Drawings of a couple of Old Masters Busts from LACMA and the Getty Villa.

When I stopped updating this blog it was very hard to get back into it.  Fortunately I’ve overcome my laziness and decided to post something.  Here are a couple of pen and ink drawings from my drawing for illustration class.

I know this is about a week late, but after last week’s hectic end to the term, I immediately slipped into lazy mode. However, I have finally decided to get off my lazy ass and write this post so….

It’s been an amazing 1st term at art center.  Looking back at what I’ve accomplished, the great teachers and students I’ve met, I couldn’t be happier with the experience.  No amount of opnions from previous Art Center Alumni could have prepared me for the workload.  I knew going into art center it would be intense, but I didn’t realise how I’d be able to handle it (with a lot of coffee and energy drinks).  Having gone through the first 1/8th of it, I’m surprised I was able to work as hard as I did. I don’t consider myself to the be the hardest working indvidual and I have a certain amount of problems with procrastination, but I suppose thats the value in Art Center being able to allow me to exceed my own expectations.  But I fully realise, this was but a taste of what is to come. All semester long, I’ve heard Term 2 is gonna kill you. I say bring it on, I feel more ready than ever to accept the challange.

Of course the most important valuable thing about Art Center is the work that is produced and the skills that are gained.  I am very happy with how my work turned out, especially with my Design 1 book.  Granted, there were plenty of areas where I feel I need improvement. But that’s why I came to Art Center, to learn from my mistakes.  I think looking at the work I produced this first term as a whole, I feel it’s time for me to step outside of my comfort zone. Throughout this term I’ve become more aware than ever of my design “habits”. Wether they are good or bad, is irrelevant, I think that if I don’t explore other avenues, other design solutions, I will never grow.

I think the most essential element of my overwhelmingly positive experience at  art center has to be the students.  Without the inspiration provided by their work, I would never get as far as I did. I discovered that by showing my work in progress to as many students/faculty as possible, I was able to get a whole range of different opinions and advice.  Gaining multiple perspectives is always the best way to force yourself to try something different.  I know that in the classes where I had the best students my work came out better for it.

Design 1 was definately the best example of this.  There were so many outstanding students in this class, that I was never lacking inspiration or ideas.  There was an enviornment of friendly competition and at the same time everyone was always willing to give advice.  It also helped that our teacher, Jon Nguyen, was outstanding.  He really knew his stuff and taught it well but I think what really made him stand out in my mind is his willingness to allow us to explore and experiment beyond the basics.  I don’t think I would have been as interested in design 1 if he hadn’t allowed us to integrate our own illustrations.

Another class that really made a great impression on me, was archetype press.  Technically I wasn’t supposed to take this class till term 3 or 4 (after type 2), Steve Kim pulled some strings for me and Gloria didn’t mind having me in the class at all. This class really put things in perspective for me, in terms of typography on the computer.  I learned to appreciate the process and allow myself to make mistakes.  It was a tough process because I was used to controlling everything in the computer, but working with type on the press forces you to account for the factors you can’t control.  It was truly an eye opening experience, and I know my typography will be all the better for it.

Here are a few pictures of some of the other students work from final crits in draw and shoot. Unfortunately I don’t have my design 1 book pictures yet, I will post them, along with more pics of my projects as soon as I get my book back.

Wednesday was scholarship review…scary. Thanks to a record amount of complainers, we had two extra weeks to prepare, so everyone was ready this time around.  Having had my portfolio ready to go the previous monday, I was pretty confident in my work and was really happy to have to opportunity to complete a few more projects.  When I saw everyone else’s work I was really impressed, so many first termers had such amazing work and everyone’s work was up to par for Art Center’s standards.  It really humbled me to see all the good work, and motivated me to work harder. Here’s what my table looked like.

After dozens of concepts and revisions, ive finnally finished my prop 4 ads. I’m quite happy with how they turned out. Although i wish we had been working on another project by now, i appreciate the fact that I was able to get a high level of refinement in the design and the concept.

The great thing about art center is that exploration is encouraged and I try to take every opportunity to expand my horizons artistically. For Design 1 we were assigned to find examples of different color combinations such as triad ( 3 primaries), complementary (2 opposities), analogous (2 or more adjacent), and monochrome (1 color). Our teacher also gave us the option of making our own artwork that demonstrated these color properties.  For me this was yet another opportunity to take a not too exciting project and take it in a new direction. So i decided to make a series of drawings around the theme of our overreliance on technology.  It was easier than i thought to come up with different ways to express this idea visually. This is a WIP so i am working on painting these in watercolor as we speak.

It’s not everyday you get to experience the history of a 129 year old letterpress facility, so when my archetype press teacher told us that Hatch Show Print was gonna visit Art Center I knew it was an event i couldn’t miss.  There were tons of letterpress posters for sale, ranging from an economical 10 dollars to a jaw dropping 900 + dollars.  The current owner of Hatch, Jim Sherraden, was the speaker for the event. He gave us an intriguing look at the history of Hatch Show Print, which was founded in 1879 by the Hatch Brothers. The shop hasnt changed much since then even though the location has moved 7 times.  Currently the shop is located in Nashville, Tennesse.  It’s hard to believe that this shop, which works with clients like CNN and Pixar, once was very close to being shut down. As Jim Sherraden likes to say, the computer is the best thing that ever happened to us, offsett printing was probably the worst thing that ever happened to hatch.  As soon as offsett printing came into exsistence, letterpress went out the window.  However the next revolution, “the digital age” all of a sudden pulled Hatch Show Print from the brink of disaster by unintentionally creating a new market for letterpress. Letterpress was once again appreciated as an artform and became a sought after look.  It truly is something that cannot be duplicated on a computer.  Jim puts it best “People are craving authenticity. They want to get to the roots of this artistry. When you look at a Hatch poster, it’s authentic. It’s one of a kind. It doesn’t have that slick glossy feel that computer-animated printing has”

Recently I discovered some amazing caricature artists on the web. Jason Seiler and Court Jones are among the best caricature artists I have ever seen. I was inspired to try my hand at a couple of caricatures, Ive never really been successful at caricatures but Jason Seiler’s video demonstrations gave me some insight into his process which helped quite a bit. I think these are definately my first semi successful caricatures.

Thom Yorke

Ron paul

Cosmo Kramer

Bill Gates

Barney Frank

I thought i had made up my mind about what kind of artist i wanted to be, but ever since i started Art Center, i can’t shake the feeling that my true passion still lies with illustration. I find myself looking for any excuse to add illustration in my graphic design.  Perhaps its just the fact that im suddenly surrounded by all these talented people and frankly im the kinda of guy who wants to experience as much of all the wonderful fields of study the visual arts have to offer.  So on that note ive decided to try my best to keep up a sketchbook. From now on ill try to update this gallery at least once a week. Here are 10 sketches to start off with,enjoy!

Design projects that gravitate towards advertising have always been problematic for me.  I usually prefer to work on a larger time scale rather than make my ideas work in mere seconds.  However i realize the importance of being able to communicate clearly in a very short time frame.  Advertising is most definitely one of the fundamental tenants of graphic design. My comm design project was thus a true challenge.  The assignment was to create a tryptic of 3 posters informing a younger (college-aged) about one of the many propositions on the california ballot this coming November.  I chose proposition 4 ( requirement for parental notification before an abortion is performed). Our teacher, Tyrone, encouraged us to take the side that went against our personal views so we could practice being as objective as possible.  So I took his advice and chose to do my ad campaign against proposition 4.  My initial concepts were quite basic but they lacked the main ingredient a strong idea.  As the project moved on i began to touch on the many lectures on communication and my concepts  began to improve. Here are the current batch of concepts.  At this point in the project we are refining and further defining our concepts through refinement of the language, copy, visuals, and typography.  Tyrone preffered my “options” idea due to its straightforward approach, clear message, and impact.  So going with that idea, i will have to decide what type of imagery will complement the core concept.