Neuroplasticity #2 神経可塑性

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

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

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！！

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

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

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

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

Untitled

Finally...

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!

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

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

Another card

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

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!