Tuesday, August 2, 2011

"RAW" art show


This is a one night only event that I got accepted into in Minneapolis - August 25 at 8:00 PM at the Fine Line Music Cafe. The image is a promotional image that a designer from the RAW organization made for me based on a short bio and some images I sent them. The art involves me bringing whatever pieces of my art that I want, but I have to provide all the means to display it - whether that means tables, easels, makeshift walls, lighting... And before all that, preparing the work itself. I really have no work that is in a state to present in a show, so that's what I've been working on doing a lot recently (learning to cut mat boards/frames for art, mounting the art). I am buying a few pre-made frames and going to have a frame service do the installing of glass and backboards.

And here is a link the site for the event itself:

http://www.rawartists.org/minneapolis/fusion

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Ancient Relief Style Project and my first ART SHOWS


Here is a project I've been working on the past month.

I'm still not sure how to describe some aspects of this and why I made it/what parts of it mean, but it's basically a comic strip made in a style influenced by ancient reliefs (Egyptian and Sumerian maybe?). When I was doing preliminary sketches I was thinking of art history classes and how I learned what different elements in pieces of art meant a long time ago - things we would never know now but that people back then would understand right away. So I was sort of making fun of that in a way. The car in the story is based off of this car in a photo I took in Florence, Italy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15978133@N00/5720454606/in/set-72157626583212207

I don't really have a particular reason for choosing that car.

If the story isn't clear: it's basically just a tale of some king and his subjects being given a gift from the heavens (or maybe just thinking that the heavens gave them this gift), and how they get too careless and waste their gift. The way the characters look is influenced by the way people were depicted in ancient reliefs - all sideways and sometimes had exaggerated-looking poses.

One thing I'll say about the border elements is that they usually represent, in some way, the surroundings or environment that I imagine to be around the characters in each panel. Sometimes its a representation of the scene from a different angle. The top and bottom (horizontal) borders in each one are kind of like top-down views of a town.

I'm not sure if I want to ever color it - the original, at least. I am definitely going to experiment with color on the digital file, after I scan it. Might make some prints. We'll see. Glad to have made a more "complete" piece of art this summer. I am going to be in my first art shows outside of school soon, and won't have much time between now and the end of the summer to make anything else (also a road trip to go on before the end too).

And, about the art shows I'm going to be in. Here is a link to the website and the Facebook page for the one night only RAW: Natural Born Artists event:


And here is the website and Facebook page for the month long exhibit that I will have one piece in (I'll post a picture of the piece here too):




Saturday, June 25, 2011

"Turtle"

Here is what I made for the idea I got from the final person I talked to on Omegle chat. They said "Turtles" and that it was for their friend Casey, who likes turtles. In addition to the colored doodle, I included two other doodles I made as well.




Friday, June 17, 2011

Omegle Stranger Idea Number 5

Here is what I came up with for the idea of "Stapler Orgy". I made some different crops on it and I'm just including four of the different crops here. As with my other illustrations for this project it's pretty rough and simple but it gives me some ideas for things I could do in the future (like either expanding and working more on this sketch specifically, or taking style/color choices and applying it to other illustrations I do).




Thursday, June 16, 2011

Haven't forgotten about Omegle Stranger project

I haven't forgotten about the last two people I talked to for the Omegle illustration project. The second-to-last person wished to go by "Molality Party" and suggested the idea "Stapler orgy" or if I had too much trouble with that, "Hitler intensely observing the atomic number of Hydrogen" (the atomic number is 1). Two very strange ideas, and the guy also had a great sense of humor when I talked to him further.

The last person I talked to suggested "turtles", and said to just mention the name Casey, because it was their friend Casey who likes turtles.

I'm sorry this project has taken so long (I told the people I got the ideas from on Omegle that I would try to have each of their pieces up by the end of the week, and that was about two and a half weeks ago now). It was a bad time to start the project, when I was just about to move, and I've been trying to apply for jobs and also hang out with a friend who is going to be going to Denmark for six weeks soon. But, enough explanation/excuses. I am working on sketches for "stapler orgy" right now.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

"A flower with different color petals to show we are all different no matter what color."

That was the idea offered to me by the next anonymous Omegle user I talked to for this project. Like I said before, they disconnected without giving a name. I was also a little confused about the "to show we are all different" part, but oh well. It's what they told me.

The illustration as it is now is not that bold in terms of how I did the color, but I saw some potential to experiment more with that while I was making it, and I included some examples of it with and without the outline. I plan to go back and play around with it more. Also, the flower in the photo I was referencing was actually split at that top part, so that's why it is split in my drawing. I thought it was kind of interesting. Also also, credit to my mom because the flower was one from her garden.




Monday, June 6, 2011

Illustration "Monster Eating Pizza..."

Ok, here is some sort of final version for the illustration "A monster eating pizza made of eifle towers [sic], on Neptune's ring. But Neptune is painted in the style of mondrian." As I mentioned in the previous post, this idea from a random Omegle user who asked to be called "A Daiquiri named Bishop".



There was a brush in Photoshop that I randomly chose that had an interesting-looking effect. I noticed that some of that frayed effect on the right side is not present as much on the left, but when I went to look for the brush again I couldn't find it (or maybe my brush settings had changed - either way, not sure how to get back to that effect again). There are also other various qualities about the piece that I know are not as good as they could be. There are some things about it that I like too. I'm already sort of behind on this project, though, so I'm going to keep moving on, and go back to this piece later to add/refine things.

Also, as a side note, I made the Mondrian-style ring from scratch (well, looked at some of his paintings for reference, but I made my own I mean) - that part took a little while to make.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Doodled ideas for next drawings

The next idea for a drawing came from a random Omegle user who asked to be called "A Daiquiri named Bishop". Their idea was this: "A monster eating pizza made of eifle towers, on Neptune's ring. But Neptune is painted in the style of mondrian."

So here are the small doodles I came up so far with for this idea (sorry the quality is so bad, my access to a scanner has been limited lately):






The next user who offered an idea disconnected before I could get their name, but their idea was this: "A flower with different color petals to show we are all different no matter what color." I'm not sure if they meant to say "to show we are all the same no matter what color", but I guess I shall never know. Anyway, just one idea so far for that one.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Update on project coming soon

Sorry, but not all of the illustrations for this Omegle Stranger Idea project will be done by tonight. It's probably going to take a few days into next week as well. Moving in and settling into my new apartment has taken longer than expected. :/

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

"Alien standing on a bridge about to fall in water and crush thousands of innocent people"



very minimalist with the color, idea might not come across the best, and it probably doesn't look like it took as long as it did... but there was some considerable time I spent trying to get the bridge perspective to look better and the perspective on the alien to look at least okay (it still isn't quite right). Oh well. Might come back to this later, but for now, onwards to the next Omegle stranger idea... (might not be for a few days - packing tomorrow, moving the next).

Alien on bridge

Here is the idea from the second person (in my "get drawing ideas from random people on Omegle" project): "Alien standing on a bridge about to fall in water and crush thousands of innocent people". I have an extremely simple and rough doodle so far (perspectives, on alien especially, are not the best right now):



Like the last idea I forgot to ask whether they wanted a name mentioned or not, as credit for the idea. I gave them the blog address though so if they want they can comment.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Charlie Sheen Riding a Unicorn Behind a Mountain

Recently I've been drawing and doodling a lot, but nothing really more "complete" than that. I was hitting a block in terms of thinking of ideas for some more full illustration to make, so last night I thought of an idea. I went on omegle, a text-only online chat service that pairs you up with an anonymous stranger, and I went from person to person until I had about six ideas for some drawings/illustrations. I told each stranger the basic idea of my project, and gave them the address to this blog, saying that there should be results within the next week. Unfortunately I forgot at the time that I'll be moving into a new apartment on Thursday, so I may not be able to get to every one of the six this week, but we'll see.

For the first two people I accidentally forgot to ask if they wanted a name attached to the final product, but I gave them my blog address, so hopefully they look here and maybe leave a comment. Today I made Idea #1: "Mountain with Charlie Sheen on a unicorn in the background"



Not a masterpiece but I'm working fast with these. Hope to have the next illustration up tomorrow, and hopefully I can squeeze in another one tomorrow as well.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Summer Doodles and Drawings

Here are some various drawings and doodles from my sketchbook the past couple of weeks. A lot of it is rather directionless but I think that experimenting and "play" is sort of what I'm more interested in right now anyway. I do hope to make some stuff that's more "complete" soon. The church ink drawing is a little more complete, but that was begun last December and I was only "finishing" it recently (and I'm not sure I'd call it completely finished yet).


The version on the right came when I copied+pasted the drawing into a Photoshop document that was in "Bitmap" mode, and everything ended up looking pixelated. I liked the effect so I included it here (you have to zoom in to see it).






I think I posted the "JAN" sketch before, but this time... there's dots.




My friend Liz, one night in Ireland, challenged my brother and me to draw all the Pokemon we could remember off the top of our head (without looking any up). I've played some of the recent Pokemon games for the DS, but I was still surprised at how many I could draw, because I don't remember seeing them as much in those recent games I had played. I also noticed that they were all from the first generation Pokemon games.


this is the church drawing I mentioned before; started December 2010, and then I worked on it more these past couple of weeks. It is of a church next to Kylemore Abbey in Ireland (I drew from a photo of it).

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Twin Fury

A year or two ago I got a clip art book from my parents for Christmas (I think it was Christmas), but I had never really looked through it thoroughly or used it until recently. About a week ago my brother and I were looking through some of our books, in order to find some to give to charity. I came across this and put it aside, and then today I scanned a bunch of pages from it. I posted a bunch of images from it that I found amusing or interesting on my tumblr, and then proceeded to get carried away taking a few images from it and trying to make some sort of illustration.

I had no specific idea in mind to start with, so I just experimented and played around. Not sure if I would or could call any of these "complete", like I said, they're more experiments.

If anybody's wondering, the image in the middle (in most of them) is two men (or boys?) doing some sort of judo-wrestling.

















Sunday, May 22, 2011

Florence, Venice and Paris - sketches and doodles

After my 4.5 months studying abroad in Ireland, my brother Dustin and I spent two weeks traveling in other countries around Europe. Dustin did basically all of the booking and scheduling (thanks again Dustin), and while it was still somewhat stressful at times, overall it was completely worth it and amazing. I didn't do a whole lot of drawing while there, but I did some, and most of those are posted here.




on the page with little faces: the building on the top of the left page was across the square in front of the Duomo, at night, during a crowded festival/concert thing going on. some of the gestural sketches on the right page are from people dancing on the stage at that concert. the little faces were just from my mind, based on a vague impression of people in Florence I had seen that night.


this was near the train station where we first entered Venice.


Paris blind contour sketches - I was sitting in a restaurant and all of these people were in cars or on motorcycles, stopping when the light was red at the intersection outside the window. I was pleasantly surprised at how I captured some of their faces (I'm still fairly new to doing blind contour drawings of faces).