Drawings

RED

RED

The ink used on the US Dollar Note is normally a dark forest green. I have chosen to portray the dollar in the color RED instead. When you view the color RED in contrast with the Dollar you get a feeling of non-officiality. It looks like a stamp, or a fraudulent print of a real dollar. Fake. Not real. Not backed, by anything. Not usable. Empty. Void. Meaningless.

Also, the color of blood comes to mind with RED. "Blood money" is often referred to as corrupt money, or funds received from unethical, usually violent means. I feel right now in American history, more than ever, RED symbolizes our currency very well. We are at war with many nations across the world. Many people are dying because of political decisions made in the best interest of the financially sound. Our government has been caught RED handed sponsoring terrorism in other countries, as well as our own...some think.

RED is also popularly used as the universal color for STOP. Stop signs, power disconnects, cancel buttons, Mac's little RED circle used to close out an open screen, rail roads, caution and warning signs, tail lights, police and construction tape, police lights, fire trucks, airport runway lights, and even the color you see when you're knocked out. STOP. RED. Our currency is losing strength very rapidly, and is nearing a STOP in the world economy. As we inflate our useless dollar with bailout after bailout after corporate scam, the survival of our dollar is threatened; and along with it the survival of the lower and middle classes of citizens. RED. Stoppage. Shortage. Ending.

RED. In this composition, there is nothing good about it. RED. Its what I see when I look at the US Dollar. Everything about the color fits in this composition.

RED. Dead.

RED.

SPRAY CANS


Im currently in my 3rd semester at the Art Institute of Austin. The class I'm taking, Color Fundamentals, teaches us how to use the color wheel as well as match color stylistically. Our first assignment was to use all of the primary colors and design our own color wheel. (wheel was a loose term, as we were allowed to draw anything we wanted as long as it consisted of the 12 primary colors.)



I have been drawing these little spray paint can figures for quite some time now, so I thought I'd put a bunch of them together for my color wheel. My teacher loved it so much that she had me matte it so she could hang it on the walls at the Art Institute.

COLOR PROPORTIONING


Here's another composition I did at the Art Institute of Austin this semester. This was done in my Color Fundamentals class. The project was to take the colors I was wearing in class and use them in any composition of my choice. I was also supposed to use the right ratio of colors. (I was wearing black shorts, a black shirt with red designs and white writing, and a red hat with white lettering.) I've been intrigued by dragons and Japanese art lately so I decided to do this Japanese dragon.

The piece took me roughly 26 total hours to finish. I used Prismacolor colored pencils for the entire composition. The drawing was done on white Bristol, and put on 3/8" black matte board. I started out drawing a sketch of the overall dragon with a light gray colored pencil. After that I moved to a darker gray to get a more detailed drawing. Next I outlined the final detailed image in black colored pencil. Finally I added thin layer of black shading to the scales, followed by red, and again black in the darker shadows. I repeated the same technique with the face/head of the dragon, only just using layers of black.

I love this piece. This is another composition that I'm proud to have displayed at the Art Institute of Austin. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or critiques. Thanks!

SHPINXSHROOM


Sphinxshroom is a concept that I had some time ago, which took off in 5 different directions as I worked on it. I started out with an idea for a mushroom with a face in it. This was my "plan." By the time I got the top of the mushroom and the face done, I started to think it should be a sitting monster or an abstract mushroom creature growing in the grass. I started to draw arms and random shapes in the roots. The arms looked like they needed claws, and the image needed to be darkened up quite a bit. It needed to draw you in and keep you looking. This is how I decided to add the color. The red spots draw you in, and make you follow down to the face and the rest of the body. Then the red root-ends draw you to the bottom of the image in its completion. I like how it flows, and I like the intense contrast and use of red/white negative space. I finally went through and added stringy stuff growing from under the head of the mushroom, and some sharp hair/spikes to the arms to darken the image and ensure detail and pattern.

Below is a picture of the composition right after drawing the claws, but pre-coloring/darkening.



JOKER - (SOLD)

8"x10" - I did this composition with charcoal, and it was honestly the first time I'd ever picked up a stick of charcoal. I'm very impressed with how this one turned out.

BEATEN DOWN

"Beaten Down" is one of my recent favorites. I've been becoming more confident with my art lately, and pushing myself to define a style/technique to my madness. I did this entire piece in Prismacolor Markers, using nothing but marker on the page. No drawing out shapes with graphite or erasing. I just freestyled with marker for the first time ever. I started out with a 10% warm gray to outline my general shapes, then a 30% to find detail. Then I started rendering with green, then to red, and finally yellow. Lastly I went through and added odd background designs and outlined areas in black.

MARY JANE

Mary Jane, another concept character for a TV series I'm writing.

USUGROW STUDY

One of my newly acquired favorite artists is a Japanese street artist that goes by USUGROW. He's tight, he defined his own style of using stippling against black/white contrast. He achieves realism with unreal subject-matter and the details of his works are amazing. This reproduction took me an entire week to complete. I learned a ton about stippling and about making contrast work for my images to pop.






His roses come to life with the stippling, but I felt that adding some fine red cross-hatching behind the stippling would make the image more emotional.












...and Voila!




I feel I relate a lot to USUSGROW's attitude, and philosophy about why he does his art work. He even goes far enough in his book, Love Hate From JP, to say "I am not going to show a new style until my skills improve to twice as great as the pioneer of that style." I love that he has the confidence level he does, and he works so hard to get to the level he wants to be at. That's motivation. That's whats up...props bro.

SKETCHBOOK

Sketchbook freestyles, I'm not sure what I'm trying to get across here but they look cool.

I originally designed this for a tattoo, but as Im continuing to finish it the detail may make clarity difficult on skin. Its a dragon placed over the letters USMC, and laid in some digital cammo. I'm debating heavily on getting the dragon put on my forearm in solid red though...

One of my favorite intimates, this is why I love drawing the female figure. The graphite just flows so well with curves.

This is probably my favorite pre-professional drawing of my career. It took me roughly 9 hours straight to complete.

I have a morbid style when left alone, and this is where my mind went when my pencil hit the paper.

This is the original for the tattoo that spans across my shoulders. I brought this in and the artist traced it on my back and went to town.

Captain America with his head down and fists clenched, standing in the foreground of the 9/11 tragedy.

Sketchbook freestyle, I love drawing the female figure and this was a sketch I did back when I was in high school.

Unfinished Lamborghini. Looks good so far, the only reason I stopped was because at the Art Institute I'm learning so much about color that Prismacolor Markers are all I want to work with.

Batman

This is a drawing of my son at 4 months old that I gave to my parents for their anniversary present.

Spawn, another high school drawing.

I like drawing things as close as possible to reality, so I decided to get a little confident and attempt a dollar bill. What do you think?

Im a huge Incubus fan, this is my study of one of Brandon Boyd'spaintings. I chose to do it in four different mediums just to try different techniques.

I did this in Design Fundamentals using whatever color scheme I desired. Its very detailed up close. Take some time to look at it...

Sketchbook drawing of a creature that I made up. I wanted him climbing on something and dragging a head behind him. Ya, morbid...I know.

Sketchbook drawing of a concept body design for an Dodge Neon SRT-4.