Thanks bloggers

We were one of the very few groups without funding or representation that presented work at Aqua Wynwood. The amount of work, time and money that went into this production is an accomplishment that my collaborators and myself are very proud of. Getting down there to present work would be daunting enough and creating a retail/art space almost broke our backs.
Michael Bilsborough  http://www.sva.edu/ce/blog stopped by to say hello to The Nursery and took a few snaps of us and the space we created. 

Aqua Art In Full Swing

The fair went really well. We met a lot of friendly people and some douchers as well. Here we are sort of posing for the Miami New Times. The name tags are unfortunate.

Here's Michael and Kathryn (my fellow conspritors) next to Annette of Annette &James.

The Nursery: Day 1

Here is The Nursery completely set up and ready to go. All the people involved in The Nursery (Myself, Kathryn Miriam, Michael Sanzone) are so pleased with the outcome. It is exactly what we imagined.

The final touch at the last moment and away we go!

The Nursery Begins

Kathryn, Michael and I got to Miami earlier than expected and had plenty of time to set up our show at Aqua Art. Nothing was broken because Mike and I drove like old women from New York to Miami stopping in Virginia to have Thanksgiving dinner with his family. 

Setting up was quite an ordeal for this setup. The Nursery is not a traditional setup so it wasn't like we rolled in and hung work. We had to paint walls, install shelving and place furniture throughout the space.  

These are large cutouts of our Hellos of the World children. Some of them have been placed in our space-others around town. 

The most important part of our show is still the artwork. Michael and I had a huge amount of art to hang and were still finished hanging this show an entire day before the fare is starting. 
Come see the blog tomorrow to look at images of The Nursery all set up.   

Crowded: New York View

This is the finish for my third Crowded New York Series and I'm very pleased with it. There are several elements of this illustration that I like a lot and most of them have to do with the composition of the drawing and textures within the color. 

Reworked Flat Colors for Crowded New York III

This a reworked version of the flat color layer after my class on Tuesday night. My instructor Matt Rota stepped in with suggestions on how to get more out of the available colors and gave me an extensive tutorial on the finer points of coloring. I was encouraged to keep the colored layers I usually add to pieces in the vein of painterly as opposed to organic elements which I totally agree with.

I would be very pleased if I could work like this consistently.

Flat Colors

After doing two of these (Crowded New York I and II) I'm finally starting to see how necessary is to find ways to unify everything. For some reason I had it my head that my traditional approach to coloring wasn't going to work inside a computer...Duh. 

I have to do something about the blacks in this one-they're very heavy. When it comes time to add some other elements, I'm going to incorporate a lot of New York funk on the walls to get away from the flatness. Plus, this is New York! If I wanted boring walls, I'd move to Minneapolis-Saint Paul. 

Crowded New York III: The Streets

                                                    

I thought it would be good to show the original sketch alongside the tightened up drawing. Now that I'm looking at the drawings side by side, I miss the bricks on the building behind the crowds and the cars.

Crowded New York II: My Dinky Apartment

Here's the fully colored version of Crowded New York II: My Dinky Apartment. Several layers of painting were put into this illustration and its review went well. Matt Rota (my teacher and his guest Rich Tu) spoke with the class about it at length and I got a lot of positive comments and tips on how to improve it and what to avoid in the future.

This is a reworked flat color layer that will be incorporated into the hand painted elements to come. My instructor gave me some very helpful tips on how to address unifying an illustration like this that has so many little items spread across it i.e. using contrast and volume to accentuate the bigger shapes that are available.

Crowded New York II: Elements Of Color

 

All the paintings above are elements created for the second Crowded New York illustration. I am running into the problem of mincing up my coloring process which I will have to minimize for consistency.

All in all, it's much easier to handle illustrations like this now that I have a bit of a road map in place to get the work done. I look forward to finishing five of these.

Crowded New York II: Sketch

This is another sketch for the Crowded New York Series. The original sketch was a safe option for me so I adjusted the perspective to make the composition a little more interesting. Really looking forward to applying all the lessons learned from the last Crowded New York illustration.     

Crowded New York I: P U

This is pretty far along and I can't really tell how much more I want to add to it so I'm waiting for my next class to get some much needed input and see what everyone thinks. I think it's pretty close to finished.

I've learned a lot while handling the color for this particular illustration and have taken several suggestions from my instructor as to how to make the coloring process more effective for my type of drawing. I look forward to working faster with the next four drawings which will afford me much needed time to experiment. I looked back at the other colored version of this drawing I had initially brought to class and this new one is much stronger.

I've used several layers of hand painted elements in this illustration which automatically makes it different from the previous work I've done using photoshop. It's too soon to say there's a personality to the way I'm coloring but with time hopefully that will change.

Photoshop Is Clowning Me

I've started to incorporate some textured and or organic elements into the coloring process in order to make more interesting images.

Reworked Sketches And Working Drawing For Review

This sketch is a modification from the original drawing. I have pulled back the viewer in order to get more character into the composition and then realized that by pulling out, I made the scene less crowded and claustrophobic.

In order to resolve the loss of a sense of crowding, I added a screaming infant in a pram (notice the parent is not presented) in the foreground of the drawing. I feel it also gives the composition a lot of depth and makes for a more interesting illustration.

This colored drawing is currently being worked on.

Reworked Sketches For Class Review

 

 

These two drawings are the second batch of sketches for the Crowded New York series I am currently working on as a class assignment. The review of the original sketches by my teacher Matthew Rota and my fellow classmates was very helpful as I went back to revise my drawings.

The first drawing (Dining In) has a lot more items in it to increase the effect of cluttered and tight living.

The second drawing ( No Room Anywhere) differs from the first sketch in that there is a lot more depth in it and the people out in the streets are a little larger to relate better to the figures jutting out of the windows. In a third revision of this idea, I was considering dropping the far roof down to show a sliver of sky with a helicopter and jet flying over the scene.

Crowded New York

I had a lot of trouble getting started with creating a concept to run with for this assignment, but I think I fell on a fun and interesting series I will call "Crowded New York". I'm not a curmudgeon or a person that thinks that a good life is to have a lawn and live in a sequestered cul de sac suburb so I feel I can come up with some light hearted drawings illustrating feeling crammed in New York.

I just moved from an apartment in Park Slope that was so small I couldn't cook anything more than a single dish at a time and had nowhere to place my dishes to dry. I was always afraid that an overzealous jerk of the arm would send my elbow through the drywall. I also had a friend who lived in the Lower East Side in the early 90's who had a bathtub in his kitchen/living room. He used to set out a plank of wood over his tub to eat on.

I don't freak out on subways very often. I have lived in New York for too long and the crunch is what I moved here for but sometimes the casual behavior of some people in public places still astonishes me. I would like to infuse those nuances into this drawing in order to make it less generic and homogenized.