Pretty excite about this new piece I am working on. This is not really a part of it. This is just the pattern I need to make, to import into photoshop to use as a texture. Inspired by the Arabian theme of Craig Thompson's new forthcoming graphic novel Habibi.
I am currently working on 3 art projects simultaneously. Only one week left before I have to go back to school so I have to make the best of it.

New painting, just in time for Xmas.

Felt like it needed something else, so I added in these poison dart frogs and some girly flowers. I wanted to add the cryptic skull on the frog's skin. This is an idea I want to further develop on my next painting.

Antithesis (Watercolour)

What I have been working on

Z-day

"V-J Day in Times Square is a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that portrays an American sailor kissing a young woman in a white dress on V-J Day in Times Square on August 14, 1945...Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the celebrations he didn't have an opportunity to get the names and details. The photograph does not clearly show the faces of either person involved in this embrace and several people have claimed to be the subjects."

This piece was inspired by such a spontaneous display of the human spirit; in a time of much needed morale. Conveniently, I finished this piece around the time of Remembrance day. Up for voting at threads click the link below to vote and stuff.




Ps. Bet you thought this blog was dead, ha.

Crazy Ecology fact that ties into Post Rock

In the 1950s, the Chinese government underwent an serious self-improvement campaign to increase the efficiency of its nation. A part of this plan was to annihilate all pests in the country: flies, mosquitoes, rats, and SPARROWS. That's right, Sparrows!
Through research, scientists found that if a Sparrow were to stay in flight for more than a minute straight, it would die of a heart attack. So Farmers from all over the country were "encouraged" to bang pots and pans, and scare sparrows they saw into staying in flight.

Millions of sparrows were killed in the following months, and as a result, its natural food source, the locusts thrived. With few sparrows around to eat and control the locusts, the latter species thrived to the point where they were eating most of the crops of China. Millions of people died as a result of the ensuing famine.

This was the premise for the 2006 album from the Red Sparowes which I have heard all these years, but didn't know the whole story about until now. The names of all the songs make a lot of sense now. Anyways, what a random fact about them. Neat.
They might seem pretentious, but if that's what you view post rock as, you will hate every post rock band no matter how unpretentious they really are.

Here are some of their songs from the 2010(best album of the year) and 2006 album:

newest submission

"The Incredibly Mixed-up Toons Who Were At Some Point Cancelled And Went On A Muderous Rampage Anyways!!"

The following is a log about the making of my latest shirt design. I really hope it becomes a threadless tee. This design kinda came out on it’s own, and evolved through many stages to be this final product.
Originally, I was just going to do a bunch of my favourite cartoon characters as zombies. It was only after I drew the care bear that I remembered Alexmdc just had a design about them printed recently. So I chose to get rid of him. I would have really liked to have the bear in there, but I also like Alex’s design and there would be no point in including something so similar to it.

So I got rid of the care bear and replaced him with good ‘ol Astro. I also decided to go with my alternate idea ( at the suggestion of my friend Shawn -> aka brownstar) of having only characters of cancelled tv shows. Only problem was I really liked how the futurama guys turned out and technically they were on the air again. However, techincally they were cancelled, so its ok (technicalities are sometimes a good thing). So I was forced to take out Cartman, and aded other canceled toons. All the toons being killed are still on the air ; )



I decided that only Heffer was needed to represent Rock’s modern life, and went with The Brain instead of Rocko. I also thought Andy French could look a bit more beat up.


It was brought to my attention that Heffer looked too much like he did on the show, so I decided to redraw him, and add the rest of Kenny’s body into the mix. I liked how he turned out after the redraw. Added hatching. And Bam! Done!

On a shirt.

Partition the empty sky (Photography and digital media)

The location for this photograph was somewhat unplanned. It was a hot and humid day as we made our way to Riverdale farm, to do a photo shoot at the Necropolis cemetery. We had to cross a bridge overlooking the via rail tracks, and it was pretty much a must shoot situation. I am pretty happy with our choice, because railroad tracks, although somewhat are cliches, still make great shots.

Just playing around with pen and ink, and then did some colours in photoshop. I wish I didn't have such a crap scanner though.

WIP

Just started this last night while watching world cup reruns. Yes you heard right. Re-runs. I missed a lot of matches. No spoilers.

More photography...

Another in the series featuring the rabbit.

Electric Easels art show!

Some of my art at the show, I had more on the other side of the room.

It was somewhat packed, but mostly a high turnover rate for people there.

Some of Elan's work

So this was the reception for the "Do artists dream of electric easels" art show. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I think I was a little drunk by the time I remembered I needed to take pictures. I don't even have pictures of all my work that was at the show, but I will post them on here individually anyways.

Photography!

Thanks J for helping out. So yeah, here is the final product.

8-bits

The finished product on paper

Sea of 8-bit souls (watercolour and digital media)

This is the final product after some illustrator and photoshop. What was at the art show.

Sneak Peak

I am in a group art show at the launch projects (in toronto) which will be happening on June 30th. This is a sneak peak of what I will have at the show. Other pieces include: a flash cartoon, painting (with digital media added), inked drawing (with digital media added), and more photography.

Update

So, here is what I have of the pencil sketch, for the new painting. I am pretty much ready to add colours now, except I have to draw a bit of the background, but that can be done later anyways.

photography

Some panaramic photographs that I did sometime ago, but didn't have time/motivation to upload here until now.
I know I have been all over the place lately. I am doing a ton of drawings, paintings, 3d sculptures, a flash cartoon, and some photography, all at the same time. The next month is going to be nuts. On top of that, I am still making my webpage, which I am going to link to this blog of course.

New drawing I am doing for the upcoming digital art show. This will look pretty different once I am done, and have scanned it and stuff. But this is what I have so far.

D&D

Come one come all to the semi-annual drink and draw event at the Toronto School of Art this June 12 (Saturday)! Admission is free, the alcohol is cheap, and the art will be fun. With good music playing in the background, I promise. RSVP to make sure you have a spot.

New painting

Working on this new piece. I had the idea while I was on the Yonge subway, and had the red note pad you see up there, and just came up with this image. I was also listening to Converge at the time, which makes me want to call this piece that. However, it is bad luck to have a name for a painting that hasn't been done yet, I know...

Here's the good draft, I actually have more done as I write this, but I will upload that later I guess.

Art Show

This art show was called I'm so pleased with myself. It was held at the Launch Projects gallery near my school. The show went well, but could have been much better, if we had booze. Next time we will keep that in mind. Some of the images might be familiar, like the last image, you can see some of my stuff on the right corner. Next time, we will have a lot of stuff per wall, promise.

(Swings - Photoshop)

(Shoes - Photoshop and a camera)

Fire escapes are rare in Toronto

(Spidey)

Here's another offering of my panaramic photo series, ha. I wished that someone hadn't placed that pile of garbage on the bottom right of the image!

Playground

(Playground - Quang's attempt at photography)

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)

I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Caspian Spade Sub

I am pleased to say that I have a new submission for Threadless. It has been way too long since I made something, so just click on the banner below, to go to the flash presentation, and vote/comment. Thanks.

Finished!

(Caspian Spade Watercolour)

R.I.P. Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous

A while ago, I randomly discovered a version of the song Wish you were here. It was not like anything I had ever heard. It was: sad, eerily beautiful, and strangely nostalgic. It was like that dew smell you got when you woke up really early on a summer day. Music has never been the same for me.

I know this post is belated, and I wasn't going to write anything about this, but I guess I should, since I am a huge fan of the band. On March 6th, Mark Linkous was drinking heavily, and exchanged text messages with someone. He was at a friend's house, and became quite upset. He later went upstairs, where his belongings were, and left the house to go for a walk. That walk turned out to be Mark Linkous, taking a rifle and shooting himself in the heart. Literally. Although, many great musicians have taken their life, I have never been as huge of a fan of one, as that of Sparklehorse. I hope that last sentence made sense. It is 3:36am after all.

Unfortunately, it doesn't come as a surprise for me. I have come to the conclusion that many of the greatest minds of our time only exist, because they are fucked up in the head in some way. This goes for writers (Virginia Woolf, John Kennedy Toole, ect.), Actors (Heath Ledger for obvious reasons), Artists (insert most names here), and finally, musicians...

I think that it takes a certain type of mind, to create great art in any form. And to create beauty one needs to be extra receptive of the world, see it in a way that others don't. I believe this comes with a consequence. That ability to see such beauty in the world, can also cause a person to see it's ugliness, and be extra susceptible to it.

Sparklehorse was about to release a new album, Mark was about to finish recording all the songs. If this new album somehow gets released, I will make it my mission to buy it from a local toronto based music store. Keep in mind, I have not bought music in over half a decade. That's how much I love this music. My favourite song is Cow. Other great songs in extremely particular order are: Go (with the Flamling lips), Sad and beautiful world, Hundreds of Sparrows, Ghost of his smile , Saturday. However, if you pick up any album, and listen to almost any song, you will not be disappointed, yeah, it's that good.

My favourite piece of art that I did is Unicorns come from Whorses, which I made inspired by Sparklehorse's horse. And my next painting(my last one, that I didn't finish, but will as soon as I am done the current), is also influenced by the same horse mask. Damn.

Sadly I have never seen them live. I wished they had toured here more <: (

So this is what I have of it so far. I changed the make up on the girl, to make her more "spade-like". A way to separate my work from Sylvia Ji, so I don't seem like that much of an art asshole.

Something new I have been working on. Its a mix between the Day of the Dead/candy skull works of Sylvia Ji, and the super sexy Harley Quinn. More updates to come.

Field trip

Lateral relationship of the Branches of the facial nerve and vessels to Paratoid gland and duct
(Graphite)

5 month of fetus (Graphite)

Recently went to the Grant's Museum at the University of Toronto. These were some of the goodies I drew there. A pretty crazy place for UofT students to study/eat lunch, considering the room was filled with body parts in jars.