Casa Enrique

Back in mid September I was contacted again by Jesus Diaz, associate art director for The Village Voice.  He wanted a spot illustration for a Robert Sietsema article about a restaurant called Casa Enrique in Brooklyn.  The restaurant's logo is a shaggy dog wearing a sombrero and Jesus wanted the dog incorporated into the illustration.  After reading the article I was practically drooling all over the place because the dishes sounded so tasty.  These are the final illustration and the sketches.  Personally I loved the cooking ones and so did Jesus, but the team at The Village Voice didn't quite like the idea of a dog cooking.

First published editorial illustration!!

About a week ago I got a call from Jesus Diaz, the Associate Art Director at The Village Voice, a free newspaper in NYC.  Jesus told me about a Michael Musto article about the hot rental market in NYC and asked if I wanted to do the accompanying illustration.  I agreed and had about 5 days to work on the illustration, which came out in print on Wednesday, April 18!  It's also viewable online.

In print:

Iguana Iguana

Iguana iguana, a resident of the Greenburgh Nature Center in Scarsdale, New York.  

NYC

Yesterday I spent the entire day in NYC doing various fun things, one of which was drawing at Starbucks while I waited for Stacey Clarkson, art director of Harper's Magazine, to review my portfolio that I had dropped off for Harper's monthly portfolio day.

Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona
20 x 15 inches

Here's an illustration about Barcelona.  It features Antoni Gaudí's La Padrera, sun bathers, and the delicious fruit stands at La Boqueria.  La Boqueria is one of my favorite places in Barca.  It's always bustling with people selling their fruits/veggies/candy/juices.  The market is an attraction for both locals and tourists, and what I really like about it is that it's not full of cheapo touristy souvenirs. 

Copenhagen, Denmark

In the beginning of September 2011 I visited my good friend Nanna in Copenhagen, Denmark.  I spent four days hanging out with her and her friends, getting a more local perspective, while also observing as a tourist when I did things on my own. 

The Copenhagen illustration features fashion by Danish designer Peter Jensen, the old army barracks converted to housing on Borgergade street, the Christiansborg Palace (built in the 1600s), some jazz musicians, the Queen's swans, a restaurant interior, and Danish beer!

Trafalgar Square, Nelson's Column, National Gallery

One more London illustration, this time it's a panoramic of Trafalgar Square featuring Nelson's Column, the National Gallery, and the mass of people who visit.

London!

London
20 x 15 inches

This is the first installment of city/country posters!  During the past few days I've been working on finishing drawings from my Europe trip.   With all the sights, monuments, and characters, the London illustration sums up my three weeks in the city. 

Stay tuned for Copenhagen, eastern Europe, Spain, and Tanzania!

Tis the season

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!

Duke of York Square

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. 

Edibles in London

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.

Zanaki Street

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

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.

Fur Free Alliance - Design Against Fur poster competition

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

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

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

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.

Porsche Poster

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"

Pen, ink, digital
8.2 x 4.5 inches

Luis Soriano is a primary school teacher in the Magdalena region of Colombia.  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

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.