly stands up to them! They're reeeeeally gorgeous. If you're a painter and miss this show...HECK, even if you're not, you'd be out of your mind. Really inspiring! There's even a room decked out in a wallpaper print he designed...which is MIND BLOWING. GO!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Old School

WOAH...been slackin'!! Ehh...not really I guess. Resumé reconstruction is harder than I remember...and job application more daunting!

Anyway, I did finish a print today, (FINALLY) but I had to rush out of the print shop and wasn't able to scan that sucker in. Hopefully, I'll have a second one done tomorrow (One more separation! Fingers crossed!)


...BUT I was able to scan in this guy! It didn't want to be photographed...AT ALL! It was being too difficult. Thankfully, the scanner at the print shop is a higher being from a future dimension (...really that thing is amazing) and was able to put it in its place. I blogged before about three pieces from my Don't Step on the Crack series. This is a fourth piece called Milk Milk Lemonade...should be self explanatory if you were a kid in the past two decades...maybe? More comin' up!

Last time around I mentioned some "treats" I would share and thought it'd be interesting to post up some of the "greatest (ER...not) hits" from my time in school to kinda show my path to where I'm at now.
 AH! My first "illustration" in school! It was a spot for a news article concerning Bush's resistance in cutting down the amount of troops being used in the war. Kinda cliché, but it was my first go...I remember feeling smart about it then. Hahaha!

For this one, Yuko Shimizu had us pair up with a classmate and make conceptual portraits of each other. I remember the paralysis in my brain when she said we couldn't ACTUALLY draw each other. Another college meltdown overcome!



I sometimes forget I took Collage with Victoria Kann. Now that I think about it...LOTS of portraiture going on. Plus, the development of my graphic sensibility! MIA and Billy Holiday...the materials were fun!


Once upon a time, I was obsessed with watercolor...I still am sometimes. Its just such a difficult, unforgiving medium! This was my take on the old practice of the vanitas, which is a still life (mostly) which metaphorically, and ironically, uses material possession to symbolize death and the importance of whats immaterial. Here's where I start being "clever" and a "smart ass" (direct quotation!) Score!

 
Fashion wars was the theme for this piece. Leave it to me to turn fighting furries into the cutest thing you've ever seen in your life! In real life, it'd probably be way more...interesting!

Anyway...thankfully, now I've resigned myself to printmaking. Watercolor and acrylics are fun for color proofs though! Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with scans of the new prints, but we all know how that goes.

Also, if you haven't already, check out the relaunch of my website!

Friday, July 23, 2010

What Is Love?

PHEW! Its been quite the month and post-undergraduate experience recently...

About a week back I finished art directing a show for my friend, Yvette Edery, What is Love?, which received rave reviews and will probably be up for its second wave of shows next month! Probably the craziest deadline I'll have in my life...EVER!

Aside from Yvette's puppets, which are five years in the making, the rest of the show basically came together in...hmm...A MONTH!? Regardless, I'm very grateful for the experience, gray hairs, and YEARS of maturity which were gained.

Hopefully, you were fortunate enough to catch the show and see the set pieces I created with the help of recent NYU graduate, Ambika Trasi. If not...hopefully, I'll have some pictures to share with you soon.

In the meantime, here are some scans of the fabric I silkscreened for the set piece I was solely responsible for, which was also the centerpiece of the show...the Cosmic Circus Tent:


If you've been following me for the past year, you'll realize that I've brought Yvette up before in regards to the previous summer. Last Friday's show was followed by a screening of the short children's film I worked on with her then, Jillian Dillon, which has been accepted into 11 film festivals! Here's the trailer, in case you missed it the first time:


Even though I joined in on the fun later than most of the contributors, I was still able to construct the opening set piece and a few smaller pieces which can be seen throughout the film. I should have the set within the next week to photograph, but for now, here are some of the smaller things:


Silkscreened background behind Jillian Statue and cut floral details (drawn by EunQ)


Miniature changing tent on the beach (in the tent set, I sewed the striped background)


"Be Kind to Hippoplatypi" Sign in City Hall

Now that all my time has been freed up I've been working on a number of projects (I should have more treats tomorrow!) and was able to update my website! Check it out! I really need to get my CSS skills up...this slicing business is reckless! I should be back soon with puppets, animation, and more new work!

Cheers to another crazy month!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Totem Burger

I wanted to make sure I kept my promise to re-blog about a print I posted earlier during my school grind which ended up being the first illustration I got printed! (...or at least that I was proud of.)


Above is the original illustration I did for an early assignment in the fall semester of my portfolio class...back when I was intent on sticking to my weak watercoloring skills.


Once I had committed myself to printmaking I knew I wanted to revisit the Totem Burger project and it became clear that I'd complete it as a woodcut. My only regret is the omission of the beer can on top, but it did give me the opportunity to carve out more spaghetti. Mmm!


I ended up submitting the original print to the student run SVA publication Visual Opinion, which coincidentally was doing an issue focusing on food. I even got to share the spread with an awesomely talented fellow graduate, Keat Teoh! Check out his work! Its sweet!

I've yet to get a scan of the spreads, but Totem Burger was also printed for my feature in a zine created by some of my closest homies up at Wilkes University who make things good and call themselves the POWteam! You can preview their first issue here and friend them here on Facebook! They like friendz!


I always wanted to try digital coloring and have been looking for ways to incorporate it into my prints, so I gave it a shot with this. Could be a new direction to head in with my work, but I'll just stick to my instincts for now. There's always room for exploration!




Here's a treat! My first attempt at silk screening from the beginning of my junior year in the bookmaking class taught by the incredible David Sandlin. Thought it'd be fun to share!

More updates soon!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

FINISHED!

Its been a long time since I've updated, but...ITS OVER! I'm officially the recipient of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration!! YEAH BUDDY!

I gave myself time off, but now I'm getting back on my grind in the worst way!...and there's a lot of exciting things happening!

Exactly one year ago, I started working with Yvette Edery, internationally renowned puppeteer and one of my new great friends, on the production of the short children's film, Jillian Dillon. (See the trailer below!) Even now its being screened in a massive amount of festivals and getting all kinds of deserved praise! All in all, it was an entirely rewarding and exciting experience! (I'll dedicate an entry to the work I've done for her SOON)


Now, exactly a year later, Yvette is preparing a show she's been working on for FIVE YEARS and she's assigned ME to construct some of the pieces for the show!...and as if that isn't enough, in conjunction with the show, I will have a solo exhibition of work in the gallery space where the show is taking place during its duration at Flushing Town Hall! AHHH!! More updates as the date gets closer!

Here are three pieces from a series I worked on in Joo Chung's Fine Art of Illustration Class titled Don't Step on the Crack. Through the use of various mediums and the exploitation of text I explored the fetishism and explicit nature behind childhood sayings. Above are the pieces for Fuzzy Wuzzy, Liar Liar, and Cooties. Currently missing are the pieces Milk Milk Lemonade and Pizzaface. (They'll be on my website after the update)



These are two pieces I did for my portfolio class with Tom Woodruff and Yuko Shimizu for a Seasons based CD project. I was using them as color studies for prints that are almost done! They're based on the songs House Ghost and Cloud of Hope by one of my favorite bands, Best Fwends! Check 'em out!

I'm going to be mighty busy for a while, but I will try to keep up! ALSO!...look out for the website update at some point! ROUGH! Its been a while!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Googly Eyes



Most people who know me know I am obsessed with googly eyes. Almost too much for my own good. As a result, here's a monoprint I made where I use them to form an alphabet. I used some white acryclic to fuss with some details and pop out the letters.

I thought it'd be a good move to use a bit of black in the upper right corner, but I don't think I like it too much anymore. I like how delicate the rest of it looks in comparison. I'll probably redo it and edit this post soon!

I also tried a variation where I only monoprinted the background to get that beautiful texture and then silkscreened the letters on top of it, but I'm not feeling it too much. That could change with time. Its been known to happen.

Thoughts?

Sunday, April 4, 2010

All Everybody Wants Is Sugar

ONE MORE MONTH!

The exciting part is I think I have the necessary ten pieces for my final portfolio review. On the other hand, nothing ever seems to be enough.

This was probably the best piece I made my junior year, also for Marcos Chin's Fashion Illustration Class.



For the assignment, we received a variety of Andy Warhol quotes and we needed to pick one to illustrate. I have my other sketches, but they were pretty terrible; however, I did go through an extensive refinement process before I went to final, as you can see.


This ended up being the final drawing which transferred pretty accurately into the final. Regardless, there were still things I could have refined. Mostly, the honey oozing from the trees.

 

Like the last piece I posted, I also ended up refinishing this piece as a silkscreen print. I think, in general, it works a lot better than the original. It feels warmer, the way it should feel.

I have a couple of cool projects going on which should be done within the next couple of days, so expect more updates!

 

Here's a sneak at a final I'm working on tomorrow, mostly for the sake of copyright. I scanned in the sketch to blow it up and left it in the print shop scanner by accident.

Enjoy!