Sunday, December 6, 2009

To anyone who might be interested

For my fellow illustrators and the like:

Contest Details



CMYK Top New Creatives 47
Deadline: Sunday, January 17, 2010 | 11:59 PM CDT


Prize: Published in CMYK Magazine
Entry Fee: $45.00
Maximum Entries: 15 Images
Creative Types: Art Students Get Your Name Out There
Categories: Advertising (Copywriting), Illustration, Graphic Design, Art Direction, Copywriting, Photography

Earn respect and recognition for yourself, your partners, your instructors, and for your school. Enter anywhere from one to 15 pieces for a flat rate - and win the undivided attention of today's most influential creative directors. Open to current students, recent graduates (nine months or less) and the self-taught. More than 70,000 avid CMYK Magazine readers worldwide. Includes FREE Image Library + Pre-Filled Online Portfolio - coming soon. Good luck!



Thursday, November 26, 2009

Hello World


Happy Turkey Day

Monday, November 23, 2009

S.O.S.

No, not S.O.S. by Rhianna, S.O.S. as in help!, like the Beatles. Someone give me a job. Someone give me a place to live that's not San Jose, or CA at all preferably. I think my soon-to-be-aquired CS4 will help. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Life:

  • Get a job (not as a fucking barista) that is worth the time it takes away from all the other shit I have to do
  • Work on chilin's libros
  • Study graphic & web design
  • Aprender a Espanol
  • MOVE away
  • Finish Superfuture Vol. 1
  • Expand portfolio
  • Do self-promo stuff I've never done
  • Get at least one real Illustration job
  • Be a person (not going to happen)

In other news, Kendall and Houston just visited and it was amazing! I never wanted them to leav
e
When we got to Yosemite Valley we stopped at BridalVeil Falls to explore and take pictures. Hopefully Kendall and Houston will post theirs somehow because theirs are so much better than mine.

When Houston said his tent was small, Kendall and I had no idea how small. It was about waist high and maybe 4 ft wide. It was surprisingly comfy though. And we didn't get eaten by bears.




After a night of freezing our asses off in the tiniest tent, we were tentative about hiking because the rangers forecast rain/snow. We started hiking with the agreement that we would turn back when the rain started coming. One of the fun things about Kendall and Houston is that they're not my family. Meaning if I wanted to go climbing 50 feet up granite rock off the trail they joined me instead of worrying. Houston had the luck of hearing or seeing at least 3 trees fall. We reached a picture opportunity in the hike that was a stop on an old wooden bridge with a great view of the falls. He saw the tree fall, Kendall and I saw his jaw drop. Then as we were walking up the trail a giant branch broke off about 10-15 feet in front of us. We got spooked and almost turned around until we saw people three times our age continuing on. Our pride got the better of us, for the best, turns out. We met a guy named Edgar who walked with us for the remaining 3 or so hours of our hike. Luckily for us he was really knowledgeable of the area and the natural history of it.


After driving the mountain pass, we stopped at the Iron Door, Groveland. This was after seeing my first snow in at least 4 years.

Chillin by a CA flag made in the 1880s.



Saturday, November 14, 2009

Awhhhhh

Beautiful rainy night in San Francisco. If only I could afford to live here, and if friends would live here too. I learned how to dance bhangra. And listened to Delhi 2 Dublin live. So amazing. San Jose you are lame.

Monday, October 26, 2009

New sketchbook, new possibilities.

Today while riding home from work there was a bite to the air and the sky was almost completely pink. Awesome

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Yayer?


Lunch break at Borders

More from la Grecia.


Jim on the bus


Fucked up drawing of the Temple of Zeus Olympian. I gave up.

So my scanner sucks. The colors on these are horrible. That's a good chunk of change down the drain.
PS. Oh mah god y'all it's like my half birthday today.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

OK, one more

As for art related stuff, I've been mostly making books and my personal stationary. I made a book for my best friend, it's pretty cheesy but it was a lot of fun.



I didn't make up the names of the drinks
I did do a bunch of two-minute illustrations for the book.

These I did for my self-promo class. They're collecting dust in my studio.





I plan on doing a lot of drawrin's in the Greece. I made a watercolor sketchbook and I'm bringing my w/c and gouache. I can't wait. I'll post in 3 weeks when I get back!

Monday, September 7, 2009

Hu woo-ee-uh oh: Why you so obsessed with me

This reminds me of livejournal:
The night before

Around 9:30 I decide to hit the sack early because I have to leave at 7ish to make the trek up to see Jon and Amy. I feel asleep after nervous excitement and real nerves at calling in "sick" to work the next day. After finally falling asleep I get a text from Amy asking when I'm going to get there. I respond and remain awake for the next three or so hours, passing the time by indulging in my most rec
ent Netflix, Hannah and Her Sisters. Awesome. For some reason when I was younger I had qualms about watching Woody Allen films, but I really love them now.

The morning of:
I wake up grumbling as usual after hitting the
snooze for almost an hour. Thanks to a certain someone that has become routine. The coffee pot is the only thing fully functional morning until both my parents wake up. Then I'm on my way. It's smooth sailing of course until I have to drive the short stretch through the city. 19th Ave about 2 miles long that is bookended by two freeways and is the only part of SF that I see in my trip. The fog hangs just over San Francisco it seems and begins to burn off as soon as I hit the Golden Gate Bridge.

Entrance to Golden Gate park


Fog clearing
The drive was beautiful of course. I took the long way on accident through the mountains and got some glimpses of vineyards. It was so good to visit with Jon and Amy. They showed me around the place, showed me what they'd been up to. They made lunches and we headed off for a hike down to a creek.






New pictures courtesy of Jon and Amy:





I have proof now that I did it. I'm also very surprise that there's a picture of me smiling and being normal

We hiked back and then went to Gualala for some pizza and ice cream. It was a very colorful one-road town where the only bar and good source of entertainment, "Bones" had recently burned to the ground. The irony is the side of the building was painted in bad-to-the-bone style flames.

We said goodbye and I headed back down highway 1 this time, the beginning was beautiful:





the rest was terrifying. Sheer cliffs that would lead to a watery grave were on my right, on-coming traffic to my left and windy roads forever. Never again at night, but all in all a good adventure.



Day dreamin' and I'm thinking of you

There were some pretty cool oldies playing on my 4-1/2 hour drive back from visiting Jon and Amy. It was a really good day. Bad drive back to find my toilet isn't hooked up. I'll do a photo-story of the trip tomorrow after work. It's time to night-dream.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Greetings and good readings

The best part about looking at other artists' work is that it motivates me to do my own stuff. unfortunately today though, I have work right in the middle of the day. Hopefully I'll have enough lingering inspiration to carry me over until later in the evening. So here's another little installation of examples of work I really enjoy.

This first one might look a bit familiar because one of the activities in my life drawing sketchbook was to look at him as an example of how to evoke certain emotions through close-color harmonies. Apparently he's from the bay area too and does some really cool figurative work. Ladies and gents: Nathan Oliveira


I forgot to get the titles for all of these, oops.


These next ones are from Richard Diebenkorn, another Bay Area artist. If you compare the first one here to the first example I gave from Shaun Tan in one of my earlier blogs, you can see the striking similarities and make a good guess on Tan's influences. I really love Diebenkorn now which is strange because my freshman year of high school we did a project emulating some of his architectural work and I've known his name since then, but really haven't appreciated him until 8 years later.




This guy is one of my favorite illustrators. He came to speak at SCAD as part of an alumni panel earlier in the year and I've been following him ever since. He works constantly and maintains a good balance of both an illustration and fine art career which is so amazing and something I wish I could do! Keep your eye open for Steven Tabbutt, he really knows his stuff.


His website is http://www.steventabbutt.com.

Another artist I look at who does really beautiful figurative art is Burt Silverman. I learned about him in my watercolor class because he does some really awesome gouache paintings, but
all my examples of him are oil. I'll post those later as well.



In other news, I finally get paid this Friday and I think a good chunk will go towards art supplies, or a scanner. . .or a moped. I have trouble saving money.
Also I'm finally starting on my website. It should be up and running somewhat soon?


Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Summaaahh

My next door neighbors have a son who's around ten years old. Every day he and his friend set up two chairs, a blue canopy that looks like it's about to fall down at any second, a folding table, a pitcher full of lemonade, some mismatched disposable cups and a crumpled piece of computer paper that tells you that you can get a cup of lemonade for 25 cents. I'm sure they haven't made very much money, our street hardly gets any traffic, but there's something about summer that stirs up the entrepreneurial spirit in kids. When I was younger every day brought a new opportunity to make money. And we sure did the damn thing: garage sales, pulling weeds, lemonade stands, collecting cans and bottles to recycle, car washes, selling candy, etc. We even tried making our own clothes one year, soap in water bottles another with neither venture bringing in much money. I don't know what I'll do if my parents ever move and I couldn't revisit and stay in the place I spent my childhood.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Fuck microns, bics are the shit

So I went boating the other day and the rope got caught around the prop and got all fucked up and twisty. I was helping my friend get it back in working order and he was taking the task just a lit-tle too seriously. Then the thought struck me: I've never had to make a life or death decision and I don't really no anyone who has. Especially in my generation some of the hardest decisions we've had to make are whether are shoes match our belts. OK, that's an exaggeration, but besides from a few people who've had to go through great trials, most people my age and younger act like entitled, spoiled pricks. Even those who aren't spoiled, can anyone imagine making a decision where the outcome is you live or you die?

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Recently

So I haven't been up to much lately. I'm looking to get photoshop from a friend so I can start scanning some stuff I've been working on. They're just some sketches and not really any personal work. I think today I'll go out on my bike and do some drawin's and shiz to post. It's gorgeous today and I haven't ridden my bike in a while unfortunately. I'll probably only be able to update whenever I go to the library, so they'll be sparse. Not like anyone cares, I don't even know who I'm addressing right now. I think I'll go to LG. Piece.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Wild Wild West

One can't help but to be inspired by serenity and lethargy of the surrounding mountains. The same cannot be said for these same qualties inherent in dial-up internet.
The slow connection along with other contributing factors at home, my dog, friends, summer, makes it seem impossible to get anything done. It also just takes so much longer to do things, but I am getting some stuff done. Like. . . updating this blog! I feel like my work is coming to a slight turning point and hopefully improvement. Doing children's books is extremely challenging but I think I'll get a lot out of it.
I decided to head over to
the local library and take advantage of the free internet.
I just wanted to share a couple of artists I've been looking at a lot lately.
This is a great article in the NY Times by Maira Kalman, an illustrator who's book The Principles of Uncertainty has been near the top of my book shopping list since it ca
me out, but I've been reluctant to shell out the money for the thing:

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/


And the Pursuit of Happiness



Swami on Rye

And my friend Brian introduced me to an Australian illustrator Shaun Tan. I absolutely love his stuff:








shauntan.net

So awesome. Thanks B. Smiff!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

A Very Short Story

The Boyfriend Store

They led me down a small flight of steps. There were only four or five of them, but I tripped on a loose brick on the last step. I stumbled, laughed to myself and then looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. They hadn't.
As we walked down the narrow road in silence I wondered what circumstances had led me here, to this point in my life. And how the hell did the couples I knew manage to get through all the preliminary stages, the dating, the fighting, and still make it out OK?
I didn't believe in love anymore. Th
at's what led me to be here.

I came to the conclusion that love doesn't exist after the remnants of my first one finally faded. An inevitable slew of epiphanies of how the loves I'd idolized never really existed followed shortly thereafter. A man always has a wandering eye or a woman always thinks he does. And what happens when the man you're meant to be with doesn't love you? The timing was off. You're crazy. It'll never work.

It didn't take us long to get there. The store-front had a large overhang and a plain brown door with a brass handle. There were no windows. After much time and contemplation I finally heeded some friendly advice to, "get your own fucking boyfriend."
All I needed in life for companionship and for someone to give it to me regularly was behind that brown door. Here, at the Boyfriend Store.