Monday, December 15, 2008

Evolution of Egnasio


This is Egnasio. If you ever come to my apartment you will see him hanging by a window. During my childhood Egnasio hung in my parent's kitchen. I was very confused by what he was supposed to be and why he vaguely resembled Bill Cosby. Years later my parents took him down, probably when they realized how tacky he is and I came to the conclusion that he doesn't really look like Bill Cosby at all.

My interest in Egnasio was repeaked after I saw this horrific story about a carp that had a person's face. I've always enjoyed hybrids, mutants and mythical beasts. With that I traded my parents a drawing they liked for Egnasio. And now he lives with me. He acted as a muse of sorts during college and inspired some similar looking characters. This is from a series of prints I did that I'm still pretty happy with. The theme was monsters so I just went with mutant women.





And this is all that is left of a 3-d piece I made for my senior show. At some point I couldn't bear to look at the rest of it anymore and I pitched it... but I still like my skeleton fish so I kept it.


Above looking at the ribs



The face is sculpted from clay but the little girl is a doll I found.




Here's a full body shot.



This is a sketch for a character I'm working on for my graphic novel. She'll have a body similar to a koi and a human face. I only have thumbnails of the first 8 pages or so of my graphic novel but once I get 12 done I'll put those up too.
Well thats it for this year! I leave tomorrow for Italy and when I get back I'm going to put all my effort into getting the first 12 pages of my graphic novel done before the comic con.( If its possible)



Monday, December 1, 2008

witches be crazy!

During my latest job I somehow ended up volunteering to create some of the wardrobe for a coven of witches. The director wanted these witches to be wearing all white or off white lace dresses and still look sexy. I was worried that covering the witches in lace would make them look like brides or old. I decided to approach them from a sculptural point of view because I wasn't able to get the girls measurements, I don't actually know how to create clothing and I didn't have a dress form. I definitely had a few days where I was kicking myself and thinking; "What did I get myself into?"

Here's one of the first drawings I did. I decided that the cheapest and easiest way to pull these off would be to buy old slips from thrift stores and to deconstruct them with lace, gauze, tulle. I thought it would make them look kind of otherworldly. In theory this seemed like something I could easily do.



Next I decided to channel Helena Bonham Carter. She always wears her hair in kind of a haphazard mess. I wanted these witches to be disheveled, eccentric, mysterious. (ie: intriguingly skanky) Beautiful but broken, so like these women had been through a lot. Very Marla from Fight Club!



This is a cleaner concept drawing of the dresses together. Some of them I'm happier with then others. I think my favorite one was the last one I did that looks like a demented ballerina. But overall I had a pretty good time making them. I also enjoyed cutting holes and burning them so they would look distressed. After a few weeks though I just wanted to be done.


These are some close-ups of the dresses. I didn't have time to distress them all myself so some of them are a little too white. I don't have any photos of the girls in the dresses either. oh well : (

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Movie magic

Here's some more stuff I finished up for the movie!
I had organs, wigs, dresses, and tulle everywhere. This is fantastic, until you reach the point where it takes over the rest of the house. Getting out of the shower to find a piece of lace circling the drain, hot glue in your hair or a mysterious purple feather in your purse. Don't get me wrong... I'm willing to get a little messy but all of these projects were taking over my corner in the studio and making it quite difficult to get any of my own work done. So here's some of my fake organs for a surgeon's party in the movie! Below we have a selection of hearts, kidney's and liver's. I also made some intestines out of stockings but I wasn't as happy with the results.

Here's a close up of one of my favorite organs:

Once again I am amazed at how useful masking tape and tissue paper can be to create interesting textures. This is basically a wad of newspaper crumpled up, taped into form covered with tissue paper and painted with some thin glazes. The texture of the paper/tape are good at trapping the paint in a way that makes it look like veins. This photo doesn't really do the heart justice...

I also did some sweet calligraphy... It was supposed to look messy and distressed which worked to my advantage since I'm not trained in Calligraphy. As I was working on this I remembered that the last time I remembered practicing Calligraphy was in Elementary school with our Art teacher Ms. Fry. I guess it paid off. I was able to do a few samples, scan em' and cut/paste them together in photoshop.



This is a faux antique book I made for the movie from a real live antique book. I covered it in pleather and hand painted on the lettering with gold ink. I ended up changing the color because the paint was peeling and being difficult, but you get the idea
.



For some reason I had a really hard time getting a good photo of the book maybe it was the metallic paint or maybe the shiny pleather, who knows?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Halloween!

Oh Hell! It's Halloween! One of my favorite holidays... I've been painting,gluing, sequining and feathering these masks for the movie I'm working on. In the movie there is a mardi grasesque party and we needed lots of cool masks for people at the party to wear. I could have bought those cheap premade in China ones but... it was more fun to make these and cost effective. So I made 30 of em'.


These are my greenish-yellowish ones


Blue/yellow designs

More blueish masks


Here's Robin and I modeling some of my favorite masks... in what I shall call a mask montage!



Here's some of my masks all together like one happy family!

Here's some of the orignal sketches. I decided to just go with the half masks cause they were way cheaper to buy.


Sunday, October 19, 2008

Foxy

These are all based off of I character I created in my printmaking class senior year. I find myself going back to a lot of the same subject matter... animals, naked women, forests. I want to keep working with a lot of the same imagery but find clearer and more complete ways of expressing my ideas. I'm also trying to incorporate lots of pattern and texture since those are some of my favorite things. These are all just experiments in my sketchbook but I'm happy with where they are going.


Here I was using some reference shots to figure out some cool poses/angles. Also trying to figure out the logistics of how this costume would fit and move. The vellum is great for building up layers or trying something without changing the drawing.



These are also a few months old... but I'm still pretty happy with them! I love foxes not only because they are redheads but because they can be creepy and graceful at the same time!



More little collages and sketches from my sketchbook in preparation for my Graphic Novel. I've been experimenting with vellum, cut paper and lots of pen work.
My work is typically without a lot of spacial depth in it so I'm trying to improve that.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I like the moon because It's full of cheese!

I was inspired by a book I found about the future in space. It was published in the late 1950's so we had not yet landed on the moon, but it was very optimistic. Too bad that didn't work out. But look at the googles this guy is wearing, man is he ready to grow large vegetables on the moon!
Hmmm I still think space suits look cool.



These are a few of the collages I worked on over the summer and have yet to put up. I guess you could say I was inspired by a simpler era or perhaps the promise of a glorious future. But since I am not growing delicious vegetables on the surface of the moon I am making art about astronauts and space exploration instead. Hopefully I can channel this interest into some current artwork.

Friday, May 16, 2008

It's a small world after all

I went to see the show of Mary Blair's work at the Comic Art Museum in San Francisco. I was blown away by her use of color and of course her wonderful concept art for the Disney Movies. I had heard her concept work was great and of course been on It's a Small World too many times to count. Seeing her work in person gave me a renewed appreciation for gouache. I've started doing more work with gouache and wanted to see how she approached it. I bought "The Art and Flair of Mary Blair" so I could look at her work whenever I wanted!

This is probably my favorite piece. I lost some of the color when scanning this but I really love the pale green sky against the vibrant blue of the water, the composition is great and these mermaids the plumpest little tails. They are just so funny.

This piece is great because it just looks so effortless. At first you just see the skull and the dark greys but then when you notice the glowing green of the water reflecting on the rocks and the subtle red grey in the sky... and then the little tiny captain hook with the feather in his hat.

I just like how dramatic and menacing this tea party is. It manages to be both whimsical and creepy.

The shapes in this see like they are cut out of paper. This piece is definitely flat but it manages to have such vitality and texture with a limited palette.

Another view of the tea party. I enjoy how shes able to integrate these blue lines with the other colors so that all the objects feel solid. The exaggerated perspective is really fun too.

I believe these birds were inspired by her trip to South America. Mary went on a trip early on in her career with her husband, Walt Disney and several of the other studio artists. (I wish I could get a job where they sent me on inspirational trips) This trip served as major inspiration to her work and allowed her to impress Walt with her work. Its really a shame that her work wasn't directly translated into the movies she worked on but you can see her influence.

Through reading my book I learned quite a few things about her technique. I was also really surprised to read that Mary worked with colors straight out of the tube! She must have owned quite a collection of paint. This is a piece from one of her children's books. I just really enjoy these bugs and the fact that we are seeing into their home underground.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Thank you!

I had an awesome birthday this year. Apparently it was my golden birthday because I was turning 23 on the 23rd. It was a very golden birthday because for once it didn't rain and I got to spend most of the day outside with my buds! We went to Newport and walked by the cliffs. Here's two of my favorite photos with the group:

I usually resort to buying thank you cards but I try to make them myself at least once a year. I felt inspired to do so around my birthday. Its nice to just sit down and make something simple. I pulled out some origami paper and drew some of my current favorite animals.

I love this origami paper. It reminded me of the forest floor, with all the different species of plants growing at the roots of trees.

I'm really into drawing bears right now. I watched "Grizzly Man" a few weeks ago and I really can't imagine wanting to be anywhere near bears in the wild. Thats just crazy...

Friday, May 2, 2008

Uranus

Whenever I happen to unearth this from a large pile of crap on my desk, I laugh at myself. I don't know why but it just cracks me up every single time. Originally this card was given to a coworker. I knew he would appreciate its "Arrested Development" sense of humor. Initially I was sad that I had given it away. But then I remembered that I had two copies of this particular issue of National Geographic and it's featured article"Uranus: visit to a dark planet." Lucky me!! I realized at once that I had to recreate the beauty I had stumbled upon in the first collage and save it for all eternity. I guess this means that the planetarium in our elementary school vastly enriched my sense of humor and of course my art. Go planet!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Further attempts

I was digging the collage sketches I was making and continued making them in January. I've been experimenting with magazine, fabric, drawn, and embroidered material.
Quinn the Eskimo!


I made this at some point when I was really sick of winter. yup... I love patterned interiors.

This one is called Horse Mountain.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

December Sketchbook

I was asked to create a sketchbook of sorts for one of the main characters in Tanner Hall. The character "L" is the artsy one in the group. She's described as constantly carrying a sketchbook and is seen in the movie drawing girly art. (mainly a lot of naked woman) The directors wanted someone to make a sketchbook and some comic's for certain shots in the movie. I was more than happy to create an entire fake sketchbook.
At first we were going to age a new sketchbook but then Yon, one of the props guys found me an old scrapbook. We decided that to be true to "L" the work should really be a combination of sketches and collages worked into this found scrapbook. Whoever made the scrapbook clipped some really great ads and illustrations.
Unfortunately this meant that pages were also ex
tremely delicate and brittle.. eekss. I ended up making about 30+ pages of collages and drawings. It was really fun to make art pretending to be someone else. I scanned the whole thing at the end since I wasn't able to keep it. Here's some of my favorite pages:


This was the first pages in the book. The original owner had already written Alice on the page and drawn into the black and white illustration. I really just wanted to continue adding to what they had.


We were working in an abandoned middle school and there were plenty of old National Geograhic's and bleached construction paper.


In the begininng I was just trying to fill up as many pages as possible so collaging was the quickest way to do that.


Here's some sketching I did of real foxes in prep for my lady fox.



I found some of these images in the scrapbook. They must be from an old National Geographic. I'm really just trying to get all the mediums I'm using to work together.


Sketches of my fox girl. This is a character I had in some other work I've done. The directors liked her and wanted me to use a similar character for a comic strip that one of the characters is drawing.




I managed to use lots of fabric scraps I had laying around.