Bananas From Heaven

Medium is my usual acrylic wash, concentrated watercolor combo.

SketchTraveling

A while back I made a post about SketchTravel to which I contributed a page. The published version is soon to be released and the actual book full of original art is soon to be auctioned.

Sketchtravel is a unique international charity project brainchild of my good friend Dice Tsutsumi and Gerald Guerlais. The idea is to benefit Room to Read, an international non-profit dedicated to increasing child literacy in developing countries. You can find all the wonderful details about the SketchTravel adventure and its final Art Auction coming on October 17th in Brussels at their brand new SketchTravel website. One of the important things SketchTravel has done is pull together a diverse and amazing community of artists from all around the world, even more importantly the project’s goal is to build one library ($20k) and sponsor one local children’s book publishing ($15k). I ask you kindly to support in anyway you can this wonderful project. There are different ways to give a hand:
1) Donate to Room to Read.
2) Visit and “like” SketchTravel’s Facebook page.
3) Re-share this information to spread the word.
Thank you for your support everyone!

Naree Pol Progression

I took photos of my Naree Pol piece in progress. I didn't photograph every single step but you can get a sense of how gradually I build the layers.
The black is ink, then most of the washes are acrylic up until the end, then there is some subtle concentrated water color. Finally some gouache for the highlights.

Throne of Blood

What's this? A post without a girl in it? Shocking!




Throne of Blood was the first Akira Kurosawa film I ever saw. I was in high school studying Macbeth in lit class and our teacher showed us this movie since it's considered to be one of (if not the) best film adaptation of the play. Admittedly it was pretty slow paced for my teenage self but the ending to that movie was burned into my brain forever. I've been a huge Kurosawa fan ever since.

Scott Morse asked me to contribute a piece to the Tr!ckster/Criterion Collection Akira Kurosawa one night only art auction benefit for Japan relief. At Tr!ckster in San Diego Friday, July 22, 2011.

Other contributing artist are:
Mike Allred, Scott C., Josh Cochran, Francesco Francavilla, Robert Goodin, Victor Kerlow, Ted Mathot, Scott Morse, Sho Murase, Yuko Shimizu, Jim Rugg, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Connor Willumsen.

Naree Pol

My Tr!ckster piece. I chose the Naree Pol (aka Makalee Pon) from Thai/Buddhist mythology. I learned about them many years ago on an episode of Ripley's Believe it or Not, and always wanted to do something with them. My (shoddy) memory of that episode described them as girl shaped fruit that come alive when they fall from the tree and lure men to their doom. Although in the research I managed to find they "distract monks from their meditations". Not as exciting.

It was actually very hard to find any information on them at all and much of what I found on the internet is written in Thai or some other language that I can't read. If anybody out there knows where I can learn more about this myth please let me know.



The original art will be up for sale at the Tr!ckster gallery show Saturday July 23rd.

Tr!ckster

Instead of attending the San Diego Comic con this year, I'll be going to Tr!ckster. You'll find it conveniently across the street from the San Diego convention center.



If you haven't heard about it, it's a retail space: specializing in creator owned wares including small run and limited edition books, fine art prints, toys, clothing, and more. As well as an art gallery space and a series of symposia focused on creator driven demonstrations and discussions.
Should be pretty neat-o.
I'll be there Friday and Saturday but it goes all the way from Tuesday JULY 19 to Sunday JULY 24, 2011.

Hosted at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center
200 Harbor Drive, Suite 120
San Diego, CA 92101

If you're going to Comic con go across the street and say hi.

Here are a few detail shots from my contribution to the Trickster god themed gallery show and art book. The original will be for sale at the show.
For my subject I chose the Naree Pol (aka Makalee Pon) from Thai mythology. These girl shaped fruit are a bit more like Sirens than Tricksters per se, but what the heck.

Ebay Bikini Girl

So I found myself on the east coast recently. Whilst I was there I hung out with my former classmate/roommate Robert Smith aka "Sir Iguana" and we collaborated on this little piece to sell on Ebay for no particular reason. I drew, he painted. You can find the listing here.