Fear Beer Bear - Shot Chaser

Line Drawing

Painting

Final

This piece was for a zine in my conceptual illustration class. The theme was Fear Beer Bear and chose to illustrate the issue of date rape. Kinda heavy. The lyrics are bits and pieces from Atmosphere songs.

Figure Painting- 003

This was the largest I've painted so far. It was a 2 session painting so maybe 5-6 hours to complete. I just began adding colors and working the smaller shapes.

Eyedea

A few weeks ago, a musician that changed my life passed away. I couldn't say he was one of my favorites and I wasn't sure how to feel when I first heard the devastating news. But the more I read about it the more disheartened I felt. He changed my life because he opened the world of hip hop for me, back when I only saw what was on mtv. Rap was the first element I was exposed to, was the most horrible at but became an expressive vessel for my life.

I first saw Eyedea battling on HBO in a competition called The Blaze Battle back in 2000. Man, he ripped his opponents so easily! This opened me up to the underground scene, back when Rhymesayers and Definitive Jux were barely coming up. It went to Scribble Jam, Rawkus Records, Hieroglyphics, Del, Non Phixion, Atmosphere, Aesop Rock, Cage, Stretch and Bobbito, the Wake Up Show, etc. I watched his battles over and over again which lead to other battles and freestyles. This world of hip hop was my school and my homework. After school I went to learn one of the elements of hip hop. I wasn't into the high school experience thing. I fell in love with hip hop and it changed my life. Any BBoy, MC, writer, or dj will tell you the same thing.

Freestyles were the best. The spontaneous build up of energy amongst peers or colleuges or strangers allowed me to become expressive. The best thing I learned was that It is OK to fail, just keep going! Which is something I always forget to do. Failing is such an important part of learning. The battle scene also kept your ego stable because the props you get are well deserved and if your ego is inflated, there will always be someone to knock it down. In the end, it's all fun and sometimes competition but we were all in it for the same goals. I know I'm just ranting now.

Anyway, I just wanted to say Thank You to Micheal 'Eyedea' Larsen for teaching me to know myself and to be confident through it. Your music and voice has touched many hearts and changed the hip hop world forever. Rest in Peace.

Listen to E&A sometime.

Crew of You - The Garden

Lines, Pencil

Paint, Acrylic on Rives

Adjustment, Photoshop

This climactic scene takes place in a Carnivorous Garden where these guards protect a sacred fruit. In this moment, my main character, who is the rookie of the team lets down his teammates when he becomes drenched in fear unsuspectedly out of ignorance of what combat is truly like. He fails to save one of his comrads even though he is the position to do so.

Old Man and the Sea- Character Portrait

Santiago Final, Photoshop

Santiago, Mixed Media

This illustration is a portrait study of a character from Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I tried to work the image so it would be good for print media but I still get a little unclear in the greys. Perhaps I become to careful and knitpicky.

Journal 02 - Thumbs Up - Studies 03

These are the last of plein airs I've done in Journal 2. This consistency of posting has been really helpful with understanding my learning habits as well as my strengths and weaknesses to work on or keep. So, I need to start doing these again.

Journal 02 - Thumbs Up - Studies 02

I also kept Nathan Fowkes work in mind when doing these. Simplify.

Crew of You - Apocalyptic Bad-assery

Lines, Pencil

Paint, Acrylic on Rives Paper

Adjustment, Photoshop

These were for my Conceptual Illustration class, Fall 2009. I really want to fix the painting more but I am just finally deciding to move on. Concept-wise, I didn't really grasp what the purpose of the assignment was (hence the title).

Journal 01- Proof - 21-25

These are the last of my first journal. There are other pages but are just notes and not entries. I also realized how my I enjoy the act of drawing and found how much I use line to communicate a lot of my images.

Journal 02 - Thumbs Up - Studies 01

I tried to get into plein air more and found it pretty difficult to make color choices. I stumbled upon a tutorial on Erik Tiemens website about oil painting. He said to first start just copying John Singer Sargent's pieces in Black and White and then using Burnt Umber and Prussian Blue. I didn't do that at all, but I thought it meant simplifying color with just cools and warms, and so I began painting with that pallette. I found it helpful as it trained me to develop my senses of cools and warms, especially in the greys.

Journal 01 - Proof - 16-20

Drawing, Drawing. APE was pretty dope.

Journal 01 - Proof - 11-15

The main ingredients of visual journalism is: what's outside your head, what's inside your head, and their connections. I've been trying to keep these in mind.

Journal 01 - Proof - 6-10

I heard people said they like my sketchbook stuff better than what I usually put on this blog so I'm trying to get some of these things up. Some of these look wierd because I had no idea what I was doing. Number 9 are notes about visual journalism which I combined with something my other teacher, John Clapp, taught which was visual notetaking. There was also an attempt in how Jonathan Wayshak does his journal entries.

Sculpture- Donato

Barron brought in a bunch of clay for the students during one class while we talked about our characters. This is what I managed to finish.

Journal 01 - Proof - 1-5

My teacher, Barron Storey, taught the difference between keeping a "sketchbook" and a journal. He taught a few things about visual journalism and tied in a lesson: "Lower the claim and raise the proof." In retrospect, many of these drawings aren't "nice" but say something more about the time it was recorded. Many of these entries are my attempts in lowering the claim and raising the proof. In fact, the ones that look "nicer" were less engaging to me.