It was great to be back at Walter Reed. Mike Fay, Victor Juhasz, two other talented illustrators, and myself got together for a few hours to sketch wounded Soldiers and Marines recovering from their war injuries. We split into two-man teams once we arrived on the 4th floor. I was paired with the super talented Victor.
We stepped into the room of Army Specialist Eric Hunter, who had lost his right leg to an Improvised Explosive Device (I.E.D.) while conducting a five day operation with an Afghan Commando group. Spc. Hunter drifted in and out of consciousness for pretty much our entire stay, so we had to take advantage of the time that he was awake to gather any information we could about what happened the day of the incident.
This is a pastel chalk piece that I did of Spc. Hunter on combat paper from photo reference . . .
. . . and here are the rough pen studies done from inside the hospital room.
"I was actually standing on top of the I.E.D. for several minutes before it went off. I had no idea it was underneath me."
The visit lasted two hours. Since Walter Reed gets so many visitors, they have to cut back on visiting times, including trips like this. Days after the trip, I began working on a more finished rendering of Spc. Hunter. With the aid of my rough studies and the photographs taken by me, I was able to put together this 24"x19" watercolor painting.
These sketches, along with the painting, will hang in the November exhibition at the Pepco Edison Gallery in D.C. Opening night is on November 10th. The show is expected to receive a lot of press.
Several weeks ago I was offered to be the subject of a nationally broadcasted radio interview with Dick Gordon from American Public Media (APM). Mike Fay, who had been a guest on the show in 2007, brought the idea up to the staff that I tell my story in conjuction with the Joe Bonham Project. After a few phone interviews, the staff seemed thrilled to get my story on national talk radio.
This was not an easy story to tell. I've made some huge mistakes in the past, and none of which I'm proud of. Here is the podcast titled, Sketching the War.
After clicking the button, side scroll until you find July 10
Around mid-day yesterday, I stopped inside my local starbucks to pump out a quick sketch before my visit with the fire department (I'll explain in a second). While there, I captured this old man on his laptop.
Out of three attempts, this one was my best; the others are way too shameful to post.
After the coffee shop, I darted over to Concord Fire Station No. 3. Earlier that morning I phoned the Fire Chief asking for permission to sketch and document some of their training. Absolutely thrilled with the idea, he asked if I would like to sketch his men taking a class on C.P.R. at around 2pm. I obliged.
Here are a few of the sketches that I did from the class.
While shooting the shit with some of the firefighters, I experienced insane deja vu. The atmosphere sort of reminded me of the infantry for several reasons (I'll only name three):
All-male group
Crude humor
Dangerous occupation
I'm not a firefighter, but I felt at home. This is very important because I plan to follow and document future training evolutions and, as I start creating art, it's essential that I learn about these guys as I did with the wounded from the Joe Bonham Project.
The Fire Chief invited me to sketch and take pictures of their house burn training on the 21st. Can't wait.
Lastly, here are a few drawings that I rounded up from one of my sketchbooks that I had used in between classes during spring semester.
As promised, here are the final two projects from my Concept Studio class. If you missed out on the first two, click here.
Project three's theme was time. We only had a week to come up with a contemporary art piece that fit within said theme, so I chose to make a sculpture. Ever since the beginning of this class, I had a vision that involved a potato. Even though I had not the slightest clue to what I was going to do with a potato, I was determined to put something together. Good ideas were hard to come by, as I was at a loss, until one day at work when a co-worker of mine had a really great idea; she suggested that I make a cave potato and, perhaps, freeze it in ice, as if it was frozen in time.
Genius.
I started carving into the potato that weekend, using an exacto knife to chisel out two eyes and a mouth. I collected small yellow rocks from the front yard to use as teeth. There were two spare buttons from a suit purchased months ago that I decided to use for the eyes. My personal beard trimmings were then superglued to the face of the potato to form the rugged "man-tato" look. Lastly, I froze the hideous looking russet in a tupperwear bin, where it sat in the freezer for an entire week.
But something was missing. It needed a story.
Down below are just a few of the illustrations that I narrated out loud, in my best Morgan Freeman voice, for the class to hear. Behind me, projected on a giant screen, were the illustrations. For the sake of being tasteful, I'm only going to show you just few of the images, as the story itself is high in sexual content. Yes, you've read that right. Sex. Potatoes having sex. Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.
Before you view the illustrations, I want you to read the brief plot summary:
---In a strange universe parallel to ours, two happily married potatoes work to conceive a baby spud. The husband, Larry Tate, ends up getting drafted to serve in Vietnam (how creative, right?). Larry is badly wounded during a gunfight while his wife, Cindy Tate, ends up sleeping with the insurance potato, Josh. The baby is born and Josh is declared the new "father". During Larry's recovery, Cindy files for divorce. Larry is wheerchair bound and is a total wreck. Digging deep, he finds a source of inspiration that takes him and his wheel chair on a long solo journey via the open road. While out and about, Larry encounters bad weather and ends up freezing to death in a freak snow storm.---
Please keep in mind, before you read, that this story is sort of disturbing. There was no rhyme or reason as to why I picked the subject matter. Again, understand that this is just a selection of scenes, not the entire story:
The Life and Times of Henry Tate
And now, the sculpture that inspired this warped and twisted story . . .
Once I was finished giving the narrative, I unveiled the ice block, presenting the class with Larry in his frozen state. As planned, right behind the sculpture was a projected replica of it in illustrated form (see above). I think I caught the class a little off guard, but in a good way.
For my fourth project, we were to create a piece based on body. I decided to build another sculpture, but this time a hand out of paper clips. I don't have any in-progress snapshots, but I can tell you with the utmost certainty that it was a hassle to build. Before I started, I literally had to straighen about a hundred paper clips in order to begin this project. Once I finished unbending each one, I went to work on the metacarpals. These were made by intertwining a series of the small rods together. After that was finished, I built the carpals--which ended up holding the metacarpals together. I proceeded to work the fingers the same way that I did the metacarpals. This took me approximately 4-5 hours.
What was I supposed to do now with this nice looking skeletal structure sitting before me? Ah, of course, add food!
I ended up expending an entire can of crescent rolls for the skin, pieces of old hamburger meat for the muscle tissue, and blue food coloring for the veins/blood (the creature bleeds blue).
Here's a picture of it.
And here is a quick 13 second clip of it in 360.
But just like in everything I do, there needs to be a story. The hand had to have belonged to somebody, or something . . . but who? Or What?
In a split second decision, I chose to digitally record and timelapse the process that I typically use when sketching out concepts for new characters (which is not very often btw). This was done on the fly with no previous knowledge or layout of said character.
I chose to call him Hermie who, coincidently, happens to be a hermosapien. What's a hermosapien? The hell if I know. Maybe it falls in line right behind the homosapien?
Anyway, after grossing out the class with Hermie's hand, I showed them both of the videos and a nifty little powerpoint presentation on Hermie. To be quite honest, I can't remember half of what I said about this character for the fact that I was making everything up as I went along.
All in all, I enjoyed the class. It allowed me to sail into uncharted waters and find my "inner-contemporary artist", even though I still hate most contemporary art.
As some of you may or may not know, I'm currently taking summer classes. For Summer I, it's Geology and Concept Studio and, for Summer II, it's Art History of the Renaissance. Right now I'm going to talk about Concept Studio.
At first, I wasn't too sure what to make of this class, but now I sort of enjoy it. The class is about contemporary art, and various methods of making it using random objects. Concept Studio is designed to push art students away from their comfort zone and into something they're completely unfamiliar with. Early in the term, each student had to present a powerpoint slide show on 10 things that inspired them to make art. I had absolutely no trouble doing this.
Here are my first two projects.
First week's theme was inspiration. I didn't base this project on that particular theme because, while making it, I was oblivious to the fact themes were being issued out. It ended up not mattering because I received an A anyway. I chose to create a stop-motion video, with the aid of chewing gum, tin foil, and playdoh. My wife was kind enough to take the pictures while I moved each individual piece in place. I never done this sort of thing before, so it was very new to me. To be honest, I think more time was spent editing the video than actually orchestrating it. The idea of chewing gum came to mind while sitting through a lecture in Geology class. The storyline sort of happened on the fly, so no real thumbnail or script was made.
Second week's theme was place, so I chose to illustrate some of my personal accounts from my last tour in Afghanistan. While working on the first project, I was already half way done with this baby, which actually took me 2 weeks to make. I chose to stick with only 4 frames a second because my patience was beginning to wear thin on the third day and it was just taking too much time. As you can tell, I'm not an animation guru.
Right now, I am working on my third project. The theme is time.
I'll post the project once I present it to the class next Thursday.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012 at 10:04AM 
