NANU Illustration - A Blog of Illustrations and other art stuff

Tis the season

2011-12-21T18:26:00.000-05:00

For our first assignment from my joint blog, Pickled Pictures, with Catherine Moore, we decided to make holiday cards. It's posted on the Pickled Pictures blog too, but since this blog has more traffic I'm reposting it for the holidays!

Pickled Pictures premiere!!

2011-12-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

My friend and fellow illustrator, Catherine Moore, and I started a joint blog to keep our illustration skills well sharpened and ready for big things. The blog is called Pickled Pictures and can be found here. We would love for you to check it out!

Hero

2011-12-07T09:18:00.000-05:00

I was sent this video today and was blown away. The video shows the artist, Miguel Endara, drawing a portrait of his father, titled Hero. The entire drawing is composed of tiny dots created with a Micron technical drawing pen. It's like a Georges Seurat painting except in black and white.

Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.

Duke of York Square

2011-12-01T11:31:00.002-05:00

Duke of York Square, London UK

I finally finished coloring the Duke of York Square drawing I made while sitting in front of the Saatchi Gallery in London back in August.

Tom Gauld

2011-10-30T17:51:00.000-04:00

I recently came across the work of Tom Gauld. He is an illustrator and cartoonist based in London whose style reminds me a bit of Edward Gorey's - it's simple, quirky, the textures created are great and work is also hilarious, just like Gorey's. While I was perusing his website, I came across this very amusing alphabet.

Edibles in London

2011-10-23T06:58:00.002-04:00

Update Oct 24: Edibles in London was accepted to the They Draw & Travel website!

I recently traveled Europe for seven weeks. The places I went to were: London, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, and Warsaw. I also traveled all over Spain, visiting Madrid, Segovia, Bilbao, San Sebastian, Pamplona, Barcelona, Ibiza, Granada, Sevilla via Gibraltar, Cordoba and Toledo.

As I traveled, I drew. I filled about three sketchbooks. I wondered what I could do with the drawings; maps or a city/county guide-pamphlet would be fun to make. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make maps. Then, very conveniently, when I got back to Tanzania I came across a website called They Draw & Travel. It was started by a brother-sister design-illustration team based in Western Massachusetts. People are free to submit illustrated maps of places they have lived in, visited, or want to visit. A few of my friends, Tatiana and Blythe had submitted maps, so I thought submitting a map to TDAT would be a great place to start my cartography project!

Edibles in London highlights a few of the places where I had some tasty food. I wish I had more time to try out some more foods at Borough Market.

Paul McCartney contest

2011-09-07T18:48:00.000-04:00

Please vote for my entry in the Paul McCartney art contest! Your votes will help my work get into the top 50. Vote here.

Pinnacle: Reinvent the Icon

2011-08-27T05:51:00.001-04:00

Recently, I was approached by Joshua Katcher of The Discerning Brute. He wanted to feature my "Furocious" poster on his website Pinnacle: Reinvent the Icon. The website is dedicated to providing awareness and critical commentary on the fashion industry in regards to fur.

Check out the feature here.

Zanaki Street

2011-08-14T13:10:00.000-04:00

My family and I went to the sokoni (Kiswahili for "market") on Zanaki street today. While Baba was out buying enough fruits to feed a platoon, I sat in the car and drew what I saw from the window. These were the two vendors right across the street from where we were parked.

Airplanes, people, and animals

2011-08-09T12:32:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since my last real post. I finally got time and my act together today to scan (and color) some sketches that I've done in the past month in Tanzania.

The first two were done on two different flights on Coastal Aviation to Zanzibar. The first drawing a view from my seat in the back. The second is from sitting behind the two captains seats.

The next two are of my friend, Dana, fly fishing in Zanzibar. Unfortunately, he didn't catch anything, but I did get the opportunity to draw someone fishing for the first time!

The next set of drawings were made in Ruaha National Park, which is southwest of Dar es Salaam, about 625 kilometers away.

SCAD MFA Illustration Portfolio Night

2011-05-23T00:22:00.001-04:00

Wow, I just noticed I haven't posted anything on my blog in over 2 months! This only means one thing: that I was SUPER busy making wonderful illustrations for my portfolio. :D

I graduate from graduate school in less than two weeks. The night before graduation, myself and 18 of my friends will celebrating and showing off our work at our portfolio night!

The details:
Where: The Kennedy Pharmacy, 323 E. Broughton St, Savannah, GA
When: June 3, 6-9pm

There will be food and beverages, lots of art, and good times. Please swing by!

Our video ad:
SCAD MFA Illustration Portfolio Exhibition from Ahwon Min on Vimeo.

For a sneak preview go to: www.counter-illustration.com

Fur Free Alliance - Design Against Fur poster competition

2011-02-24T15:42:00.000-05:00

Furocious
11 x 17 inches
Pen and Digital

The latest project we worked on in Poster Illustration revolved around political/social/environmental issues/causes. We had the option of doing whatever or creating a poster for the Fur Free Alliance's Design Against Fur competition. I had a number of ideas ranging from fur-free to recycling to pollution. I ended up going with my concept for the Fur Free poster.

Birds of Avalon

2011-02-17T16:22:00.001-05:00

Birds of Avalon
18 x 24 inches

The Savannah Stopover Music Festival was holding a poster contest for the upcoming festival. Mohamed (prof) assigned it as a project for our poster class. I made mine for a band called Birds of Avalon (I don't really know them other than 1-2 songs).

Work in progress - Brighter Day Natural Food Store

2011-02-08T10:59:00.001-05:00

A small part of a project I'm doing about Brighter Day Natural Food Store in Savannah.

on-location drawing, Pen, digital

A Hard Day's Night - film poster

2011-01-21T10:25:00.000-05:00

A Hard Day's Night - film poster
Pen, watercolor, digital
20 x 30 inches

The first assignment in Poster Design class with Mohamed Danawi was to create a film poster. This is my take on The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, 1964. The movie is a bit like a mockumentary of their lives at the time at height of Beatlemania. The film has some hilarious dialog and lots of screaming girls.

Drawn: Dar es Salaam, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Mumbai, Dubai

2011-01-08T01:22:00.002-05:00

Last week I returned to the US after being away for 5 weeks. I visited Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania, Ahmedabad, Udaipur and Mumbair in India, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (during my 20 hour lay-over). I left the US with a half used sketchbook, a brand new watercolor sketchbook (60 pages?), and two watercolor paper blocks.

The last time I went to Tanzania I had packed too many art supplies and hardly used them, so this time I packed fewer after careful calculation..."careful." I didn't take into consideration that I enjoy drawing on location so much more than I did in early 2009 and therefore draw a lot more than I did in early 2009. Barely the end of week 2 of the trip, I had breezed through the second half of the sketchbook and already filled in the first quarter of the new one. By week 3 I had to really stop my self before drawing and ask whether or not the subject was worth using up the precious 8-10 pages left of the book. Generally I don't really sketch on paper blocks because then I'd have a pile of loose sheets to keep in order, but at the rate I was churning out drawings, I had no choice.

Drawings from Zanzibar can be viewed here. The following drawings I created using a Rotring pen and watercolors in my sketchbook or on watercolor paper blocks.

Old man next to a road-side fruit stand. I'm 99% sure that the stand did not belong to him for he left after a little while and there was also a younger man tending it the whole time we were there. My dad stopped to buy mangoes for us to take to the beach. We were parked next to the stand for maybe 10 minutes or so and I thought it was a enough time to make a quick drawing.

Every time I go home to Tanzania, I HAVE to go to Bongoyo Island at least twice. Bongoyo is a marine reserve island right out side Msasani Bay in Dar es Salaam (north of city center "town"). To get to the island you have to buy a ticket for a charter boat at The Slipway, which is a shopping center type place, but much nicer than any shopping center in the US since it's located right on the water. The boat ride to and from the island is about 45 minutes. On the way back, I drew the folks who were sitting across from me.

This is a long shelf in my aunt's pantry.

India:
My dad and I went on a 24-hour trip to Udaipur, Rajasthan. We hired a taxi in Ahmedabad and started the 4-hour drive at 6:30am. When we got there, the drive dropped us off in the old city area and we walked the narrow streets, shopped, window shopped, took some pictures and drew some scooters and a vegetable cart.

On the second day, my dad and I did a tour of the Palace Museum. This drawing is of the palace post office. The case at the bottom is the original, antique pigeon roost, and the hanging cages are the more recent cages. The palace became a museum in the 70s, so I'm pretty sure this postal room is no longer in use.

The following weekend my whole family and I took a sleeper train from Ahmedabad to Mumbai. We stayed at my great aunt's flat. This is the view from her dining room window.

The day after we got back from Mumbai, my mom, sister, nephew and I were invited to accompany a very close family friend to her organic farm, a 45-minute drive outside Ahmedabad. I drew the buffalo from the farm next door.

I left India to return to the US on December 29th. I had a 20 hour lay-over in Dubai so the airline booked me a hotel. After resting up, I ventured into Dubai to Meena Bazaar, the textile market. Dubai is split over Dubai Creek. Meena Bazaar is on one side, and the Gold Souk is across from it. This illustration shows the creek, the ferries, and the Gold Souk.

This drawing is of Meena Bazaar itself.

I visited the Dubai Museum and drew the taxidermied birds that hung in the entrance to the galleries.

Drawings from Zanzibar

2010-12-09T16:02:00.003-05:00

The first weekend of December my parents, my sister, my nephew, and I flew over to Zanzibar for a weekend of hanging out at the newly opened hotel that my parents designed - Sea Cliff Resort and Spa Zanzibar. It was a ton of fun and even more fun because I started a new sketchbook! The sketching began at Dar es Salaam Airport Terminal 1 (domestic flights), continued through the weekend and ended on the plane ride back to Dar.

Since the flight to Zanzibar is 25 minutes (I think it's about 50 miles north) the planes used are the tiny 12 passenger planes - Cessna Caravan planes. The above drawing I did while standing outside the departure lounge.

The second pilot seat is almost never used by a second pilot, usually a passenger can sit there if you ask. So I ended up sitting there and drew the dashboard. It was hard to resist pushing the buttons.

Sunday morning my dad and I took a cab into Stone Town (built by Omani merchants in the early/mid 1800s) so that I could draw the old buildings, narrow streets, muhogo (cassava) roaster, sugar cane juice maker, people sitting on stoops and scooters, and all the jumble of wires and cables that connect one building to the next.

These two buildings are on Kenyatta Street. The one on the left belongs to Eric and Saada (folks we know) and the one on the right has a carpenter's workshop on the ground floor and a Goan family living on the first floor. The balconies of both houses are have great detail in them.

This is the front of Beit el Ajaib (Arabic for House of Wonders). It was built in 1883 for the second sultan of Zanzibar, then was rebuilt after it was damaged during the Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896 (the world's shortest war; it lasted 45 minutes). I believe it was called the House of Wonders because it had electricity and an elevator, probably other fancy things too. It's now a museum. Look it up in Wikipedia for more info :D

Flying back I sat up front again, this time I drew the whole dashboard and the pilot's hand. The pilot was quite mesmerized by the fact that I draw and paint an entire image in the 20-25 minute plane ride. My sister said that she was worried we'd end up in Tanga with the amount of glancing he did while flying us back!

This last one was drawn on location but painted at home. We'd gone to Addis In Dar, an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner (the best restaurant in Dar and one of my all time favourites). It's located in an old house's terrace. Mood lighting is provided by fabric umbrellas lamps every few feet along the railing and the tall, free standing candle holders. The tee-pee like objects are the table covers. Eating Ethiopian food is a communal activity. Food is brought out on a large plate lined with ingera (looks a bit like a crepe but made from fermented teff batter) and everyone eats from the same large platter. The food is delicious.

Influence Map

2010-11-30T17:38:00.001-05:00

1. Quentin Blake - His illustrations for all the Roald Dahl books are the first that I can remember connecting with as a kid. i was always drawn to the loose, almost frantic quality of his work. and im pretty sure that he's the reason i draw the way i do.

2. Lynn Pauley - recent influence - she does reportage illustration.

3. Peter Reynolds - interning at his company, Fablevision in Boston, is where I realized I wanted to really pursue illustration.

4. Nicolas Marlet - Love the line work in his drawings: delicate, precise, but still loose.

5. Peter Arkle - relatively recent influence - also reportage illustrator. It's fun to his his notes about the characters/places in his drawings - it adds some quirky bits of information otherwise lost to the viewer.

6. Paul Hogarth - One of the first illustrators to really make the reportage style acceptable in commercial work. The level of detail in his illus is incredible.

7. Richard Scarry - loved the details in his work as a kid and still do.

8. Paul Madonna - reportage illustrator.

9. Egon Schiele - He was one of the first artists I was exposed to in high school whose work I really liked and whose style I thought I had some similarities.

10. Gary Larson - Larson's humor is just great and science related. I love science; so what's not to love?! Some of my under grad attempts at comics have similar humor.

11. Bill Watterson - Calvin and Hobbes are super expressive, the content is hilarious, and Watterson's compositions on the larger comics or single frame images work really well and make good use of the assigned space.

12. Alexander Calder - quirky lines in his work. good stuff.

Professor Powers

2010-11-29T14:48:00.000-05:00

I decided to draw my professor, Daniel Powers, during a book binding demo in class a month or so ago. This is that drawing. He looks like he's wearing a camo print shirt but it's actually leaves in various shades of green.

Porsche Poster

2010-11-18T00:55:00.002-05:00

Ink, paper, digital
20 x 30 inches - print size

The last project assigned in Publications class was to create a vintage looking poster for Porsche but using their new cars. The head Porsche guy in the South US region wants to bring illustrative posters back (verses using photographs and all graphic design stuff). So he's going to use our posters to pitch his idea to his superiors...ie: Porsche North America.

"Biblioburro"

2010-10-26T02:30:00.000-04:00

Pen, ink, digital
8.2 x 4.5 inches

Luis Soriano is a primary school teacher in the Magdalena region of Columbia. Some decades ago he realized many of his students weren't completing homework because they didn't have access to books. He started Biblioburro (Donkey Library) with his two donkeys, Alpha and Beto. He rides Alpha and Beto carries the library. Together they travel twice a week from village to village giving children, and adults, access to books.

Self Portrait

2010-09-10T19:58:00.000-04:00

Through out the summer a few of us were trying to figure out a way to help the newbies in the grad program get acquainted with us and our work. Lis came up with the idea to draw self portraits in our respective style with a few stats (name, hometown, fav thing to do in Sav, under grad uni). This is my portrait, after many failed ones. I've decided self portraits aren't for me.

Savannah Illustrated

2010-08-19T12:39:00.002-04:00

One of the projects I'm currently working on is an artists book. The title will be something along the lines of "Savannah Illustrated" and will be a compilation of drawings I've done around Savannah in the past few weeks.

Here's are a few of the drawings.

Broughton St, view from Leopold's Ice Cream Parlor, the beige building on the far left is the front corner of the SCAD library.

The visitor center at Forsyth Park.

The Daughters of the American Republic Cemetery (D.A.R.)

Inside D.A.R. - apparently if you were buried there, you were a big deal.

"Century Plant" in D.A.R.. It's actually not a century plant at all, its a 30 year plant.

Screen Printing yardage

2010-07-23T00:15:00.000-04:00

I LOVE screen printing. I'd done it once before at some workshop thing at Drew Uni. but it was for maybe a few hours and I didn't quite get the full experience. Since I'm in a screen printing class now, I have been doing it for 5 weeks and love love LOVE it. Because it's a class in the fibers department our projects are more based in design/pattern rather than in fine art. The first project we had to make stencils using contact paper. The imagery had to be created using logos in our daily lives. I don't have any pictures of that right now but when I get the project back from the prof I'll post.

The first big project which is due next week was to create a repeat pattern that has a lot of texture; then print the pattern on 2 substrates of 3 yards each. We all had to make texture samplers. Basically we took different materials (India ink, rubber bands, masking tape, acrylic paint etc) that would block light and put them on acetate. We exposed our emulsion coated screens with the acetate underneath on a light table and wherever the light got blocked by the shapes, got washed out after and thus creating a stencil on the screen. I did one pattern with 4 colors. Then picked one of the motif layers from that pattern and made another pattern for the second 3yards.

The 4-color birds are printed on Kona Muslin, and the bird outlines are printed on Kona Cotton turquoise. I also printed a sample of the bird outlines on Magnani printing paper.

I have yet to take good pictures of the 4-color, I'll update this photo as soon as I take a better one.

process photo 1.

process photo 2.

finished!

Since I had so much fun printing the first set of birds, I made a whole new pattern of owls to print for myself on different fabrics and papers (project for Friday July 23). This was the test print on Magnani printing paper.

handmade sketchbooks for Jagu and Nicki

2010-07-14T09:12:00.000-04:00

I made two sketchbooks in June, one for my friend Nicki and one for my cousin-in-law, Jagu.

The blue one is for Nicki and has 70lb drawing paper in it. It has a brass hook-hair elastic closure and batik fabric on the covers. It's a hard bound book. Approximately 5 x 9 inches.

The red one I gave to Jagu. It's also a hard bound but with the stitching exposed on the spine. I've used a elastic hairband as the closure. The book's got 90lbs printmaking paper in it (which actually make a nice watercolor paper too, so I use that a lot in my work). And the covers are made from Marimekko home-dec fabric. Approximately 6 x 11 inches.

pattern - work in progress

2010-07-11T22:29:00.000-04:00

In Screen Printing (in the fibers dept) we have to create a repeat pattern and print 3 yards of fabric. This is my pattern so far. I need to make some changes so I don't have a ton of colors to print, but I'm liking the way this looks so I might just keep it as a pattern for a separate project to finish later with other coordinating designs. Some of the spacing needs to be fixed and eventually color (or leave it in grayscale?), but I think other than that, I'm leaving it as is.

Coaster design - Lyrical Pick Up lines

2010-06-22T19:12:00.000-04:00

Lyrical Pick Up Lines
Mixed media
4 x 4 inches

On Location - Keller's Flea Market

2010-05-25T14:30:00.001-04:00

On Location #5 - Keller's Flea Market - final location drawing field trip.

They had this garden area with old rusty garden things and chairs. Was a great place to sit and draw and observe the interesting people visiting the market.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On Location - Tybee Lighthouse

2010-05-25T14:20:00.000-04:00

Location #4 Tybee Lighthouse and other buildings
The sailor is a mannequin they had in a display case.

After the class/field trip was over, my friends (Jeff, Bri, Erin and Yi) and I went to the beach for a couple hours. Yi and I didn't have swimsuits with us so we sat and drew on the beach.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On Location - SCAD Equestrian Center

2010-05-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Location #3 - SCAD Equestrian Center. Drew some horses and come classmates.

watercolor and pen in Moleskine watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

On location - Oatland Island Wildlife Center

2010-05-25T14:02:00.000-04:00

Location #2: Oatland Island Wildlife Center
Water color and pen in a Moleskin watercolor folio
8.5 x 12 inches

Amy Winehouse

2010-05-25T00:44:00.002-04:00

Amy Winehouse
3D Illustration - fabric, Paperclay, wire, paint, wood, other stuff, Photoshop
10 x 7 inches
actual figure - 15 x 8 x 8 inches

Project #3 in Illustration Markets was to interview an illustrator working today and make an art piece for the same market that the interviewee works in. I interviewed Chris Sickels a few weeks ago. He works in a lot of different markets but primarily editorial illustration. Since Sickels works in 3D, I chose to the the same. I made Amy Winehouse.

She was a TON of fun to make. Making the accessories and clothing was the best part; it was a bit like grown up paperdolls. The purse is my favorite part. It's made from a furry leaf or seedpod I found on the street. I soaked it in water to soften it to make it easier to sew. After it dried, it stiffened up and held the sewn form. I stuffed it with a tiny flask I made and a bag of coke (corner of a ziplock bag filled with salt, then sealed).

I photographed her with the help of Megan Berkheiser, Drawing For illustrators professor, and her husband, Mike. Megan works three dimensionally too so I was able to get lots of feed back from her on how to go about working on the background. I drew and painted the background on paper with watercolors, scanned it in and worked it up on Photoshop, playing with color saturations, levels, and textures.

Hotels.com - Typical Transportation

2010-05-25T00:25:00.005-04:00

Hotels.com - Typical Transportation
Pen, ink, watercolor, and digital
7.25 x 21 inches

Lid
5.5 x 5.5 inches

The final project for Illustration markets was to create an illustration for Hotels.com for a promotional gift package that would come in the form of a paint can filled with goodies. The image should have at least four demographic locations that Hotels.com services and also have points of interest like landmarks, beaches, restaurants, etc.

The cities and monuments I chose were:
New York City, USA - Statue of Liberty
Beijing, China - Forbidden City
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - Askari Monument (tribute to Tanzanian soldiers who fought in WWI)
Agra, India - Taj Mahal
Venice, Italy - Rialto Bridge

I also chose modes of transportation typical of those locations as my other element.
Agra - auto rickshaw - rickshaws are common all over India but I needed a city with a recognizable monument
NYC - yellow cab
Venice - gondola
Beijing - bicycle
Dar es Salaam - dala dala - the privately owned city buses that have loosely set routes and no time table (they are also packed to the high heavens during peak hours, which means it's normal to see people hanging on from the open doorway). The term "dala dala" was coined back in the 1960s when the fare was five cents, according to Wikipedia, "dala" is jargon for five. According to my mom other possible origins of the term:
the exchange rate back then was 5 cents to a dollar
a 5 shilling coin was the same size as a US dollar coin

and the way Tanzanians pronounce "dollar" would be "dolla", dropping the R, which probably turned into "dala."

On Location - Roundhouse Railroad Museum - May 11-12

2010-05-23T11:41:00.001-04:00

The ticket for the RR Museum is valid for 3 days. My friend, bri, who is also in the class, and I went back to ride the train since we missed the times the original day of visit. The train ride was really not worth it. We were told it goes beyond the museum to places inaccessible by foot, we literally rode 100 feet in one direction, came back to the roundabout and went 100 feet in another direction to the warehouse they're converting into Savannah's first children's museum. After the "ride" we walked around and hung out in the workshop/blacksmith area to draw all the equipment.

Pen, ink and watercolor in Moleskine Watercolor folio book
12 x 8.5 inches

View from the top

2010-05-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

I went to Rooftop Bar the other night at the Bohemian on River St. This is the view at sunset.

sketchbook
10"
watercolor, pen

In Character - A Journal of Everyday Virtues

2010-05-07T16:53:00.003-04:00

In Illustration Markets last week we submitted our editorial assignments. The assignment was to create three illustrations - one cover, and two spots - for In Character magazine. Each issue of the magazine is about one virtue. The few that got picked by other students were honesty, generosity, wisdom, and one more but I can't remember the word, something to do with selflessness. The issue I chose was the Grit issue. Grit means "stick-to-it-ness," perseverance, not giving up.

I read a few articles and decided to go with one about Seabiscuit the racehorse from the 30s/40s, and an article on Albert Einstein and how he never gave up even though his peers often did.

The Einstein article talked about how he never gave up or lost hope, Einstein was determined to find results. The article quotes Einstein describing himself as "an ostrich with [his] head forever buried in the sands of relativity." This quote stuck to me and lead my to the final drawing. Since I had to have consistency in the images I created, and this one had lots of ostriches in it, it only made sense to carry the animal theme through out the rest of the pieces, which also worked out well since Seabiscuit is a horse. I also had to continue using the element of type so the text didn't seem random.

Pen, ink, watercolor and digital color
8 x 7.5 inches

The Seabiscuit article describe the horse as, to put it in one word, awkward. The article had a whole list of characteristics that were wrong and not beneficial for racehorses, all characteristics that Seabiscuit seemed to have. Seabiscuit apparently lost every race for two years, or something like that, apparently it was because his trainer didn't care much for him. There was a change of trainer and the second one gave poor awkward Seabiscuit some TLC and the horse went on to become one of the greatest racehorses in racing history.

This is my spot illustration for the article.

Pen, ink, watercolor and digital color.
7.5 x 5 inches

And finally, the cover. The cover was a bit of a challenge. I had to show "grit" but not really reference any of the articles but just illustrate what the word means. Plus I had to use animals and text. I researched sea turtles, humpback whales, penguins, and hammer head sharks. All these animals have to go on long, hard voyages in order to reproduce/eat. But I felt that they were too obvious a solution. I ended up choosing African termites! They build mounds that can sometimes be over six feet tall! They've definitely got some grit. The cover illustration became the only one without text that I created, but it has the journal and issue name so I think that counts as type.

Pen, ink, watercolor and digital color
10 x 7.5 inches

All three are dated April not May.

sketches

2010-04-23T13:36:00.001-04:00

Model in Drawing For Illustrators

Mark drawing at Barnes and Noble

On location sketching

2010-04-11T14:26:00.000-04:00

4.25 x 4.25 inches when closed

Instead of having Drawing for Illustrators class on Thrusday April 15, we had class Saturday evening on River Street to do some on location drawing. I took a mini sketchbook I had made sometime in the summer of 2009. I had made it with black paper using the Ox-plough binding technique. But then realized I had no way of really drawing on black paper, so this past January I applied a square of gesso to each page. I decided that this sketchbook would be fun to work in for yesterday's location drawing. I also did a few other sketches in my other book.

I met the saxophone player, his name is Izeeky or something like that. He fought in the Vietnam war and is a native of Savannah, GA. There is also a sketch of the fountain in the newly opened Ellis Square in City Market and the dreadlocked street vendor on River St.

Freddie Mercury

2010-04-07T12:42:00.001-04:00

Freddie Mercury
watercolor, pen and ink, digital
8.5 x 11 inches

The first project in Illustration Markets was to pick a celebrity with some sort of juicy history and make a portrait. We were given a stamp template and were asked to scan and drop our portraits into the template. I chose Freddie Mercury from Queen.

Link to a few of the prelim sketches

Knick Knack Attack

2010-04-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

In Drawing For Illustrators we had to make a box with things and make it a self portrait. I used toys, knick knacks, fabric, string, wire and other things that I've had for years and years to create my surrealish still life box. We then had to create an imaged based on the box we made.

Pen and watercolor on printmaking paper
12 x 8.5 inches

The box:

I want to break freeee.

2010-04-01T00:26:00.000-04:00

Sketches and studies of Freddie Mercury for the celebrities project in Illustration Markets.

I'm really liking this quarter so far. I'm taking two illustration classes and one fibers class (elective). And my two illu profs, Kurt Vargo and Megan Berkheiser, are super awesome. They know so much about the industry and have so many stories to tell. They're also encouraging me (and other students) to work in a manner we feel most comfortable. Since I love drawing with my pen, they both want me to continue doing that and will help me develop more line-vocabulary to incorporate into my work to make it more interesting. It's a great feeling knowing that my final piece will pretty much have the same feel/quality/mood as my sketches - something that wasn't necessarily translating through before.

Folks and creatures

2010-03-13T22:03:00.000-05:00

sketches and blind contour drawings

"Romping" - Digital Direct Painting

2010-03-11T13:54:00.001-05:00

"Romping"
10 x 8 inches
Digital

In Computer Illustration we had to do a direct painting in Photoshop. Direct painting basically means you draw/paint straight in Photoshop (or Painter, whichever program you're using) and treat it the way you'd treat a canvas painting.

It had to be a selfportrait, revealing something someone wouldn't see or know unless you tell them.

Sat in a different location in class...

2010-03-09T19:03:00.001-05:00

...which provided a whole new set of backs of heads to draw!!

Ringo

2010-03-09T01:28:00.004-05:00

Ringo
3D Illustration - fabric, Paperclay, wire, gesso, acrylic, gouache, wood

For our final projects in Illustration Techniques II we got to choose from the assignments we all wrote earlier this quarter. I decided to do Jeff's 3D illustration assignment which expanded on last quarter's project to make a musician (to be eventually used on in Rolling Stone Magazine). Jeff's project wasn't limited to musicians but I decided to continue with The Beatles and make Ringo playing the drums. This assignment not only required me to build models but also to photograph them to create a scene/mood.

During the Ringo Photoshoot, I also included John.

In Giant-World:

Some photos that didn't quite make the cut:

Manilla and her Chinchilla

2010-03-06T15:25:00.001-05:00

My first attempt, in many years, at a limerick.

There once was a girl named Manilla.
She loved to play with her chinchilla.
Then one day it died
while it attempted to hide
in the power outlet in the villa.

Sketches of classmates

2010-03-04T00:09:00.001-05:00

Today was Day 2 of research paper presentations. This is what people looked like while presenting or while listening. Sketches are a combo of ones from Day 1 and 2. (The minimoleskine was disassembled, coffee-ed, and rebound about a month ago).

Note: the first image contains neither classmates nor real people (the guy on the left is on a TV screen..so he's a sketch of an image).

Too many sketchbooks!

2010-02-25T20:25:00.007-05:00

Sometimes I realize I have too many sketchbooks going at once, yet feel the need to start another. I bought one earlier this year but I've discovered I don't like the quality of paper in it. I really only use it for class work which I then cut out and hand in to the profs. I'm going back to the cahier style Moleskine notebooks with the thin paper/flexible covers and making my own hardcovers for them. I find the paper more liberating than the thicker counter part, which make me have "stage fright" cause I want to fill them with quality work then...whereas the thinner paper, I don't feel the need to impress as much! Anyway, here are 3 photos of the 3 covers I've made for the cahier Moleskines.

Books 5-7 will have gridded paper inside. I might douse them in coffee too. Or tea. Or both.

Book 3 is a small pocketish size book with a cloth cover which i cant really draw on and i like the color blue so its staying as is. and book 4 is the one I don't like, but I did draw on the cover:

Boom, it's a monster!

2010-02-24T20:46:00.001-05:00

My friends, Mark and Lauren, and I have started a joint blog. It's called Boom, it's a monster!

Here's a link to my first post.

Noah's Arkives

2010-02-23T22:52:00.007-05:00

Noah's Ark
Gouache on illustration board
12 x 18 inches

It's finally finished! I think this is the first time in a VERY long time that I finished a piece for class without pulling an all nighter! It's so exciting. It not even 11pm! I still have to mat it for critique tomorrow but that shouldn't take too long. Every time I use gouache, I like it more and more. It's so buttery and bright. I had fun making textures in this painting; used a sponge to put a little grain in the wood wall panels. I was expecting it to be some what difficult to maintain the sketchy look I had going in the comps but I think it worked out pretty well in the final!! Not too sketchy, not too refined.

Related posts:
Final Color comp
Sketches

Work in progress photos:

2011 Hilton Head International Young Artists Piano Competition

2010-02-23T02:37:00.008-05:00

Hilton Head International Youth Artists Piano Competition
Digital
February 2010

For our third assignment in Computer Illustration we had to create a book cover or make a poster for the 2011 Hilton Head International Young Artists Piano Competition. The guidelines were to illustrate the cover/poster using digital collage and create and use at least three of our own digital brushes. We could scan in drawings, textures, hand-written text, etc and combine it all in Photoshop. I had a hard time getting started, bounced many cover ideas back and forth for about three class periods and a number of hours outside. Eventually I decided that the poster might work better. But I was having issues with that too. However, after many, MANY hours working on the piece, it's finally finished, along with my sanity. I hope it looks ok - the text/typeface is what caused the most grief for me. Good thing I'm not a graphic designer.

Noah's Ark - final color comp

2010-02-17T13:14:00.001-05:00

A combination of Color comps 1 and 4.

sketches and color comps for gouache project

2010-02-17T04:48:00.004-05:00

Three black and white comps for the gouache project for Techniques 2. We had to illustrate Noah's Ark in an unusual/unfamiliar way. The first one is a cross section type image with all the animals leaning on each other. They would have a "oh boy..when will this be over" look on their faces. The second is Noah and his specimen collection. And finally, the one I will be drawing in the final shows hanging out in his cabin in the ark after the rains stopped, and the earth dried. The sacrificed animals got taxidermied and hung on the walls. Noah's not as good as they say :D

I did these color comps in Photoshop because I was pressed for time. Ideally, I would have done them in gouache.

Garba - backlit watercolor

2010-02-10T02:44:00.005-05:00

13 x 9 inches
Winsor Newton watercolor on Arches 140 lb cold press paper

The second project in my Techniques II class, we had to create a backlit scene and paint it in watercolor. My piece shows a traditional/folk dance from India called Garba. The women are all wearing chaniya cholis (kind of like a saree but not). I had issues with my firelogs, oh well, pretend they're not there!

I apologize for the dark image, its 3am and my lighting is awful. Will scan and post a better one after I get it back from Professor Powers.

I smell undhiyu - Computer Illustration

2010-01-30T17:15:00.003-05:00

I smell Undhiyu
Photoshop colors, pen line drawing
14 x 10 inches ish.

The first real assignment in Computer Illustration was to scan a sketch and use Photoshop to color it, focusing on layers, shading and highlights. I got to use a Wacom Cintiq for the first time and I LOVE it, less frustrating than the tablet (though I do love my tablet still :) ).

This is a sketch of my cousin in India cooking.

Scratch board illustration

2010-01-20T00:23:00.008-05:00

Rocky Raccoon
6 x 8 inches
Scratchboard - clayboard and India ink

The first project for my Illustration Techniques 2 class is a scratchboard illustration based on song lyrics of our choice.

Scratch board technique requires the use of scratch tools, quill pens, and permanent black india ink on clayboard. The final image is in black and white. You either lay the blacks down and scratch away to reveal the white, or you leave areas white and pen/brush-in black.

I chose "Rocky Raccoon" by The Beatles. The picture below is about 50% done, I blocked out the blacks and whites, keeping it ready for scratching.

This is a picture of it about 80% done, with some cross hatching, I need to figure out a way of dealing with the white corner at the top right so its not so white in comparison to the rest of the image. In the prelims the white looked fine, but now I'm not so sure.

and suddenly...

2009-12-15T10:08:00.004-05:00

The Prince was unaware that Rapunzel wore hair extensions.

I tore out the middle 9 pages of the Moleskine and taped them to make one large page. I'll some how attach it back in the book.

pages from the usual sketchbook

2009-12-15T07:53:00.006-05:00

Sketches from the past two-ish months.

open model session at SCAD:

experimenting:

Pixar info session at the Trustees Theater

Last day of Illustration Techniques 1, in class assignment (like a scavenger hunt): a few items on the list: car, bike, tree, dog

last day of Contemporary Art, the corner of the room with the computer desk.

the pool side bar at Mtoni Marin

Chips-Mayai-Kuku (fried-eggs-chicken) roadside shack in Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam

Dubai International Airport

Dinner at Uma Aunty's

Greer at Brighter Day, enjoying a beverage and snack post last contemporart art class.

and suddenly...

2009-12-14T16:33:00.002-05:00

...out of nowhere, a frisbee came hurtling towards Steffan.

Note: No real Steffans were hurt for this drawing.

A study of dogs

2009-12-12T17:29:00.008-05:00

My uncle (my dad's cousin) just got two 11 week old Alsatian puppies. Last night my parents and I went over to his house to meet canine siblings - Rocky (brother) and Simba (sister). I took my new sketchbook along to get a few dog studies to break the book in. When we got home, I painted some of them in with water color.

Simba and Rocky cuddling

Either Rocky or Simba rolling.

Rocky x2

In the sketch above, Rocky kept moving around, so the sketch is from all sorts of different angles! (the caption reads: the movement made him ugly).

Rocky.

Below are two sketches. The first is of my uncle sitting next to his niece. And the second is of my aunt.

Cars in Dar

2009-12-05T05:10:00.005-05:00

It's done!

A cityscape of Dar es Salaam with a few of the noticeable or well-known buildings such as the main Mosque in town, the Lutheran church, the ugly peach colored (what was wrong with white?) colonial buildings, high risers, and the winged Exim Tower. The cars with all the windshields covered in stickers are an extreme but it's not unusual! In Tanzania, car registration/insurance and a bunch of other things need to be plastered to the windshield. There are so many square and circle stickers on everyone's cars it's a little ridiculous. If you have all of them on, they can take up to 6 inches of space from top to bottom corner of one side of the window. I also used the old number plate system with the TZ followed by the plate number. It was a cool system, you could see which were the newer cars by the larger numbers. Eventually they added letters onto the TZ in alphabetical order. So if a TZB came out, you knew it was a newly purchased car. Now the number looks random like it does in the States.

Click here for the WIP post.

Sketchbook Project - "And Suddenly..." installation 1

2009-12-03T14:08:00.006-05:00

Here is the first installment of photos of the Sketchbook Project sketchbook. My theme is "And Suddenly...". I basically drew either the anticipation of something about to happen or something that did just happen.

(I photographed the dinosaurs properly so I reposted the pic)

AH!

Spontaneous Dance Party

The idea with the chameleon was that his tongue is sneaking up behind the fly before grabbing it. But I guess if it were shooting out in a straight line that would probably worked better.

...shhhh....

...and the alarm sounds.

"All hail the mighty, honorable Stomach Virus followed by his trusted army of grossness."

...Chen realized too late that the pool was empty.

Whoosh.

...unable to hold it anymore, Bertha popped a squat in 3 seconds flat.

While behaving wild and playing her character's part, the wind changed and her face froze.

Carol had a sudden urge to balance on a beach ball.

WIP - Cars in Dar

2009-12-02T11:34:00.005-05:00

A Work in Progress - WIP. Cityscape of Dar es Salaam with a few of the noticeable or well-known buildings such as the main Mosque in town, the Lutheran church, the peachy colored colonial buildings, high risers, and Exim Tower (the building with wings). The foreground which is nowhere near being finished is a mass of cars with all the windshields covered in stickers. In Tanzania, car registration/insurance and a bunch of other things need to be plastered to the windshield. There are so many square and circle stickers on everyone's cars it's a little ridiculous. If you have all of them on, they can take up to 6 inches of space from top to bottom corner of one side of the window.

My drawing is obviously an extreme. My dad keeps 2-3 on our cars and puts the rest in the glove compartment!

Anyway, this is one of the things I've been working on at home, hope to have it finished tomorrow. Need to get cracking on some sketching too.

Environmental pet peeve: Overfishing - REVISED

2009-12-01T09:10:00.005-05:00

I spent some time fixing up my Environmental Pet Peeve project from Concept and Composition class. I like it better now.

Link to the original version

Note: I seem to have lost some of the detail cause of the limitation of webcolors. if you could see it properly, the fish have scales and more subtle light changes.

and suddenly...

2009-11-27T16:15:00.002-05:00

AH!

pen and gouache in the Moleskine sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project.

Dog with the Longest Tongue

2009-11-18T12:22:00.004-05:00

14 x 11 inches
watercolor and pen on printmaking paper

World Record was the last assignment from Professor Krepel for Concept and Composition. We had to pick a world record or make one up and illustrate it. The image had to be strong enough to stand on its own without text. I looked up world records online and they only have sample since they want you to buy the book. I wanted to do something around animals or body parts. Inspired by "dog with the longest ears", I decided to do "dog with the longest tongue". I tossed out many many many ideas such as a dog sneakily grabbing dinner off the table with his tongue, or licking his owner's face from across the room, or a dog cowboy using his tongue as a lasso to catch bonecattle. The final image came from the idea of the lasso tongue.

3D Illustration: John Lennon and his Rickenbacker

2009-11-17T11:12:00.011-05:00

John Lennon
16.5 inches
wire, gouache, acrylic, gesso, aluminum foil, felt, pins, liquid laminate

For our final Illustration Techniques I project we had to make a 3D illustration of a musician to potentially go in Rolling Stone Magazine. I narrowed my list of artists down to David Bowie and John Lennon, and ultimately chose Lennon. I took pictures with my phone while I made him. It was more fun that I was expecting it to be, and definitely more rewarding towards the end when everything started coming together. At times I felt like a surgeon reattaching extremities, and other times I felt like a tailor, cutting out and piecing together the felt for the suit. I had to cut the pieces much like clothing patterns for them to drape properly.

Lennon was sculpted from this material called Paperclay. It is essentially airdrying clay made from volcanic ash, paper pulp and a few other random things. It was easy and hard to work with depending on situation. I made a basic frame from armature wire, covered it in aluminum foil then applied the clay to the structure. At some point I had to adjust the posture a little so that he can stand. I painted John with gouache, and added liquid laminate to his shoes for the shine. The suit is made from felt. The guitar is paperclay painted with gesso, acrylic paint. I used thin wire wrapped on tiny pins for the strings and tuners.

My professor, Ed Briant put up the pictures he took of the project on his website.

John joins the Mantel Collection:

Work in progress:

MMS - Mini Moleskine Sketches

2009-11-14T18:05:00.001-05:00

watercolor sketches

2009-11-11T22:37:00.006-05:00

The closet corner of my room.

View into the living room from my desk in the bedroom. (its very out of proportion)

Standing in the kitchen doorway looking in.

I had bought a pocket size watercolor Moleskine sketch book some time ago. I did one doodle in it and didn't use it again, not sure why. I came across it the other day and was trying to decide what I want to put in it so it just sat on my desk for a while. Today, I was looking through my classmate Min's sketch book and really liked some of her line drawings of streets, buildings, interiors etc which she had drawn in pen then went back into it later with watercolor or pastel. I thought it was perfect idea for the mini Moleskine. So here are three quick ones I did today.

Computer Art 2007

2009-11-08T23:00:00.007-05:00

I "unearthed" these works in my files while I was searching for some portfolio worthy work. I apologise in advance for the tiny files, I didn't have time to find the original files and make them so that when you click on the thumbnails, you get a nice larger image to view.

Assignment: time. I did a past, present, future type image. Babies grow on trees and over time, these trees become more and more robotic and space-agey. I don't remember how I came up with this idea.

Digital
8.5 x 11 inches

Assignment: Self portrait. Using many many MANY layers in Photoshop, I created a watery surface with my reflection in it.

Digital
11 x 8.5 inches

Assignment: something to do with perspective and place. I wanted to show what Florence, Italy, could look like if it was over grown with greenery (something it is lacking in the city itself, not including the parks).

Digital
8 x 10 inches (or around there)

Assignment: from what I remember, take a part of a song, and illustrate the rhythm. The song: Ants Marching by Dave Matthews Band

Digital
13 x 18 inches

Assignment: show movement. This is my cousin-in-law, Kelly, and a jar of Christmas chocolate.

Digital
17 x 11 inches

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

2009-11-03T18:37:00.006-05:00

Poster design for Concept & Composition class. We could pick any topic as long as it fell into the following categories: social or political concern, educational, theater, or music related. I had a bunch of ideas running through my head, but the one with most potential was for a band. The band is Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. If you haven't heard them, you're missing out. Go to Youtube and look up their songs! "Baliky Bon" and "Sankofa" are two of my favourites.

Their music has so much energy and I wanted to portray that. The instruments burst out at the viewer, and, hopefully, the varying sizes of the instruments' bells illustrate the dynamic quality of HBE's music.

The professor and other students kept making comments during the critique about how I might want to experiment with adjusting colors and switching one color for another etc, then I realized they thought the work was digital! When I pointed out it was traditional, they were all pretty stunned, and took a closer look!

I did the thumbnails by hand, the prelims (grayscale and color) in Photoshop and the final version with gouache and pen on cold press watercolor paper.

Gouache and pen on coldpress watercolor paper
original: 9 x 6.5 inches
reproduction size: 18 x 13

The Pied Piper of Manhattan

2009-11-02T12:25:00.006-05:00

The Pied Piper of Manhattan
soft pastel undercoat with colored pencil on canson pastel paper
18x24 inches

This is project 3 for my Illustration Techniques 1 class. We were all randomly assigned a fairy tale which we were supposed to depict in our own way. My fairy tale: The Pied Piper of Hamlin. I thought New York City would be a perfect setting for a modern take on the tale!

process:
soft pastel base color.

The final sketch.

On a semi-unrelated note, my last two projects for this class (this one and Marsh of Rot) both have tons of perspective. I was pretty mad after the prof told me his thoughts during the midterm review a few weeks ago. So, as "revenge" or as "I can draw in perspective so take that", I made my Marsh of Rot have perspective and did the same for this project. I think the perspective has changed the way my work looks, it's not as quirky and loose but it still retains bits of that style. It's different from my usual, but I quite like it. I still don't agree with my prof's comments but that's another story.

Marsh of Rot

2009-10-20T06:46:00.003-04:00

gouache, watercolor on illustration board
13.5 x 13.5 inches

Environmental pet peeve: Overfishing

2009-10-19T00:47:00.003-04:00

The fish are cod.

Serenading the ear in the dark of the night

2009-10-04T12:32:00.003-04:00

The first real assignment from Concept and Composition, illustrate a sound.

12 x 16 inches
gouache and ink on cold press watercolor paper

Reductive Lino print

2009-09-28T22:05:00.005-04:00

This is my first post as a graduate student! The assignment for my Illustration Techniques class was a double self portrait, one portrait shown as how my friend would see me, and the other the way through the eyes of an enemy/stranger. After much agonizing over my original idea, I came up with my final idea. So this is the cool me (drinking champagne straight from the bottle) and the awkward me (me as one of maybe 6 people in Savannah who wears a bike helmet and gets weird looks).

The project required us to use the reductive lino printing method or the gouache-india ink method that yield similar results as the reductive printing. Basically, I had my lino block and carved away everything I wanted to be left white, then inked and printed the first color, blue. Then I carved away everything I wanted to remain blue, inked and printed the second color - green. Repeated the process until all I had left to print were the black outlines.

Wild thing, you make my heart sing...

2009-08-11T00:56:00.005-04:00

...you make everything groovy.

Inspired by Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Corey Godbey's blog Terrible Yellow Eyes, and Jimi Hendrix.

I'm not sure how I feel about the pencil - didn't really know what I was doing with it, was more of an experiement in color pencils. I think my sense of color/coloring/lighting has died a little. Or maybe I'm just liking the "command/ctrl Z undo" a little too much and have come to rely on it and therefore can't deal with mistakes I can't undo on paper. I don't think there's enough light, seems too dark. It didn't look right without the saturation and now I think I overdid the colors.

I think I'll do another version on Photoshop and compare. However, I do like having something to look at that's not digital.

Chris the Gorilla Goes on a Trip

2009-08-10T19:10:00.008-04:00

Another gem I unearthed while packing. My sister and I worked on this story way back in the day when I was probably five or six, so around 1990-1991. I'm pretty sure we came up with the story together and I wrote it out (funnily enough, my handwriting hasn't changed as much as one would think since then). My sister drew and colored the cover page, and also some outlines for the first few pages which I colored in. The later pages look like I drew them myself. I vaguely remember finding it before my teens and adding the last page to the story.

It takes place in Mombasa, Kenya. I'm also quite certain that Chris is watching some Warner Brothers or Looney Toons cartoon on TV :D (Though, in those days in Tanzania and Kenya, there really weren't any TV channels, all the cartoons I watched were taped, so I basically know a few episodes of Sesame Street by heart but not the rest!)

A few things I particularly like:
-"bottle of sunburn lotion"
-"camere" - camera
-that there's an exhaust fan in the bathroom on the last page.
-the word I erased thinking it was incorrect, then rewrote it misspelled the second time! (I packed the book away and I can't remember the word).

PhotoFrankenstein

2009-08-10T09:17:00.007-04:00

When I studied abroad in Florence in 2007, I took a photography class. My final project was taking night pictures of the amusement park section of the big Cascine Park. I used a super slow Rollei Pan 25 ISO film so the prints are virtually grain-free, but the slowness meant I had to go around with a tripod - which came in handy in case i needed to beat off some drunks in the park (almost happened).

Instead of printing on regular photo paper, I printed on lithfilm - it gave the prints a more eerie feel - the blacks were really black and when backlit the images glowed. I had planned to make light boxes for each of the prints but never got around to it, plus I don't have space for storing 15 of them!

Anyway, so while I was packing up some stuff from Italy, I found an envelope of my test strips for the project. I was about to toss them when I started putting the different pieces together and came up with the image above. One eye belongs to a bull, the other to a merry-go-round tryceratops, and rest of the face is a caterpillar coming out of a flower. I taped the pieces together onto a piece of paper and held it up against my window to take the photo.

The eyes are particularly creepy, I hope I don't ever meet somone who resembles this guy.

Materials: lithfilm, Rollei Pan 25

Royalty

2009-08-07T23:30:00.005-04:00

I should have been packing...but instead, I made a bright yellow, faux-leather/vinyl fabric crown complete with dazzling precious and semi-precious stones. Too bad the cardboard ring that I used as the frame is a little too small for my head. Maybe Pintu (2yr old nephew) could wear it, it would compliment his grape-popsicle stained tshirt and backwards shorts.

I think my sudden increase in blog posts is a result of not wanting to pack for the big move to GA.

more sharks

2009-08-06T18:36:00.005-04:00

Two large drawings of sharks I made in September 2007. I was looking for something and came across them. They're both the same size, which I believe is 24" x 36" or a tad larger.

pencil on paper
(the camera cord is hanging in the way on the left, its not really part of the drawing, just can't be bothered to retake the picture)

soft/chalk pastel and charcoal on paper

Shark week hoo-ha-ha

2009-08-06T02:11:00.003-04:00

I got my wisdom teeth removed on July 28th so the past 10 days have revolved around my teeth and how my face is feeling etc, and having to give full detailed updates to my mom on my mandible status. At some point I started thinking up scenarios involving different animals at the dentist's office. I read some where that its Shark Week on the Discovery Channel so my mind wandered over to sharks and their many teeth; also saw Renee's blog update which inspired me to actually draw my idea despite all the packing I need to do!

I sketched the drawing first, photographed it, and colored it in Photoshop.

ps: the title of this post comes from Finding Nemo when Nemo is getting initiated in the fish tank, and the other fish chant/yell "shark bait hoo-ha-ha".

bull-doh-zer

2009-07-14T12:34:00.006-04:00

While watching Pintu today, I gave him some red play-doh to play with to keep him occupied. He asked me to make him a car, so I made it. A few minutes later he asked me to make him a bulldozer. Now he's sitting at the table saying "the little car goes in the bulldozer". Here is my play-doh masterpiece...it's bulldozer-ish. :)

His next demand was a rabbit.

bitten from behind

2009-07-09T01:28:00.005-04:00

This was actually the first piece of my Encounters with Ink Monsters series. I had made this for my aunt and uncle in Palo Alto, and from this piece came the whole idea of the series. I forgot to take pictures of it before I left California and my uncle just emailed me the photo, which is why it's posted after the Bashed on a Bike.

Materials: tissue paper (not the bathroom kind), pen, gesso, ink on stretched linen. I think its about 12 x 9 inches.

Some doodles

2009-07-08T00:40:00.005-04:00

The doodles in the first image were doodled on Continental Airlines on my flight back from Cleveland last week. The woman on the right was the airhostess, fortunately she wasn't moody looking for too long.

A few weeks ago, my nephew Pintu got one of those Little-Tykes cars thats about 3 feet tall and he can sit in it and ride it along like Fred Flintstone. Dennis, my brother in-law chaperones Pintu's regular spins to the park and one day I was turning off our street and saw them riding back home and thought it was a funny sight. Later on, Zibu (my sister) and I were talking about Dairy Queen and some how got talking on how ridiculous it would be if we could send Pintu to DQ to get us some soft serve. The picture below is the beginnings of a hopefully larger drawing. There are some issues with this preliminary sketches...like how the awning is in the wrong place; it will all get sorted eventually and you'll be able to see the server's expression.

"two twists in cones, dipped in chocolate, to-go please"

bashed on a bike

2009-06-29T14:58:00.006-04:00

This is one of (hopefully) many pieces in a new series I'm working on that revolve around encounters with ink monsters. I am using gouache for the first time...well technically second but the first attempt is something I'm still working on. I'm still using the built-in camera cause I don't have access to the scanner, so the colors are more vibrant in the actual drawing.

This is one of (hopefully) many pieces in a new series I'm working on that revolve around encounters with ink monsters. I am using gouache for the first time...well technically second but the first attempt is something I'm still working on. I'm still using the built-in camera cause I don't have access to the scanner, so the colors are more vibrant in the actual drawing.

Elephants and Birdies

2009-06-27T13:41:00.004-04:00

Here are some birds and elephants I doodled last night while watching an old Hindi movie (from the 70's) called "Haathi Mere Saathi" ("Elephants are with me").

This birdie is a close up of one in the image above.

From long ago

2009-06-19T10:05:00.004-04:00

These three lovely specimens are a few of the original ink monsters. I started making ink monsters in early 2008 and I've used them in combination with various other styles of drawing.

All three were done on Illustration board, 15 x 20 inches, black ink, pen and compressed air cans.

Click on the image to enlarge if you want to see the details.

3-2-1- LIFT OFF!

2009-06-19T00:25:00.001-04:00

Flipbook from my travel Moleskine sketchbook. It's from summer 2008, made on a day in which my parents and I went into town to go look for bathroom tiles and sinks, and other random things for a house in the process of renovation. So while my parents looked at white, off-white and terracotta tiles, I sat on the one chair in the store and doodled.

I only got around to scanning the images and put them all together in Flash a few months ago (March?) when I was in Dar during my down time at Y&R. I meant to upload it when I got back since the internet in Tanzania is too slow for biggish files...then I totally forgot to do it. So here it is! Hopefully it will work.

This one's for you Jen :)

2009-05-28T00:26:00.005-04:00

Fulfilling a request for more bus drawings and people. These were drawn today, the lounging people are at Yerba Buena Park in San Francisco (across from the SF MOMA). And the other ones are old people on the bus ride home. When I get access to a scanner or a SD card reader, I'll replace these with better pictures.

Drawing on public transportation

2009-05-27T01:41:00.005-04:00

I've been itching to post something but I don't have a scanner at the moment nor do I have my SD card reader; I was left to use the next best thing, the built-in camera. So here is a mediocre picture of a few sketches I drew while on the #3 bus going back to my uncle's house from the San Francisco MOMA. It was rather challenging to draw in a moving, jerky bus but it was still fun and I didn't get motion sickness!!!

Homemade Books

2009-05-09T00:18:00.010-04:00

A post was long overdue since I hadn't put anything in the past month due to a crazy schedule and not really having time or energy. So, this post is really long and picture-filled. Enjoy!

I took a book arts and letterpress class last fall (2008) at Mass Art. It was a ton of fun and I learned a lot, and realized I quite enjoy making blank books. Here's a few sampling of some of the books I've made in the past 6 months.

The first two I've made for myself as sketchbooks, the green one is about 5 x 4.5 inches with accordion style pages and I've bound it with ribbon on both ends, so either end can be untied, allowing access to both sides of the paper (Utretch brand printmaking paper). The larger book is made from the same paper, 8 signatures (each signature is just one page folded in half, I could have made multiple pages per signature but that would mean more folding and tearing of really large pieces of paper which I didn't have the patience to do at 1am). The covers are glued to the first and last page and the signatures are side bound...I think it's either Coptic binding or something similar, whatever the binding is, it allows the book to lay flat when open.

The next one was an experiment with gauze (i found some lying around my room...don't know where it came from). The gauze is glued to the bookboard, and wrapped around from one board to the other which makes the binding for the book. I threaded a piece of ribbon through to tie the book closed. The pages are accordion style using two different colored papers.

Purple Stars:
4 page accordion book, the cover is cloth with star-buttons stitched on.

This yellow one is actually pretty small, about 4 x 2 inches. Also accordion style. The binding is made from strips of ribbon and the covers are this pleathery/vinyl material on book board (awful material to work with in this situation, doesn't glue properly)

Two Japanese side-sewn binding. When open they lie sort of flat.

This green one is an ox-plough book. I don't really know how to go about explaining the book so just look it up online :D It's kind of like an accordion except it's not. If you lay it out flat, the cuts in the paper make the overall appearance look like a boxy "Z", if that makes any sense.

This one is small, accordion style. Cloth on bookboard covers, with a little cardboard puzzle piece (i think). I found this little piece on Tilghman field at Drew during ultimate practice back in 2004 or 2005, I hung onto it, figured I could use it somewhere!

And this last one is more of a portfolio than a book. It was an attempt at making a hardcover book but I messed up along the way and turned it into a portfolio that can accommodate about an inch of cardstock paper. I conveniently had the brown cardstock cut to the portfolio's size without even knowing it! I want to do some ink drawings on them, something similar in style to the yellow paper on the inside of the covers.

I was thinking I could make a bunch of sketchbooks and sell them on Etsy. Though in this economy I don't know if people will buy them.

Moleskine Sketches - new and old

2009-04-06T09:10:00.008-04:00

Today is my last day at my internship at A Y&R, which means, limited access to internet (to a certain degree...just cant upload pictures very often cause it eats up our quota of bytes in a second). Which means the next quality post won't be until I get back to the States on the 17th. I thought I would put up some sketches (old and new) from the Moleskine pocket sketchbook I just finished! I got the book Feb 2008, and since I have so many sketchbooks, it takes a while for me to finish any given one cause I keep rotating depending on my mood!

All images done in pen.

the one above and below: realized i drew ears the way Jason Curtis draws them!

below right: the limby guys were the original balldudes from my earlier post

below: there area few foot-creatures, see if you can find them!

Below right: on saturday, my family went to my uncle's for dinner. After dinner we were hanging out, I doodled, my sister knitted, the adults talked, my nephew fell asleep. At some point I over heard the phrase "zigzag businesses".

Girl sitting on ground at Fern Fest at Drew Univ. in April 2008

my friend Amy and I were talking about different ways to make a projectile chicken.

my friend Mili, though Mili doesn't look like an old hag in real life.

Introducing: The Brand New Degloopifier

2009-04-06T03:36:00.003-04:00

Some few weeks ago, it was sweltering hot and humid. I felt like my desk was in a sauna except that it didn't feel good and relaxing. It was just a still muggy night that makes one feel like even blinking results in sweating profusely. I had changed my Facebook status to something like "Krishna Chavda wishes it weren't so stickyhothumidstuffythickgloopy" and my aunt asked through a comment whether or not i owned a manually operated degloopifier. I told her the store ran out when I went to go buy one. Needless to say, the conversation sparked some creative ridiculousness.

The Degloopifier
Pen, watercolor
10.5 x 14 inches

After I made the image, I thought it would be funny as an ad with an infommercialy tone - which for some reason came to me as a poem.

If you can't read it on the image:
Do you ever feel steamy and wet like soup?
Does your skin every feel like gloopitygloop?
If you wish to be seen
with a body so clean,
then be a proud buyer
of the Degloopifier.
Its powerful hose
will degloop your clothes!

a few things from the past couple weeks

2009-04-06T03:15:00.006-04:00

More ink monsters!

Monster Juggler
Ink, pen, watercolor
12 x 9.5 inches

WAAAAH
Ink, pen, watercolor
12 x 9.5 inches

Balldudes
Pen and watercolor
12 x 9 inches

Forest 4
Pen and watercolor
9.5 x 12 inches

stuff from some time ago

2009-04-01T08:28:00.006-04:00

Here are two pieces I drew in December. The second one may or may not be finished, I might go in and work it with some charcoal, but for now it's "complete". (The two images I've put in this post were taken on my carpet cause I didn't have a scanner hooked to my computer, in case you were wondering why there's ugly carpet in the background)

I can't remember what was going through my head when I started the first one (the one with blue) but it was kind of relaxing drawing weird circular-ish shapes and doing the shading with charcoal. I added the wash when I thought the black was too much. I haven't figured out if i want it oriented the way it is in the photo. The second piece piggybacks on the first, I guess I made it look more like something rather than hinting at the nature/ground/woods theme.

Day at the Dentist

2009-04-01T03:27:00.009-04:00

Yesterday was Dentist Day, which was something I did not enjoy but managed to do some doodles in my pocket moleskine while waiting for my appointment. This first one was drawn in the car ride home sitting in traffic...before i fell asleep.

Below: the boxy thing on the right, its the filing cabinet in the waiting room, except the real one doesn't wear a tie.

my sister said something about the two birds on the left reminding her of old men. which then somehow led to me drawing the birds playing chess (above).

variations on birds that i started drawing in 10th grade (2002).

i was trying to draw this over and over so i could get the crutch more obvious - so it doesn't look like another leg.The inbox/outbox which was filled with magazines.

this last one was actually the first one i drew while sitting there while this woman leaned over me and just stared. it was actually kind of annoying cause i could almost feel her breathing on me. anyway, the pics are posted in reverse chronological order (the hairy man being the last one i made, and the one below was the first) but I can't be bothered to rearrange them.

A wedding present

2009-03-30T06:30:00.007-04:00

A family friend recently got married in Hawaii and I used one of the wedding photos to make a watercolor for them. First time in a long time I've done something realistic.

untitled
watercolor and pen on paper
14 x 10 inches

inspiration comes from strange places

2009-03-30T02:53:00.004-04:00

I try to brush my hair over the sink so that any falling hairs get stuck there then i wipe the sink clean when I'm done and put the hair in the trash (not down the drain). A few days ago while I was swirling all the hair into a collection I thought the strands made fun shapes. So I drew some curvy, loopy lines and filled them in with watercolor, a kind of paint by number deal.

untitled
watercolor and pen on paper
5 x 5.5 inches

Bus Stop

2009-03-30T02:45:00.003-04:00

Bus Stop
watercolor and pen on paper
5 x 5.5 inches