Artist talk at the Harlem School of the Arts

I am so happy I was able to have this show at the Harlem School of the Arts. Please take some time and listen to the talk between me and HSA Visual Arts Director Jonathan Patton.

Finished Painting!!!!

Consumption of Beauty, Oil on linen, 60 x 42, 2011

 

Also I figure I would show you all some of the reference I was using for this painting. I painted the magazines from life but here are some images of how I kept them in place when she was posing.

New Painting!!

So this is the latest painting that I am working on before I head off to Graduate School. It is about Black women and our concept of beauty. So here are a few stages of the painting and what it looks like at its current stage. I will continue updating during the process of this piece.

ALEX ROSS'S MARVELS

So It has been  while since I last posted, been a little busy getting prepared to move. Anyway I just bought and read this graphic novel that Alex Ross illustrated. It is an amazing story, the entire book compiles all the editions together in one. The story is very different from your traditional comic or graphic novel about super heroes. The story focuses on human beings and what they go through as new marvels and super heroes barge into their life. In the novel it focuses on a photographer and his experiences in a marvel world.

Great buy and amazing visuals, If you do not know Alex Ross visit his website and be amazed. He breathes human emotions and reality into his characters and you actually feel like you are reading a real life story or a live action film with all the plot twisting and character relations of human beings.
www.alexrossart.com

Art Show and Stuff

The seven deadly sins print project

OK so I just finished typing this post already and somehow I pressed a button and it vanished but because I love you all so much I will retype it. I have been lucky enough to be involved with a print project that includes several of my past CCS professors. Just knowing who is going to be making prints for this project has me excited and hoping that I can bring something great to the table. The project is centered around the seven deadly sins and I have been chosen to create a piece about pride. This image is a sketch from a series of sketches before I arrived at my final idea. While researching pride I found that it was the basis for all of the other 6 deadly sins. So I knew that I had to come correct with whatever idea I had.

My first idea centered around a figure that was completely oblivious to others around him and totally consumed with himself. So I began to build off of this idea and started to think about how a prideful person may neglect their fellow man. After I had my final idea I moved to a more traditional renaissance triangle composition so that the print would have a tight graphic feel. I was looking at the works of Charles White and M.C. Escher. Finally I started to draw on the linoleum so that I would know where I needed to begin.

Before I started on the large linoleum I bought a small test block. I have not done this process in so long so I did not want to mess it up. Linoleum is a printing process that is very different from etching, which I am used to. Instead of the ink sinking into what you cut out, like etching, it sits on top of the surface. So therefore what you cut out in linoleum will remain white and what you leave stays black. It is like drawing on a black piece of paper with white color pencil where you focus on the highlights.

So next it was time to start cutting out of the surface. I didn't finish sketching the entire composition, which your never suppose to do, but hey I know a few things so its OK. 

So here is what I have so far, I will keep updating as the piece comes along.

If you don't know now you know!!!