Mixed Media (Medios Mestizos) > Illustration Friday (6)
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captured.jpg
CAPTURE. The first thing that came to my mind was a caged bird, but even more dramatic... a bird with his wings sewed shut. This is a quick card made in a menu from one of my favorite cafes, Cafe Mia I love the gelato! This is 5 x 5 inches.
I plan to leave this in one of the tables in the cafe as "found art" to find out more about found art, you can go here.
I used acrylic paint, pastel crayons and black marker, also I used a postal stamp from Mexico with a design of an iron gate, adding to the feeling of capture. The eye is a lens from a disposable camera... (I find inspiration everywhere!)
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clean.jpg
CLEAN. When I was a young architect just out of college, I was working with an architect that designed very modern architecture, he asked me to design an elevation for a new discotheque we were building, and the sketches I came back with were, for his taste, very "scenographical" meaning, they looked too busy, like a theatre set. You see, in architecture slang, "clean" means simple design. (I think), this is a drawing of the way the final design of the elevation looked like, or at least that's how I remember it, you can see the finished project here: varshiva nightclub
I like the way the sky looks so "dirty" it could also work for the "opposites" theme of last week. This sketch was made with pencil and acrylics on watercolor paper.
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opposites.jpg
When I saw this week's theme for illustration friday : OPPOSITE, I had a lot of ideas about opposite things.. old and new, tall and short, etc... and also started to think about how men and women often reach opposite conclusions about the same subject, as I was looking for a man and a woman to illustrate this topic (in the magazine I often use as my supplier of interesting faces) I came across this picture of a wedding, I thought the expression of the woman here says a lot about what she's thinking: She's ready for her new life! looking straight to the camera sooooo happy to be there, making plans for their new life together!.... and then I saw the guy.. what was he thinking about? he's clearly somewhere else.. what could he have in his mind??? well, I took a guess and I think I'm not too mistaken about it...
I used watercolor paper and acrylic paint, a picture in newsprint paper from a magazine and pastel crayons and markers for the accents. I tried to work the composition better this time since the last ones I've made seemed to me a little bit rushed. And come to think about it, these illustrations I've made for IF look so different from my regular work, I'm having fun exploring new themes and media!
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sacrifice.jpg
This is Illustration Friday's theme for this week, I could think of many ways to illustrate this topic, but the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico to the US kept coming back to me. Just think about this for a moment, what would you do if you had no job, no money to buy food for your family and no hope that the situation would change for the better?, Would you go to another country, a place where you don't speak the language, leave your children to the care of relatives, just with he hope that you will get some kind of job, doing anything and everything, working 2 jobs sometimes! whatever it takes to send back some money so that your kids can go to school and get some food.
I don't know if I would be able to make such a sacrifice, I mean, for my kids I would do anything! but you need to be very brave to make that decision! You're leaving and won't come back for many years!! that scares me.... but those who come here not only have hopes, they have faith! Maybe that's the key to surviving the melancholy and getting the strenght to go on. -
skyline.jpg
If this picture needed a caption, it would be something like "I don't really want to be here right now"When I saw that this week's topic of Illustration Friday was "skyline" I immediatly thought of NY City's skyline at night, which to me seems boring (and a friend just told me this week, it's been copyrighted!!!), so I started to think about other cities I know whith interesting skylines, I wanted modern buildings that would make an interesting figure when doing a white-black kind of drawing. As you can see here, I made up a new city, it has buildings that may not be buildable (If that's a word) in real life, and it might even be a different planet (did you see the two moons in the top right corner?) but thtat's not important, the focus of the illustration is actually what's goiong on in the front. There's a woman with a worried look in her face, and she seems to be thinking about being somewhere else. I don't really know what's happening in the city behind her. Is it on fire? Is it just the way she percieves the city because she doesn't like her life there, maybe?What I know is that she seems a little aprehensive and ready to get going. What do you think is going on with the city? what's the place in the blue bubble? maybe home? or a vacation in the beach? One thing I know is that she's pretty emotional about it because her heart is pounding so fast!The buildings are made with collaged paper (napkins, old journal pages) and then I drew some lines and windows, I also painted the white house in the blue bubble, (I had fun! it reminded me of my work as an architect), the paint I used is acrylic and the picture is from a magazine.I think the picture would've looked better in black and white, but didn't have time to go make copies! -
sticky.jpg
This week's theme is sticky, I thought about a sticky song, for me it's usually any song by britney spears... you know when you hear a catchy song and no matter how much you try, you can't get it out of your mind?? it can drive me crazy sometimes! I've been stuck with oops I did it again, many, many, many times....
This image is a lady in a class or seminar somewhere, and she's trying desperately to pay attention to what's being said, but somehow she's lost in her world where she's queen, and britney rules!
The text in the green bubble has the song's lyrics and also some thoughts, like for example... "i wonder if she still has that red jumpsuit... but more importat, i wonder if she still fits in it!"...