Heartside

The long-awaited story of my internship: I've been volunteering at Heartside Ministry for coming up on three months. After emailing one day without a clear idea of how I could help, I was first assigned to tutor in the GED center and liaison with the Public Library - a big part of Heartside Ministry is connecting downtown Neighbors to outside resources, which is also the Library's mission: "Connecting people to the transforming power of knowledge."

I was also introduced to the Heartside Gallery, a fabulous gallery and free drop-in studio. There is a generally-2d studio upstairs and woodworking, pottery, and fabric arts downstairs. Some of our artists are homeless, disabled, or have mental health problems, others are just down on their luck or lack another creative environment. More than the Library ever could, the studio helps protect and cultivate self-identity: through creation, our artists demonstrate that they are so much more than a litany of half-met needs. Many of the art supplies are donated and volunteers facilitate and keep things organized. I started out as a studio volunteer and was invited by the art director, Sarah, to upgrade to "Marketing and Design Intern" while still volunteering in the studio and GED center. It's perhaps slightly unusual since I'm not interning through KCAD, just helpin' out as I'm able. (More type and two drawings after the jump.)

Spanish Children's Book

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Four drawings I knocked out very quickly last week for a coworker - she needed illustrations for a Spanish children's book and was considering using Bratz doll clipart. Nothing is more repugnant than Bratz doll clipart, so I quickly sketched, scanned, inked and colored these four drawings in the span of an afternoon in the name of childhood innocence. The story is about a young girl who helps out in her father's restaurant. I tried to shoot for a Bratz doll style while avoiding the Jodie Foster circa 1976 look.

Elizabeth Taylor

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In an odd coincidence, I did this little study of Liz Taylor from a photo a few days before her death. It's one of the more complete drawings I'd done in some time, but in hindsight I wish the focus was on her face more than her arms (the interesting part of the photo.) While I haven't seen many of her films, I've long admired Ms Taylor's attitude and beauty. The library where I work had a large photo book of her extraordinary jewelery collection with the often funny story behind each piece printed alongside - when reshelving in the same section, I frequently sought it out to read a few pages and imagine the kind of spirit required to wear jewelery of that scale. The book vanished a few years ago (probably discarded and sold), but I saved a few other photos from a biography destined for the shred bin, including the shot from A Place in the Sun used for the above sketch.

Mighty Boosh sketches and prelim

I am a huge Mighty Boosh fan, and really idolize Noel and Julian. They're an amazing creative team: Noel creates the imagery and Julian writes the music and they write the show together. They also both have really interesting, but very different faces: below is a page from my sketchbook featuring a few studies of Noel and some other random things.

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click image to enlarge

Here's a bigger view of the same scan - I'm not much for caricature, but I was trying to make a sort of cartoon style by simplifying the shapes of his face.

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And here's a snapshot of a work in progress - a dual portrait of Julian and Noel as their main characters from the show, Howard Moon (jazz maverick) and Vince Noir (electro ponce) in their costumes from the first series. It's vector and designed to be a large print - I plan on incorporating some graphic elements from the show as well.

EDIT 11/29/10 - check out the finished version

Portraits

Continuing the trend of rather old work, here are two portraits from about a year ago. I like that these two portraits are a bit similar in style, although I think the second one is superior technically. Both are life-size, compressed charcoal on newsprint.

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click image to enlarge