The Stouthearted Swinger

(Here is my rough draft for the second story and thumbnails)

Addam and his friends were bored.  It was a hot and humid summer afternoon in Louisiana and there was nothing to do but catch frogs in the ditches and chase stray cats.  The small creek hidden in the woods behind their houses was an enticing yet deceptive trap full of sharp branches sticking out of the water like spikes.  No boy in his right mind would attempt to swim in there unless he had a death wish.  Yet Addam and his friends were bored, and anyone who knows children knows that boredom is the best motivation to get a child to do reckless things. So he and his friends decided to loiter by the edge of the creek.  Addam picked up a large rock and tossed it into the murky water.  He smiled crookedly at the satisfying splash.  Soon the other boys joined in and rocks started flying.  Eventually they got bored of that too and started throwing rocks at each other instead.  It didn’t last long.  While the boys were recovering from the attacks, Addam went in search of a rock to surprise his brother with.  What he found instead was a long sturdy rope hidden in the mud.  Addam wrapped his treasure across his shoulders and searched the creek bank for a tree with sturdy branches hanging out across the water.  Once he found one, he climbed as far as he could across the water and tied one end of the rope securely to the branch.  Then he tied a knot at the other end of the rope so that one’s feet wouldn’t slip off.  The boys stopped displaying their battle scars and watched Addam with growing excitement.

As soon as he was finished, the boys started pushing and shoving to get to the rope, but Addam wanted the first turn.  He stepped up onto a large rock and held the rope with both hands.  Addam wasn’t afraid of falling in the water.  After being tied to milk jugs and tossed into the river by his older brother, Addam knew how to swim.  However, he was afraid of the spikes and knew that if he slipped, he’d be coming home with water dripping out of the holes in his body.  So with that in mind, he pushed off from the rock as hard as he could at an angle.  The world spun out around him as he arced across the water and over the deadly spikes.  The strong wind pushed his hair back from his forehead and plastered the large grin to his face.  He was filled with pure adrenaline and courage.  If he survived this, he’d be dubbed Addam the Brave by all who hear of his heroic feat.  He reached the bank in no time and the boys rushed over to congratulate him.  For the rest of that summer, children swung on the swing of death to prove their bravery.  Yet no one could ever top Addam the Brave.

The Tremendous Tree

(This is a very rough draft of the first short story and a thumbnail)

Addam loved to climb trees.  He was an adventurous little boy with eyes the color of a clear blue sky in June and smile as crooked as a putter.  He was known far and wide as The Tree Climber, for his abilities attracted the attention of all the neighborhood kids.  Whenever Addam finished his daily chores, he’d venture out into his dad’s vast farmlands in search of a great climbing tree.  Once he was satisfied, he’d start ascending the tree until the branches could no longer support his weight.  There, perched comfortably on a branch, he’d survey the land stretched out before him.  It was during these moments when his child’s imagination would carry him into worlds full of flying beasts with wings the color of blue flame, elaborate castles growing out of the tops of trees and sprouting turret-shaped blossoms, giants the size of mountains sitting with large spoons and eating the clouds as if they were mashed potatoes, and a city of his own creation made up of tree houses that exist only in dreams. 

One day, as Addam went searching for a new tree, he turned down an unfamiliar path.  After a few minutes of crushing leaves and branches under his boots, he made it to the base of a tree.  He leaned his head back to look up at the massive structure and his heart started racing.  The tree was gigantic!  It must be two thousand feet tall, he thought.  Without a second thought, he started to climb.  The ascent was easy.  It was as though the tree were designed specifically for him; for the branches were spaced close enough for his little boy arms and legs to reach.  When he could climb no farther, he straddled a branch and looked down.  The distance made his head swim and he clung onto the base of the tree to prevent himself from falling.  He was too high up!  He tried to climb down to the branch below him, but his body was shaking too much.  He stayed in that tree all afternoon.  He was just about to doze off when he heard his dad calling his name.  He looked down to find his dad at the base of the tree, the size of an ant, holding a ladder.  His dad looked at him, then at the remarkably small ladder, then at the tree again, and then he turned and walked away.  A few minutes later he returned with a longer ladder, a look of disbelief on his face, and carried his son out of the tree and into the warmth of their modest farm house.  Addam the Tree Climber met his match that day but vowed next time to bring the ladder.

 

Here is an in-process painting.

 



Communication Arts Competition

Okay, so I'm REALLY excited about this!  My illustration class is competing in the Communication Arts competition.  That means more competition among students and better work! 

For those who don't know what Communication Arts is, it's a magazine that showcases work by some of the best and well known illustrators and designers of that year.  The competition is pretty open and the deadline is January 4, 2013.  There's an entry fee of $35 for one piece and $70 for a series.  Here's a link for more information: http://www.commarts.com/competitions/illustration

The best part?  I can do whatever I want!  So where to begin?  With all this freedom comes great responsibility.  I started off by listing my favorite topics.  Such topics included the paranormal, memory, afterlife, basically all the things I blogged about recently.  Then I thought of what my Painting 3 teacher told me after I presented my work to the class.  I am a storyteller.  My work tells stories in the same way my dad told exaggerated stories about his childhood.  That's it.  Illustrate my dad's Big Fish stories! 

Long story short, I'm handmaking a book titled Dad's Tall Tales.  I will create three illustrations, acrylic of course since it's my strength, and they will be 9"x16".  I will then scan them and create a digital book with their corresponding short stories.  After that I will print and hand bind them using the pamphlet stitch.  Simple but effective since they will also serve as Christmas presents for some of my family. 

I started off my process by convincing my uncle to text me stories of him and my dad.  I wanted to compare the elaborate stories my dad told me with the true stories my uncle told me.  Excuse my language, but I laughed my ass off as he sent me text after text of hilarious stories of my dad.  The stories I chose to illustrate are:

-The time my dad got stuck in a tree all day
-The time my dad swung on a rope swing over a bed of spikes
-My dad's elaborate dream tree house

I'll keep you updated!

Lettering Exercises

This was an in-class exercise we did to help us loosen up and experiment with text.  We collaged letters, wrote without looking, painted only the negative space around the letters, drew with sticks, etc.  Here are some examples of what we worked on.

 

Then, after drawing inspiration from Stefan Sagmeister (http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/sagmeister.html), I created this:

 

 

 

This is based off of a quote my gran says all the time, "Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see."





Super Awesome Illustrators!

These illustrators are fantastic!  Check out their work.

-Jennifer Hom (http://jenniferhom.com/)
-Sefora Pons (http://www.amorphi.net/)
-Audrey Kawasaki (http://www.audrey-kawasaki.com/)
-Bente Schlick (http://www.benteschlick.com/)
-Tzviatko Kinchev (http://drawasamaniac.com/news/Tzviatko_Kinchev.php)
-Alberto Cerrikeno (http://acerriteno.blogspot.com/)
-Christian Asuh (http://www.artistsandart.org/2009/08/christian-asuh-amazing-paintings.html)
-Graham Franciose (http://grahamfranciose.com/#home)
-Cory Godbey (http://corygodbey.com/)
-Beatriz Martin Vidal ( http://beatriz.carbonmade.com/)
-Alexander Jansson (http://www.alexanderjansson.com/)

  

Spot Metaphors

For this assignment, we were given two lists.  Group A consisted of the subject.  Group B consisted of the metaphorical devices used to communicate the subject.  We started off by selecting one from A and one from B, then combining them.  We did that for eight individual illustrations. 

A                          B
The divine           a shadow
Isolation              only animals
Love                    landscape/cityscape
Revolution          an interior
Leadership          only hands
Fear                     only a still-life
Greed                   a sequence
Aging                  juxtaposition

So whaa laa!  Can you guess which one is which?

Silhouettes

Hello!  So I haven't posted anything in months and I apologize for that.  The infamous DESIGN SYSTEMS I, among other things, has taken over my life.  Fortunately I've decided to protest and put illustration before design.  TEAM ILLUSTRATION! 

I've worked on several exercises and projects in illustration since the last time I posted; one of those being the silhouette project.  The idea was to choose any silhouette and create an image inside of that silhouette that conforms to the shape in a way that makes sense.  Here are some sketches in preparation of the final paintings:

 

 

 

The first sketch is about alcoholism and heart disease and how the two go hand in hand.  The second is pretty obvious; stray animals in the silhouette of a cat.  The last is a homeless person in the silhouette of a bare foot.  Memphis, as well as many large cities, has a problem with unemployment and homelessness.  With each idea I tried to touch on social issues that are happening now.  There are the final paintings: