The Process

So I realized I should start posting more than just finished pieces on here. A little while ago I did an illustration assigned to me by illustrator / art director Nate Williams a.k.a. Alexander Blue a.k.a. creator of Illustration Mundo. My mission was to illustrate an article describing the Texas Board of Education enforcing religion into their curriculum. Here are the sketches I showed him:


The 3rd sketch ended up being chosen. The only changes requested was that the priest not be a Catholic one since Catholicism isn't the predominant religion in Texas. Its Protestantism. I made the necessary changes and finished the final illustration shown here:


State of Religion
Photoshop / Illustrator

The entire project was executed within 7 days. I love working under pressure in tight deadlines. It prevents me from over-thinking things or getting bored. Special thanks to Nate Williams for all his helpful advice throughout the process.

ILLUSTRATION FUTURO

After several months of planning, last Thursday was the opening reception for Illustration Futuro at the Illustration House. The purpose of the gallery was to promote the future of illustration in a venue famous for showcasing the history of it. I was fortunate enough to have TWO of my illustrations accepted into the show. The opening was a major success and the place was jam-packed! Special shout out to Yuquan Tan and Charles George for helping me in planning the whole event and a thanks to the judges of the show: Melanie Reim, Vincent Difate
and Eric Fowler. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the night:

The gallery filled up fast with eager supporters.



I was also fortunate enough to have the first ever digital illustration to hang on the walls of Illustration House! Here is a pic of me standing next to it.


Special thanks to my friends Kate Feirtag and Tom Stavrinos from the Society of Illustrators as well as Society President, Dennis Dittrich who came to show their support.



Even illustrator, Rich Tu (in red) stopped by at the end of the night to check out the art. It was great talking to him. His advice to Charles and myself was helpful as well as motivational.



I can't say thank you enough to the friendly and generous staff of Illustration House for all their help in setting up this show. While we were hanging the show we had the honor of taking a picture with Illustration House founder, Walt Reed.



For everyone who couldn't make it to the opening, the show is up until April 30th. The Illustration House is open Tuesday- Saturdays. Check website for more info. This was one of the bext experiences in my young career thus far and I know more great things are yet to come. SO STAY TUNED!

MUSICA!

Hi bloggers,
My digital painting entitled, "Painting on Silence" will be exhibited TONIGHT at the PICK music and art festival at Pace University. If you're in the neighborhood make sure to stop by.

ALSO- My piece entitled "Pinata = Happiness" (as seen in previous blog post) was selected to be exhibited in the Illustration Futuro exhibition at the famous Illustration House along with my ferris wheel digital painting (still untitled). Which goes to show you- never underestimate the power of a single image! The opening is this Thursday at Illustration House from 6-9pm. Heres the blog for more info:

http://illustrationfuturo.blogspot.com/

Wall Harmony

Hey blog! So last year I donated an image to be hung in the patients' waiting rooms of the SUNY Optometry Center along with a few other illustrators. After many months of waiting the pieces were finally framed and hung. I visited the location a little while ago with Melanie Reim and Caitlyn Dailey (shown here).

The pieces were printed on 18 " x 24 " paper and hung around 2 floors of the Optometry Center. Many people were already admiring the wide range of art when I arrived there to photograph the pieces. One of them being a little girl who was there with her grandmother. She took quite a liking to Caitlyn : )

Here's a shot of some of the pieces on the wall.

After searching for a few minutes I found my piece! Here's a picture:


Special thanks to Melanie Reim for telling me about this opportunity and for the photographs. I'll never say no to doing art for a good cause. Before we left that day we took a group photo with Caityln, Melanie, the little girl and one of the Directors of the SUNY Optometry Center.

The future is here!

For the past few weeks, I have been trying to put an exhibition together along with fellow Illustrators / friends, Yuquan Tan, Charles George and William Chung. The purpose of this gallery is to showcase the future talent of illustration in the historic location of Illustration House. Here is the link to newly formed blog and the Call For Entries Poster:



http://illustrationfuturo.blogspot.com

It's only the beginning

So for those of you who remember my ferris wheel digital painting that I blogged about a few months ago, it was accepted as a runner-up in the Creative Quarterly 19 student illustration competition. Here is the piece one more time and the link to the site that shows all the winners in all the categories:


http://www.cqjournal.com/winners.html#runnerup

The forgotten borough

So a few weeks ago I went on the Staten Island ferry for the first time! I've been living in NYC all my life but never had a reason to go on it. To celebrate the occasion I decided to draw one of the people on the boat in my sketch book. More updates coming very soon!