Here is the finished version of the Macbeth cover. The blood was colored in Photoshop, but the rest was the result of hours and hours of penwork. My wrist felt broken when I was done!

While working on scanning a preferred version of Macbeth for the Summer Seminars at TAC I was commissioned to draw a cover for it as well. Now, I will refrain from stating my opinions on anything related to the S. Seminars and the way the school proceeds in general on things of this nature, and simply admit that I am not too good to desire wealthy Catholic people who are interested in Education and Culture to see my cover illustration, whether it be great or mediocre: I want my work to be seen! Either I will make the cut, or realize I don't have the magic---and I'd rather try and fail than always wonder and slowly grow bitter. So of course I am working extremely hard on this one---it has got to be good. So, after that dramatic intro, I here is the rough pencil sketch, which I plan to refine and finish in ink (and coloring the blood red at their own request):

As much as I don't like admitting it, I am often really bored in my design class at Ventura College. Our teacher for color and design is too used to a classroom full of high-schoolers it seems, and doesn't relate too well with college-age students, and, being an art teacher, is not very interested in structure or anything at all concrete. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth the time, the drive, the gas...but then I wouldn't be doing part-time graphic design for TAC if I wasn't currently in school---can't argue with that. I guess there's just no escaping that fact that this is what it means to go to Community College. The design teacher is so-so, but really not all that bad; my computer graphics teacher on the other hand is the worst I have ever experienced: I have learned a lot on my own despite her insane classes, but it's an uphill battle. There is a complete disconnect between the students and her as a teacher, and the classes consist of endless monologues, harsh criticisms of us students and a completely absurd homework schedule that changes every class. It is pretty unbelievable. Man. It feels nice to vent a little about this stuff...but summer is almost here, and I am already doing work in my new field, so I really shouldn't whine.

Speaking of which, I have some new drawings for your viewing pleasure:


A simple perspective exercise-turned-serious-picture (I was bored)



This one looks like paint (even in reality, not just on the screen), but it's actually marker. (I was even more bored)

You how sometimes you meet someone that really affects your life, and you want so badly to tell people about them, to describe in detail the time you spent and why it was so important, what it was that touched you...but somehow you just can't?

The 'Darjeeling Limited' has a strange intro movie before the main film starts called Hotel Chevalier. Wes Anderson has a real talent for creating a hip, melancholy, even socially awkward mood that is at once both tragic and endearing. Jake, the male lead childishly puts on his theme song just as his estranged lover enters the room. 'Where do you go to my lovely'(Peter Starstedt, 1969) plays almost continuously throughout the rest of the short, leaving the viewer with a bittersweet, restless sense of love and failure...It has been stuck in my head, as is the rest of the full-length film; sad, oddly content, rootless, unhappy, and yet ever-so-mildly hopeful.

And the second half of the project...

Here is the first half of my midterm assignment...

Well, today is me first day as a real graphic designer; granted, it is a part-time position, but I am actually working in the field I am going to school for...things couldn't be better!

I get a huge kick out of vintage pulp art: movie posters, comics, novel covers, etc.; they are always good for a laugh of course, but sometimes there is some real (if rushed) talent there, and some of the layouts and text are well executed as well. Those artists put out a lot of work for very little pay, and they have found a permanent place in to consciousness of American Art. The midterm for my design class is coming up in very short order, and I have been drawing a blank for a project idea---I think there is perhaps too much freedom of subject and media this time---anyway, I'm pretty sure I will follow some sort of '50s pulp magazine theme...fictitious, naturally. Here are some initial sketches. I will post a finished product whenever that comes about!

A couple of miscellaneous images...more later.

We have been without power at our house for nearly 24 hours now---in Ojai, for Pete's sake! It is all because of the Domino's Pizza delivery guy (we didn't order pizza, but someone in our neighborhood apparently did); he came around the corner at the bottom of our hill in his souped up late-model Camero, showing off, and couldn't make the corner...he was just fine, but his car, the power pole, and the supply of electricity to our entire block were not. It was a VERY dark night in SoCal, but we drank beer on a blanket in the middle of the street and laughed at everyone who came careening up the hill only to slam on their brakes to avoid the 'Road Closed' signs, and later on we watched La Femme Nikita on the Mac (because the battery life is awesome); which was a GREAT movie. They say the power will come back this evening...we'll see. And how am I blogging you ask? Local coffee house, baby.