Some work of the past

Thoughts of Walt Whitman

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
-W.W.

Travel Sketching

It has been a dream of mine to be a traveling artist, sketching as I go, trading, and giving away work. I have been planning a bicycle/surf trip down the California Coast and beyond. I am hoping to use this opportunity to sketch on the road, exploring methods of recording and engaging with my surroundings via drawing. Stay tuned for blog updates or a link to a separate blog about this trip!

My first stop motion and my final school project! 

or for a better quality video go to: https://vimeo.com/39077575

This was about two weeks of day and night drawing, erasing, drawing, erasing, etc. It is a beginners/rough cut but I enjoyed the process of learning how stop motion works. It takes some patience, letting go, and attention to detail. I recommend the experience!

This is a portrait of a Shipibo woman I met while studying in the Amazon. I tried combining photos I took with pastel illustration. This was done in response to my questions about traveling as an observer, student, artist, and foreigner. 

In Tim Cresswell's book, Defining Place: A Short Introduction, he explains that places are “made, maintained, and contested” out of landscapes and spaces. Cresswell explains places as a pause in space. This resonated for me; making place is a subjective action, it is a way of looking at the world, a perspective as well as a physical object. Place became a defining basis to look at the relationships between local and global, familiar and unfamiliar, known and unknown as undercurrents of my motivations to travel. (This is an excerpt from an artist statement I wrote in college).

More from the sketchbook:

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Sketchbook: 

Thoreau 

A study on barnacles 

I began drawing barnacles. Barnacles. Those stubborn oceanic organisms that cover rocks on the shore, attach themselves to sharks and plastic bottles floating through the ocean. Barnacles, the crustaceans that compete for space and resist displacement. I think of the relationship between traveling and identity as a positioning, the pull of place, and the construction of the foreign. Barnacles wash up on shore attached to pieces of drifting material. In their mobile stage of life they are looking for potential places to be mapped and named as home. They are not only signifying in themselves but in what they attach to and how.

I am experimenting with the relationship between barnacles, movement and absence, found materials, and the variables of travel. Ulrich Williams comments on the work of On Kawara, "...movement and change are functions of our awareness of time, an awareness shaped by a sequence of events determined either by ourselves or by external circumstances."

                                                 (Excerpt from artist statement).

Some Sketches

She had a tightrope walker's feel for the land beneath her. It's surface tension, the give and take of things.

-Tim O'Brien

Thanks for all who came out to make it another successful First Friday!

Eleboard

Paint Pens on Surfboard

Eleboard Draft

And the animals continue...

Killer Whale + Panda = Killer Panda

Special thanks for this animal combination suggestion at First Friday!

past works:

Locked and Loaded

Washing Away

If anyone needs some inspiration or just wants to check out some rad ideas here it is:

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/

Thank you everyone for stopping by at First Friday! I was very excited to see such enthusiasm! As for the wonderful double-animal suggestions I'll be posting them soon...so stay tuned! Please post any others you would like to see. Until next First Friday...Cheers.

Unity of Sensibility

T.S. Elliot

From Poisonwood Bible

  

Barbara Kingsolver

Tortoise + Giraffe = A Tortaffe

Walrus + Toucan = A Woucan

City Living

First Friday prints! I will be out there again next month with some new stuff!

If you like my zwei (2)-animals and have two animals you want to see drawn together please post your suggestion and I will post my drawing! I've been brewing some ideas for a children's book of these double animals....

Sneak Peaks to some prints I will have at Oakland Art Murmur tonight!

Ring the bell that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

-Leonard Cohen

"Anthem"

Having fun with some zwei-animals. Hoping to make a bunch for first Friday in Oakland!

Zebra + Shark = Shebra

Owl + Squid = Squowl

Monkey + Bee = Monkbee

Some older work I found....

My Foot: BEFORE and AFTER:

   

The Inverted Wave. Vine Charcoal and Eraser