Training for naive digits.

1) A drawing of Self portrait with Cigarette by Max Beckmann

2) Rope from the pier.

3) Animals from the natural history museum. 

Pop Ups (part 2)

What contained has no lid but still holds golden treasure?

Sovereign

Was hanging out with a friend while she was painting, so I found a piece of scrap canvas and borrowed some supplies to do something too. Just thinking about stuff and some ideas, nothing serious.

Calling All Perverts!

All Right kids, am really excited for a new mini project my friend Laura and I are starting called The Naughty Blog. Theres not much there yet, and though our original plan was just to have a place to put all the naked folk we draw the few entries that have been put up seem to say that anything remotely sexy goes, actually even the unsexy will go.  Haha so stop by and see whats going on in the minds of two very nerdy ladies... 

Two very buxom, juicy, voluptuous, sleek, fashionable yet completely modest ladies with incredible hair...ladies.

Did I mention ladies?

Pop-up Riddles!

"At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen."

"What Cannot be seen but only heard and will not speak unless spoken to?"

Interpret This Truth (BITCHES!)

I am no athlete, but just like someone who waits for the gun to fire before a race my heart pumps furiously right before a critique. Normally I come prepared, or at least think that there is some merit in what has been created. This was the case with the above illustration meant to show a relationship. However when trying to address the compositional problems of the first (which I didn't completely agree with) and place in color everything came crashing down. Won't go into detail with all the circumstances that produced the monstrosity below because you all have eyes of your own and thus own judgments.

But the worst part is having to show my very talented class and knowledgable teacher what I had done. It was awful. I dreaded it so much that my dreams the night before were filled with chastisement and suffocating shame that would crush even the strongest of backs.

So look upon the soft black and white version as the true image, and the color as only a shallow unnatural abberation of something that deserved more.

Many a Turkey have walked these roads.

I went to Canal Street today to get lenses put in my new glasses and since It would take an hour I did a little exploring of the marketplace there. There were all these piles of dried mushrooms and miscellaneous roots and blue clawed crabs trying to escape. Noticed a woman picking these blackish figures out of a barrel. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was an entire pile of live toads the size of dinner plates.

It was so mesmerizing! At first you thought there was just the top layer of frogs, but the barrel was deep and every once in awhile another green bulging face would surface and push the others aside in an attempt for freedom. The Woman purchasing the toads kept flipping them over and trading out hers for better specimens. I asked her "How do you know which ones are the good ones?" She looked at me, smiled, and kind of did a series of mini bows before scuffling off leaving me quite perplexed.

The urge to reach in and stroke their slick knobbly skin was making my fingertips tingle, but the image of one of thing swallowing my arm in their bottomless gaping mouth deterred me from following through, dangit!

"What will fix this?"

Pride in Muddy Observation

"Do you feel numb?"

VIKING (Its the braids, swear to god!)

Story Time! So while doing this illustration late last night (late due to my own inability to self motivate) I kept trying to figure out why it looked funny. "why does this look funny?" I asked myself, holding it at arms length, putting it on the floor and tacking it to the wall and taking a few steps back. "SOMETHING IS WRONG!" 

Then of course the moment the teacher looks at it he goes on the second rant of the class about how we need to master perspective. Somehow in my stupor I had aligned the tiles incorrectly, and somehow skewed the wall so that it creates this crazy triangular room... where the walls will never connect haha, whoops.  Also got burned for the hands, which I didn't really care about because that was more of a stylistic choice than practical, but will have to keep in mind that others may think it's a mistake.

Buut, the ultra upside is that while talking about a classmates work, the Professor was like "YA'LL ARE AFRAID" (not exact words mind you) but then he gestured toward me and said something about not being afraid. Guys I've never been called any kind of brave in my entire life. On the contrary, I always wanna puke when the class gets to critiquing my work. Thus am surfing on a little self-esteem wave at the moment. However am all too aware of how said wave can disappear. Now feel a bit of pressure not disappoint anybody. OH MY am total weenie.

My life revolves around school at the moment, so sorry if you get tired of hearing about the same class. Will try to give you something a bit more fulfilling for the next post :)

Knock knock, anybody home?

Look how cool we are with our thrifted threads and moleskin notebooks!

Finished my second  sketchbook. Have already showed a few from this book but why not a few more? It also seems I've forgotten one image hoo huum where did it go guys?

For some reason people really like this page...

I am very worried about how I totally fetishize breasts, even partially lopsided ones, i don't mean to!

Sketches from the Natural History Museum, which i loved beyond words. These moose are so huge you would never believe it, but even though they're supposed to be battling to the death they still look so polite!

I Swear we're not lost.

This was a sequential project for my storytelling class where we were asked to adapt La Boheme to six different illustrations to bind into a book. Got permission to do more of a comic oriented idea, and like always i veered a bit off course when it came to sticking to the original, oh well! The entire process of making something that has to tell a story really opened my eyes to my own shortcomings as well as pointing out how much work something like this takes, KUDOS TO MY COMIC MAJOR BRETHREN! holla. Anyway Hope you all enjoy this!

The Second Mix.

Its getting colder, the sun is taking longer to roll out of bed and it feels like another mini season has passed here in the city, ANOTHER MUSICAL SEASON THAT IS! Most of these songs are what I've been listening to while walking around and being smooshed up against folks on the subway, while a few just deal with applicable themes popping up lately. Anyway, hopefully you all enjoy this, despite the awful order I've strung them together in and the slacker cover art :D (oh, and I have much art to show you so stay tuned!)

Two: in transit

Download

===Track List===

                             1) Inni Mer syngur vitleysingur - Sigur Ros

                             2) Rum Hee - Shugo Tokumaru

                             3) Daylight - Matt & Kim

                             4) Wake Up - Arcade Fire

                             5) Don't Slow Down - Matt & Kim

                             6) Embrace The Martiant - KiD CuDi

                             7) Why Didn't You Get A Haircut - Math the Band

                             8) Karte - Shugo Tokumaru

                             9) Fascination - La Roux

                            10) Tour De Friends - Math the Band

                            11) Seventeen - Marina and The Diamonds

                            12) Nicht Plus Ultra - Misty Roses

                            13) White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

                            14) Up&Over - Shenandoah Davis

                            15) Star of Wonder - Sufjan Stevens 

The procession of bodies

I feel as if all I do is wake up, go to class and draw naked people. I mean, I really like Naked people, don't get me wrong! It's really an interesting experience that of course, dims when becoming habitual but, every once in awhile I'm really struck by how intimate it sometimes feels. Especially that moment when they're undressing. I still pretend to yawn and look away when they're meticulously peeling away the things that link them to everyday life. Am astounded when they take the time to fold their pants or align their off grey socks exactly parallel to each other haha.

I like how sitting for hours memorizing someones body makes one realize all the angles you normally don't see people from, and how skin folds and that these little quirks you see in your own body are actually mirrored in others. And suddenly all those commercial images of beauty seem to pale in comparison to what people really look like or you surprise yourself and really like something that in theory you would have thought really gross or unnattractive.

This happened to me a few weeks ago where we had this very petite female model. She was a little plain looking, even a little awkward. When she took her robe off though and turned around to pose I noticed that she had this diamond shaped patch of downy hair at the base of her back just above the cleft of her butt. At first I was a little taken aback, having been taught that any odd hair on a girl should be promptly removed! But there was something oddly pleasing about it. Just a thin patch of softness that turned her suddenly into some small  feral woodland creature. Creepy right? Does anyone else sit and really ponder the biological structures of the numerous people that tripsy into our midst each Wedensday morning?!? God I hope so!

Oop! And sorry about the image quality. Don't own a large scanner so photography had to be used and I am no photographer.

"I WANNA BE 40 FEET TALL, I WANna have HYDROLIC ARMS!"

Class: Principles of Illustration

Assignment: Include three different textures with emphasis on composition.

Comments: U.U ZZZzzzzzz (not a total failure)

Whhhaaaaaaaa ;__;

 Alright, so it's around two and I still have not put on legit clothes, brushed my teeth or done laundry OR HOMEWORK and have not updated and have not cleaned room in an undisclosed amount of time AND just wanna read because my apartment is so cold and I promise to update more Whaaa!

So this is what life is about

lols lols lols HARK!

Alas, fall is swiftly approaching, if not sitting unobtrusively upon our heads here in the city. Each day I wake up and the air is a little bit chillier making my bed a little bit cozier which leads to the ever pushing of the snooze button on my alarm clock. It's time to pull out all our lovely knitted hats, wooly tights (the boys call them long johns) and secretly retrace our steps back to that very first crunchy leaf we accidentally tread on a block behind us.

because yes, that first leaf is a doozy, a lone crunch that is sweeter than a million friend request on facebook. So go out, put them layers on and don't feel embarrassed for ordering a hot chocolate instead of your double shot-nonfat-foamless-soy monstrosity. Guys, I just don't want you to miss this!

Whoot whoot!

Hurry and count to 30! *EDIT* with color

Here's the value sketch for one of my assignments that required us to have an artificial light source. The entire process of developing this idea has been such a good learning experience. Just the vast amount of work I have to put in to stay a float in my classes has gotten me a little down trodden and frustrated with my limitations, but the product seems really worth it you know?  The final colored version is due next week, and here I increased the contrast and darkened it to get the effect I want in the final. Am so scared of redoing it again though, me and coloring do not get along :)

Oh and here's one of the reference photos of my roomate, its almost if not more beautiful than the sketch! Just look at those shapes refracting off the wall.

I love monsters so much. I know they're not supposed to be real, but I swear to god they existed at some point, if only when we were all little kids stranded atop our beds, in fear that if we ventured out for a glass of water, the moment our bare feet touched the ground something would grab us. That something was so tangible and real back then! And yet even though it was the darkest part of our psyche we could somehow protect ourselves by either not opening our eyes or taking refuge under our unpenetrable blankets.

To bad the monsters arn't as easy to find now.

Am so tired.

*EDIT*

Oop the final color! Ugh, so just between you and me I really don't understand the purpose of gausche (guasche, gauche?). My roommate said that it may help to get the same dreamy and smooth quality as the sketch, but I, like always, just ended up using it as watercolor! Gaah, what a fool. But really, the only upside to using it seems to be that the colors move around a bit when touched by water, but it ends up becoming just as transparent as watercolor. 

Feedback was minimal, nothing I didn't expect. Composition was wack, said my colors were washed out etc. etc. I seem to lack that whole sense about how to use composition. The major complaint from the teacher was that it was so busy, and yet seeing that I left just some open space that I guess I thought made it all right. Plus idk, detail just seems so attractive. I want people to roam about my picture with their eyes, not sit like a lump on a log.

and, AND (!!!) all right guys, I didn't want the focal point to be the child, the monster is the character I care about because the child is ITS monster! Maybe becoming penpal's with ones teacher is advised, because I didn't realize how frustrated I was until I started editing this entry and writing about the critique.

That's my Daughter in the water.

The Obligatory "So hows school going?"

**With the start of school comes the lacking of time issue, but I'm going to shoot for updating this here blog once a week, however if push comes to shove and things get too hectic (like during finals) I may skip a week. Not sure who I'm talking to haha but whatevs.  

This is the Watermelon girl and the grape girl and a cuttlelfish. 

Aha! I'm currently communicating to you via the School of Visual Arts computer lab since scheduling has created a six (yes six!) hour gap between my two classes today. Alas, its alright since thus far today's classes have been great. My Principles of Illustration teacher got the class (or me at least) really jazzed about illustration, and fighting to be the absolute best artist you can be. Oh dang. The guy clearly knows what he's doing. He was able to inspire and scare us all totally shitless!

Do you guys ever think that life in general is way more interesting than we give it credit for? I mean really, i feel as if, especially in the past week, the combination of old characters popping up in my life, and mini adventures and just beautiful blips in time have grown frequent. Its not all good, but the structure of life itself has shifted a little bit and being able to look back at the summer has brought up even more almost heartbreaking realizations. That being said, this week may be as boring as the last was exhilarating hahah. 

Listened to that song from the Where the Wild Things are Trailer? The one by Arcade Fire? Listen to it now, I have it on loop.

I wish I were at Versaille.

Hello everyone out in cyberspace. Sorry about the lack of updates, I've moved and have no internet! or scanner! But thats okay, to tell you the truth i havn't really done anything creative because of all the running around. However since it is the last day of summer before school starts, an entry seemed to be appropriate. Thus lacking art i've been combing my computer for something interesting to share with you and came up with these pictures from not this summer's, but last summer's trip I went on with my french class

As you may have guessed this is the Palace of Versaille in France. I don't often take photos, but having been threatened by my mother to bring photo documentation of everything on the trip I snapped more pictures than I had snapped in my entire life. What was so great was that once I got used to wielding the camera, i was no longer sure what was picture worthy and what wasn't. I didn't want to miss one moment of the entire trip and so everything from candy, to errant squirrels to funny old men were captured on my camera forever.

I was watching Two Days in Paris (which is a super cute movie, I highly recommend it) and the main character, a photographer complains about her boyfriend constantly taking photos on their super romantic Europe trip and that he became a bystander instead of participating in this great adventure they were having together. This is so true! You don't know how many masses of tourists I see walking about New York just globbed into groups with their cameras out.

Are we all this terrified of forgetting? That was the reason I took photos. Being a little more forgetful than the average person, I'm bewildered to know that so many moments are lost to us once gone and that the only way we will ever be able to find them is if somehow they're fished out by some smell or song. Its all so random. 

So be careful folks! If something amazing happens write it down! Take a picture! But have faith in your memory too. Anyway, wishing everyone a great first day of school/ work/ life!

The First Mix.

Hello there readers! Summer is almost over and with just under a week before I leave and go back to the East Coast for school I would like to share with you the soundtrack for said summer. Special thanks to my musical Obi Wan Kenobi (Mandy) who is constantly thrusting good music into my lazy ears.

Hope you all enjoy! If not, bummer.

Songs for the uk (a summer compilation) <3

Download 

===Track list===

(1) West Coast - Coconut Records                              

(2) Keep it Real - Leslie Hall                                       

(3) Alma Song - Pwrfl Power                                       

(4) Fucking Boyfriend - The Bird and the Bee           

(5) Ghost Under Rocks - Ra Ra Riot                            

(6) Aruarian Dance - Nujabes, Fat Jon & Minmi       

(7) Chinese - Lily Allen                                                   

(8) Rymden I En Lada - Detektivebran                        

(9) Major Tom - Shiny Toy Guns                                   

(10) Invisible Shadow - Hollow Jan                                  

(11) Little Bit (feat. Lykke Li) - Drake                             

(12) S'Vive - Bibio                                                                 

(13) I'm in Miami Bitch - LMFAO                                      

(14) That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings                       

(15) Hang You From The Heavens - The Dead Weather

(16) goodbye song - Moldy Peaches                                   

I don't like it cheap.

Ok... so I epically fail at the sexy thing all right? Yeah I do. I cower in forfeit, especially after reading such comics as Chester 5000 XYV, Curvy and the few pumped out by Junko Mizuno. What they all have in common is this simple, attractive style and type of story telling that appeals to the romantic and sexually frantic. Having seen my fair share of smut, I like these artists, and others like them because unlike the billions of videos and pictures that can really disenchant one about sex, they leave you feeling naughty but totally not ashamed. Feeding the mind and body is a much more hollistic approach to erotica. Though, yes, the situations depicted are often super dramatized theres still this inkling of truth that the old shag n' bang industry just doesn't have. 

Lets switch gears a little bit. So yesterday I went to go hang out with a friend and we saw Afghan Star, a film about the first talent based American Idol-esque show to air Afghanistan after the rule of the Taliban. This is a huge deal because apparently music (!!!) had been banned, MUSIC!! and people could call in and vote, HELLO DEMOCRACY! Anyway, there were two woman contestants. When the first one, Setara, was kicked off she had to sing a farewell song. 

And so she starts, sort of swaying side to side from foot to foot to the beat and sings, and throws her head scarf off and continues to dance with all this emotion. Behind the scenes an entire country is shaking its head. Though music has been grudgingly approved dancing is out of the question. She is considered a floozy, loose and a huge threat to morals of the country, such a huge threat that there are death threats. All this for dancing! And not even sexy dancing! It's insane that such small actions are so revolutionary, but I guess they're not that small in such situations.

So I don't know. I was super humbled when I walked out of there and relieved that I have the potential to become this full human being in the open. Just looking down at what I was wearing, thinking of what I write and read and talk openly about with those around me, dang WE ARE SO LUCKY! hahhhh am glad I have the freedom to show you my badly photoshopped art :)

introducing...

my circus!

The concept is a lot more interesting than the image, but since this blog is supposed to document the good and the bad of my art and life and whatever I figured sharing it wouldn't hurt too bad. This summer I've been reading a much about the lives of performers in the circus and vaudeville and I'm always fascinated by the wide range of folk that travel about. It seems like the absolute greatest kind of life. Where you do something beautiful for people and then pack all your things, get on a train and and start again in a whole new exotic place. Think of all the stories and people you'd meet!