An Army of Caterpillars...

...marching towards the last leaf on the tree. (Panel 1 of 2)

Two variations

Today's project was to test different ways of adding color to my drawing. One was taking digital scans of textures and the other was with watercolor. By far, my favorite is using the latter. Perhaps because it is more traditional to mix pen and watercolor washes, or that the hand-drawn elements look best with the hand-painted elements (as opposed to flat digital colors from my earlier post). Let's just hope it prints well.

A Knot of Toads, "final" drawing and in-process sketches

From the print shop last night

A Final IP Proposal?

I've realized that IP has already consumed my life, and what's scarier is that I'm okay with that. I leave the studio after midnight and can't wait to wake up and return to my projects. It never really leaves my mind and sometimes I get anxious when I can't be there. Passion is a good thing, but at it forces you to give up other things too. So apologies in advance if I take forever to return a phone call or e-mail during these next 8 months.

So our assignment for tomorrow is to synthesize our three proposals into one, and then come up with three variations: what would the project be like if you had unlimited time, money and energy... what would it be if it was due tomorrow...and some sort of compromise in the middle. It's a good exercise and it's helped me narrow down my ideas.

First, I had two revelations about my original project proposals. The ones about tourism and climate changed interested me because of a general theme of "displacement." What does X look like when placed in new environment Y? That's just how my imagination works, a sort of "what if this happened" mentality. For example, rising oceans and changing climates would displace millions of people and force animals to migrate to new places. What would those images look like and what sort of interactions would occur? As for tourism, I wanted to explore "what not to do" when you travel. A tourist is of course, displaced from his or her home environment. And as you all know from your travels, you learn so much about yourself when examined through the mirror of a foreign culture and place. Maybe that's the value of exploring "displacement," that it's an opportunity to explore the true nature of something.

For the third proposal, swarm theory and animal behavior, it was purely an aesthetic attraction to the forms of animals in large numbers together.

So what does proposal A + proposal B + proposal C equal?

"Field Sketches from the Animal Integration Project"
The premise: At some point in the future, we've destroyed all natural environments. In order to preserve biodiversity, we've tried to integrated animals into our urban society. What are their new roles? How have we adapted to having random animals part of our everyday life? It's completely outrageous and exaggerated and I have so many ideas I can't wait to translate to paper.

During my research, I've compiled a list of the collective nouns for animals groups (these are all from the San Diego Zoo website):
-a knot of toads
-a congregation of alligators
-a flamboyance of flamingos
-a wisdom of wombats
-a smack of jellyfish
-a flutter of butterflies
-a wake of buzzards
-a glaring of cats
-a hurtle of sheep
-an army of caterpillars
-a peep of chickens

Now, I don't know about you, but when I see those phrases, I immediately see images in my mind. A congregation of alligators? a bunch of alligators in church, maybe in the south, wearing big hats and white gloves and fanning themselves, are they Baptist? A wisdom of wombats? Library aides somewhere on a college campus, or maybe they're religious figures, or maybe they're answering psychic hotlines like Ms. Cleo, or maybe they're sweatshop workers in a fortune cookie factory.

I think you see where I'm going with this. I guess I'm also trying to have visual puns and wit, where perhaps the phrases are illustrated maybe a bit too literally. Or I'm taking creative license with the English language (a hurtle of sheep? wouldn't it be funnier to draw a "hurdle" of sheep at a track meet?). Dad, I hope you're proud at how cheesy some of these ideas are.

Anyway, this seems like it should sustain me for the next year. I'm not sure how the final work will look, but that's okay right now. I'll keep you posted.

Poster Design

A drawing I did last week

First of all...

Here is where I will be spending my life for the next 8 months.

3 IP (Integrative Project) Proposals

Well, it's a cloudy Sunday morning and I'm hard at work in my new senior studio. There's actually a lot I need to get done, so I'm not going to write as much as I could. In any case, here are the three project proposals I presented on our first day of class. Enjoy!

3. Living with Climate Change (global warming...get over it!)
Amongst the scientific community, there is very little debate about the reality of human-induced climate change. Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, temperatures are rising, and most individuals continue to consume natural resources with little thought to future consequences. Severe changes seem inevitable and rather than list off ambiguous statistics, this project seeks to illustrate our world as it might exist in another 100 years.

It is not my goal to depict apocalyptic scenes of our earth on fire. I have much more faith in humanity’s ingenuity and ability to adapt. So the oceans have risen 10 feet, now what? What does Miami look like as a floating city of yachts?

It should be every artists’ goal to create change in our world; it would be nice if my work caused individuals to live more environmentally stable lives, but my immediate task is to create images that educate and promote conversation. It is not in my nature to be divisive and isolate people through controversy. Given an issue like deforestation, I would not draw an empty field of stumps; instead, I think...where would all the animals go? What would it look like if all the forest’s creatures lived in my kitchen? Same topic, completely different approach.

Out of any medium I’ve worked in, illustration provides me with the most freedom to break rules of logic and physics to create situations I want to envision. what if? and why not?

-The ice caps have melted and polar bears and penguins must migrate to new places. What if these two animals finally meet? Do they have a harmonious relationship, lounging on the beach, or is there complete carnage?

-How does the ski industry cope with no glaciers and shorter winter seasons? Do we invent a substance that resembles snow but has a higher melting temperature? Could we ski in the summer?

-Indigenous people are also threatened by disappearing natural resources. What would a metropolitan city sidewalk look like with businessmen and tribal warriors walking together?

-Rising sea levels would affect every continent, but with varying degrees of severity. New York City could probably afford to create a massive retention wall but most countries could not. How would Bangladesh cope?



2. How to be a Tourist (fanny packs forbidden)
I was only 3 months old when I first traveled by airplane. In 1999, I spent 8 weeks with my family globetrotting across Europe and Asia to 13 different countries. Three out of my four summers in college I’ve driven to the west coast and back. Last year alone, I spent 8 months away from home. So it might be an understatement to say that I’ve got the spirit of a wanderer.

I’ve found that some of life’s greatest lessons can be discovered on the open road with nothing more than an evening breeze, jazz on the radio, and a bag of gummi bears within reach. I have my most profound growth when I’m challenged beyond my comfort levels, like trying to navigate a West African market where no one speaks any English. I find more inspiration for my art and writing when each day is something new and tomorrow holds endless adventure.

Does this make me an authority on how one should travel? No, but it has afforded me lots of opinions, thoughts and musings. Some of my fundamental beliefs are that 1. everyone should travel 2. having an open mind will lead to respect of other cultures and 3. travel is the best form of education. It is my hope for this project to compile these experiences, and other gained from my research, into a series of illustrations that can be read as a loose guide to traveling. Or at least, a guide to my style of traveling. Think illustrated advice column if drawn by David Sedaris.

As with most of my ideas, there is a certain level of exaggeration that is rooted in something practical:

“Don’t play Frisbee near the cliffs” (How to avoid falling to your death)
“If you see a diaper floating in the river, it is not safe to go swimming” (How to avoid cholera)
“Write your hostel address on your hand before a night of copious drinking” (How to avoid getting lost at 3am)

This is an opportunity for me to explore my own doctrine of travel, to learn about other’s, and hopefully to inspire the viewers to pack their bags and head for the airport. These are the type of illustrations I would love to define my portfolio because these are the assignments I would love to get as an illustrator. Getting paid to travel and create art...can it get any better?

“Plant trees as you fly” (How to be a carbon-neutral traveler)

“Socks and Sandals? Stay at home!” (How to avoid teenagers laughing at you)

“Speaking English LOUDLY and s l o w l y to someone who knows absolutely no English is not helping” (How to avoid being annoying)

“Put the twins to sleep on the plane by adding a little whisky” (How to make friends with other passengers)

“Avoid the cows, hit the dogs instead” (How to drive in India)



1. Swarm Theory and Animal Behavior (the birds and the bees)
Every time I’ve witnessed groups of animals en masse--a flock of starlings at sunset, a school of shimmering fish underwater-- I’ve experienced a sense of awe. I can’t take my eyes off this sublime screensaver. I try to track and follow one individual, but quickly lose it amongst its neighbors. How is that they are able to coordinate their efforts together? Are they aware of the group as a whole, or only what’s in their immediate vicinity?

What, if any, parallels can we make between animal swarm behavior and human behavior? Can I explain 100,000 spectators doing the wave at a football game through ant colony social dynamics? Better yet, what would the image be if I overlaid these two scenarios on one sheet of paper?

There are a couple other tangents I can explore as well. What if I created swarms and herds of animals that would have normally existed as solitary individuals? And what if I took them out of context into a new environment (panda bears in a Mexican restaurant)? Going further, can the herd mentality be applied to inanimate objects? A banana is usually quite benign, but personified and grouped together, perhaps they become a school of squid, hunting at night amongst the darkened aisles of the produce section.

Artistically, the forms and patterns of these animals en masse are beautiful and mesmerizing. As masochistic as it sounds, I have a strong desire to do these drawings by hand. Maybe by drawing every single monarch butterfly in a group of one thousand, I can finally understand how they fly together. Drawing thousands of the same form over and over again by hand would hopefully evoke the same awe as seeing them in nature.

I’ve thought about what larger ideas could be represented by a particular animal:

-Hunting and predation: piranha

-Reproduction: rabbits

-Migration: monarch butterflies

-Safety: penguins

-Camouflage: zebra

-Decision making: ants




Overall Goals for IP
1. Make art everyday.
2. Take more risks and be confident in my risk-taking
3. Develop good studio habits, endurance, and self-motivation
4. Work faster and smarter under shorter deadlines
5. Develop a more articulate style
6. Create a new website with built-in blog
7. Stick with one medium for a full year, more or less
8. Embrace color and the human figure
9. Create an impeccable portfolio
10. Start freelancing locally
11. Make connections in NYC
12. Have work lined up by graduation.