:Projekt 006: Octopus

So I was at the local casino the other night and decided to draw on a napkin. Surprise, surprise. My fascination with octopi always tends to lead me to draw them in different positions, colors, or wrapped up on different things, (like an anchor, possibly :projekt 007:). But this came out the other night.

I like the juxtaposition, the suction cups, whatnots. The color too. I only had the two colors so I might re-do this with some blues. We'll see. Let me know what you think.

Side Note: I'm still waiting on my friends accordion pics :projekt 005:, and Im still sketching turtle stuff for :projekt 004:

New Job

I started a new job on Monday. I am now officially getting paid to get people drunk. haha. That sounds weird saying it but its true, I am a bartender. It's a fun job so far. I was told that I was only going to work Monday and Tuesday just to try things out, but I was called in yesterday, (Wednesday), and now today. And yesterday was a busy day, despite me coming in for the morning shift. Then the Boss called me and asked if I could stay till closing because the other bartender is sick. My third day on the job and I'm already pulling a double. Granted there are only two bartenders in the entire establishment. And now apparently there's only one: Me. We will see how this goes...

2 Projekts and an update

Hey guys,
I hope February has been treating everyone great and smoothly. The Superbowl was a complete disappointment. Not in terms of the score although I'm not a 49ers fan so the Ravens winning was just a gloating factor. It was a disappointment as far as the commercials go. I'm sure there were a few that struck some emotional chords, such as the Clydesdale horses commercials, but none that were really mind-blowing. Although the 2 Broke Girls commercial was pretty intense. Anyways...

Projekt #004
Last week I was talking to my brother's girlfriend about tattoos. (She recently got a dia de los muertos skull tattoo with a rose, really nice) She told me she wanted to get one done to honor her sister. Her sister happens to love turtles and she and her sister are always tied to the hip. So, she wants a turtle tattoo, on her hip. Nice! I showed her snowflake design I did for my other friend and she really like the concept. Not too realistic, not too abstract. That's what she wanted to start off with. So I'm writing down this initial concept ideas and getting a few lines of thought down.

Projekt #005
Another friend of mine had asked me for a design of an accordion. Apparently her father has an accordion that she wants to get designed into a piece and is going to take some pics of the instrument for me. She wants it in done in "flash" style, so it'll have a "sailor jerry" feel to it. Im looking forward to doing that one for her.

Busy Schedule

To whom it may concern,  or to those who even bother to check my work here, (thank you btw): I recently started taking classes at the community college here in town. Specifically MicroBiology and Chemistry, you know, just for fun. Even though I may have a busy schedule with work, school, and homework, my artwork is what keeps me grounded. In the past few years I have noticed spurts of time when I'm not doing art,  and I can tell it really does help in the long run. It helps clear my head of clutter, ideas, works in progress (WIP's) and lets me focus on things that need my attention at the time. So as time goes on, I will definitely attempt, more and more, to stay on my art updates.

Project 003 - Roberts Raven Skull

I wanted to create this raven atop a skull portrait. I didn't know what style if skull I wanted or what raven would look good. The composition here is mainly indicating that two different views from the same point is possible. You can stand looking forward, anticipating what life can bring you, or you can look behind you and try to figure out what went wrong. Either way I really hope Robert likes the outcome on this piece. I'll be doing it on canvas with charcoal. 18x24.

Project 002 - Dia de los Muertos

This year on Oct. 31 - Nov. 1, I sketched a skull on a piece of paper. I am kinda obsessed about skulls, and as it is in my culture to recognize our ancestors during these days, I drew this in honor of that day. Of course I am currently working to clean it up and making it more detailed. But here is so far what I have on the project.

The faded gray area is the pencil sketch, the right hand side is the vector process Im working on in Illustrator. I have a few techniques Im working into the project, including the eyes. Im thinking of adding color, but I'll see how it turns out black n shaded. Yes, you can shade your vectors. I will post the finished 1st draft as soon as Im done.

First Post (Project 001)

So this is my first post here on blogspot/blogger. I wanted to keep an online portfolio of artwork I have done, am doing, and will be doing in the future. Just something to keep a  record, or rather somewhere for people to see what kind of work I do, and what I have to offer.

So I will start with my most recent project. A friend of mine, Najwa, commissioned me to design a tattoo piece for her. She is heavily into snowflakes and wanted one that was 'girly, elegant and more flowy' than her previous one. So I came up with a few sketches. The first three were horrible. They looked too...too...structured. Almost like clock hands arrayed at 60 degree intervals. I kept going. I drew a couple of different versions and came up with nothing.

I put down the ideas for this project and took a break. A few days later I was drawing on an index card at home and I came up with the general concept of what I liked:

I took this into Illustrator, vectorized it, chopped it up into pieces, and moved the pieces around until I got more or less what I thought looked good. I found a good balance and emailed the final piece to Najwa. She emailed me back saying she loved the piece. She getting it tattooed on her birthday, (at the end of January) and I requested to go with her. I cant wait. Here is the final piece she requested along with her initial in the middle, (also as requested):

Below and to the right is the original piece I used to create the rest.
Let me know what you think about this.