Hajike Party

Illustration Friday- Entangled

2009-12-03T20:11:00.000-08:00

Although atrophied, I've decided to dust off my pencils and stretch my illustration muscles.

I did this previous weeks topic for Illustration Friday: entangled.

When I thought about this, what came to my mind was how I often feel entangled in my own thoughts. Though I've gotten better at not being in my own world all the time, this has been something that I've done since I was a child. Always in my head, thinking about something, oblivious to what most regular folk are concentrating on.

Because of this, I was the quiet kid for most of my life, and when asked, "Why don't you talk," I often replied that I had nothing to talk about. That was a half-truth...it was more that what I was thinking about was probably so out-there or personal that I don't think I could relate with that person.

In any case, this is how it's been. Sometimes I got tired of it, and thought it a curse, but I'm alright with it. I feel that it's much better to observe and reflect then to just talk, and I'd rather be the quiet guy than the blabbermouth. I'd rather have the few words that I do say be worth their weight in gold, instead of the value of peanuts.

So, I imagine that if someone looks at me when I'm in this state, I'm not more that a pair of eyes peering from a brain. Just observing and thinking.

The illustration could be pushed further, but I decided to just post what I have because i want to respect the deadline (though I barely made it).

If you have them to give, critiques are welcomed.

Photoshop practice 9.23.09

2009-09-23T06:32:00.000-07:00

Been a while...I know.
Anyway, been tinkering around with photoshop lately, and decided to do a study of sorts.
I've realized that I need A LOT of practice to get to where I want to be with illustration/art in general.

So here's the first of many studies that I will be doing to get myself up to snuff, and to give myself confidence and satisfaction as an artist.

I have a long way to go...but first step is better than none at all.

The model was my girlfriend, who was nodding off most of the time...

Random tidbits

2009-06-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some random sketches that I've done here and there from the past month or so.

As always, there's a lot to say, but I'll opt to just keep things short for now.

Tully's Cafe in Fukuoka

Same Tully's

Baseball Practice at my School

Elderly People at Mosburger

Baachan Chatting it up at Mosburger

Sketch Dump 5-16-08

2009-05-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Alright, so here I am, with some sketches of recent, with no where to put them.
Oh, where shall I put them?
Ah, that's right, I have this blog that I should use, shouldn't I?

Ok, so here we go...enjoy.

Guests at an all you can eat party in Osaka.

Bar in Namba, Osaka.

Same bar.

A cold night in triangle park.

One more thing!

2009-03-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

I have a lot to say but I'll keep it short, because I know I'll waste a lot of time.
It's much better to just post stuff.

First, is one last little drawing that I did in my last school.
One student was fascinated with Alice in Wonderland and she was taken by the pieces that I did while I was at Pratt featuring Alice. So, sometime before I was supposed to leave the school, she asked me to make an Alice drawing for her. So, I took one of the days where I had nothing to do and made this quick drawing with colorpencils.

And here are some sketches I did recently that had nothing to do with the subway, so I'm posting them here.

2008 Review in Pictures part 4- Happy New Year

2009-02-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

I missed my weekly update because I have to eat and I did extra work.
In any case, here I am, updating as usual.

This will be a short entry.

I did a lot of projects and lessons for my school that involved me using my drawing skills. If I didn't mention it before, the times that I could spend drawing were the happiest times I had working at school. Time just melted away as I lay strokes of ink and graphite across the page.

I did get stressed out quite a bit doing this, though it was often because I was pressed to do something that wasn't drawing, and would get anxious and frustrated in the process.

So, here are the final three illustrations that I will should you from the school that I was working in until recently.

This was an illustration that I mad and never used. It was a scene that could be divided into 16 different pictures as cards. I would ask the students to describe scene in the cards and they could be used in a sort of puzzle/matching game.

I was ask to make a composition for them to use as reference for a poster/banner they were doing about Okinawa for the Cultural/Club Festival at the school. Here it is.

Finally, I did a picture for the nengajo (New Year's greeting card) that the school produced for the year.

I have one more update from last year, then on to bigger and better things...like *gasp* paid illustration work.

2008 Review in Pictures part 3- Animal Pictures

2009-01-18T04:49:00.000-08:00

So, last time I posted some Illustrations I did for the school newspaper and I believe that I mentioned that many other Illustrations were requested of me throughout my time at that school.

One such of those was a series of Illustrations depicting animals. The purpose of these was just to have some cards to use for naming animals in English for some Elementary school students that were visiting the middle school I was working at.

I'm not sure if it's a normal thing, but at my school, they had one day where students that would be coming to our school the following year would visit.

Actually...come to think of it, I remember doing something similar when I was in elementary school, and middle school.

Anyway, so I and a fellow teacher were put in charge of giving an English lesson to the students. Part of my responsibility was to make the cards that you will see below.

I had fun making these, though some of them could've been better. I was satisfied with most of them though.

Before leaving the school to teach at the school that I'm currently teaching at, I gave away most of these cards and the bear cards that I posted before to the teachers and students as mementos.

2008 Review in Pictures part 2- Editorial (?) Illustrations

2009-01-11T20:36:00.000-08:00

Alright, so last time I briefly spoke about my time in the Graphic Design class at Pratt. Since that time, I took it upon myself to venture elsewhere, and if it isn't already obvious I have been in Japan working as a teacher for almost 5 months.

The truth is that it has been tough...or rather, a challenge to survive in Japan. But the reason behind that is not so much Japan, but really has to do with my own personal issues and situations.

Regardless, it has been a very big change from my lifestyle in New York City. One thing being, of course, that my job changed from being an assistant, working part time, and having a mild amount of responsibility, to a full time teacher. Though I am still considered an assistant, I have definitely had times where I have been worked as a real teacher, and my responsibilities are much greater than that of my former occupation.

One of my concerns about a job like this was if I would be able to continue my art and sketches to the same degree that I had been doing in New York. I expected that I would be really inspired by Japan, so the creative juices would flow, but I still have a job to do, which would probably take up all of my time.

The strange thing is that somehow, I am doing more art work here. Actually, the amount of sketching that I do has dropped, which is a bit of a disappointment. But while that has happened, my actual Illustration work has slightly increased, due in part to being able to use my skills on the job. *mini gripe* I wish I was doing paid Illustration though...

Once the secret was out at that I had some drawing skills, I was, at first, overwhelmed by the amount of work everyone was asking of me. This was on top of all the lesson making, and classes. Frankly speaking, I was not required at all to draw anything, or do half the things that I did, but I kept it up anyway. When it comes down to it, I really do enjoy making art for my job. Sure, I get frustrated sometimes, but the time melts away when I'm drawing or painting, as opposed to writing up a lesson plan. So I'd rather do than not do.

One of things that was requested of me was two illustrations for the monthly school newspaper. I think what happened is that they didn't have enough to write about and they needed something to fill the space, but I was happy to help anyway.

They asked me to do two illustrations...immediately. I only had 2 or 3 hours to come up with an idea and execute the whole thing, and I did it, without much problem.

Both were small articles the detailed on the achievements of the sports clubs in recent matches.

The volleyball team had won a local tournament. I didn't know it was the boy's volleyball team though, but no one said anything to me, so I guess they were cool with it.

Also, the baseball team had done well. The blurb in the circle just mentions that I had drawn these Illustrations for them.

I still have about two or three updates left. I could do everything at once, but I want to space things out so I have more overall content on this blog and so I have consistent updates.

Until next time.

2008 Review in Pictures part 1- Graphic Design

2009-01-07T01:25:00.000-08:00

It's been forever and a day since I've posted. Things have just been so busy and I haven't really been able to compose myself to the degree of actually posting what I want to.

In any case, I just wanted to take some time out and talk about what I did in 2008.

Before coming to Japan to teach English to the various members of the Japanese population I was but a lowly assistant. An assistant in the financial aid department of the school I formerly attended, Pratt.

It was often a source of frustration, but looking back, it wasn't all bad. It was also my first "real" job and I learned quite a lot from the experience.

One of the perks of the job was that I was able to take some credits at Pratt at reduced cost. I really would've like to take a graphic novel class they were offering or if possible, another figure drawing class, but unfortunately I was unable to do that and I ended up in Communication Design II.

I took it mostly because there wasn't much else that I could take that wouldn't be a hassle, but also because graphic designer is always a fall back for anyone in the visual arts field. Graphic Design has some really great talents out there, and I don't think I have what it takes to be a great or anything, but to make money as a graphic designer doesn't demand as many skills as it would to make money as a fine artist or an illustrator. I guess because an annual report has more use than a painting of a nude figure... I don't understand the world sometimes.

Anyway, the class was interesting. We had about two projects throughout the semester. The first was a brochure for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It was interesting and I think I did a decent job, but I'm not going to show it off.

The second was identity, branding, just about everything, for a salsa of our naming.
I went with Piquant. Which is reminiscent of the words in Latin based languages that mean hot or spicy. Which I believe come from a root word that means something like prick or thorn.

First we had to come up with a bunch of logos and a brand identity...

By the by, the colors aren't as vivid as the originals...sorry, save for web sapped the energy out of them.

A southwestern theme, with the wanted poster type lettering. Three peppers for the symbol set against a desert night scene. Second one was a lighter theme, more of a Florida, Caribbean thing.

First two variations were supposed to be more "sophisticated." Like a wine bottle label.
The last is using colors as more of a theme. Though the green and off white is supposed to be a cross section of a pepper with seeds.

And finally, fire and warning tape! Everyone had to vote on each others labels to decide what we would go with and this is the one that everyone voted on. I like this one, but I think I liked the southwestern and the colorful one a bit more. Oh well.

After that, we had to create some print ads with a slogan. Here's one of my sketches...
The main image has a tag line of "Pure Awesome." I put a bunch of things that I considered to be of the awesome persuasion, such as Vikings, and dragons, and unicorns.
My other ideas were on the side and have a tag line of "Natural Kick." It was supposed to be an all natural salsa, so in my sketches I adorned the bottle with various fighting gear, thai boxer shorts, a lucha mask, a black belt, etc.

All those ideas were shot down in rapid succession. I struggled and struggled. I must have made about 5 or so tag lines with tons of variations and sketches for each, all of them shot down. It started to get to me, and I was getting rather annoyed. So I threw up my arms and decided to make a kind of passive aggressive slogan and ad...

...because if the salsa is so good, why do I need to catch your attention with some "jazzy, hip" copy. It's just good salsa, that's it. Enjoy.

I gave it to my friend to submit it to him and didn't come to class (I had an excuse, but I forgot what it was) and I heard that he was really annoyed with it, and said something like, "I don't want this trash."

Which further frustrated me to the point that I almost felt like I couldn't continue the class. I had to talk to him, and basically say, "Tell me what you want, so we can get this over with."

...and this was the result. A random picture of salsa with a "hip" slogan. *Stereotypical African American voice* "Yo, Piquant is where da PARTY iz AT!"
Can you sense the sarcasm in my writing?
Anyway, it passed and I could finally finish up my project.

After that we had to make a poster for an event our brand was sponsoring. I did a jazz festival in New York.

With that finished I was able to wrap things up and do my final presentation, which required us to present our ideas to a professional chef who was considering launching a real food brand.

Surprisingly I was one of the top three picks for best design and ideas. I was shocked and amazed, but of course happy.

And that was my brief experience in graphic design for 2008.

More 2008 writings and drawings coming soon.

Bear Cards

2008-10-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Wow, illustrations finally right?

Well, if you didn't know, I've been working as an English teacher for a Japanese middle school for the past two months. While doing this, I've basically tried to take advantage of any conceivable opportunity to using my drawing skills.

So, in this case, I was asked to make some cards that would make it easier to divide the kids into random groups. So, I made this cards which I dub 熊カルタ (Kuma Karuta or Bear Cards). There are six of them so that when passed out, they will create six groups based on the card that each child receives. As an extra, each card has a theme or vocabulary word associated with it.

They were painted with watercolor and were very fun to create.

Btw, these are my images...please don't use them without my permission...just have to get that out there.

Bright Bear

Bad Bear- A Yankee, or the Japanese version of a punk student. This was my vice principal's favorite.

Bed Bear or Sleepy Bear- This was the favorite of the teacher who asked me to create these.

Big Bear

Boring Bear

Brave Bear

From SFO to KIX

2008-09-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

My final day in the states. On the plain, waiting to go to Osaka, where I currently am.

Some notes that I wrote on the way...

- There was a man who was probably of high status in some Muslim sect that I sat next to while waiting in JFK. He was wearing a long black robe, with a matching, black head wrap. He smelled a little raw, but other than that seemed like a very nice guy.

While boarding the plane, I was slightly upset by a lady ahead of me in the line, because she made a very ignorant comment about that guy. Something like "I hope that man in the black robe isn't on the same flight..."

But kudos to the flight attendant who she said this to, because she kind of rolled her eyes and assured her that he posed no threat. Sometimes I feel embarrassed to see people like that lady...

- When I came to the waiting area for my flight from SFO to Kansai International, I noticed a familiar looking man sitting rather far from the other passengers.

Lo and behold, who could it be, but Billy Blanks of Tae Bo, and "Billy's Boot Camp" as it's called in Japan. He was on my plane, and I spotted him again in front of the line when I went through customs in Japan, but I opted to not bother him. I thought it might be a little awkward.

July in Union Square

2008-09-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

Uploading some sketches that I did before I came to Japan.
Here's one from Union Square in July, before I went to Miami, and eventually to Japan in August.

...Without a doubt, I miss New York.

Memes I've missed

2008-09-22T04:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the random post.

There are a lot of things going on for me here in Japan, but I'll start writing about that in due time. I got internet rather recently and it's bit hard to organize myself, start writing, and get the ball rolling.

In the mean time, via Lifehacker, I found the Internet Meme Timeline featured on the Wired Blog, and created by BK Gupta of Dipity.

Looking at it, I noticed a few memes that I missed in the past year.
So, I present them to you, my reader(s).

First, is Yo Tengo Miedo. Which was interesting to me because it was a meme in Spanish (Mexican, I believe.) It's interesting to see the memes that each section of the world has. Of course there were some other foreign language means that were brought to my attention, but I can somewhat understand what's going on in this one.

Basically, this guy is being stopped by the police for being drunk, and I guess they want to do a breathalyzer test on him. He displays his degree of inebriation by constantly say, "I'm scared, I'm scared" and so on.

Next is a video that features IT/Helpdesk humor, which I found amusing. I worked briefly as a tech in college, I didn't do very advanced work...but I understand how things are. Actually, if you've worked with people or in the service industry you should understand this.

Finally, is the most recent meme that I've missed. Which is that Oprah got pranked by Anonymous. I'm not going to explain about this. I'll just provide the necessary links and you can learn on your own.

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/IT%27S_OVER_NINE_THOUSAND! (ads are nsfw, click at your own risk.)

Enjoy.

A small update

2008-09-01T03:34:00.000-07:00

So...I'm in Japan.

I want to make this short...because I'm in an internet cafe and I can't stay too long. I won't have stable internet for at least another few days, but I'll be able to get into more detail once I do.

So, let's see...

I've been　in Osaka, Japan for almost 3 weeks now. My trip over here was fine, and until recently I was staying with an old friend. Luckily but not without an incredible amount　of hassle and frustration I was able to acquire an apartment of my own...but that's the first jumped hurdle of many many more that are here in　the land of the rising sun.

I'm here teaching English, which is what everyone and their mothers do to teach English...and I haven't started yet, but tomorrow is my first official day.

Right now, my mood is a sloshy mix of excitement, frustration, lonliness and hope. ...though my frothy mix of feelings is tipping over with large helping of frustration.

Most of it lies in that I truly am a "foreigner." I'm a spectacle, a walking curiosity, yet I feel untouchable and at times unwanted.

This could be for a myriad of reasons, but I'm afraid that being an unstereotypical black guy on top of being a foriegner itself has a smidge of blame in this.

I don't want to knock Japan at all. I do like it, and when I've been introduced to people or had obligated interactions it's been nothing but good. But my day to day　involves being gawked at and mentioned in passing by people who don't think I can understand Japanese.

Of course, this could all be something with me too, and maybe I should be all smiles and put on a show of sorts...

Anyway, like I said I'll explain in more detail late, but from my understanding, it seems that I have to walk on eggshells and be a model citizen to get by.

Ugh...well...there are a lot of good things here besides that, and I'm happy to have good friends, good supervisors/coworkers, and most of all, my lovely girlfriend for their support and company.

Alright, I guess my time's up. I feel bad that I wrote what is seems to be a mostly negative entry, but I'll write a more balanced, in-depth look into my life once I can get internet.

...With pictures too!

好きなイラストレータ/Illustrators I like 7.4.08

2008-07-04T14:20:00.000-07:00

ケン・ヲンはアストラリアからのイラストレータで最近HPが再開された。
作品は色使いが良くて特に感触がうまく出る創作を描くアーティストだと思う。
特にこのポストに載ったブルーと言う絵が大好き。

Ken Wong is an illustrator from Australia who recently has redone his website.
I think his use of colors are great and he uses texture to great effect in his illustrations. My favorite piece of his, is blue which you see in this post.

See more of his art here, http://www.kenart.net/

マインドハックス/Mind Hacks

2008-07-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

最近、色んな事を整理しながら本棚の中身を見たら読みきれなかった本が気付いた。
実はほとんどのは漫画とアートに関わった本と雑誌だけどたまには情報的なものか面白い科学的な本を読んで楽しむ。
読みきれなかった本の中にはマインドハックスという本がある。
今から２、３年前ぐらい本屋を立ち寄る時にこの本がタイトルだけで注目を引かれた。マインドハックスというのはマインドのハッキングすると言う意味なのでふと考えたら脳の改善とか何かの超能力を得る事についた本と考えてた。それにオーライリーという出版社は普通にいろんなプログラムについてマニュアルとか一般の知恵に以外情報と手段を身に付ける本を出す会社なのでそのことをマインドという新たな分野につないだのは面白いと思った。

買ってからちらと見たら予想以外、本の中身は違う。本当は認知神経科学についての本だった。つまり脳の機能を調べてそれをもとにして日常生活に当然のことを深く分かってハッキングする。ところで、ハッキングは普通に言うとコンピュアターの不正侵入の意味があるけど現代用語（英語）ではハッキングはある物事か行動を元の機能以外、他の方法・手段で使う。

とにかく、当時、ちょっと読んでたらこの本がちょっと怖いと思った。基本的に言って我らのすべては脳に込めてそれで何かの機械みたいな者だからこの本に載った機能に限って人間の生命とか命は脳そのものだけだ。監獄のように考え、想いなどはこの目によって投獄された。その雰囲気でなんとなく読み切れなかった。

しかし、本棚に見たと再び読んでみたかった。ゆっくり読んだけどやっと終わった。結局、とても面白くて考えさせた本だった。脳はそれだけだと言うより脳はそれだけじゃなくてすばらしいと思わせた。

脳そのものは見事にこの世の資料などを吸い込みながら現実を見分ける非常に美しい機械だ。日常生活の当然の事はどんなにちっぽけと思われても事実的にいってその小さくてくらないことはたいしたことだよ。そして、そのことを受け取ってついた可能性を解放さられた者はその脳だけだ。

ってことはすばらしいなあ、人間は

っということでこの本はおすすめ！是非読んで下さい。

So, lately I've been reorganizing/going through a lot of my possessions and I came across some books that I hadn't read or just never got around to finishing. To tell you the truth, most of the books I own are comic or art related, but I have been known to enjoy a book or two about science or general knowledge.

Anyway, so amongst my books I noticed the books Mind Hacks, which was published by O'Reilly pubslishing a few years ago. I remember coming across this book at my local bookstore and just the title alone was able to grab my attention.

Thinking about this, as silly as this sounds, the title evoked images of improving my brain, and have super human brain abilities. ...not like ESP or anything, but being able to impress people with my awesome cognitive skills or something along those lines.

Anyway, with this though firmly set in my consciousness I set about purchasing it and glancing at it upon getting home. it ended up not really being what I expected it to be but it was interesting none the less.

The book itself is mainly a primer on cognitive neuroscience, and explains the various functions of our brain in our day to day life. Upon reading a little bit further into it, I remember actually having a sense of fear...because I had the impression that we are limited by our brains. We can only see reality only as our brain presents it to us...and to speak truthfully our brain is not the most efficient piece of machinery imaginable.

Of course, there is a kernal of truth in this, reality isn't exactly the reality that we perceive it to be, and by reading this book one can learn that the brain uses a lot of tricks to makes sense of things and isn't always giving us the whole picture for a multitude of reasons.

However, I decided to give this book another gander, and although I took my time reading it, I finally finished it last week.

I'm familiar with O'Reilly publishing as a company that often releases a series of hacking books in relation to various software and PC technology. Hacking is presented in the sense that we can make use of various technologies for purposes outside of their intended or basic functions by using "hacks." Along those lines, this series has been purported to the realm of the mind. Furthermore, through cognitive neuroscience, which is in essence, understanding the mind and it's functions, we can set the stage to "hack" our mind.

Reading this book has brought a sense of wonderment to me. The book is divided into a series of experiments and explanations for the various activities and functions that we experience in our daily lives. Often taken for granted, one can discover that these things, no matter how small, are not very small at all, but incredible feats of engineering worthy of amazement.

Sometimes, in life, we tend to lose perspective. We can get lost amongst the grandiose manner of the universe itself; but sometimes you have to stop and smell the flowers and realize that even the ability to walk and talk in something to revere and admire.

...Humans are amazing creatures aren't they? That's the sentiment that I can take away from reading this book.

With that said, I'm going to wrap this up and say that I recommend this book as an interesting read.

So, yea...buy it.

ご無沙汰/A long silence

2008-07-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I've updated
From now on, I'll be heading towards a new direction with this blog.
Right now I can only offer you this sketch but I'll be updating soon with more information and posts.

Thanks for reading.

ご無沙汰、長い間更新しなかった。
でも今からちょっと新たな方向に向いてる。今はこのスケーチだけを提出するけどすぐこのブログについての詳しい事を書く予定がある。

このブログをお読みになった方に感謝しております。

Photoshop Skills +1

2008-04-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Alright, I've gained a sense of accomplishment from this picture for two reasons.

1. I actually did a painting/drawing on something larger than 8X11. This was probably about 18X14...something around there.

2. I successfully scanned it using my regular flatbed scanner and assembled it using photoshop skills. I feel like I've leveled up.

Gotta keep doing more stuff like this...stay tuned.

Slow Jams

2008-03-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

Things have been a little slow lately, I've kind of just settled into the way things are going for now.

Normally, this would upset me, but I need to just give myself a break and ride the situation out sometimes.

Right now, my girlfriend is in the city for the month, and I'm waiting to see if I get the good or bad news from SVA concerning my entrance. So, until I get the news I'm just going to relax a bit, enjoy my time with my girlfriend and organize what I'm dealing with right now instead of getting ahead of myself and consequently mixed up and confused.

I still have a lot of ideas and projects in my head though, and i'm making an effort to get things done, so when those start I will be posting here.

Anyway, enjoy these two recent skecthes...one is from a Japanese restaurant I went to with my roomate and the other is from my friend's apartment.

I had some time on my hand at my friend's place because I don't play first person shooters (i.e. I am terrible at them) so I sat back and entertained myself by drawing them playing Halo 3.

Slow

2008-03-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

Not much to say right now... but things at work have been a bit slow lately. As you can see by this picture.

Rehash

2008-02-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

This year hasn't exactly been going the way that i've been wanting it to, but it's still early in the year.

From now on, I want to use this site to write more, particularly to ask questions and to have a conversation with myself and whoever else may be reading this.

So from this point, this will be mostly text based. I will put up pictures and sketches as they come a long. But for the most part, those will be distributed amongst my portfolio site http://www.ajanioloye.com and my two other blogs...which I will mention after this.

So, before I go into the heavy writing I would like to give an update on various events in my life.

-I came back from Japan unscathed. I had a good time.
-I didn't get into the JET programme... I'm still a little disappointed about this, it meant a lot to me. What gets me is that although I have my hypotheses on why, they never tell you why, so it makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me.
-To balance out the bad news, the good news is that I passed the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) at level 2. Level 1 is the highest level, I will take that, but I'm not sure when excatly. (I think I would have to spend time in Japan before I can do that.)
-I've applied for graduate school. Specifically, the MFA in Illustration and Visual Storytelling program at School of Visual Arts. I'll be informed of the results before April 1st. This is a very important thing for me. If I don't get in, I'm not really sure what I will do.

-I started a blog with Shaun Peterson so that we can keep drawing illustrations and characters... http://illchallenge.blogspot.com
-I've also started a blog just for my subway skecthes...it's supposed to be collborative blog...but no one else is really posting except me. http://nycsubsketch.blogspot.com

Other than that, I'm just chilling out in New York. A lot going on in my head, so I'm hoping I can clear things up with this blog.

That's all for now.

Classy

2008-02-27T21:21:00.000-08:00

It's official... I can no longer stand to watch an episode of Flavor of Love...

I think I have grown as human being, I can only hope that others will join me.

Night Owl/ 夜型人間

2008-01-26T01:17:00.000-08:00

Since returning from Japan my schedule has been kind of weird. I work in the morning come home, fall asleep, wake up in the evening and stay up until some absurd time. The I still have to work the next morning, so the result is that I've been sleeping less.

Anyway, today is one of those nights, and I decided to sleep in the morning because I have to pick my friend up from the airport early in the morning.

I've been meaning to upload some new sketches, and finally got around to scanning a few things, enjoy.

I'm going to really try and update with more work from now on. I'll write when I can but will focus on the pictures for the most part.

Enjoy.

Age Sage

2008-01-16T20:38:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to post after I arrived in Japan, but a few things happened that slowed things down for me and didn't let me do things as I wanted.

First off, I didn't have net for a little while so it made things a little hard for me.

After that, I got sick, which didn't put me in much of a mood to write.

But I'm here now, that's what matters.

I had really put a lot into this trip. Since I began working part time in July, I had been trying to save what little money I have to make this the most awesome trip that it could be. Actually, concerning money I was surprised that I was able to make it. Both in saving enough money to get there and saving enough money so that I'm not dead broke, but thanks to various freelance jobs I was able to do I made out okay.

That was one of the various good things that came from this experience. Unfortunately, there were a few bumps on my foray into awesome, and I would like to get those out of the way before I go on.

Of course, it started out with that terrible trip over there, but I already wrote about that. But what really kinda took the air out of my tires was that I came down with a cold.

I had spent the time before my trip trying not to get sick. I exercised periodically in the morning, I ate well and tried to stay away from sugar. I took vitamins, and those immune booster things.

But it seems that life has a funny way of doing things. Sometimes it seems like there is a very thin line between being cautious and being too anxious, and when you cross that anxiety line, whatever it is that you were trying to prevent is exactly what will happen to you.

After all that I did, not long after arriving in Japan, I felt a tickle in my throat.

That was it. The beginning of my cold and the end of my grand plans.

Damn you Irony. I shake my fist at thee.

Now, of course it could have been a lot worse, I was still able to enjoy my trip. But I could have done more, including getting some actual sketches done. It was unfortunate that I couldn't do that.

Alright, with that out of the way I can talk about the cool stuff.
Actually, I'm not really sure where to start, there really was a lot going on in my head while I was there.

This trip wasn't a life changing experience, but it was an experience. It's a bit strange to think about it, but I've spent a good chunk of my actual life studying Japanese and learning all sorts of random things about Japan, but this is only my third time there. In addition, in total I've only been in Japan for a total of about 3 weeks between these 3 trips.

To step on the ground and to be in a place where people are speaking Japanese is surreal. Actually, it was intimidating and relaxing at the same time. Having just got there I was kind of shocked into shyness. The overload of Japanese was like jumping into an ocean when you've only swam in rivers. I had no choice to speak Japanese to buy food and books and things, but I felt like an idiot and was stumbling all over the place. However, as I was there I felt more comfortable with Japanese, and I know that if I had a lengthier stay I would be able to once and for all have Japanese conversation with the same confidence that I can have in English.

But the reality of the situation at the time was that I ended up speaking little Japanese when I had someone that spoke English around me...which was most of the time. I'm a little dissapointed in myself, but only a little...I have to give myself a break because I was only there for about 8 days. If I lived there for a year and did that, well then we have a real problem.

Another thing about Japan, though it wasn't what I expected, was how people saw me. Being African American is one thing in America, and something totally different abroad. Usually it ends up that people are nicer and have less hostile to you but you are still at the will of the various stereotypes that have been perpetuated throughout the world. What is also weird is that you can feel even more like an outsider, because you are, and it's so much more apparent in a country that is 99% ethnic Japanese. In America, though I'm disturbed by how people are mostly identified by race before nationality, I still feel American. In Japan, I'm a gaikokujin (foreigner) in addition to being a kokujin (black guy) compounding the degrees of separation... and hilarity!

I joke.

But it turns out that I didn't really feel much of that at all. Yes, I got stares, mostly from young children. But that was it. I started out having all these ideas of the crazy and strange comments and conversations I would get into, because I was the only black, afro sporting (by the way, I shaved my afro a few days after arriving), guy in the city but in the end nothing happened.

...this blog is going a little long, I'm going to try and wrap it up and skip all the details.

Anyway, I'll give a synopsis of what I did.

-Arrived in Fukuoka, stayed in awesome design inspired hotel (Querega I believe)
-Spent a lot of good time with my girlfriend, and I'm a bit sad without her here...
-Did a lot of walking, eating, looking around Fukuoka city, mostly around Tenjin. I like it a lot, and I prefer it out of all the cities I've been to in Japan.
-Took the bullet train to Osaka and hung out with my friends.

Some observations on Osaka...
-extremely crowded (but this was probably because it was a holiday for everyone)
-more fat people
-people dress differently
-feels totally different from Tokyo, or the places I've been to in Kyushu.
- the food is delicious, my pallet will never be the same.

- I did hatumode (visiting temple on new year's).
- I bought a lot of books including the newest volume of Detroit Metal City,completed π/Pai, and a few art books by Katsuya Terada
-I watched a lot of tv, most of it was pretty interesting thought nothing to really write about...except full house in Japanese. The voices are really strange and it was interesting how they translated their catch phrases. For example, Joey's "cut, it, out!" is "Hai! Kore de, owari!"

Anyway, a good time was had by all. I'm looking forward to when I can go again, which I hope is soon because I applied to JET and hope I get in.

Also, this trip made me think a lot and motivated me to make this year a better one then the last. I could write a lot about that and be all...thought provoking and sentimental...but I'll spare you because I know hardly anyone reads this, and if they do just probably just want to see pictures. (Actually, I'm just kind of tired today.)

So, on with some pictures.

I posted all of these on my Pro Flickr account actually. So you can go there if you want. http://flickr.com/samurabi

Yes. I took a picture of the bathroom because it was cool. When I took a shower the center of the mirror wouldn't fog up...ah, the future is here.

Hatsumode

Kimchi-nabe

random sign I saw in a bagel shop

takoyaki stand in osaka

Giant Enemy Crab!

View from my friend's apartment in Osaka

Escape from New York

2007-12-25T23:15:00.000-08:00

Oh man, what a day...
I have no idea how long I have been up, but in the last 24 hours I've gotten very few hours of sleep.

Anyway, I'm in Narita International Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Fukuoka. I had a lot of close calls though, and almost didn't make it.

It all started yesterday (actually 2 days ago since it's 4pm wednesday here)...
I had completed just about everything that I needed to do, all my errands, packing, mental preparation and what not. After all that all that was left to do was wait...

Unfortunately, that mix of nervousness and excitement led to me being very impatient and increased things on the nervousness. Early that morning I had received an e-mail asking me if I would like to do early check in. I thought that I should just wait since it probably only benefits people who don't have to check in anything, but at this point in time I thought I would give it a try anyway.

So, I log on and there's a problem...
My e-ticket isn't matching up.

I call United and they tell me that my flight was canceled and they have to reroute me from JFK to Newark. When I asked why this happened, they explained that it was a problem with the crew, in other words not enough people showed up to work.

A WTF moment if I ever did see one.

So, of course this inconvenienced me. I had planned to take the subway/airtrain to the airport and it would've cost me about $5.

To go to Jersey takes a little more effort, so I ended up reserving a super shuttle.

So my time arrives. My flight was leaving at 7:29am, but I have super shuttle come at 2:30 just in case. I get to the airport around 3:30, but the counters don't open until 4:30. Finally, they open and I got to the counter and put my info in...

Nothing works...
"Um, I need some help, nothing's working..." I said to a nearby attendant.
"Where are you flying to?"
"Chicago."
"All morning flights to Chicago were canceled"

I was about to break upon hearing this news...
I called united immediately.
Turns out that the pilots didn't show up this time, and the guy on the phone that there was one more chance for me to get to Chicago to get all my flights, but I had to catch a 7:00am flight at LaGuardia.

It was 5am, and I had to check in by 6am...

I rushed out, and luckily I met some people in the same predicament who shared cab from me. I was also grateful for crazy ny/nj cab drivers, because he got us there in 30min.

Finally, I made it.

Since that point there were no problems, and I'm in Tokyo now.

But what really pissed me off about this whole situation is that didn't warn me both times my flight was canceled...I was signed up and everything and I even complained about it after the first cancellation.

Ugh...

Though, my flight was really long and my neck hurts, but that's almost without saying...

Anyway, I'm kinda tired now. I'll update when I get to Fukuoka.

Catching Up

2007-11-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Third and final post of the day. I just want to play catch up and present some points about things that I've done.

-I was very very busy starting in September, it became too much and I had to quit going to the Art Student's League for classes. I really like it there and hope to go back.

-I've gotten more used to my dayjob, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

-I haven't gotten any more Illustration assignments lately, but I am in the newest issue of Women for Hire Magazine.

-I started freelancing as a Japanese-English translator, I like it a lot.

-My girlfriend has been in Japan since July. It's had its ups and downs and I realize more than even that long distance relationships aren't easy, but we've managed and it's been really good recently.

-I'm going to Japan from Dec.25-Jan. 3rd. I'll be around Fukuoka most of the time and in Osaka for a day or two.

-I'm taking the JLPT level 2 test the first week of December. I've been studying everyday.

-For my girlfriend's birthday I made a video for her. We've been watching Flight of the Conchords since summer and we both love the show so I made a video using there song.

-I got an e-mail on youtube from Jermaine Clement saying that he thought my video was funny. That was pretty cool.

-I'll be in Miami from the 22nd until the 27th.

I think that's about it for now. Here are some sketches and paintings that I've done recently. Most of them are watercolors from my time at the Art Student's League.

The Party That You Missed

2007-11-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one day...with one more to come.

So, I had a party on Halloween.
It all started a few weeks ago. My roomates and I had settled on watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer much to our suffering, because there really wasn't much else to do. As expected it was a terrible, terrible movie.
Not just bad, not awesomely bad like Gymkata, it had no redeeming qualities at all. Not even the lure of seeing an almost naked Jessica Alba (who I don't even really think is that hot) can give this any kind of absolution.

It sucks. Plain and simple.

Anyway, we were watching it, letting our brains shrivel into blackened prune like masses when we heard a strange sound eminating from the window. Looking outside, we saw a band of Mariachi's, all dressed up, seranading a darkened window.

This was a very puzzling moment for me. It was probably 9-10pm in the middle of Washington Heights and here I am overlooking a bunch of Mariachi's mid-serenade. I do live in New York, so I'm not surprised. But in comparison, my neighborhood is a quiet place and nothing to strange happens so I had to kind of process the moment.

Seeing that this probably wasn't going to happen for a while, and starved for entertainment after watching bottomless pit into which all mirth and merriment go, but never return I decided I should record this moment...and put it on youtube.

My roomates went to ahead of me as I scrambled for my camcorder. Moments later I finally arrived and began filming. I didn't stay for long, I didn't care much for the Mariachi's as much as for the experience.

But on the way back, as were heading back into out apartment we caught glimpse of the neighbors who live across from us. He was having a party it seemed.

We had caught each other so it was one of those situations where we had to say something. I don't know if it was because he was drunk or if it was because we were caught in this moment of forced neighborly behavior, but he invited us in.

The party itself was ok. My neighbors are classical musicians, and their friends were birds of the same feather. It was a little awkward to talk to any of his friends or even them because I know next to nothing about that kind of life.

But as we sat there mostly looking around aimlessly and trying to think of things to comment on in our environs it dawned upon us that we could do this. Why haven't we had a party all the time. Well the clear answer is that we're pretty lazy, but also things like previous to this, most of us hadn't yet established ourselves, so we would have no one to invite.

But now was the time.

So, there we go, that was the impetus to the creation of our first party. Halloween was soon approaching, so it became a Halloween party.

When it came down to it, it was a surpring success. I had hope for it, but when the clock started ticking my confidence faded. I was extremely busy the week preceeding because I had a gig doing freelance translation. Because of that I wasn't as prepared and didn't get to do as much as I had planned for the party. I basically felt that none of my friends would come and that it would be a bomb, the antithesis of "the bomb or Da Bomb."

I tried anyway though, I did still have my hope, so I invited who I could and tried to promote.

The day of the party came and I had recieved various phone calls and messages since the day before from my friends...just about all of them were. "Sorry" or "Not sure I can make it," things like that. Now, I shouldn't have been dissapointed because I think I do that too people all the time, and I can't forget that I did do everything a bit last second...but I was.

The party had already started and we sat in our living room marianating on our couches to one of our mixes...and hour or so passed and no one came.

I decided that I need to do something. In my anxiousness I set out to rent a video game for Wii since we only had 2 games. I found nothing...but on the way back from the store I received a call from my friend saying he was in my area.

Great! Finally someone came! But I was still worried that he would probably be the only person there. As I came in another peron was there, so the condition seemed to be improving.

Soon after more and more people came about 13-15 people were in my apartment at one time. We had cake, drinks and Wii. A trifecta of party success. Soon my anxieties were relieved.

Though, the one guy that came at the begining was my only exclusive friend that came... I have to be honest and say that I was dissapointed by that. I do realize it's not a big deal and I don't hold it against anyone who didn't come.

But other than that, a good time was had by all. There were interesting conversations, an "interesting" guest or two, and connections were made. This is what a party is all about. Yes...

Anyway, here are the pictures. Enjoy.

A taste of Miami

2007-11-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Just a quick thing before I go into some more serious writing.

I was looking around on youtube and came across this video.
I actually had no idea that "Chonga" was a Miami thing. I mean, I knew of them but hadn't actually heard the word until my roomate had used the word to describe the type of girls that make up the bulk of my neighborhood in New York.

These are a bit old (7 months is old on the intertubes), but now you can get a taste of "Miami."

Dump 9.2.07

2007-09-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

Just posting a few things that I've done lately or things that I didn't post before.

Alright, first off, I managed to scan in one of my final assignments from school. We were suppose to draw a model, then abstract it.

Here are some charcoal drawings I did in a class I took at the Stundent's Art League with Nelson Shanks.

and finally some sketches I've done recently

Update + Event Info

2007-06-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

I don't have much time to write today so I'm going to write this in English first.

Anyway, today's updates serves two purposes.

The first is to update everyone on what I've been up to the past few weeks, i.e. a
photo dump.

The second is to make note of an event that I will taking part in this weekend.

Alright, on with the photos.

First, after I graduated, I had a small exhibition with my graduating class. I was able to get my first Illustration job through that, which was nice.

Then, I went to Miami with my girlfriend around the weekend of my birthday. It was a pretty short vacation, because I started my new part time job the following Tuesday. Regardless, it was fun. I was most happy to see that my girlfriend had a good time and that my mom liked her.

While down there we went to Key West and took a sunset cruise and ate excellent sea food and key lime pie.

After that, I had a small little get together for my birthday. My girlfriend got to see my house and see some of my friends.

Did I mention that while I was down there, through a mistake on the part of the rental car company, I got to drive a mustang around for the price of a sedan. Yup.

When that was over, I took my girlfriend to the airport because she had to leave earlier than I did. Finally, for my last day, I celebrated the engagement of two of my Miami friends and got to finally do my own "Last Supper" birthday picture.

The second version is the "bizarro" version. Everyone is supposed to act like me, except me.

Sice then, I've been in New York working part time and trying to get my Illustration career started. So far not much has happened, but I did get one Illustration published...sorta. There was a mixup and the wrong version of my piece was published, but i was told by the client that for their online magazine, they will fix the error. I'll update the blog when that happens, but until then I'm putting what would've have been in print here and on my website.

I'm running out of time, so I'll edit later. But here are some things I've worked on/sketched lately.

Finally, I would like to make mention of an event that I will be performing at this coming Saturday. I'll be doing live painting for the Multihop event at Galapagos Art Space. The headliner for this event is Scratch of the Roots, and in addition to this there are many other things going on, body art, nail art, a fashion show, etc.

Here are the details...

Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Also, anyone on my guest list gets in for $8, so please RSVP with you name if you will be coming.

Anyway, I could use your support! If you do come, it really does mean a lot to me.

To end, I have some extra pics on my flickr if you would like to see.
http://www.flickr.com/samurabi
enjoy.

さあ、今日の日記は前二つの日記とは違う。
最近やった事について詳しくはあまり書いてなかった。
だから今日の日記は二つの事について書こうと思う。

一つ目は最近やった事をみんなに知らせたい。
二つ目は僕の最新イベントについて詳細を載せたい

じゃ、はじめましょう。

卒業した後で同級生と一緒にエキシビションをやった。意外にいろいろな人が集まってくれて驚いてしまった。そのときになんとはじめての仕事の依頼を受けた。うれしかった。

それから誕生日の週末の時に彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行した。次の火曜日に新しいのパートタイムが始まる予定だから旅行はちょっと短かかった。でも楽しかった。彼女はとても楽しんでくれたし母が彼女を好きだと言ってくれたのでうれしかった。

マイアミにいる時にキーウェストという島に行った。サンセットクルーズに乗ったり美味しいシーフードとキーライムパイを食べた。

パイはすごくおいしかった。おすすめ。

翌日、小さな誕生日パーティをした。彼女が僕のうちにきて友達に会ったからよかった。

ところでマイアミいた時にレンタカー会社の手違いでセダンを借りる値段でマスタングを借りれた。楽勝！

今はパートタイムやってそれ以外の時間は自分のアート活動をしている。今のところそんなに大きい仕事はないけど一つ雑誌のイラストレーションの仕事をやった。

やったけど依頼人の手違いで僕のイラストは間違って出版されてしまった。

とてもがっかりした。

じゃ、二つ目はイベントだ。

今週末はじめてのライブパインティングをする！

詳細は

Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Saturday Jun 30, 2007
at 10:00 PM

僕に言って予約してくれれば入場料は８ドルだけだ。

よければみんな見に来て下さい。

他の写真を僕のフリッカに載せた。　
ぜひ見て下さい。

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samurabi/

Recipe for Disaster

2007-06-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

They somehow managaed to put everything I hate into one video on Youtube.

Furries, Escalades, and modern day rap.

As a side note, I was really afraid of having to explain this video if someone walked into my office and saw me watching this.

-found on BoingBoing

Black Images in Korea

2007-06-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

ええ、なんとなく今日は疲れ切った。
こんな日々が日本語というのは頭の中には浮かばないから今日の日記はちょっと。。。

しかし書かなかったら上達しないと思うからとにかく書いてる。

今日、面白いブログの記事を読んだ。
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2006/02/blast_from_my_p.html

ちょっと過去のことだけど前の数年間以内には韓国でいくつもの人類差別みたいの事件があった。
多分その事件はアメリカの差別主義者に比べてそんなにイムパクトがなくてそれに韓国人に何か意味が伝えられなかったかもしれない。

まだ、それを見たら、妙の気持ちが湧き上がった。

黒人の僕にとってちょっと気になる。それで記事とコメントによると韓国人でもその行動の意味がよく理解された。

じゃ、韓国と言えばあまり知識がないけどなんとなくその記事のタイトル「黒人のカルチャー、黒人ではない」の感じがよく分てる。
僕の経験では「黒人が駄目」と言った韓国人があったけどアメリカ人の強烈な例に従わなかった。
むしろ、記事で他の書かれたのことでアメリカの一般的の白人のイメージがあこがれのものだ。
一方で黒人はマスコミの影響から悪いイメージが存在して黒人は劣等の物だ。

読んで続いたと意外に韓国のような塾でほとんどは黒人雇わなくて驚いた。
実は中国に関してそのことも聞いたけど韓国にめぐってそれは初耳だ。
なんとなくその記事の前にもその感じがしてたからあまり韓国に旅行することがあまり興味ない。

でも今は韓国が嫌いとか決して行きたくないとかのことには限らないけど行ったら僕に対して快適な状況が想像できない。
実は韓国に行きたい。うまい韓国料理食べたくていい景色を見たいだけど今、行けば不安心という事だ。

まあ、とにかく、ぜひ読んでください。

I'm pretty worn out today for seemingly no reason. In any case, when I feel like this it's pretty hard to organize my thoughts enough to write something, not to mention in Japanese. My brain simply doesn't function.

But I'm writing anyway, and I'm not going to improve if I don't write.

Anyway, i read an interesting article.

From what I've read there's been some "incidents" concerning Korean's perceptions/interpretation of Black people. This article specifically is a response to the "Bubble Girls" incident where a Korean pop group performed in black face. As the article says, even though they said it was harmless and had no intention of offending anyone, considering how close it is to actual black face it's hard to think that they couldn't know about the meaning and history behind it.

This article is shocking in my opinion, but it might not carry as much of an impact as reading about true American racism.

Regardless, something is stirred up inside me when I read this. I feel worried as a person of color.

It also seems that from the comments, they knew about the meaning of their actions and did it anyway.

Speaking on Korea, I've felt that the title of the article, "Black Culture, Not Black People" is something that I've felt about the country. In my experience I have met Koreans who have said "Black people are bad" but it doesn't really follow the fierce racism that I've seen from many of my fellow Americans.

Or rather, I've seen many Koreans that seem to revere Americans, specifically the typical "white guy" image that many foreigners see in the media. On the other hand, the media also creates a very negative image of Black people throughout the world and because of that Koreans have bought into the hype so to speak, and probably see us as inferior.

Anyway, upon reading I was also surprised to see that most Korean juku's don't hire Black people. I had actually heard about this in China, where many places looking for teachers will not hire black people and specifically say so in their ads. Somehow that wasn't particularly surprising.
But this is the first time I heard of this, and it's pretty surprising for me.

Though, I've felt this way about Korea before and because of that haven't had a pressing urge or interest to go to Korea anytime soon. Of course, because of the media's portrayal of black people around the world, their a lot of countries that make me feel this way. But on hearing this it kind of reinforces my feeling a bit.

But don't get me wrong. I actually do want to go to Korea, and I do like Korea. Just thinking about eating all kinds of Korean food makes my mouth water. But I feel that if I went...it would be a bit unsettling.

Well, please read the article.

And I just wanted to say that I was trying to kind of write about this without stepping on any "landmines" so to speak. So if you feel offended or think something is off, I apologize. I would like to think I'm a fair person and am always open to discussion.

Blog Revival

2007-06-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

あ、久し振り。ごぶさたして書かなかってごめんね。
実は久し振りっていうかその台詞がちょっと飽きた。一年間以上頼りないように更新しなかった。
でも、実際、学校のせいですごい忙しかった。

しかし！今は自由だ！
まあ、本当は自由というわけじゃないけど前より状況がよくなった。

長い間に書かなかって色んなことが起こったのにちょっと粗筋を提示しよう。

Pratt Instituteから卒業しました。すっきりした。
ーはじめての依頼をゲットしました。雑誌のイラストして今月に出版するはずでわくわくです。
ー彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行しました。２ー３日だけで過ごしたけど非常に楽しんだ。
ーパートの仕事はじまった。詳細は卒業ばっかり大学の事務補助だ。今は楽でいい仕事だと思う。

他は今からミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
日本語の能力を上達するのはまだ気になってなにかもっといい方法をしないといけない。
一つは日本の活動などに巻込んだらいいと思う。
だから前にミクに登録したけど前の言う通りで学校のせいで忙しくなってきてミク使かった時間がけっこうなかった。
しかしひまがあればよく使えばいいだろう。

僕にとってみくの基本分はブログと思って前は時に書いてよかった。
でも数月前、Bloggerという英語向けブログをミクに統合した。
悪いことに日本語でも書いてミクに統合して一方で日本の友達等を区別してしまったと思う。
bloggerでコメントするのはめんどうくさいかも
とにかく、コメントは大事だと思う。
っていうか、bloggerにコメントが少ないどころか日本のともからのはない。

だからミクに含まれたブログに戻ろうとする。
もちろん今のブログをつづけて、実際に内容はほとんど同じだけど日本の友のためにブログを区別する。

最後のことでミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
よく連絡しなくてごめんなさい。
前は大変で何か失礼なことがあったら許してください　

まあ、以上。
できれば毎周一回更新する。

Long time, right? I'm sorry that I haven't written in so long.
To tell you the truth, I'm pretty tired of saying that. It seems that phrase has been used quite often within my entries. But I was extremely busy with school.
It was ridiculous, I seriously has no life outside of school and was lucky to have somehow balanced my school life with everything else going on in my life.

But now I'm free.
Well, not exactly free, but I would say that things have gotten better. A little less stressful.

Of course, having not written for a while, a lot of things have happened. Unfortunately I don't really have time to write about them, or rather, I would like to space out my writings a bit. This would be too long an entry to write about everything that's happened to me lately.

I will present an outline of what has happened as of late though.

- I graduated from Pratt Institue. I am relieved.
- I completed a job for my first client. It's a magazine Illustration and should be published some time this month.
- I went to Miami with my girlfriend. We only spent about 2-3 days there, but it was enjoyable.
- I started a part time job. It's an adminstrative assistant job at the school I just graduated from. It's nice.

Other than that, I've decided to change my blog.
I'm still worried about my Japanese skills, and feel that I have to find a better method to improve.
One way to accomplish this is to get involved in Japanese activities and the like.
For this reason, I had registered with Mixi before but because of school I negliected to use much at all. Pretty much I had no time to use it, especially since my Japanese isn't that great, and it takes double if not more time to do things in comparison to english.

Well, I have time now, so I should use Mixi, right?

One of the main elements of mixi, I feel, is the blog. I would update it once in a while but a few months back I intergrated my blogger with the mixi blog so that it would link directly here. It was done in an effort to condense things and to give people on mixi access to my pictures since mixi only allows three small pictures to be posted but unfortunately it didn't prove effective. Even if I wrote in Japanese, in intergrating blogger with mixi, I seem to have separated my Japanese speaking friends unintentionally.
Possibly because commenting on blogger was a pain, or took too much time compared to mixi.

That said, I think that comments are important, particularly in keeping communication/relationships with my Japanese speaking friends on mixi.
I already had very few comments on my blog, but I had absolutely no comments from my Japanese friends since this intergration.

So I feel that I should be opening this blog up.
It could well be that no one will comment still, but my feeling says that I should do this regardless, less I alienate someone who may want to comment.

So, I'm going back to the blog included with mixi.
Of course, the contents will be pretty much the same, but for the sake of my Japanese friends I'll be separating the blogs.

To end, I would like to apologize to all my Japanese speaking friends.
I'm sorry that I was negligent in my correspondence/keeping in contact.
I was extremely busy before, please forgive my rudeness.

That is all.
If all goes well, I'll update once a week.

ストレス/Stress

2007-03-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

ごめんなさい。今はこの小さい文章を書いてあげられる。
卒業まで一ヶ月ぐらいが残る。
ああ、大変になちゃった。
僕の日本語はまだ良くないと思って特に今はいい練習できない。
でもその困難の期間を乗り越えったら僕の能力は必ず上達する。

学校の終わりを楽しみに待ってるよ

I'm sorry. Right now I can only give you the short blurb.
I have around a month left until I graduate...
Things are a bit hectic now.
My Japanese still isn't good、especially now, it's hard get any good practice done.
But when I get over this time of hardship I will definitely improve.

I can't wait for school to end.

色の問題

2007-03-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

数日後、ホワイトデーのプレゼントで僕の顔を描いたけど実は描くの結果はあまり好きじゃない。
なぜだろうか？顔の割合がちょっと変だと思ったけど他の部分がおかしいかも。
なんだろうか？

その考えが今日までこころの奥底に置いた。

今日バイトでなにもしなかった。天気が悪かって誰もがいなかった。退屈を倒すためにネットの力を使っていろいろのイラスト向けサイトを探検して見た。見てながらいつの間にか頭に閃いた。

「ああ、そこだ。」

っていうか、前に考えた絵の問題をやっと分かった。僕の絵は複雑すぎる。詳しく言って色が複雑でメチャクチャだ。
僕のテクニックは絵描きのとおりで「暗いから明るい」という方法を使ってさらに色の順番を使った。
例えば、色を見たら青は一番遠く見える色で一方で黄色は一番近いの。そうして影は普通に黒か青の色に近づいて一番近いのところは黄色か白いが混ぜった色が描かれた。

それはいいけど僕の絵には色が多いどころがその描いた色が混ぜりすぎて汚くなってきた。
だからその問題の答えもっとシンプルにならないといけない。

その上に書いたことよりシンプルになったら僕の絵は僕のスケッチに会える。みんなが言った、「スケッチはすばらしい」とか新鮮か自然的が言われた。僕でもスケッチは絵よりすごいと思う。もし僕の絵はもっとスケッチの法見たいなら大丈夫だと思う。

ジャ、シンプルって言うのは赤顔を描いたら影は赤ムラサキに近い色だ。ちょっと説明にくい。。。な。

ま、とにかく、上に置いた絵はバイトで会と練習だ。マウスしか使わなかったけど練習だけならいいよ。
だから、今からもっと練習しなきゃ。
すぐに卒業することになるけどイラストレータとして僕の教育は学校の限界を超える。

はあ、その小さいの文章でもすごい時間かかった。。。

ま、いっか、もっと書かないといけない。。。もっと上手になりたい。

So, a few days ago I did a self portrait as a white day present for my girlfriend. It came out ok, but in all honesty I didn't really like it. Something about it was off, but I couldn't exactly put my finger on it.
There were some obvious things, like the proportions of some the facial features were off, but that's wasn't what was bothering me.

Anyway, this has been in the back of my mind until today. But today I finally figured it out while at work.

Today I did almost nothing at work. The weather was terrible today and no one was in the building today because of that. To defeat my boredom I used the awesome power of the internet and searched through a multitude of illustration sites.

Then it hit me.

"That's it!"

It turns out that my painting are overly complicated. Specifically, the colors are too complicated and bordering on muddy.

My technique usually follows the basic methods of painting. Dark to light, shadows to highlights and in that line of thought, using colors to set the space of things. Blue appears the furtherst to eye and yellow appears the closest. So as an example, a shadow with a dark blue (blue and black) tint sits back more, and a highlight with light yellow (yellow and white)well appear closest, and it makes things "pop" as my former teacher and acclaimed Illustrator Jim Burke would often say.
I'm doing all this, but in my paintings I seem to be overdoing it...

So, the answer to all this is to just make things more simple. A lot of the illustrations I looked at seemed to have this to them and mine was missing that.
It could be said that this is the way that I work, but I don't think it is. By going simple I not only improve but I would create unity between my paintings and sketches.

Many people have been impressed by my sketches and often using words such as "fresh" and "natural." ...well, I agree with them and I even think that my sketches are in some ways better looking than my paintings. Actually, not even that, my sketches are more stylistic and represent me to a better degree than my paintings I feel.
With that said, I believe core property of my sketches are that they are simple. They more than often have to be that way since most of them are subway sketches. I have only a few moments at times to capture a likeness. Somehow this seems to create something beautiful to me.

So, I have to somehow make my paintings closer to this. I have to evoke that simplicity.

Anyway, during work I tried to do a little color practice to kinda of try someting closer to what I was talking about. It's going to take a while, but I have to improve my paintings.

...not to say that I don't think my portfolio is good, but it could be better, I'm here to be a professional.
I'll be graduating soon, but my education isn't limited to the confines of school itself.

Ah...well, other than that, I'm still continuing with the Japanese writing. I'm surprised that such a small passage took so much time to do. But if I keep it up, hopefully the process will continue to get more streamlined.

久しぶりの日本語/僕の新しいウェブサイト

2007-03-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

まあ．．．またタイトルが「久しぶり」何だ．．．
さいきんいろんなことがおこったけど長い間に書かなかったからただ重大で最近のことについて書いてる。
まずは僕の日本語．．．

さあ、日本語はね．実は六年間以上日本語が勉強したりいろんな日本に関してことを興味になったけどまだ日本語が上手じゃない。
言わずに僕は恥ずかしくてがっかりしてる。高校一年生から今まで日本語の勉強したら今の日本語能力はぺらぺらのはずだろう？でもそうじゃなくてがっかりしてる。

サカールみたい、この状況は。最初は日本語が下手で全然覚えないししゃべられない。それから、その下手な状況を見たらがんばれのモードにしていっぱい勉強する。でも、結局、なんとなく全部忘れてまたがっかりする。
あ、じゃちょっと大げさに言った。まだ。。。僕の能力は不安定と言える。その理由は多いかもしれないけど一番のは確かに日本の長い間に言ったことがない。

ま、そういってももっと上達したいと思う。六年間の勉強はそれまでじゃない．
じゃ、そういって、悪いことに十二月二受けた日本語能力試験が失敗した。二級だった。最大の理由は聴解の部分で最後の答えを書き込んだら質問が飛んだと気付いた。。。「Crap!」と自分に言った。さらに消しゴムが悪いから答えを書き直したけどテストがグラファイトでこすってまっくろになった。

それは困った。
でもほかの部分は合格って言う訳じゃないからどう見ても失敗だった。

状態を見てもっと頑張らなきゃ。はじめの一歩はブログでできるだけ日本語で書かないといけない。
じゃ、ここでがんばるしかない。本当に日本語上達したい。

つぎは最近やっとにウェブサイトを作って載せる。わくわくしてる、僕は．僕のイラスト／就職活動が今から始まる。
サイトを見たら自慢が高めてイラストレータとして今自信がある。前はいろんな心配があって失敗かどうかわからないけど今は大丈夫だと思う。

http://www.ajanioloye.com

じゃ、今日の書くもの終了。またな。

Now for the english.

I realize that my english is going to be lot more in depth than Japanese above, so bear with me. Also, I've now decided to write in Japanese first. The reason for this is because I'm trying to improve my Japanese, and I think that it doesn't help me to write in english first and then to essentially translate my english to Japanese. A key to learning a language is to think naturally in that language. So if I can form my writing in Japanese first then write as I please in english after I think I my Japanese comprehension and ability will be more...fluid.

Anyway, it's been a long time. I haven't written in quite a while, so again my title features that sentiment. But I'm really going to try and update more often for myself and just for anybody that may actually read this.
Between the last time I wrote and now, a lot has happened. I guess that's a natural thing since I've come to New York.
Anyway, I won't bore you with the everything. I'm just going to talk about the bigger things that have happened.

The first thing concerns my Japanese. Ah, Japanese... I have studied you for more than six years and I am nowhere near mastering you. You would think after all this time I would be a little better at it. Yes, I can understand it fairly well. I can watch Japanese TV and movies and understand enough to figure out what's going on, I play Japanese text based games and quiz games on my DS, and I'm a veritable wealth of useless Japanese knowledge.

But somehow my Japanese abilities are lacking. Writing the above was a chore, and I tried to communicate my feelings as I would like to, but even I can see that it's somewhat of a clunky mess. It even took me a while to write, mostly trying to remember how to say this and that. Speaking is the worst. Though lately I've been making more of an effort with this and I would like to thank my language partner Shiori and my girlfriend Junko for this...it still kind of sucks. When confronted with a Japanese speaker I usually shy away from using any Japanese. Partly because I'm a perfectionist in a way and if I say one thing in Japanese from that point on I want everything to be perfect. When I do try my Japanese is broken and stilted, and I feel kind of stupid.

I don't think most people really care, but I don't want to　be on the same level as any regular guy or american otaku who took japanese for a year.

アメリカ人ヲタク：オハヨウゴザイマス！ワタシノ名前ハハリーデス。
一般の日本人：ええ！？日本語は上手ですね。

I do not want to be that guy.

Anyway, it's left me a bit embarrassed and disappointed. The thing is that it seems to work in a circular fashion.
My japanese starts of terrible, and noticing it I try to improve by furiously studying. After becoming decent I tend to forget a lot of stuff and study less because I get busy or because of a multitude of reasons. Thus the cycle begins again.
I've probably exaggerated, but the point is that I don't have a stable of level of Japanese facility. Most likely this can be attributed to the fact that I've never spent a long period of time in Japan, but I digress...

I brought this up because last year I took the Japanese Proficiency Exam (2nd level) and I got the results a few weeks ago. I failed. The main reason being that on the listening comprehension part I realized on the last question that I had skipped one answer bubble. To further things, I had a bad eraser. The end result was an answer sheet that was a cloudy black mess.
But honestly, the scores for the other parts weren't exactly perfect either. So no matter what, it seems like I failed.

Looking at the condition of things, I just have to try harder it seems and I think the first step to this is to write in Japanese as much as possible using this blog.

Well, I guess at this point there's nothing I really can do except try my best...I really do want to improve my Japanese.

Next, I would like to say that I have finally created and posted my website. I'm pretty excited to have it up. I've been saying I was going to do it forever and now that it's up it's a relief. It's my first step into the world of Illustration/employment.
I also feel relieved that it came out nicely in my opinion. Looking at it my pride has risen and I have a bit of confidence that I can at least get a job or two in Illustration. Before I was really worried about whether or not I would fail and have to end up in a really bad job.

But now everything is ok.

Well that's all for now. Until next time.

http://www.ajanioloye.com

Update/久しぶりの日記

2006-12-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've written anything and that seems weird to me. In the past few years I've gone through cycles of writing a lot, then slowing down, and whatnot, but the past 6 months or so have been a totally different thing.

What happened was that I was swamped by school, having one of the most stressful experiences that I have ever had. Granted, it's not the worse that it could have been, but it was significant enough to get me to a point where I didn't really communicate to anyone. The number of my friends have dwindled, I wrote less, I withdrew more and just have really gotten into a quiet mode. I remember when I was smaller I was always that quiet kid, so to some it might seem strange. But honestly, back then, I was quiet not because I didn't want to say anything but because I was shy or I just found it more enjoyable to listen.

Now it's gotten so that I don't talk or write, because of the time it might take up and in turn since I haven't been communicating as much my communication skills have suffered and I feel that I can't adequetley express myself as I used to before.

But I've made the effort to get back on my saddle and ride my horse back to a more true self. It can just be a little hard to do that, but you know, a journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step...

At the moment I'm in Miami and as always it can be an eye opening experience. Miami and New York are both two big cities but have totally different atmospheres. Besides the obvious things like weather (Miami has been on average 70 degrees since I've been here) I notice things that make Miami standout from New York in both good and bad ways.

What's good about Miami, is the natural beauty. It's not natural in the way that their are jungles and things growing wildly, because everything around me is landscaped and starts looking the same. Regardless of that, there is a lot of green and a lot of native exotic plants and animals. You can take a drive to some off beaten path and find some really amazing and beautiful things as I did on Christmas day.

On that day I decided to just do something. I needed to draw and paint since I hadn't done much since being here. Also though, I needed to exercise because I had been gaining weight (which in all honesty is something totally new to me). So I decided on taking a bike ride down old cutler (which I believe was an old trail way for the seminole tribes that inhabited Miami back in the day).

I rode and rode until I found something interesting. The first thing was just some logs...it just caught my attention and I had to stop and draw. I drew for about 30min and in that time some guy saw me and asked me if I could do some painting for me. I happily agreed and am waiting on his response (though it doesn't seem likely he will get back to me now).

After that, I rode around until I found and interesting tree that I decided to paint. Unfortunately I didn't finish cause my mom wanted to go to the movies with my family and I had to rush back home.

Getting back to the differences between New York in Miami, there are in contrast, an overwhelming amount of bad that I can attribute to Miami. I'm probably biast, because I lived here so long and am tired of it, but somethings just keep getting reinforced even after looking at things from a new perspective.

For instance, it is without a doubt that Miami has significantly more obese people than New York. Everytime I go out I can not deny that fact. I emphasize the word obese too, it's not just a little overweight, or fat, which can be a bit subjective but truly obese, meaning that it is so bad as to be detrimental to that person's health. I've written about it before, but I have to say it again I guess.

Another thing about Miami, is, this might be my personal opinion, but...there are a lot of pure stupid people. It's probably better to say uneducated, because I believe that Miami-Dade, or maybe Florida in general doesn't have a very good education system. It may also be that it just isn't that necessary for people to be as "on the ball" as would be required in New York. As a side, I do feel a bit of disgust at this, but it's necessarily at the people, but for the people. Why is this still happening? Why do we have so many uneducated people? How does one let that exist?
We all have our moments of stupidity as I know I have had one too many, but I would like to believe that despite all that I am a person who appreciated knowledge and wants to continue to partake in knowledge to better myself and those around me. I can't understand people who are satisfied to stop at an early part of their education (informal or formal) and decide that this is enough, which I believe is what happens often.

Anyway, those are two things that do bother me about Miami, and make it a place that I would not want to live in. Granted New York has a lot of bad parts and in no way perfect, but I do prefer it over Miami.

I know I went on a bit of a rant there but I besides bringing up the differences in Miami, I wanted to say that coming here really is something that brings about perspective. I can come here and be a fuller person by experiencing these two similar but different cities. It could be better, because my girlfriend can't be here with me and I feel sad about that...but it was good to come down here. I can take this experience and make my New York experience better.

Well, here's hoping that this coming new year in New York is one with less stress and more success. This will be a big year for me, and unfortunately it's one of those years that can be great or be one of the most defeating that I can have. I have a lot in balance here, if I can't get a decent job after I graduate, I feel like my whole life in New York, my relationship, everything that I have managed to hold dear to me can crumble and leave me broken...

Here's hoping...but hope is never enough. I have to make this happen.

Oh, almost forgot...pictures. You can enlarge all of them by clicking.

A Christmas party in my apartment building.　アパートのビルのクリスマスパーティ。ライブでいたくさん踊ることがあってよかった。

pictures I took of plants in my backyard, it just seemed interesting to me.裏庭で撮った植物。マイアミはNYに比べて緑色がいっぱいから面白い。

My brother's new dog　弟の新しい犬（年齢は六月ぐらい）。

She has 6 toes on each foot...足はそれぞれ六つ足指がある。ミュータントじゃないか？

She sleeps weirdly sometimes.　寝るときは変な体位よくしてる。

A hawk I saw on my bikeride that day, the picture is not great because I had to zoom in so much.　自転車で旅に行ったら鷹を見て撮った。

An illustration I did in school...a portrait of Mr.T. I liked it, but my teacher did not...I felt very dissapointed by this.　ミスター・ティのイラスト。

My unfinished tree painting from that bike ride.

My final projects for editorial Illustration. A spread and spot on "The New Athesim" for Wired magazine. It came out well I think. Watercolor and gouache on watercolor paper.　Editorial Illustrationの最後プロジェクト。Wired Magazineの無視論について記事に基づいた。

and finally, a portrait I did not too long ago of my girlfriend Junko. Acrylic on gessoed hardboard. I need to take a better picture of it, but since I'm in Miami and my resources are limited it will have to do. This is actually part of a bigger project which I will explain later...　最近に出来た絵。それは僕の彼女、じゅんこ。

Neuroplasticity #2 神経可塑性

2006-10-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

Previously, I posted that golden cloud picture on my blog, but when I sent it to my teacher she asked me to fix it. She said that the brain in the picture looked more like a cloud than it should, basically.

In the end, I think it was a good idea. I feel satisfied and I'm done...I think.

じゃ、前にブログに貼った金色の雲の絵がアップデートした。先生に送ってその脳は雲だと思って修理してくださいと言った。
結局、いいアイデアだと思う。満足した。今この絵は出来た。。。と思う。

New York-Tokyo Festival

2006-10-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I decided to go to the New York-Tokyo Festival in central park. It was pretty interesting. They had some musical performances including aun, talib kweli, p'ez, hifana, and mighty crown. Unfortunately I didn't stay long. All I got to see was Aun, a bboy performance and mighty crown. I don't really like mighty crown so we decided to leave after that. Also, I was feeling a little weird for some reason.
Anyway, i took a lot of pictures, here are a few that were interesting.

Surprisingly, there weren't many otaku. But here are a few playing gameboy on the field.

Aun, a pair of awesome taiko drummers.

Their expressions were great, so full of vim and vigor, haha.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

These guys rocked their heart out. Good job, aun, good job!

Kevin's BBQ front

2006-09-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

So here's the front of one of the postcards for Kevin's BBQ.

He loves BBQ so, that Kevin.

I did this at school and the font I used for the tag line isn't on my computer so the tag line looks a little funky. It's the same as the "KICK" part but I imported that from Illustrator so it retained it's font characteristics. Not that any of you guys would have cared, but just a small techinical note.

Little Superstar!! ちっちゃいスパースター！！

2006-09-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

I had to take care of the last ends of my leases signing today and had to miss class, so I was feeling so-so today, but the Toast sent me this...

今日学校サボってやっとにアパートのリースのことするから何とかまあまあな気分してた。

しかし！トーストと言う友達からそのビデオをもらった。

He slapped the bejeezus out of that guy...awesome.
ちっちゃいさんは連続してやつの顔をパッと叩いて最高！

Neuroplasticity

2006-09-29T00:39:00.000-07:00

So here's a comp of my new illustration. It's supposed to be a piece for Time Magazine's 100 people issue. My person is Richard Davidson, he did research on neuroplasticity by studying TIbetan monks. It seemed the most interesting to me so I took it up.

Basically, I worked out some ideas and wanted to make the eastern influence is clear, also to make sure the subject, neuroplasticity is communicated.
I did some research, went to the Reuben Museum of Art (which I reccommend)and decided to use eastern/oriental art as a motif. Also to have the guy meditating on a brain that looks similar to the asian style clouds that I see in much of eastern art.

As for my process, it was inked, scanned, then colored and messed with in photoshop. I used some gradients here and there to get that smooth and flat color look, then painted on top for some parts. I made a custom texture by scanning part of a batik that my dad had left from West Africa.

Not sure if it's done yet, i just sent it in for approval, so we'll see what corrections i'll have to do if any.

The Long Awaited Return

2006-09-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

So...

Yea...

It's been a while hasn't it. Since I've been in New York I've gotten more and more and busy and have had to adjust my life to a different speed that I was used to living in Florida. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately...) one of the results of this has been that I've been distanced from the internet.

I hardly download anything (Shock!!), I rarely use AIM (I've opted for MSN), son't reallyt use mixi, myspace, facebook, etc. and I just don't have the arsenal of crazy videos and sites that I used to in college (don't you miss that carolina?).

But in my life there have been several significant changes for the better. For instance, I'm generally content. Actually that can be a bad thing, cause as an artist I'm supposed to have lots of grief to create art with, but I digress...

I also have had a girlfriend since may or so. That's going pretty well, and I feel pretty lucky to have such a patient, nice, and beautiful girlfriend.

So with that said. What have I been up to?

Uhhh...a lot, but it's too much to go into I guess. I'll just briefly go over what I did during the summer.

For the most part I was working as an assistant at my school. Getting my bills paid and doing a whole lot of nothing, which was pretty nice actually. For a 9 to 5 it wasn't so bad; I enjoyed it. At one point I ended up getting an internship as a graphic designer, which didn't really seem to fit for me, so I ended up leaving due to time contstraints and it not fitting into my "occupational road map" so to speak.

I also ended up getting two new roomates, both are my friends for highschool and that has been working out quite nicely. My apartment is pretty pimp right now.
So basically I've been having a decent time...but my life is never without problems.

Drama.

Drama.

Drama.

I had a lot of it concerning my apartment, was worried about losing it a few times, and in fact I still am slightly worried but for the most part it seems that I'll be here for another year.

Anyway, with all that out there, let's get to the dessert you've all been waiting for.

I started new semester, so that means new drawings and paintings...

My first assignment for my printmaking class. A simple collagraph with found objects.

New painting #1. Our first assignment was to do a greyscale painting, I didn't have black on me and didn't feel like mixing it, so I did a monotone in blue. Oh this was done in less that 3 hours btw.

The first assignment for editorial illustration 1, a simple black and white portrait. I did Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O. The picture was modeled off of a pic of spanky and alfalfa from the little rascals I found on the net, it was fitting for the oft childish antics of the jackass crew. Waterproof ink on watercolor paper.

The second painting assignment, this time we could do full color. I still limited my palette though, since I used blue, I thought I would make a warm pallete for this one. This was also done in less that 3 hours, cause I don't play around when it comes to painting.

Finally, we have what I'm working on now. This is an illustration for Advertising Illustration 1. It's supposed to be a travel piece. I chose Miami. I still have a bit a work to do, but I think it's shaping up nicely. Acrylic on doublethick illustraion board.

Kevin's BBQ WIP

2006-09-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

A preliminary sketch for Kevin's BBQ, a postcard project I have to do...hope my teacher approves it.

Untitled

2006-08-23T05:37:00.000-07:00

Finally...

2006-08-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

I finally chruned out a new illustration. I was trying to beef up my portfolio and came up with this premise...using the letters of the japanese "alphabet" as a design guide. I often look at different obejects during the day and try to make images from them in my head...so I thought it would be perfect.

This week I'm going to try and get the vowels done, a, i, u, e, and o. What you're currently seeing is a (like ah). Which to me looked like an squid, so this is what i came up with. I did this in illustrator and completed like it was a real illustration assignment... research, thumbnails the whole shebang.

Enjoy.

Dibujos en color!

2006-08-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

So I've been working full time for a while, so been pretty busy. But I'm finally trying to update my portfolio...
Here are two drawings that I colored in photoshop recently.

Miami

2006-06-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

I will edit this later, I'm just putting up pics for now

Another card

2006-05-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

A card I just made for a friend.

My birthday was awesome on so many level of awesomeness.
Booya!
Thanks to everyone that made my bday a good one and to everyone that wished my a happy one, it worked for once, haha.

Karappo

2006-05-09T19:54:00.001-07:00

The title isn't really important, I just like the word. Actually, today I'm not feeling so well...my mind feels kind of empty and I feel a bit worried somehow. Partly because I had a conversation today about love and relationships that left me feeling a little dissapointed... Anyway, what's also interesting is that "Karappo" sounds like the word for frog in Creole (my mother's native language is Haitian-Creole)

Monday was my last day of school before summer. So now I'm off...free for until the end of August.

In the end, this semester wasn't so bad. In school I did well...not the best I could've but I'm proud of a few of the things I accomplished and worked on.

In my own life, things have been a little bit easier, a little less stressful, I've met good people, had a little success in my love life (which I'm a little worried about now...but I write about that another time) and have improved on who I am and will be.

My last day of school was great...but very tiring. The night before I drank...a lot, it has been a very very long time since I have drunk, not to mention the quantity that I drunk. So I got home at3-4am. I had school at 8:30am unfortunately...so I got to school late...and missed half of my first class, figure drawing II.

When I arrived, my teacher expressed his concern for me coming in late, but he didn't make a big deal about it, and was glad i came at all. Until that point, the two best students in the class were missing, so now that I came, only one was missing.

We had a critique that day, and when it was my turn the teacher really gave me a lot of compliments. He was happy that I accomplished so much and grew as an artist, he said that everyone in the class should work to be as good as I am, because I was bold and fearless in my appraoch to drawing and my work was very well done.
I was moved by his small speech, and I talked for a few minutes about my work before class finished.

My second class was ok, we didn't do much, but I gave my teacher a promotional mailer that I made and she suggested that I send it out to a few magazines so that I can get some freelance work. I'm excited to do that.
So, I'm gonna print about 100 copies over the next few days, anyone reading this that wants one, please contact me with your address and I will be glad to send it to you.

Anyway, after that I was really worn out, and after a brief volunteer session I slept for a while.

I posted much of the final work I did for my figure drawing II class and my painting II class.
Most of them are sketches, but some are more completed pieces. The last 3 are over sized, maybe about 5'X5' the one in total ink is my favorite. The last one is my second favorite. For it I used ink, pencil and also ripped paper the I had put ink on and worked on top of it to give me a wider range of tone. It worked quite well and shows how far I have progressed as an artist since coming to New York.

As for the paintings...honestly I'm not very proud of any them, but I do like the flower pot and fruits, I wanted to add some more things to it, but my teacher wouldn't have it, she wanted to put it up. All of the paintings I posted are on display at my school if you would like to see them.

Enjoy!

small update

2006-04-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

Hey, long time no write eh?

Well I have been very very busy lately...and also very very lazy.
I'll be updating a lot more, and I'm also in the process of making a portflio site, but until then, I'm putting up some sketches I've done recently.

These sketches are from an oversized sketch book I bought from Kinnokuniya. I'm using a combination of a sumi brush pen and watercolor for most of the drawings in there, it has a nice effect.

The first image there is from some live model even I went to in Williamsburg. I think it's called Dr.Sketchy's Anti-art school. It was interesting...the model was from the local roller derby team, which is why she wore the skates. I won a drawing contest for best incorporation of lobster boy and the prize was entrance and vip for some roller derby party. It was on a sunday night though, so I didn't go. Oh well...I don't think it woulda been my thing anyway.

The last two are from a party I went to a few weeks ago. It was for a mixi group and it was surprisingly good. I met some pretty cool people there *wink wink* which I will talk about later as things progress *hint*
Anyway, it was dark so the drawings aren't so great, but still not so bad considering.

3.26.05 dump

2006-03-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

Somehow I finished this...

2006-03-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

Woah...so I lost my USB stick but somehow managed to get this done...I better find that in my apartment somewhere...

Faces II

2006-03-07T14:33:00.000-08:00

So, I've been working on an Illustration project. My assignment is to to do 30 faces, 5 styles X 6 emotions. I've been excited about it, but it's sort of a bitch because I don't have as much time as I would like to devote to each face, so some I've rushed, just because I need to get this done.

Btw, thank you to all who gave me pictures for this, I still need a few more though...so if you read this and would like to be a part of this I need the following...

2 portraits with the feeling of disgust
2 " " sad

So, here are the pics...

First is Digital, I only have 3 so far, because they are a bitch to do, it;s so tedious...and as you can tell because they take so long I sorta slacked on the last two...

Next is Abstract

Now for Caricature...which I didn't really like, I didn't put as much effort as I would've liked to...

Then on to my favorite artist's style...I chose David Choe, but it doesn't really look like his style...any way, i have 3 more left to do for this.

Finally, realism...I'm sorry that some of these turned out a little crappy, Ted's especially, which I may redo...

Faces

2006-02-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

Just some things i'm working on for an illustration project

Pillow Fight?

2006-02-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

So, this has been my worst week this year. My plans for Valentine's didn't really go as expected, I've been probably the poorest I have been in a very long time, and to top things off I got sick this weekend.

I'm hoping that next week will be better...it has to be.

Anyway, while at work today I was surfing the net and I found out that there was a massive pillow fight happening in Union Square, which isn't far from where I was. So I took a break and sanpped a few pictures of the event.

I wasn't there for long but feathers were all over the place, it was ridiculous. Everyone looked to be enjoying themselves, and just seeing something like that brightens my day a little bit.

New Sketchbook ワ～イ!

2006-01-26T16:05:00.000-08:00

I recently had gotten a new sketchbook after finishing my 3rd sketchbook in NY...so that would be 3 sketchbooks within 5- months, I think that's pretty good pace.

So for my new book I decided to try out a moleskin. This is what the masters used, so maybe it will add something to my sketches. They're really nice...but there are some bad in addition to the good points.

Good=
-They are small and pretty portable
-It's bound in some sort of leather like material and has a very nice presentation.
-The paper is pretty nice, it's toned too which could work for me if i decide to get more instense with my sketches.
-They handle felt marker and ink pens pretty well, so far the micron tech pens and staedler brush pens work the best for me.
-It's bound so that you can do a whole spread as one page; you can open it flat with no problem. This is probably the best thing about moleskins.

Bad=
-The paper is way too smooth and doesn't hold watercolor, sumi ink, or loose graphite and charcoal very well.
-They're expensive
-The size can work against it sometimes, it's good to carry around but obviously my workspace is limited.

What sucks the most is that it doesn't take the mediums I mentioned above...I heard fabriano makes a smallsized watercolor sketchbook, but I haven't found one yet. If only the moleskin had more absorbent paper...it would be perfect.

Anyway, here are some pics that I have scanned in from it. Enjoy!

Resolution

2006-01-25T20:33:00.000-08:00

Ok ok, I'm going to post some pictures up next time. I disconnected my scanner because my room is really small and in order for me to get good reception for my wireless net I had to make room for my pc to get in range.

So for a while I'll be scanning sketches in from school.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent; get some emotion out.

I returned to New York Jan.6 and it wasn't that bad really. I had spent the previous three weeks in Miami in generally nice weather amongst friends. Though I was dissapointed that I didn't get to expand upon my artistic endeavors while I was Miami, I did enjoy my stay. The main thing was that I got a chance to relax. About a week after I arrived in Miami I realized just how stressed I was. It was ridiculous.

I basically fucked up coming to New York so early. I came with no real plan, just a passion for drawing, and about $500 from my job over the summer. One of my first mistakes was not securing an income or a decent place to stay. So I ended up living with my uncle in Queens, which I didn't like very much and added to my stress. After enrolling in school about a week after I came to NY my stress level soon increased two-fold. My days involved a 3hr total commute back and forth home, having to wake up early to get to school by 8:30, and getting out by 6pm most days to get home at 7:30-8pm, doing homework once and a while and going to sleep late, sometimes not at all in order to wake up on time.

What really did me in though was that I didn't have any real support in NY. Yes, it was a lot to handle but it was infinetly worse that I had no job or financial links to rely on, and no social backing, i.e. friends to get me through this.

I did meet some cool people, made a few friends, but with school and everything, I have yet to have really good friends that I feel totally at ease with and so on.

I could write a book on my many failures with girls, so I'm not even gonna go into it.

Anyway, with all of this, by finals week of fall semester, I was honestly an inch away from a total nervous breakdown.

So, I needed to go to Miami more than I ever thought I would. I really calmed down and unwinded.

But I've been back in NY for about 3 weeks now and though I've changed things to make my life less stressful (schedule, housing, job) I still feel that my social life or lack thereof is subtracting from my experience here in the big apple.

I guess I'm a social retard in a way. I often don't know how to react to people and am very quiet and shy most of the time. I really have no idea how to remedy this, because I'm sure if I was more open and outgoing I would be a lot happier but I can't just turn on a switch labeled "awesome" and become so.

Actually I should've mentioned this before, but when I came to NY I actually was a lot more social and less shy, but somehow the lonliness, stress, and rejection from a few girls here and there kinda stunted my social growth and it's just difficult getting back to that somehow.

So, my mom called me today to see how I was doing and I talked about this a bit. She said I should be looking for some female company...I just told her that I'm terrible with girls to just save her the schpiel. But she also suggested that I take a sport. Which is a great idea, Brian also suggested this. I just need a bit of money, which I don't have at the moment. I was thinking I would like to take a martial art, it builds confidence and strength.

I just wanted to get all that out, because I don't really get to talk to many people about that, I don't really have anyone to vent to up here.

On more positive matters, my classes seem pretty decent. I like my painting class especially, cause it seems like we're going to do a lot of very interesting techniques. Our first painting is a landscape done in a flemmish style like what Rembrandt used. Awesome, no?

There are some new students too in some of my classes, and they seem like nice people. This one girl Mayumi really reminds me of Tanya, they kinda look similar too since they're both Japanese/Filipino mixed....crazy.

Heh, I just wrote a comment on one of my friend's blogs about thinking positive and I wrote in my own blog something that was 90% negative...oh well.

Shocked and Confused

2005-12-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

So, this morning I checked my grades for my first semester at Pratt. I really thought they wouldn't be this good, like I would get a high chance of B's with a sprinkling of C's here and there. Guess I was wrong. The only thing I expected was the C- in my painting class. Basically he gave me that because I came late and had 2 abscences, which is ridiculous...but that's the policy of the school, attendance is vital.

1 ASFD-168 02 Light, Color and Design I A- 2.00
2 ASDG-109 02 Typographic Design I A- 2.00
3 ASFD-143A 03 Drawing I - Figure A 2.00
4 ASFD-143B 02 Drawing I - General A 2.00
5 ASFD-212 01 History of Illustration A- 2.00
6 ASGR-151 02 Intro to Computer Graphics B- 2.00
7 ASIL-100 01 Painting I C- 2.00
8 ASIL-101 03 Illustration I A- 2.00

Almost over...

2005-12-12T15:54:00.001-08:00

So of late, I haven't been in the best of spirits. It so happens that this week is...finals week. So of course I have a lot to do.

Today I finished 3 of my classes, General Drawing 1, Figure Drawing 1, and Typography. I worked all weekend on the final assignments for that class. In the end they weren't bad, but I'm pretty glad that I don't have to take typography again. I'm quite terrible at those kinda of technical things, so my work wasn't very strong.

So, now I have 5 more classes. For wednesday I have a painting to do for extra credit, a book cover for illustration which i have not started and a book which i almost done with but will still be a bitch to finish.

Bla, so on to the next order of business...
I went to a jazz show yesterday at Nick's pub in Harlem, it was pretty nice. It felt good to go because when I drew I felt the energy of the music get into me and I think I got some pretty nice drawings.

I actually wanted to describe this feeling more...but I'm kind of burnt out from school today, and I wrote about this in Japanese earlier...so...yea.

Anyway, enjoy the drawings.

＿|￣|O

2005-12-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

負けた。
愛の戦争では片思いで怪我した。。。
じゃ、結局で彼女はもう恋人あるから僕のことはNGだ。
中にはいろいろ気持ちか考えが浮かんでる。。。不満、悩み、後悔、痛み。。。
やりすぎてると思ったので仕方がないな。
何とか、胸の中に空っぽな感じしてるん。
今何を出来るのかよく分からない。
。。。誰か幸せの道を導いて下さい。

Other than that bit of emoness...finals week is next week. Which sucks, because I don't feel like doing jack. I feel pretty out of it, like i'm in some weird form of purgatory, waiting for my judgement or whatever else is next.

I have my volunteer position to look foward to. I start training next week. Also, I'll be in Miami on the 20th.

Almost forgot, I moved to Manhattan. I live with 3 other people and 4 cats...two which are slightly annoying because my room is their hangout and they get hair all over my clothes and bed. Everything else is cool though, can't really complain. I'm pretty close to school now, only 25min taking one train instead of 90 min by bus and train. The extra hour of sleep makes a difference.

No other news, just thought I'd say that and get that stuff at the top off my chest, it's really getting me down y'know.

Felicitations!

2005-11-23T19:39:00.000-08:00

Ah, finally things are changing for me. My stale life in Queens will be exchanged for a hopefully better life in upper-west Manhattan starting in Decemeber. I'm a bit excited.

Anyway, I have a new painting to show. It's a portrait of my friend. For my painting class my teacher offered an extra-credit assignment: do a portrait, so I did, last night from around 8:00-11:30 or so. The result is the picture you see before you. It looks much better in person though. Granted though, it's not perfect, but I learned and I realize my mistakes.
More to come soon, probably more personal things since I'm in a good mood.

Watercolor sketching

2005-11-21T20:16:00.000-08:00

So, I finished the skecthbook that I started when I came here. In a matter of 3 months I filled that book, not a white page in it. Just about the whole book is subway sketches, me just sitting there on my commute to and from Manhattan. Anyway, so I needed to try something else for a change. I had gotten the hang of drawing people with pen and the subject matter (the people on the train) have started to get a bit boring...I see the same type of people everyday. So I decided to try something new...

Watercolor sketching. I went and bought a pad and devised a method of keeping my water secure by putting in a baby cup...but that didn't really make for a good method.

First of all, I was using regular brushes, a regular set of watercolors and the baby cup. So on the train it was hard to hold everything correctly and still be able to paint.

Secondly, that baby cup wasn't as secure as I thought it to be. On the often shaky train I got water all over the floor and myself, and one time I left the cup in my bag and it spilled all over the place somehow.

So, eventually I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said I should look into buying water brush pens. Kinnokuniya had them supposedly. But actually, I found a whole set at Utrecht for $15. It worked pretty well, but then I saw that the brush was kind of cheap and ended up going to Kinnokuniya anyway.

The pens are awesome. Now I have a handy little set that can fit in my hand making watercolor sketching an almost effortless activity. Without this I don't think I'd really have gotten into watercolor as much as I have now, it was all so mendokusai before...

Well anyway, I put up some sketches that I've done on the train, enjoy.

My first attempt at watercolor sketches with the crazy set up I mentioned

I ease in to things with waterpen. The girl is someone in my painting class, and the rest is just me teaching my friend how I paint with some random sketches.

This was done today on the train.

and this was also done on the train. The lady in the middle is my friend I plan on painting her portrait before Wednesday for an extra credit assignment. Also I don't know what's up with that thing in the upper right, I just made it up, looks like an androgynous cat/human hybrid...sorry.

More Art

2005-11-08T17:17:00.000-08:00

Just a small update to show some recent assignments for school...

A recent painting I did (last week)

My finished corn drawing...

Progress

2005-11-05T22:55:00.000-08:00

I haven't really shown too much of my work since I've come to New York, mostly because I was just too lazy. But, I finally looked through my things and photographed a few things to show on my blog.

Looking through and selecting things to put up, I noticed how in such a short time I improved my work. It really is an amazing thing. My lines are more confident, and there is a definitive style to me work, and I can see that I've started to develop more of a sense on how to capture what I want.
It's only been two 2-3months, what will my art look like when I graduate in less than 2 years?

What I'm working on now...this will take me forever to finish...

All the red are from figure drawing class 20min-1hr poses

gesture drawing, 5min for each figure...

20min pose

Dumbo Arts

2005-11-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

The big picture as far as things go for me in New York, is my involvement and exposure in the art world. New York is an excellent place to explore and create the realm of visual art. There are almost an infinite amount of inspiration for the creator and boundless activities and events for the viewer. So of course, I've been trying to get out to art related activities when I can.

3 weeks ago I went to the Dumbo Arts festival. Dumbo arts is a collection of studios in Williamsburg, one of the neighborhoods in New York which seems to collect a sizeable amount of

residents involved in art. At that time, many of the studios were open for public viewing and in addition there were various performances and festival like activities.

Williamsburg is also, one of the places I really want to live in at the moment. When I first went there, there was something about the air that attracted me. More or less, after though, there was a girl that I really liked (still like her even though I know I shouldn't). But regardless it's still a pretty nice place to live.

Anyway, the festival was nice. Though not many of the studios I saw had anything that really grabbed my attention, there were at least a few interesting things, inlcuding the flower sculptures and the medieval style christian paintings from the same studio. I forgot the guy's
name, but he looked like nicholas cage.

So basically, my journey went like this. It was a saturday, so I got up late as usual, and I headed towards my school for a reason I know have forgotten. Follwing that, I went to Dumbo and came across my fellow classmates who were on a field trip for their saturday 3-d design class.

I followed them for a bit, until the class was over. I'm sort of lacking in the friends department so I really didn't have much else to do after, and basically followed to of my classmates back to the area around my school and got something to eat by myself after they went home.

Again, I didn't have anything to do, so I went back to dumbo when it got dark and aimlessly walked around until I saw someone else I knew from school. I ended up not really doing much else after that, and went home somewhat late.

Anyway, it was still interesting to go to, maybe next year I'll find some more work that appeals to me more than this year.

Until then, here are some extra pics of Williamsburg and the festivities at the Dumbo Arts Festival. Click on them to make them bigger.

As of late

2005-10-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last night was interesting...ok interesting isn't the word, it was great.
Lately, things seem to have been working out, I'm getting something similar to that feeling I had when I first came to NY and it seem like luck is back on my side.

When I first came here, it seemed like things were really going my way. I felt different, it was a new beginning, full of promise. I saw celebrities, I met great people, I got offered a job to work on the Sopranos.

But things didn't go so well as time progressed. I got quickly bogged down from the stresses of NY. I didn't see any more people, I had no friends, that job offer went out because I was confident in my abilities as an artist to follow through (i.e. I was afraid to call the guy back, and when I did finally a month later he never called me.). Also, adjusting to things such as the general rush of the city and living 90min away from what I consider fun and interesting things also took it's toll on me.

But somehow, things are back on track. After probably my lowest point in NY, I started experiencing those type like I mentioned before. I saw Graham Norton (around 8th ave and 13th st) and Yoko Ono (starbucks on astor pl) in the same day. I've been meeting great people through my ad on craigslist and I finally found out I'll be getting my financial aid money soon. So I feel happy that I can get an apartment closer to the city in January.

So anyway, last night...went to MOMA, saw some interesting artwork. Afterwards I went to a Japanese restaurant with my friend and his friends. Good times. I drew a picture of the waitress, which she has, so sorry, you can't see it. She said she'd frame it and bought me a drink. After I slept over my friends apt and had a crazy time trying to get to an interview tomorrow which I missed anyway.

I look pretty emotionless...but I was having fun, maybe I was just trying to keep my composure because I drank a bit much.

The Beginning of the End

2005-10-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

I did it...
I dragged my feet for too long, it was time for me, Ajani to get one of these new fangled contraptions they call a blog.
...plus I was procrastinating all day and this distracted me from obligations, i.e. HW.

So what do I write in a blog? I guess the point of these is to inform people of interesting things. I have online journals, but I notice that most people, including myself just complain about things and rant. I also noticed that most journal users are teenagers.
I'm an adult now, so maybe it's time I grow up, in the technological sense.

Oh, blog...I think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship!

Here's a quick doodle to commemorate this occasion.