Sketchbook Scans

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.

Wolf's Eye View

"Wolf's Eye View"

(Safety goggles, craft foam, book light, plexiglas, sharpies, white out, duck tape, spray paint, acrylic paint, and hot glue.)

Prompt: "A view with no peripheral vision."

How: Wear the goggles as if they were 3D goggles, you may have to hold it on as it is unforunately front-heavy. The book light attached on the side shines a ray of light through the 5 layers of plexiglas, to illuminate the layers of an illustrated elk.

Purpose: To create a vibrant and thrilling viewing experience, putting you in the paws of an Olympic wolf (the highly endangered predator of the Northwest) as it zones in on the jugular of his prey; an elk innocently munching away on some tall grass.

Thought Process: This prompt was a toughy. I had trouble not taking it too literally. However, my first impression was something related to the anatomy differences between predators and prey. My understanding of the anatomy of the human head has been in thanks to a lecture series by Gary Fagin I attended when I was a wee 6th grader (way too young to grasp much of the adult humor, but looking back at the notes I took, I realize I was much more mature back then. I seem to be devolving).

So anyway, from what I understand, one of the differences between predator and prey is the position of their eyes on their head. Prey have eyes on the sides of their head, thus giving them wider peripheral vision to keep a look out for predators. Predators have eyes on the front of their head, this gives them very limited peripheral vision so they can focus on searching for prey. (So apparently humans are predators? That's something to ponder...)

I imagine that as a predator (ex. Olympic Wolf) zones in on its prey (ex. Northwest Elk) its peripheral vision shrinks and disappears as it solely focuses on the prey right before the kill. In this moment, which I attempted to capture with the goggles, everything irrelevant to the prey vanishes, and the wolf only sees the potential meal in his prey. So I've drawn several illustrations of the same elk on different layers of plexiglas. One is the Elk, one is the grass around the Elk, one is the insides of the elk (muscles, bones, blood), and on is a black fog that engulfs the elk (shrinking peripheral). Once light is shined through the several layers, you can see all the levels of comprehension that a wolf would experience in the thrilling moment before a kill.

I made some wolf ears on a headband to attach as well, but it just looked tacky. I even made the ears from real fur. I don't know where the fur came from, I found it in my attic in a trunk full of tacky things.

Skull Toaster

"Skull Toaster"

Charcoal on Paper

Prompt: "Draw from observation dissections of two different frivolous objects."

Goodbye vague signatures. Hello MAKUBO.

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