



These are a few scans from my sketch book, which has been sent to Cooper Union. I wasn't able to scan much of it, so there's not much to post.
All of the above was done in black
sumi brush pens, they're basically brushes with
sumi ink cartridges. I bought them at
Kikokuniya, they are rather pricey, but what isn't at
Kikokuniya?
The finer
tipped ones are not actual brushes, they are just shaped foam. But the larger sizes are actual brushes, with long bristles that have a more
sumi look to them but are hard to handle.
So I really want a
Kikka Menso sumi brush. I'm asking a friend to buy some in Japan, they're pretty cheap, like 650 yen each.
Takehiko Inoue started using the
kikka menso pretty consistently while he created
Vagabond. Most graphic novelists use a G pen nib, but I really like the weight and movement you get out of
sumi brushes.
Pic 1: I drew a bunch of crows in flight because I wanted to better understand the way a bird moves for a stop-motion animation I want to draw.
Pic 2: I was inspired by
some one's dreadlocks I saw on the bus, and drew this. It got me experimenting with the different kinds of textures I could get out of the
sumi pen.
Pic 3: I had an awful dream one night when I was living in Israel. Basically I was working for some big time corporation as an artist of some sort, and I was having a secret meeting with the boss about some illegal contract I had been working under. We were about to renew the contract, but I felt so shitty about it (even though I got paid extra), so I told the boss that I didn't want to be a part of any of it anymore, and he got ridiculously
pissed off, and for a second I thought "what am I saying!?", but then I realized that it was the right thing to do. So I quit. I became unemployed, and then I had to go to some birthday party for a friend I really didn't like that much, so I went through my box of
regifting crap.
Pic 4: This is a little portrait of
Voronin, the
Ukrainian Illusionist. He's apparently the greatest
magician in the Ukraine. He commissioned for
Teatro Zinn Zanni for a while, I read an article about him and became obsessed, but I never had the money to actually see his performances.
One day I was at the Gage Academy of Art for their annual 24-hour Drawing Jam, and I was waiting in one of the classrooms, chalk and paper on an easel, I had a great spot right
in front of the stage, just waiting for a model to show up. Suddenly
Voronin (in all his
gothicly magic glory) waltzed on stage. I was pretty stunned, he waved his hands dramatically to introduce himself, and sparkles showered from his arms. As he sat down, he
whipped out a
Hungarian cigarette and smoked it with his Vivienne
Westwood armor ring. After the session, he glided around, pulling a few tricks here and there, while looking at all the drawings of him. As the guest model, he was allowed to pick a few drawings to keep for himself. He stopped at my drawing, which was devastatingly dark and gothic, croaked a few words of fancy, and asked for mine. His breath smelled like thousand year old dried rosemary.