M.I.A. - $20

This was a project that I did in Francis Jetter's Storytelling class. In this class, we not only wrote and illustrated our stories, but we also made them into legitimate books! We were done with most of our assignments and summer was coming up fast. We had the option of doing another book, but with a week left, most opted out. However, I was listening to a lot of the world artist M.I.A. at the time and was moved by one song in particular; 20 Dollar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYa7nf4Aig

After a few dozen times of listening to the song, I decided to crank out a small book anyway. And honestly, I liked it better than what I did the first 10 weeks or so of class! Its pretty small, 5'" by 5" but folds out to tell the story of the first verse of the song, regarding life in Africa. It was one of my favorite pieces of sophomore year.

Quick Update!

The project that has been consuming most of my time Junior year is DONE!! We were to do a story based on a Greek myth. Those that finished and did exceptional work were chosen to be in the end of the year show.. and I made it in!! To the right are a few teasers of the piece. I just have to scan and edit a few pages and then I'll have the first 5-6 pages within the... month... I'll try my best to get more of the images up very soon! 

Outside the Box

For Peter Kuper's “Outside the Box” class, we create a variety of different comics with a new theme each week. Below are some of my favorite assignments from the class.

This was one where we had to do nine or more self portraits. I decided to tell my life story in art and my introduction into the cartooning world.

Here, we were to draw a specific neighborhood in NYC and try to capture what it is like there. I live in and decided to depict Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an area that many people in New York tend to stay clear of. Most people only know the rumors that surround the place or of the riots in the 90s that took place there, not of the people there who love it and call it home. I based the page layout on a map because most people can point out where the area is (streets, subway stops, etc.) but not who or what is actually on street level.

This was the second assignment. We were to depict a certain place, well known or personal, and show it in certain periods in time. I chose the Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island because it was a great site to witness different historic events in American history both celebratory and tragic. From the arrival of countless immigrants to the fall of the Twin Towers, New York has been the place to witness history (for me anyway...)

And this was my favorite piece. We had to take a song by a musician and, using all or a few of the lyrics, tell a story. I chose David Bowie's "Space Oddity", a song i've had fond memories of since middle school. I decided to use as many negative black areas and as few words as I could to try and create an illusion of space; I think I did alright :)

Drawing On Location

Well, it's been quite a while! I've been busy with my Junior Thesis since January, but now I'm done! I got into the show, but that's another post... These are a few pieces from my “Drawing on Location” course with J. Ruggeri, an extraordinary artist in his own right. In the class we go to different places in New York City and just draw! It's just an all around great class for exercises in sketching environments and people in the environment.

Storytelling Books 1st Semester: Ring around the Rosie/ Pagliacci

So... 10th grade was a great introduction year for me. I was taught figurative drawing lessons from Phil Jimenez of Crisis on Infinite Earths fame, penciling and inking by cartooning great Nick Bertozzi and learned the art of bookbinding from TIME Magazine published Francis Jetter. The following books are from my first semester of Storytelling with Jetter. At first I was uncomfortable in the class because it was geared more towards illustrators than cartoonists like myself. But after the first project, it was smooth sailing! The project was to take a well known poem and convert it into a folded illustration book. I chose Ring around the Rosie, and told the origins of the poem (The Black Plague) through the art.

After the success of the first book, I felt pretty confident on moving on to the next project. The project asked us to illustrate a famous story and bind it using the Japanese bookbinding technique. I chose the story of Pagliacci, an opera following the love triangle between the clown Canio, his wife Nedda, and her lover Silvio. As I illustrated the pages, I started to get bored with the art. Thats when I made the haphazard idea to make it into a pop-up book... and it actually worked! Sometimes the best ideas come at the last minute!

First Post! + SVA Questionnaire 2009

So... this is my first post! I don't have much, but over the next few days I hope to add a bunch of my past art, as well as a few things that I'm currently working on. Who knows? Maybe I'll find the time to tell you a bit about my experiences here in the City as well! But until then, please enjoy this mini-comic I did earlier last year for a Cartooning class. We just had to answer a few questions in comic form; since I felt kinda awkward answering some of them, I decided to use humor (or what little I could muster) to complete the project. It was pretty simple because I used a template and traced for all of the shots of myself, changing expressions here and there. Anyone can do it, really! Without further ado, I present my SVA Questionnaire 2009. Enjoy!