Ghostly International

Last night, Melodie and I went out to see the Ghostly International 10 Year Anniversary Show at the Drake Hotel. The venue was super sweet, they had three projections setup around that would be playing sweet videos while the performers were on. They had this hilarious video of a cat running back and forth, and closeup shots of a waffle...bangarang!

It was awesome to see the performances by Lusine, Michna, Raw Paw, Milosh, and SV4...they all brought really different and unique "flavors" to their music which was effing rad! For me though it was especially amazing to see TYCHO perform. Some of you may know him from his graphic design work as ISO50 (aka Scott Hansen), but if you haven't checked out his music, you definitely should. Super cool guy, after buying some prints we got to talk to him for a bit and he showed us some things he's been working on. He was even kind enough to sign our prints!

It was amazing to see artists show such an incredible passion for their craft.. Watching all of them perform was soo inspiring and fun...these guys know how to ball hard. Makes me want to go check out more concerts and shows....maybe Phoenix next :O??

Aside from a little bit of rainy weather outside, it was a pretty amazing night.
Take care.

*

The beginnings...

I can't wait till I get my new computer...I mean I love my PC to death, we've been through some solid times together--But these days the ol girl is just taking too long to do everything, it took me an hour to prep this blog post, just cause each photo took 2 minutes load in photoshop....le sigh. I digress...

For my narrative this year, I sort of embarked on a 'Journaling quest' (I like quests...they sound epic!)... I started with the thought of writing a story about a character, journaling through their eyes- their feelings, experiences, memories, etc. It was gonna be some pretty cool stuff, I wanted to make it like you would read through this persons life chronologically, but just like people get flashes of nostalgia and recurring feelings and experiences, I wanted the reader to experience these things as well, with stained pages seeping through recurring imagery. I pitched this idea to Clemente, and he said "..alright...let's go to work." So it was a lot of journaling after that.

So after our first major crit, we came to the conclusion that there's no way to do this story justice in half a semester...so I went back to work and came up with a distilled version of it...more like a loose zine. Clemente joked around that it had lyrical stylings of a pop song...


Here's what I came up with for it...the images below are void of the text, I kind of just wanted them to be stand alone. But I included the 'lyrics' below each image.

Start slowly and speak from the heart.

I learned to speak slowly when talking about matters of the heart

This is what I think my heart looks like...

This is what my heart feels like.

Does the world around me shape my view...

Or is it my world view that shapes the world around

Most things start off slow...taking shape as they go.

Start from the heart and speak slowly.

I'm happy with where it went, it was really fun to make it, almost like a childish freedom. It really got my inspiration up and I plan on making more in zine form! ...By no means is it what I intended but its a beginning.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. Sorry for the dark photos...night time blogging.

PPS. Here's a link to some photos from the opening night of 'Waking Aurora'! Thanks Tina!

Non-sliiiiick

A buddy of mine, and the most INSANE Talent in the game...also known as Pete Ryan started up this fantastic blog that features interview with some real heavyweights, as well as new comers to the illustration game. Featuring some great interviews with Christoph Niemann, Nate Williams, Dan Bejar, Sam Weber, Michael Byers, Mark Cabuena, and many more! If your looking for an inspiration fix or just some good ol' fashioned learning you should definitely check it out.

http://nonslick.blogspot.com

Latest interview featuring Juan 'the Stong' Solon.

Great job Pete!!

Let's all go to the lobby!

Sometimes I feel like i'm doing a lot of tidying up when I update the blog... I don't know, maybe I'm just weird like that. Last semester I wanted to do something that was fun and would make me happy, so I wanted to illustrate movie poster (or interpretations at least), of some of my favourite movies. It started out, with me choosing the movies around a loose theme of film noir...but then I realized i'm just a big fat romantic at heart, so I did love stories from there on out. I ended up doing Fight Club, The Fountain, Amelie, and True Romance.

'Fight Club'

10" by 15", ink and digital on paper

'The Fountain'
15.5" by 21.5", mixed media on paper

The line work for the Amelie piece

'Amelie
12" by 21.5", mixed media on paper

'True Romance' (B&W)
11" by 15", acrylic on paper

My original intention was to work up the posters to function as actual movie posters with typography, but Thom suggested that we focus the pieces more towards the actual illustration...and i'm glad we did. It helped work out a process for developing concepts. If you've seen any of these movies (you should if you haven't!) let me know what you think of the pieces!
Take care!

Hello Goodbye

Yoskay Yamamoto "Hello and Goodbye" Video Teaser from Modus Films on Vimeo.

Exactly a year ago, I was being so graciously welcomed to L.A. by Mr. Yammamoto...He is having his second solo show this Saturday, May 9th at LeBasse Projects gallery in Culver City. I wish him all the best, and hope that this show is another great success. If your in the LA region, please check it out!

Congrats yoko-chan!

Waking Aurora

My post school life has been pretty exciting...all 2 weeks of it. Along with moving into a new place, and beginning sweet new projects, I am incredibly excited to say that I will be participating in a great four-person show at the London Miles Gallery in Notting Hill Gate, London.


I will be showing alongside some great friends and artists: Yuta Onoda, Scott Belcastro, and Timothy Hon Hung Lee. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have my work showcased abroad.

The Opening reception for the show is May 7th, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm. To all of those who will be in the London area, please come out and have a good time...Let me know how the show goes! A big thanks to Beau, Tina and Phil for making this happen!

Note: Some photos from The Kids Are Alright Opening last friday were posted up. Here's a link, if you wanted to check em out. Thanks again to Subtext for hosting us!

ILLUSTRATION : The Drawcumentary

It was incredible to see the risks people would take and the different avenues that would be explored in my last semester at Sheridan, people were really stunning on all fronts with their work. Just to spice it up, RANDOM LINKS TIME!! ! @ # $ % ^

I'm sorry for that, I was reading Juan's blog and laughed and came back to mine and got depressed, so we're gonna try and make it happy happy!

Anyways, the reason for the post, I wanted to show some love and respect to my boy Greg Dubeau. He really put a tremendous amount of work into his film this semester that was something truly different to the illustration program and opened many of our eyes to what this program can be. It's probably the best year book I could ask for.

ILLUSTRATION: The Drawcumentary from Greg Dubeau on Vimeo.

The documentary really gives you a taste of what the end of the year was like...it's kind of comforting to watch while eating a bowl of cereal and reminiscing.

I'm soo happy to see that he's been getting so much internet love from this! Way to go buddy!

PS he's making DVDs, if you want one EMAIL HIM ABOUT IT!