LARAINE AS A MEME WITH DIAMONDS

This week's portrait is Laraine Frid.

I started working on this back in August. The size of these portraits are usually eight and a half, square, which is what you are seeing here. There was an art show at the Art Directors Guild in Los Angeles which I wanted to include it in, but on a larger scale, so I re did it, thirty inches square and I added embedded diamonds, which when they catch the light, give off colorful reflections. I called the piece, “Laraine As A Meme With Diamonds”.

Because of the scale, I used Montana and Molotow acrylic paint markers, despite the color range between the two brands, I ended up mixing my own purple in order to get that reddish tint.

Working on this piece was a pleasure. In my mind, Laraine is extended family.

Lou Reed did a song about someone named Laraine.

“Then we spoke of the movies and verse
And the way an actress held her purse
And the way life at times can get worse,
Then we spoke of Laraine, always back to Lorraine
Ah, she's a wild child, and nobody can get at her
She's a wild child, oh, and nobody can get to her.”

-Wild Child - Lou Reed

I guess a majority of people might know a really great person named, Laraine, worthy of being immortalized in a song or a work of art.

PB Rapper

This week's portrait is Snoop Dogg.

At first I was thinking of using different shades of green, but felt it might make him look more like a Martian or an elf. The dark blue being a mellow color worked best with just a hint of green.

A couple of years ago on Late Night with Conan O’Brien I got to do a comedy bit with Snoop. I was to be an upcoming rapper with a demo tape for him to listen to. Of course it was so bad that in the middle of playing the tape, his bouncer picked me up and carried me out of the room. It was a lot of fun!

 

About a year later, he played a part in an incident that happened at work. I left a message on an assistant

answering machine, which the writers thought was funny. They got Snoop to read back my message word for word but in the “Snoop Dog” style. It's worth a listen if you can find it somewhere, guarantee to make you laugh.

I've been wanting to do this portrait of him for a while now.  I love his music and this is my way of saying thanks for being cool and real.

PERFECT DAY

This week's portrait is of Lou Reed.

I've been a fan of his music since my college days. I discovered “Transformer” on cassette while waiting in the NYU music library for someone who was very important to me at the time, she was a music student. So his music in general has a positive and great association in my life.

The last album of his that I bought was “New York”, a very raw look at the city at the time. I wish he was still alive today, I'd love to hear his take on current affairs.

In this illustration I wanted to capture the iconic look of the Transformer album cover but with an older Lou Reed. I probably could have added a few more lines in his face.

I want to end this entry with a quote from one of his songs;

“Avenge yourself he says to me
Avenge yourself for humanity
Avenge yourself for the weak and the poor
Stick it to these guys right through their heads
Well, the fight is my music, the stick is my sword
And you know that I love you, so please don't say a word
Can't you hear the music playing, the anthem, it's my call
And the last I seen of George was him running through the door…”

Words from: “My Friend George”, Lou Reed, 1984

THE LANGUAGE OF CIRCLES

This week's portrait is of artist Diana Leto.

I've known Diana for a few years now, and got to see her earlier this year at Comic Con where I was able to show her in person what I've been up to, in particular, the portrait I did of her. Drawing Diana was fun, especially because of her fiery red hair. Her artwork is amazing. It's well drawn and fun to look at. I am proud to own one of her original pencil drawings which is framed on my wall.

I haven't been dating these pieces, choosing to focus more on creating.

There's a small part of me that wishes I had tried to keep up with posting these once a week though, as I started in the year but somewhere around March my approach to creating my work evolved, I found myself wanting to concentrate more on creating and less on posting.

It's these circles, they are talking to me I don't know how to explain it given I've been doing them for over 20 years with out a single sound from any of them.

And the more I do them, the better I feel, they put me in a trance like state. I find I've been going out a lot less,watching less television, choosing instead to keep creating with my free time even though there's no deadline or some monetary award for them. I just feel the need to keep doing them. I guess as an artist that has to be a great state of mind to be in and I probably shouldn't question and try to self examine too much. Just enjoy the creative process, keep find subjects and people who interest me and incorporated them into this language I am creating on the paper.

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Last week (November 28th, 2016) I posted a portrait of the Joker. I had written a blog entry for it which never got posted.  Below is from last week, titled,

"THE KILLING JOKE"

I thought by now I'd be coming to the end of my 52 blog portraits project.

Early on the creative process took me in a direction I didn't see coming, my work evolved, and I've been having so much fun doing it that I just didn't make much time to post anything.

But I have been creating portraits, lots of them, celebrities, friends, online strangers, adult entertainers, anyone that I found interesting.

“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos.” –The Joker

The Joker has always fascinated me. He would kill endless number of innocent people and yet Batman would catch him, put him in prison, label him insane, let him live to only escape again and start the madness all over again. It was as if he was given a free pass to inflict as much damage to society as possible with zero repercussions.

Such a character could never exist, right?

LOTS OF COLORS!

This week’s portrait is of Lisa Santiago-Read. 
 


It's just like me to start a project and suddenly start another one and then another one and before I know it, I have more projects going on then I can handle or should be doing in the evenings after work. Right now I really should be watching season 2 of Daredevil!

Back in January it seemed like an easy idea to do these portraits but in the few week that have passed I've manage to come up with some really cool ideas, all worth pursuing. That said, I am going to keep up with these portraits. By December there will be 52 unique images, I will make up the missed weeks somehow.

Fashion artist, Hajin Bae was the inspiration for the look of this piece. I discovered her work on Pinterest a while back. I was so taken by her artwork, I did a portrait of her using her style, she loved it.

I love colors, hot cold, primary, secondary, just lots and lots of colors. Coloring coloring books as a kid was huge with me. I still have several of my childhood coloring books. Crayola was the crayons of choice, still have one of my original set of 64 colors, which includes the politically wrong "flesh"  and "indian red" colors.

I think this also explains why my drawing style is very linear, like coloring book art.

Thank you Lisa for responding to the blog! I needed to know if anyone one saw these writings. Now that I know you're reading these post, I'll keep them sane instead of writing about all the crazy things that live in my brain and come out when no one is looking or paying attention.

Now, off to the next project, sleep!

IT’S A FLAT WORLD!

This week’s portrait is of Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

 What if I told you the world is flat!

I decided to use my circles to define the entire face this time around. The colors I used are often colors I see in images of space. Lines were used sparingly, though if this was a bigger illustration like my dot images, I might had done even those lines using circles.

I've always been drawn to circles and dots. I have a feeling someday if we as a species live long enough and grow a little smarter, we might discover that the universe is contained within a ball, that looks like a circle, and it's one of a trillion circles floating in a much bigger ball, that's floating among trillions, in a much bigger ball and there no end to the number or scale of these circles.

Maybe... my art isn't totally my creation, but a code, a message implanted into my DNA by another species of humans billion of years ago, and my drive to create art is just me performing like a computer, putting the information on paper through pictures. Then someone with a scientific drive, will see my work and it will trigger something in their DNA, a thought, an idea, which then takes us to our next level of development.

Eratosthenes, Columbus and the many others who thought the world was round, very possibly were influenced or triggered by something they saw, art maybe?

Sounds like Sci-Fi?

If that is the case, I for one am thankful art existed in their time, unlike this moment in time where art is no longer encouraged and creative thinking is looked down upon.

I picked Neal as my subject because he got me curious about life. After watching and listening to him talk, it started making me think and look for bigger answers to our existence.

Recently I've been seeing articles with people expressing the opinions that the world is actually flat, that science had lied to us. Neal was actual challenged by one, a young rapper to prove otherwise. (This is one of those moments you want to ask, “How the FUCK is this individual making records and has a following?!”)

This along with the new levels of racism of all kinds and disregard of the planet makes me wonder if I might be right, art does play a part in our development as a species and the lack of it makes us dumb!

If I am remotely right about art and its connection to bigger ideas and none of this is fiction, I think we are in real trouble,  just look at the schools.

Thanks you Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and people like you for giving me the parts to assemble a key and hopefully open that door to bigger and better ideas.

I’ll keep putting my circles and dots on paper like Agent Phil Coulson of Shield. Who knows, maybe I am drawing the map to a newer and better world.

BIG IDEAS

This week’s portrait is of astronaut, Scott Kelly.

While most were all caught up with watching post Super Tuesday election news and the beginning of the end of the United States as a superpower, something big was happening elsewhere.

After 340 days in space orbiting the earth, Scott returned on Wednesday March 2, 2016. In my last portrait post I mentioned people thinking up big ideas, I think this is a huge idea. This drawing was unplanned but I was inspired to think outside the box with this one.

This is my first public posted iPad art!

I created this image on an iPad Pro, with an apple pencil, using several different apps. Drawing on an iPad is like working on a piece of glass. It really needs some kind of textured surface to feel right.

There’s a lot of experimenting going on in this piece. I tried to combine my line work with a painting style from the 50s/60s, and a photograph from one of Scott's twitter images in the background. Though now that I look at it, you can't tell what's going on.

I also felt it was fitting to put him in a Starfleet Captain uniform.

Staying on schedule with these portraits is turning out to be harder than I thought. You might have noticed I missed a week. I guess I could just create anything and post it but I really want each one to be interesting not just in the subject for the drawing but in the execution of the art as well.

Plus, last week was the Long Beach Comic Convention, which was fantastic! I posted some pictures on the www.cosplaylifedrawing.com website. I think I've inspired a number of people to start drawing and that's a great feeling. One participant, a 5 year old girl decided to mimic me and she drew the portrait of another girl at my booth.

I felt like Bob Ross, but in my case, I am helping people to see and think through life drawing.

I need an agent ASAP to help me grow these events!

THINGS TO COME

This week’s portrait is of Beyonce Giselle Knowles-Carter.

 

Originally, this was titled, “Happy Valentines Day”, but with the past 2 weeks news cycle, I felt the need to take this one in a whole different direction and make it a little bit political.

Beyonce has been a person I’ve wanted to draw for a while now. What’s challenging about her is that there really aren't many good reference photos of her that haven’t been retouched. I have no idea what she really looks like, and as a result I found it much harder to get her likeness down on paper. I think she’s black but in the majority of her online pictures she looks white with a very even tan. 

I used the Pan-African flag colors to complete the image as a result of the recent drama over a song she released and the costumes she chose to wear during the Super Bowl half time performance of that song. People were outraged and want to protest her choice of costume. It reminded them of the Black Panther movement and even worst according to some, that she is black. Even Saturday Night Live made a comedy video about it.

If any of you get a chance, rent or buy the movie, “H.G. Wells Things To Come”.  

I thought at this point in time we as a society would be on to bigger and better things, kind of like Star Trek the Next Generation. But we seem to be stuck holding on to the past. Fear of color, fear of religion, fear of sex, fear of life. “Things To Come”, does feel a lot like our current society. The solution in this film to dealing with all the people who got in the way of advancement was to gas them to sleep.

On a weekend that’s suppose to be about love, there is so much hatred out there.

Anyway, this project isn’t about my politics, it’s about art. Besides I can’t and don’t have the time to teach a bunch of faith believers the ideas and concepts of God and loving your fellow man that kind of stuff though should be included in all their bibles.

Happy Valentines Day, what ever that means.

Hey, if you want to get away from the human race this weekend, join me at Long Beach Comic Expo for the drawing event I will be hosting.

 

Cosplay Life Drawing at Long Beach Comic Expo This Coming Weekend!

Once again with the gracious support of the Long Beach Comic Con and Comic Con I will be hosting another life drawing event.

I have 2 amazing models, Amina Santana and Aryiel Hartman posing as aliens from the newly discovered planet named, "Planet 9". They will be doing a 3 hour session from 5pm to 8pm in Ballroom A at the convention. And as always, there will be a 1 hour prelude in the convention main hall, in artist alley. It will be announce.

The address is 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90802. (The entrance to the convention will be behind the building)

These events are uninstructed. So you might wonder, what would you gain from attending?

Well....

The thing I hear from people the most is, "I can't attend because I can't draw."

What I am trying to get people to experience and understand is that there's a lot more to life drawing then just being able to draw what's in front of you.

For a seasoned professional, being able to put down what you see in front of you is important in order to qualify for certain commercial art jobs. But a huge part of drawing is problem solving. Seeing what's in front of you and then figuring out how to express it in a thoughtful manner on paper or through what ever medium you use.

This kind of creative problem solve can carry over to all sorts of jobs, from book keeping to cooking, from home decorator to music writing.

You're basically training your unique, creative way of thinking to solve a visual problem. And this training will carry over into other fields.

And you know what's really amazing is that you don't even need anyone to start this process.

Start today, right now!

Pick up some paper and look around you for someone or something to draw, and just draw, do it every day this week, when ever and as often as you can. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just put some thought into what you're doing.

By Friday, look back on what you've done so far. I bet you'll see something in your drawings that wasn't there before. Even better, think about any small problems you had to solve during the week. What kind of creating thinking went into solving it that seem different from the past?

Life drawing by no means will solve all problems but it will help by getting you to start thinking outside the box. And imagine how much fun it could be drawing with a group of people who are also thinking outside the box.

Hope I see you on Saturday.

COME DRAW!

NEW DIRECTIONS

This week's portrait subject is Frederick Douglass.

I am surprise that no one has thought about doing a movie about him yet. Born a slave, secretly taught to read, escaped, married, became a speaker about the rough and horrible lives of slaves and published several books. All this took place between 1818 and 1895. He was also the first black person to be nominated for Vice President of the United States and when his first wife past away, he remarried to a white women.

His life story seemed to defy the norm of the time. If ever there is a story worth telling this is it.

February being Black History month, I thought he'd make a great subject for my art.

I think I am about to enter a new phase with my art. I just purchased a bunch of large drawing paper.

Two weekends from now is the Long Beach Comic Expo, where I will once again host a costumed life drawing event! They've been going well and the convention owner is pleased and open to the idea of continuing them as part of the convention experience, which is great.

If you have time, come by the convention and see what I am up to and of course draw with me!

Since starting these weekly portraits a few people have requested drawings done of them. That could be fun but I want to know if anyone is actually reading this blog every week or am I just typing to my future self. So I have an idea, the first 3 people to comment here on this blog will be the subject of a future portrait installment. This offer is off the table in 7 days (February 17th, 2016).

I think I know who I am going to draw next...

It's THURSDAY, Is It DONE YET?!!!

What a way to role into February! I didn't think I'd get this week's image done.

This week's portrait subject is Rosario Dawson.

 

I've wanted to draw Rosario for some time but of course never did so. Once I decide it was going to be her, a lot of procrastination began throughout the weekend and into this week.

It's a real challenge trying to draw someone you're attracted to. And in this case I just couldn't see her features, I might as well had drawn a giant heart and called it a day. But I gave it my best and the first result on Sunday… well… here it is…

I knew it wasn't working and suddenly I realized this week might not happen! I tried redrawing her a few times again, even used watercolor, I texted one drawing to a couple of friends to see if I was on the right track. They were encouraging but I just wasn't feeling it.

Tuesday night changed my mind set. I went to the weekly drawing workshop at the Art Directors Guild, drew my favorite friend/ model, Jennifer Fabos Paton, and another friend of mine showed up with her purple/pink hair, got me excited and focus enough that I came home on a high and was able to really see Rosario!

And I tried a mix media approach, markers, acrylic and colored pencils. I think I pulled it off but I really think if she were to sit for me, I could get pass the attraction and really do another nice drawing of her.

So Rosario, if you happen to see this and think I should try again, contact me and let's plan a date… I mean a day for you to sit for me and I'll create a proper portrait of you!

In the meantime, the week is over and I haven't figured out who's next, pure drama!

"I SEE NORMAL PEOPLE"

This week's portrait is of Nicole Clarke!

Who?

Nicole works at Conan, and was ground zero for this project. One day she had her hair done in a way that reminded me of art work done by one of my favorite illustrators, Patrick Nagel. She didn't know who Nagel was, which was shocking from my point of view.

I decided I was going to do a portrait of her in his style. I've done Nagel like images so many times in the past that this wasn't a challenge as much as it would be fun. While thinking all this through, I thought I'd start a series of images of other people in his style but where's the challenge, this comes way too easy, it would be better to try changing the drawing technique every week instead. And that how this weekly project was born the week before Christmas.

It then dawn on me, how would people know if the likeness was close to the actual person, so I decided I'd do celebrities, people that are familiar.

But there's a huge down side to doing celebrities. For the most part, many are so used to people praising them that they tend to be un appreciative of things given and done for them. Where as normal people cannot express enough how thankful they are to get a piece of art done of them. To see the happiness in their faces and voices is priceless!

Mentioning normal people, in a few weeks I will be doing my life drawing event at the Long Beach Comic Expo here in Los Angeles. At their last convention in the fall, I drew close to 40 portraits. I wasn't prepared for the number of people who wanted me to draw them, so I had to turn away a good number of people. This time, I will have extra paper!

And lets not forget the main reason for the drawing events, it is to get people of all skill levels to experience what it's like to draw from life, discovery their creative selfs, and letting that way of thinking mix into their business, making them better problem solvers. Have questions or doubt my logic, come to one of my drawing events.

48 more weeks to go, who's next?

WHITE CASTLE BURGERS!

This week's portrait subject is Tracy Morgan.

This week's portrait subject is Tracy Morgan.

"What, It's not a woman!?!"

I decided early on that part of this challenge would include drawing men as well, not just women. For the last twenty years or so women have been a huge part of my art work.

I think there's a learning opportunity for me to expand my skills creating interesting images of guys that I find interesting.

I picked Tracy because of memories from back in New York. Though I worked on Saturday Night Live, I never knew him personally. But he did something one day that made him stand out. He bought White Castle burgers for the entire crew. By the time I found out the burger were there, they were gone!

Nevertheless, I was very impress by that act of generosity. It was done with no fan fare, no TMZ reporting, no PR spin. It was like a fellow co worker bring in donuts one morning.

Ever since then I wanted to create and give him a portrait. Up to that point in time, I had done one for Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph (Both women were very thankful for their art work).

I did do a pencil sketch of Tracy at the time but never made a finish piece of art.

So as of today, that has changed.

Tracy, thanks for the burgers, even though I wasn't fast enough to get one.

WHERE ARE MY SPEEDBALLS & QUILL PEN POINTS?!!

This week's portrait subject is Taylor Swift.

During the summer of last year, I rediscovered the artworks of Peter Max, the guy is amazing, his use of color and design leaves me in awe.

I saw he did a portrait of Taylor. Up to that point in time I feel shame to admit it but I had no idea who she was. But thanks to the internet that changed immediately. What came to mind looking at pictures of her was that she looked liked a Gibson Girl.

The Gibson Girls was the creation of Charles Dana Gibson, a pen and ink artist during the turn of the 20th century, a time when being an artist was on the level of being a rock star.

I wanted to do a Gibson like drawing of Taylor since then but never made the time. But thank to this wonderful, time consuming project I created for myself, I thought this would be the perfect time to do it. Only one problem…

ALL MY FREAKIN' PEN POINTS ARE MISSING!

I've some how manage to misplace them some where in my studio. I'm sure I'll find them when I no longer need them.

To complete this drawing I ended up using my Koh-I-Noor Rapidographs and a brush marker. I think got the look I was after in the end.

NEW YEAR CHALLENGE

2015 was a great year for drawing. I held several drawing events, including one in New York and in Atlanta. Atlanta's Dragon Con was especially fantastic with a turn out of close to 200 people coming to drawing with me. I can't wait to get started again this year and see what new locations I can bring the events to.

Last year I drew a lot of people, I mean A LOT! This year I thought it would be fun to challenge myself with a weekly project, one portrait posted every Monday for the entire year. That's 52 drawings of people, randomly picked, friends, celebrities, etc. The only restrictions that I will place on myself is that they are all done in a square format and incorporate my circle design into the images.

To start it off, the first portrait will be Saoirse Ronan, from the movie, Brooklyn. She just stood out in every scene with those bright blue eyes and black pupils, almost haunting.






Also, keep an eye on www.cosplaylifedrawing.com for up coming drawing events. This is going to be a huge year for drawing.
"Bringing Life Drawing To The Masses… One Event At A Time!"