5" x 7" on Beige Mat Board

Continuing with my experiments with my new colored pencils. I recently bought some abstractly interesting colors by Prismacolor and I am trying to get acquainted with them. My new favorite color would have to be artichoke. Its the warm green located around the face. I also really like the black cherry. I am very excited to get a handle on these new colors and I have a ton of mat board to back me up.

I may have added too much contrast to this image but like most of my work, it's just for fun in the experience. Plus movies are better when you are doing something productive whether you like the turn out or not. Here is a prime example..

5" x 7" on Terracotta Mat Board

It seems to be pretty hard to make these tiny colored pencil drawings look good. Drawing on mat board is great because the paper color is endless, but.. The problem that presents itself is the tooth on the paper. To get a color to perform and become flat requires a ton of pressure which mildly scores the mat board. All these depressions seem to pick up light and reflect it in all directions causing my camera to have a hard time capturing a clear image. Maybe a sharper pencil will solve this problem. We shall see.

California Spring
5" x 7" on White Illustration Board

Hello to everyone whom is reading this. It's 6:00PM and I'm still here. I think I'm still here anyway. Has the World ended? I thought the World would end when Judgement Day arrived? Has Jesus come? What if Jesus has come? What if he is interviewing people right now? Or is it considered an audition? Or maybe the true believers, that I project that no one knows or will have known now, have already been taken. What if the Rapture has started but its not in rabbit mode? What if the rapture only has a 1.2 liter, pushing 68 brake horsepower? If this is the case.. I am very sorry to hear that you are reading this. Furthermore, I regret to inform those of you that don't know that you shall suffer the rapture with me. In reading this right now, you and I are alike. Like me, you did not the necessary skills to partake. You did not have the courage to compete and because of this lack of religious drive, we did not make Jesus's basketball team this rapture. You and I are now here to suffer and perish for our mistakes for five months while the best 144,000 people of the World will move on. We get to bask in our sins and be rewarded appropreatiely for losing.

My friend Jesse texted me at 6PM with "Happy Rapture Day!!" I have literally heard nothing of this until now. Being a Roman Catholic, I was frightened into beleiving that the end of the World would someday come and that Jesus would weigh my sins to determine my path up or down. Other than that, I did not hear a peep about this Harold Camping and his uninscribed prediction. And thats another thing. If Harold Camping is a true man of the Bible, why would he try to make a prediction that the Bible did not execute? Isn't that the point? To follow the Bible. I'm very sorry to say that I'm not a firm believer.. I enjoy watching shows about Geology too much but I'll never rule anything out. To my point. I'm more worried about the drawings I randomly produced the last two days. Maybe I'm a prophet or something.. What do you think Harold?
In all seriousness these similarities to "rapture" are pretty freaky. Some of my art could be summed up as Picasso's night terrors but these next few that were intented to be happy, colorful and bright, ended up in a different light after the news about Mr. Camping. Instead of a sun burned beach scene, color choices to match a friends guest room, and a joke about New Jersey, I got images burnt, bathered, and bruised. It seems as if I unconciously drew my so called destiny.. my faux destiny. Judgement Day may be near my friend but I highly doubt it has anything to do with a single person.

Burnt
4" x 6" on White Mat Board

Bruised
5" x 7" on White Illustration Board

Battered
5" x 7" on White Illustration Board

Thinking beyond context, there are so many unconscious hints at earthquakes and their creation of tsunamis. There are notes of pyroclastic flows in my self portrait and the notification of citizen pissing, state-bashing stereotypes. And of course the possible plan for our demise.. The sun scorching the earth to the tiny remains like those located within the bottom cracks of your toaster oven. Either way, the next five months could be awesome.

A new post addition.. START HERE--->Back to this guy. The only one I actually like..

There is something else!!! So I was just cleaning up my supplies and have just realized something even more creepy. I've begun painting this drawing.. well something similar to this drawing. I started transferring the drawing above onto a canvas earlier today around 5PM. The top right of this drawing has a sort of Jesus imposter looking down from amigst the stars. I omitted some portions of the drawing on the canvas and it just so happens that one of these parts was this face with something that looks like a crown of thorns on his head. Really it was just inspiration at its finest; unharbored contours running wild across the mat board or was it? Does this seal my fate Harold? I really don't know and I'm very confident that he doesn't either since the sky is still blue and the air is still air.. One thing that I am sure of is that this acknowledgement has sealed the fate of this canvas without Jesus. I guess he didn't make my team either.




PS. Sorry Jesus

Rachels Slip-On Vans

So all the ideas I fleshed out in those sketches from my last post did not seem to apply to what I painted with the acrylics. I did remove certain ideas to construct this painting but no one idea took control. I started with the anchor and painted the water around it. I originally wanted the water to engulf the anchor like the orginal colored pencil drawing but Rachel wanted the anchor to be the main uninterrupted focus for the piece. I thought that the trim of stitching around the front of the shoe resembled a rope so I painted that accordingly. To give the yellow some unity, I painted the back panel yellow also. I thought it could mimic a beach shore but I wasn't all that impressed at first. I added water around its lower edge to give the sense of the drawing of the rock claw crab in the previous post and it worked out quite well; but, at this point I wasn't sure if it was a beach or a just a yellow sandstone cliff. I had to think.

The second pair was a little easier. I had a plan for the water because they had to match the first sneaker. After I sent Rachel an image of my progress, she added that she would like a captain's steering wheel on the other shoe. Before this notion, I was going to continue with the rope idea. It was going to string along the edge like the first sneaker but dart off into the depths of that water, blending out as it got deeper. I had a hard time figuring out how to create the yellow trim around the shoe, only to come back to the foreground for it's plummet. I'm glad rachel hinted at this better option. This allowed me to continue with the rope idea while covering enough space on the toe to compostionally match the anchor on the left shoe. I had to use compass to create a perfect circle and after that it was pretty easy. A few new brushes helped create super thin lines which aided me during this portion of the painting and also contributed to the outlines within the water, rope, and anchor highlights. They also helped me figure out how to make the yellow panels actually look like sand. I darkened the edges near the water and put a starfish on one and a "X" to make the spot for my buried treasure on the other. On a side note, I doubt anyone will want to find this so called treasure because it will most likey be something that doesn't smell pleasant. What do you think Rachel's foot? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh SNAP!!!







Overall this whole ordeal sparked some new found love of painting within me. I have started painted three other pieces during this project and hope to finish them soon so I can post them. Thanks for the inspiration Rachel. I hope you enjoy the kicks.



Usually I go somewhere that correlates with my art to take pictures but with gas prices well over $4, I decided to just did it in front on my computer. Can you tell?

8" x 10"
The drawing above started out as a basic sketch like usual. It was a plan for a pair of slip-on Vans sneakers for my friend Rachel. She wanted an anchor on one toes and a captain's wheel on the other. I liked the sketch of the anchor above and went crazy. After completing this picture, I decided to continue with this 'beachy' colorful idea and proceeded to create the two images below.

8" x 10"

8" x 10"

I liked them so much that I decided to frame them all in the same way and create a sort of series depicting images that deal with the ocean, water, beach, and aquatic life. They are now hanging in my room, above my computer, with very beach style 80% recycled frames. They have really brightened up my bedroom although they do not match the decor at all.

4" x 16"

I started working at an art supply store recently and they had gray Prismacolor markers on clearance. They were 50% off!! Although I was pretty broke at the time, I decided to take advantage of this deal and cop a few. I rummaged around my room trying to find something to draw on and I stumbled upon this oddly shaped piece of scrap cardboard. I'm not sure where this idea came from but it reminded me of something that Ralph Steadman would create. It's freakishly contorted face and body parts resemble something like that of a nightmare which is contrasted by the professional school girl attire. Its made up of markers and colored pencils and is now located in my closet due to its foul subject matter and oddity.

8" X 10" on Gesso Board

For those of you who know me and have seen my art before, you know that this is not something I would normally create but my mother just remodeled her bathroom and wanted a painting to match her new surroundings. She wanted the foreground, or I should say the central motif, to be a sunflower placed on top of a lavender background. My mother knows me well because she specifically asked me not to go crazy and keep it simple. I tried my best to divert from my usual style but the background still came out chaotic. I love you mom. Happy Mother's Day!


I don't do much painting, on canvas and/or other art materials anyway, so this was a treat for me. I really enjoyed trying to make the pedals have a three-dimensional look by the continuous layering of paint. In retrospect, I wish I had regular acrylics to achieve this more efficiently but the only yellow I had was my leather acrylic paints I use to create sneakers. Don't get me wrong. These paints are great, but the problem with this paint is that they are very liquefied. They are like 'ink acrylics' which make them very easy to flatten out on leather but when you are trying to create a texture, they are no bueno. Note to self: Buy a tube of yellow acrylic.

This pair of Etnies is for my friend Chenoa. All she wanted was a king crown somewhere on the sneakers large enough to get noticed. She and I both wanted to put the crown on the outside of the shoe but there was already a factory printed, large logo of the classic Etnies "E" which compositionally would have been distracting and extremely busy. I decided to put it on the instep which was plain and boring. They didn't take very long to paint and they actually did not come close to representing my sketches, but I'm happy with the turn out and more importantly Chenoa liked them as well.

18" x 24" 80lb. white drawing paper



Reach in your pocket. We all have them. Everyone and their seven year old child have them. We read the news, navagate our GPS, play games, check or email, and stalk Facebook. Don't get me wrong.. I have the new iPhone4 for Verizon and I'm addicted to it. I love having my email right there, reading the news, and searching new and cool apps. I'm just being a hypocrite with this one.

Jean Baulrillard, author of "The Ecstasy of Communication," 1987 one of the most difficult books I have ever read, was a social theorist and critic best known for his analysis of technological communication. This man believed that our world was being corrupted by technology and that our most intimate spaces were no longer private. In the first chapter of his book, Baudrillard comments that by blurring the two spaces with technology has aided in the dematerialization of spectacle or secret. Television brings the entire universe in your home with the click of a button. Later in the book he goes on to say..

"We are no longer a part of the drama of alienation: we live in the ecstasy of communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene puts and end to every representation. But it is not the sexual that becomes obscene in pornography: today there is a whole pornography of information of all functions and objects in their readability, their fluidity, their, availability, their regulation, in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their branching, in their polyvalence, in their free expression... It is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed, forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obscurity of the visible, of the all-too-visible, of the more-visible-than-visiable. It is the obscenity of what no longer has any secret, of what dissolves in information and communication."

"Hyperreality" at its best Mr. Baudrillard. This piece is about materialism, technological advancement, social networking, and the lack of interpersonal social experiences. People are so involved with the internet now that its difficult to hang out with someone without them commenting on a viral video they saw on Youtube the night before, Facebook, or some other lame topic for discussion. People are communicating with their phones more than the person standing in front of them which is definitely out of control. We are starving ourselves from real sensate disturbences and experiences due to.. 3D Tvs without glasses or goggles!? Really? The whole point of all this was just to say that we are all forgetting about the beauty. The beauty of being a little kid and exploring things just to do it. The beauty that nature provides all around us uncaptured and boarderless. Beauty is right under your nose, or in this case, the flower behind your ear.

Side Note: Baulrillard died in March 2007, two moths after the release of the first generation iPhone. I wooooonnnnndddder if he stood in line to get it.. nah, I'll just goggle it.

9" x 18"
I stole Nalaties markers..shh!

This drawing is actually on 18" x 24" white drawing paper. It is smaller now because I wasn't happy with the rest of the composition. I tried to incorporate flowers and a wave in the foreground, with a hot air balloon and sky in the background, but the balloon turned out a lot less then perfect.. my perfect anyway. I haven't actually cut the drawing yet so I might try to make something of it still. I may make a three-dimensional, cut-paper project by layering more paper flowers on top to mimic them growing. The drawing above would be the base where smaller flowers would adhere to, like a pop up book. For now, the cropped image is what I want until I figure it out.

My little cousin Austin didn't like the 80's style sneakers I painted for him. I totally get it. They were a little too funky and feminine for most people. I just painted something that I would wear, which is usually outlandish colors, and my buddy Mike D would say, "Only you." I also didn't take his age into consideration and how the 1980's is just something he saw on VH1 when they were "loving it". Anyway, here they are.


I toned these down with the grey but continued with my 80's style idea through graffiti. I created a few paint splatters on the outsides of each sneaker and drips in the back to emphasis spray paint and the development of street art during that time. These were ten times easier than my original idea/experiment and I like the overall turn out. My only disappointment is the laces. I just hate the laces! I had to paint them and dye them several times to the point where they look overworked. Besides the overall color, my dryer caused them to appear 'linted' and beat up which makes them look old and weathered. My girlfriend said, and I quote, "They looked like you dragged them through a puddle," which I agree with but DAMN! LOL I decided to lace them differently so you would notice the design instead of their appearance but either way, I need to buy you laces Austin. Expect them in the mail sometime this month.

Side Note: Did you know that there are thirty-three awesome ways to tie your shoelaces?

I just found a whole folder of art on my computer, from 2009 and 2010, that I never posted or even organized in my pictures folder. They were taken with Natalie's camera during the time that I didn't have one. She was nice enough to find all these images, sometime last year,and put them on my flash drive which I imported to my computer and forgot about. I am not going to create a detailed post about each image but I will categorize them by time period, size, or materials so that it makes a little bit of sense.

The first few images were all created around the time I broke my camera in the summer of 2009. They are all drawn on 18" x 24" white drawing paper and most of them are mixed media illustrations made with markers, colored pencils, etc. They aren't anything special but I thought it was worth posting.








I like this one a lot only because I made it with a two year old while babysitting. Keith's daughter who is now four liked to help me draw, and while Keith and Amber went to an Incubus concert, Izabella and I made this. She liked to draw so much so that she went into my room a few days later and ruined a drawing I was working on. In retrospect, it was a mistake to leave my bedroom door open with a huge piece of a paper and a bucket of markers and colored pencils out in the open. Kids will be kids.. The couches have seen some art as well as the walls. She loves to draw which is so cool. We created a few things together while I lived there but this is without a doubt my favorite piece we made together. I actually was over at their house two days ago and found this drawing that she created at four years old. I loved the composition of it, so I took a picture of her drawing and posted it below. Maybe I can help her make something out of it like she helped me creating the image above.




The next group of images are caricatures of people I worked with. My friends Sarah asked me to draw her and I went out of control. My girlfriend Natalie had just bought a new 7" x 10" sketchbook of recycled mid-tone paper, which I conquered during my drawing frenzy. The images that follow after are from the same sketchbook so I figured I'd include them also.














There were a few more but I wasn't happy with them. These were my favorites of the Legoland peeps. I really enjoyed drawing the caricatures above on the mid-tone paper because I got to try out some new things with grease markers combined with regular markers.

The next four drawings are just random sketches. I've never worked on mid-tone paper in fine drawing before so the caricatures above as well as these drawings were really just experiments. During my Life Drawing courses in college, we used newsprint paper, charcoal, and conte crayons to create highlights and shadows but that was a messy process unlike what I have done here. Here, I have created a little chiaroscuro, made popular by Caravaggio and Rembrandt, by adding white highlights instead of drawing around them. It makes the drawing more fun for me and more dynamic to the viewer. You will see more of this style soon.. now that I remember doing it.