Wall to Wall Comic

This comic was inspired by a wall to wall facebook conversation sent to me by Elizabeth Jurczak (a partner in crime). She was telling me how nauseating the wall to wall of this couple was - and as I read through it, I couldn't agree more. It's ridiculous to me how Facebook and other social networking sites have made keeping up "friendships" and "romantic love" so easy. Saying "I love you" is now essentially meaningless. The comic below chronicles their relationship from its start up till now.

Check out Liz's new blog (it is very new). Only one post up now, but I guarantee there will be more and they will be excellent social commentary.

slip on shoes full of labor

These lovely little shoes used to be black polka dotted converse. I then attacked them with spray and acrylic paint - and this is the result. I think they actually could pass for dress shoes now (artsy dress shoes).

The sun is set and my stomach is full of watermelon.

Good vs. Evil - and the family

I recently discovered this lovely little publication called GOOD VS. EVIL through a blog. It's a self-published magazine interested in discovering the weirdest and coolest art out there - especially new artists. I'm going to contribute to the next issue - Man vs. Woman - an awesome theme, if I do say so myself. They were nice enough to put up some of my work on their BLOG. Take a look, and buy a copy of Issue 3 - support print and support great art.

And I thought this post would not be complete without several sketches of my family that I did over the weekend. This includes, my brother sitting with terrible posture, my mom and dad sitting on a black leather couch, my grandpa with very high-waisted pants, and my grandma, sitting by her lonesome on a chair. In my family, there is a constant battle between good and evil - between right and wrong - between just and unjust. Are these all the same thing? Perhaps....or perhaps we are all just oysters seeking our shrimp king?

I would like to leave you with something my grandpa told me the last time we parted ways:

"Ana, you should come here by yourself one time. I will tell you things and you will leave a different person."

Scary or intriguing? Maybe both.

NYC SUBWAY::MUSIC INDUSTRY::DEATH&SEX

You all may be confused by my strangely specific yet elusive title, but once I sort things out for you, it will make PERFECT sense. These three illustrations are for three separate publications that exist on three different corners of the world, but work together in a slow-moving plot for WORLD DOMINATION......just kidding. Well, maybe I'm not kidding. No one will ever know. Not even me.

But anyway onto explaining these drawings:

1) The first one is for a literary publication called The Fray - whose next issue's theme is Sex & Death. How can you go wrong with a theme like that? My particular story was about a young Jewish man who goes on a vacation to Poland with his family to see where all his ancestors had been killed by the Nazis. Instead of focusing on the depressing scenery and stuff going on around him, he instead lusted after his sexy Polish tour guide the entire trip. I loved this concept.

2) The second one is for SF Weekly - on an article that discussed the changing music business - and how it is still remaining profitable despite all the free downloading thats been going on. The general gist was that fans, not business executives, are having more say and more direct contact with their favorite artists - therefore cutting out the "middleman". I see this as a great step in the right direction for both musicians and fans.

3) And the last drawing is for an online magazine called Glasses Glasses. This article was a hilarious commentary on the backwards NYC subway system, written by Olivia Dunn. References were made to vomit, stabbing, and suicide, so I thought it best to include all three in the illustration! As someone who takes the subway pretty often in New York, I could definitely relate to the madness.

In other news, I am painting a new pair of shoes and a series of soda cans. Once done, I will post pictures!

SMILE ON YOUR BROTHER - Show Opening

Here are some pictures from the opening of the first stop on the Smile On Your Brother show - a collection of 60 hand painted skateboards from 60 different artists, curated by Mike Furni of Furni Skateboards.

These are pictures from the set up at LiveStock Vancouver, courtesy Randy Laybourne and Maurice Li.

Insides, waiting for an Outside

So, Will Bryant emailed me a while back and kindly asked me for my hand in friendship. I whole-heartedly agreed. Before we knew it, a collaboration was born - here is part one of the INSIDE/OUTSIDE project. Basically, I made the insides to this creature/monster - and now I'm handing this over to Will and he will make the outsides. Then, it will be SCREENPRINTED!!!!! Cannot wait to see this finished.

Egg on Bread Newspaper

Today me and one of my best artist friend's Ahu Sulker posted up a project on Kickstarter.com. What we would like to do is create a 20 page 11.38" x 17" tabloid newspaper, edition of 1000. The first and last page would be full color and the rest would be black and white. The two of us would collaborate to write articles, poems, stories, comics, and illustrations, and typography.

It would be called "Egg on Bread" and its format would be very similar to that of your everyday newspaper. BUT, nothing would be factual and everything would be playful, funny, well-designed, and beautifully illustrated.

Both of us are very passionate about print and feel like we want to contribute to its survival in times like these, when it is very under-appreciated. Please take the time to check my project out and pass the word to anyone who you think might be interested in sponsoring us :) I think we offer up some pretty good incentives.

Painted Can

I've been drinking lots of soda recently and I also had some extra paint laying around and this is what happened.
I may make more...it was fun.

Amelia's + CNN

Here are 2 big projects I've been working on recently. The first one is a practice re-design of CNN's website. I figured most of my portfolio involves hand-drawn text and hand-drawn everything (minus my Nickelodeon page layout), so I wanted to challenge myself with some website design. This is to prove to everyone out there that illustrators can design too!

The rest is my submission to Amelia's Environmental competition. Unfortunately, I think my lunar hydrogen idea was a little too far out there to be considered - but I had a great time drawing these anyways.

Back from Spain!!

I am back from a two week adventure in Spain! It was an amazing experience, I got to see Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, and Granada - along with many of my favorite pieces of art (Guernica by Picasso, The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymous Bosch). I also filled a WHOLE moleskin sketchbook with sketches from my travels. I'm in the process of scanning everything in - and I will post some of my best soon!
Meanwhile, here are 2 illustration I completed before leaving.
One was about a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anniversary event at a comic book shop in LA. The other, a story about girls at comic cons who dress up - specifically for the San Diego comic con.