Downtown Ft. Lauderdale

Greetings Everyone!

This summer is not going as I planned as far as putting stuff up here, and I apologize to all of those who care. But rest assured I have been doing some sketches and drawings. Nothing complete as I am mostly just trying to hone my skills. Practice is always something you can do.

Anyway, I went out with some friends the other night to Chili's and drew a couple of em.



This is my friend Chris while our friend Benny was saying something. I think I really captured his facial expression well.



This is my friend Benny while we were watching Adventure Time at his house. That show is off the chain!

And today I went downtown Ft. Lauderdale to kill some time before work. I walked to the park across from the Museum of Discovery and Science and sketched there for a bit. They have these satellite dish looking things that face eachother, and when you talk into one it bounces the sound to the other one so your friend standing at the other can hear your voice. It's pretty cool. I remember playing with them as a kid.



I was sitting with a 3/4 view behind it and tried to work on my implied lines rather than making a solid contour line.



I then moseyed over to the Museum of Discovery and Science where I sketched a pigeon. But I mostly just needed to sit in the shade where it was somewhat breezy. I kept sweating all over my blank pages.

-Jason

Semester Overrrr!

Words can not describe my relief at this school semester being over. It has definitely marked what has been the lowest point in my life thus far, and the fact that it is over and good grades are being projected, I am relieved. Not happy. Just relieved.

Anyway, I don't have much new to show off today, unless anyone is interested in some of the photographs I included in my presentation for Applied Digital Photography. View at your discretion.


Another television picture with slow shutter speed. Not a particularly good composition, but it gives off a very uneasy feeling. Somewhat grotesque. I included it to see how much people wouldn't like it, but most said they were more interested in it because of how uneasy it made them feel, and how they couldn't figure out what is going on in the photo.


We also had to do some work in the studio with the spot lights and stuff. So I gathered all of my trash in my car (fast food bags, coke cans etc.) and took pictures. This one is one of my favorites.


This is just a picture of our pool deck with a shadow of a palm tree. I had to stand on a chair to get this one.

I also wanted to share a bit about one of my personal favorite artists who I did a power point on for my Contemporary Art History class (even though he kind of doesn't really fit in with any movements we discussed in class). But Robert Crumb is such a cool guy I got to talk about him anyway.

He is an illustrator who started out working for American Greetings which is where he honed his cute cartoony style for his characters within his raunchy and offensive narratives. I happen to think they are really funny.

He founded the underground comic Zap Comix, which spawned the underground and psychedelic comic movement in the 60's. Eventually local obscenity laws were enacted and shops were busted for selling his work, which gave him his infamy.


The Cover of Zap No. 1

He has many characters that people may recognize including Mr. Natural, and Fritz the Cat--who was adapted into a movie, the first X rated animated film in America. Crumb hates the film however.


Fritz the Cat in his element


Mr. Natural pontificating

He also was the man behind the "Keep on Trucking" saying from the late 60's/early 70's. He did it in reference to a lyric from a blues song (I lost my notecards and forget the exact song and artist, but I'm sure "Keep on Truckin" is in the title).



Recently he did an illustrated version of the book of Genesis from the Bible. It is the exact same story word for word. However the illustrations provide a very humanistic feel to it. God is depicted as a bearded man (of course), and the graphic depictions of the suffering and violence in that book. It is very different to read Genesis with pictures.



Anyway, that is Robert Crumb. Not only do I love the low-brow humor, but he is an expert draftsman.

-Jason

Dog park and a portrait

Today I took our dog Snoopy to the dog park by my house. It's so fun to watch him get excited when he realizes where we are going. He leads the way from there. I did a few gestures of him taking a rest.



And I also started a portrait that my uncle requested.



Sorry about the bad photo quality. I'm being lazy and using my webcam.

-Jason

Bonus Stew Beef!

Hey everyone I did a watercolor and pen of Jon Stewart as Glenn Beck again. I like this one a lot! Enough to share with all of you. Enjoy!



-Jason

School work and a drawing of J-Stew

I think I have come to a point where I don't really like photography. So I suppose I apologize in advance. But this is for my Digital Photography class at school. Some potentials for my final portfolio dealie she wants us to turn in.



I like this one because once I printed it out I kept getting confused as to which side was up.



This is from when I was taking pictures of my TV. I dodged and burned the letters/around the letters so they pop more.



A building in downtown Ft. Lauderdale was reflecting onto another building and creating neat cast shadows from the palm trees in the area. I rather like this photo.



My patient cat waiting to go outside.



Anyone see Jon Stewart doing his Glenn Beck thing last night? Pretty funny. This doesn't look exactly like him but i like the careful facial subtleties I got in this one. I used my .005 millimeter pen the whole time.

-Jason

More older work and a doodle of my professor

School and work has kept me kind of busy lately. Sorry everyone for the lack of updates and such. But today I bring you a doodle I did in class of my professor, and some more older work!



Took my time with the hatching and stuff. I like how this turned out. Sorry about the bad quality; I took the picture with my webcam.



This is from when I met a few friends at a park a month or so ago. There were a lot of dogs. This one in particular I did a few good quick gestures of. He was just so cool lookin'.



This is from a photo from when I went to Langerado in 2008. We were at the Beastie Boys set and Jon was running around with cups on his eyes in a terrible re-enactment of the Sabotage video. But it was still a lot of fun and I got this neat series of photos which I made into a neat sketch. I really want to do something big with this though.



This is from when we were waiting in line for Bonnaroo 2009. My friend Kat fell asleep in her car. I really like the circular frame this sketch takes on because I just felt like not drawing anything beyond those points.



I was following my cat Neko around one day and taking pictures and did a series of small sketches. This is one of them. I really like the vantage point. It's like he's trying to decide what to do next.



This is another one of my cat just relaxing on my bed. He loves to lay/sleep in that spot there.

Anyway that is about all for now! Hope you enjoyed these drawings.

Older work

So in an effort to keep this blog going when I don't have too much new material to present, I thought I'd start uploading some old artwork in a few different posts! So I hope you enjoy them! I also want to work on photographing some of my better pieces from when I took life-drawing. So look for those in the coming days/weeks!

Anyway here is some old stuff:



This is part of a project I did for my Narrative Drawing class at FAU. We basically used pictures of plants that we took, then using a lightbox, traced them onto cardboard overlapping each other without too much care. We then tried to find design in these wacky compositions and painted in certain areas, again not going for neatness. I really like how this one turned out.




This drawing came out of another Narrative Drawing project. We were making collages and such, so I chopped up a photo of the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and reassembled it in photoshop, then proceeded to copy it like I would any other image. I really like this one as well and actually got it exhibited in a small anyone-is-welcome amateur art show at a local comic shop.



Yet another piece that came out of a Narrative Drawing project. We were still focusing on collage, but we wanted the subject matter to be anatomy and bodies. So I too a big piece of cardboard and just started cutting pictures and gluing them. After I decided to trace some of the pictures of people with a colored marker and pasted those tracings on as part of the collage. I really like how the green woman makes this piece pop.



This last piece came from an idea from a friend. This is painted on a vinyl record that I got at the library for $.50. I copied a picture of a bluebird (?) and then took my pens to add texture and value. I ended up giving this to my Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas.

Anyway I hope you all enjoyed looking. More to come!

-Jason

Doodling during class

So yea I should have been paying more attention today in class. We started talking about paintings in Chinese Art History. But I was more interested in Deadpool and Batman.



I think Deadpool came out a little better than Batman. Although pay no attention to his hand and gun. Kinda messed those up. But I had no reference what do you want!

-Jason

Electrees

So yea here is a picture of some trees I drew over with a Wacom. Never used one of these things before but it was fun! And tracing the contours and stuff was great practice for getting used to it.



edit: here's without the pic background




double edit: upped the brightness of the lines I drew. NOW it's more like Electrees!



-Jason

Spring Break

Spring Break has begun. Today I hung out with my girlfriend and my friend Kat and did some print screening! We did a bird design and an Ol Dirty Bastard design. Check it out!



Here is a group of birds. Kind of wish I used more yellow, but I can always do it again.



ODB!

-Jason

Better Plants

Decided to scrap the plants from the other day (not literally--they're still in my sketchbook--but conceptually). Did a drawing of some plants today that came out mo'bettah.



Like my friend Chris says: You always gotta get mo'bettah.

-Jason

School Work

Currently I am taking Applied Digital Photography at school. We are now wrapping up our abstract project and starting to segue into a project in which we explore our own artistic interests. I am especially excited for this because I can somehow incorporate drawing into them! So I did a test today: I took a photo of my television with a real slow shutter speed a few weeks ago while trying to think of a subject for my abstract project. So I printed it out today, and decided to try and trace all of the contour lines. So far I am REALLY liking the result. So here is a little peak at it before it is finished.



Sorry about the bad quality. I am too lazy to go to the scanner. That is just a portion of the photo. I plan on doing that to the whole thing.

Edit: Here's the whole thing just finished it.



I reaaaally like how this came out. More so than I like the original photo. The contour lines make everything pop!

-Jason

Started with some pen

So I started putting some pen over my pencil drawing. I'm somewhat happy with it so far. Right now I don't have access to my scanner, so I just took a picture with my webcam instead.



Anyway there it is. So far...

-Jason

Starting a new one before work

Sat out back and sketched a pot that had some plants in it. I kind of wanted to let the protruding parts of the plant dictate the frame also, and I like how this initial sketch looks. I'll probably take pen to this one. I though about water colors but those could be too messy for my sketchbook paper. But we'll see how I feel later. Anyway, here is the pencil sketch.



Thoughts?

-Jason

Tattoo Design

My friend Kat asked me to design a Florida themed tattoo for her. She gave me a pretty good outline of what she is looking for and I just went from there. I came up with two different variations.

This first one is more in line with what she wants, with the text going down the east coast (which makes sense seeing as we are on the east coast). Here it is:



For the second variation, I decided to put the text on the left hand side lined up with the bottom of the heart. Also it helps to balance Florida's panhandle. With the text on the right (as in the first variation) I felt like it pulled too hard to the right. What do you all think?



Edit here is a third:



So which is it; 1, 2 or 3? Any and all feedback is appreciated!

-Jason

Park!

Today I went to the park with my friend Amanda and her son Jake. Mostly he just played on the playground and stuff, but I drew some trees. Or started drawing some trees but moved on. However I always find drawing trees is great cross-hatching practice. There is so much movement in the branches and all the different directions they go in. Anyway here are some tree sketches!

Here is the first one. Nothing real special to note about it.





I think I like how this second one was coming along a lot better than my first. However it was late in the day and my light was diminishing. Damn earth's rotation!

Anyway, that's all for today! I'll post more of my graphic narrative later on this week. What with mid-terms and papers and shit at school, I've been a little tied up this weekend.

-Jason

A Fresh Start

Greetings one and all!

My name is Jason. You may (or probably don't) remember me from my other blog. You know. The neglected one. I started it when I went to Belgium that one time? Anyway, I've decided to scrap that one and all its unorganized glory. The reason? Well, recent personal events that I will reveal later. But it was one of those things where after it happens, it is very much the first day of the rest of your life. Hence scrapping the old, and ushering in the new.

The other reason I wanted to start this blog is because I have been drawing a lot more recently and I need a nice organized and somewhat official place to put the really nice ones! Maybe really nice is an overstatement. I'll say the ones that I like. But you can be the judge for sure. I would appreciate any and all feedback.

To show you that this is serious bizniz, I come bearing an image! Right now I am working on creating my very own graphic narration of a dream I had about a couple weeks ago. I've never attempted to do this sort of thing before, so what I'm really looking to learn is how to convey emotion and at the same time have a complete easy-to-follow short narrative. However I have worked out how I'd like the first three panels to go via a couple pen sketches and lots of thinking. Right now I am working on penciling in the initial image for the first panel. Anyway, here you go.


That is the first initial sketch I did in pen.


and this is the first panel I'm working on as well as the orientation of those first three panels.

Anyway, that is all for now.