Summer School...

This week flew by...
Scott Bakal was one of our speakers. He is an alumni of the Hartford Program and brought in original artwork to show us. I admire his work, and own his book, Me + the Devil, which started as his thesis project.

Chris Spollen and Daniel Pelavin were our instructors for our promo class. They are an awesome team! I had so much fun in this class and everyone came up with some great ideas by all working together and brainstorming.

I had my thesis defense on thursday and was so nervous and excited all at once! This was probably pre-thesis with that look on my face...

Saturday we headed up to the Norman Rockwell Museum where I enjoyed the Rockwell Paintings and the new William Steig exhibit that's up. I learned that Steig came up with the idea for "Shrek" which in yiddish means "Fear"...'ya learn somethin' new everyday!

Below was my favorite illustration of Steig's done for Thanksgiving!

We then headed over to the New Britain Museum where we were allowed into the secret basement to view artwork from the permanent collection that was not on display. I also enjoyed the M.C. Escher exhibit and the Dalton M. Ghetti exhibition pieces.

Ghetti created these little letterforms on the tops of regular pencils, which seem absolutely time consuming but are amazing. The alphabet took 2. 5 years to create.



The day ended with a BBQ hosted by fellow classmate, Jim DeCesare and his wife Kelly, which was held in their beautiful studio. We all had a great time!

Sunday was Crit Day, where our assignments from our Texas Trip were critiqued. I can recall in my first year being blown away from the pieces displayed, and being intimidated by all the great work. Looking back, I can see that it definitely raised the bar for the work that was yet to be produced. Below are Doug Andersen and Bill Thomson, thesis advisors for the program.

I also got my copy of Chalk signed. It's a children's book that's written and illustrated by Bill who is an awesome hyper-realist illustrator. He was my thesis advisor at Hartford. I was intimidated by his work, but he gave me great insight and guided me through my thesis these past 2 years.  :) 

Got me workin'... workin' day and night...

As my last semester approaches, I'm getting everything ready for the graduation thesis exhibition at school. I'm looking forward to the next 2 weeks. Check out all the cool tools I got to stretch my canvases. My favorite is the balisong in true Batangueño style. :)

Runner Portrait Series : 06

Fred Lebow is the man responsible for starting the NYC Marathon 41 years ago, which first began as loops that were run around Central Park, and evolved into the great race around the 5 Boroughs of NYC. I chose to do my portrait series on everyday people as runners, and although Mr. Lebow is a legend, he started off as any other runner and had a dream to start a marathon in NYC. I doubt he had any idea how large and event it would turn out years to come. This illustration is of Lebow's statue that stands outside of the Runner's Gate in Central Park where his legend lives on.

Runner's Portrait Series : 05

Meet Tim O'Brien. He ran in last year's NYC 40th Annual Marathon. He is an amazing illustrator whose award winning artwork has graced the covers of such well known publications as Time, Rolling Stone, and Runner's World to say the least. I found out he was a runner from an August 2009 blog post on Drawger of on an illustration he created for Runner's World on Ryan Hall. I immediately wrote him an email and he was so nice to let me use his marathon images for my thesis project and even gave some words of encouragement on training for my first marathon. Thanks Tim!