ooblog

Over the fall semester of 08, I taught two classes at NYIT.  One was a computer class and the other, an illustration class.  The illustration class are comprised of students who are getting a crash course in illustration as there isn’t an illustration track available.  In the illustration class I covered a few quick one hour or less demos to give the students an introduction to a variety of media including, pencil, watercolor, and ink and brush.  I figured I would post what I did in class as well as how I continued to work on the pieces after the demos ended.  The watercolor is part of my perfume piece under the illustration section of my site and I worked straight through so there are no stages.  There is no such thing as bad art, just unfinished art.

In other news, my friend Noah published a book which is getting some pretty good reviews.  He made a skull a day and documented it.  SKULLS has been chosen as one of the Top Ten 2009 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers by the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association).  He is currently in the process of revamping another project related to space pirates as corporate outlaws.  Check them out here.

http://www.ALRdesign.com, http://www.spacepirate.org

One of the best classes I ever attended while I was at SVA was Joo Chungs Monday morning drawing class.  (I also did Greg Cranes painting class on Monday afternoons which made my Mondays pretty long.)  It was the perfect start for the week.  Every week was the same structure.  One pose from 9-noon.  Joo would walk around the room correcting peoples drawings and every once in a while, comment on current museum shows which were taking place or artist worth checking out.  He has a talent for saying some of the right things at the most relevant times.  Usually they aren’t too obvious.  It was always enough information to make you think, but not direct enough for you to be handed anything without thinking about it.  I have a sketchbook dedicated to his class, which makes up about 50 drawings.  I attended his class for the full time I was in school except for the first semester since I didn’t know about it at the time.  I have Mu to thank for this unique opportunity to experience my perception of figure drawing, sketchbooks and art in general in such a new way.  Figure drawing has alway been one of my favorite artistic endevours.  Below are a few of the drawings I did.  I also just updated my site under the series/girl section as an homage to Valentines day.  This section shows some of the images from the sketchbook dedicated to that class.  In the near future I will have twelve more images in this category created outside of this classroom experience.  

I also donated a piece of art to a friend of a friend who is in need of a liver transplant.  Although the benefit was on February 13th, I’m sure you could still donate by contacting The City Reliquary Museum and Civic Organization at 370 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn,NY (the place where the benefit was held) and possibly buy some cool art in the process. 

The 3×3 directory just arrived and it looks fantastic. The directory is about 400 pages of artwork which is sectioned into a variety of categories.  I’m on page 215 if you happen to have a copy.  Charles Hively and his staff at 3×3 magazine did a wonderful job putting this book together in a clear concise manner.  In other news last weekend, my studio mate David Ercolini won the grand prize for the portfolio awards at the SCBWI conference which took place the weekend of January 30.  So what does he win?  He wins a trip to NY and gets to show his work to three Art Directors.  Dave obviously lives in NY so the flight might not be too exciting, but If there are any art directors reading this who want to publish his book, I would suggest contacting him soon.

With the fact that it’s 20 degrees outside on a good day and the pressing work I want to do along with obligations, I figured I would pour my dreams into this piece.  Of course today is actually an exception as it is 48 degrees.  I’m looking forward to those first days of spring when I can go skateboarding in warm weather again.  Although the skater doesn’t look like Rick Mccrank I thought about him, Ethan Fowler, Jerry Hsu, and Marc Johnson for some reason.  While I was doing a little research I came across this website called www.theberrics.com.  Eric Koston and Steve Berras skate facility where they are filming a game of skate tournament among other interesting video.  If you are a fan of skating you should check out this site.  I don’t typically get into drawing buildings, but living in NY makes me feel like it would be wrong to ignore them in pictures.  Of course if there is anyone out there wanting to hire me for some epic city scene I would have to think about it for a while, but who knows. . . emails are welcome.  The piece in itself was fun and I had to give image inclusion to some of my favorite companies.  Of course I’d love to do some skate deck graphics.  If you look hard enough you might see a dominion sticker in this one.  Here are some of the stages this one went through.