A journey to remember

New Zealand is full of surprises and you never know what you may encounter. The weather is a very important factor that keeps you on your toes at all times. This picture was taken at Cape Reinga, at the northern tip of the North Island. Even though it was midsummer and the rainy season was nowhere close, we had to change our plans a couple of times in order to avoid the bad weather, this was unsuccessful however.

As we arrived to the lighthouse we were greeted with a spectacular view of clouds. We were immersed in some of the thickest clouds I've ever seen. You could hardly see more than 2 meters in front of you. We had finally reached the very tip of the country and we could see nothing at all. The sand dunes that are normally visible where completely hidden. The currents of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean that clash together as they encounter one another could not be appreciated. The Pohutukawas that symbolize the journey of the spirits leaving the material world in order to join the ethereal world could not be seen either.

A major disappointment you would say at first glance, but we decided to wait it out a little bit. Maybe if we were lucky enough, the clouds would rise and we would be able to get a glimpse of the spectacular panorama. During that half hour, we encountered a married couple who were living in Oz and had come back to visit NZ, where they were both from originally. They had been in Australia for 40 years and were a bit homesick from the sound of it. They were loving the fact that we were shrouded by the clouds and it brought them memories of their early childhoods growing up in rural NZ and having to deal with the rain while wearing gumboots and drenched wool jumpers.

It was one of the nicest conversations or storytelling I had come across in such a long time. The clouds lifted a bit and we were able to see the coastline (sort of). In the end, the views weren't the most interesting part of that stop, even though they are spectacular (trust me, they're picture perfect when it's not raining, I've been there before). The thing that really made the place magical, apart from the environment created by the weather, had been talking to two complete strangers and been able to walk down memory lane and having a glimpse of their lives.

It's nice to be able to travel around beautiful places in the world and be enriched by the experiences that you will always remember. Sometimes there are certain journeys that become unforgettable and will always have a special meaning. To be able to share a trip with someone special makes the adventure even more rewarding. Thanks Alexa for those ever precious moments!

  

Nom nom nom!

 

 

After viewing the last entry I decided to post a few more shots of food. I don't normally take pictures of every meal I eat but every now and then, if the plate has a nice presentation, I will try to take a nice shot. All of these pictures have been taken on the fly, meaning that there has been no special lighting nor any special preparation. Most of the times, when I take pictures of food, it will be because I'm covering some special event and there's some catering service involved. I've been asked if I get to enjoy the delicacies presented before me and normally I don't have time to savour them. Either I'm too busy trying to get a nice action shot of people in a candid atmosphere and I don't notice the food disappearing or I just scoop it in so I can continue with the shoot. My bad!

Yum!

Girls!

This Christmas break I don't have pictures of my travels around New Zealand or any other parts of the world that I can upload. Instead, I stayed at home this time and decided I should do something to cover some of the bare walls.  My solution was to gather some of my girl illustrations I've created over the years, print them and create squares which can be hung on walls or placed around the house. So far, I've made 22 of these squares and they encompass sketches, pin ups, vector based illustrations, hand drawn and mixed techniques. The result is quite colorful but I think I should make even more.

In the future, it would be great to have at least one illustration per week so that by the end of the year I would have 52 new illos! Let's see how many I end up with.

Happy New Year guys!!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Wishing the best to all!

Blue Dreams

This sketch was made on my iPad some time ago, on the 12th of September at 2:19am to be exact. I was trying out the free Sketchbook Pro app but I finished it in Photoshop. The only thing that was tweaked in Photoshop was the change of font for the title of the drawing.

Sassy

This last illustration had been in the works for quite a while. I first drew the sketch about a month ago and it's only until now that I've finished it. If I were to be really critical about this piece, I'd have to point out that the neck is extremely long and that the alignment of the head is pulled too much to the right side of the body. However, since I'm not being too critical, I like the final result.

Originally, the magenta top had no texture and it really jumped against the background. Adding that dirty texture helped ti subdue the effect and I believe there's a better balance overall.

Needless to say, I always have the help of a special person that inspires me to draw these illustrations. Even though it is not a close representation of the actual person, it is based on her.

Spring Festival 2011

Our clocks have been move forward and the tulips have been blooming for a couple of weeks now, so I guess it's safe to say that Spring has finally arrived. This year's end of winter was pretty crazy, we saw snow in Wellington and not only around the tops of the hills, but even at sea level! The last time a thing like this happened was 50 years ago. Really looking forward to warmer and more stable seasons.

As usual, the Wellington Botanical Gardens have a variety of tulips on display to mark the arrival of spring.

Steampunk sketch

It's been a while since the last post and many things have occurred. I'll put a few things up in order to catch up with what's been going on but in the meantime, here's a sketch I just finished today. I originally penciled it in the 16th of September but only colored it until now. Wasn't too sure about the color of the pants but I settled for this brownish grape tone in the end. The other possibility would've been a dark grayish olive green. Hahaha, I guess it would be easier if I told you the Pantone values.

Enjoy!

Midnight sketch

Last night I finally decided to try out the free Sketchbook Pro app on my iPad and I must say I was quite pleased with the way it performs. It takes a bit of practice to control your finger at first, even though this is the first tool we use as kids to paint. Back then we're not too fussy about the turnout of our painting, we're just pleased we can get our fingers grubby AND make something with all that gooey paint.

Since you get no real feedback from the smooth glassy surface of the iPad, and your finger tip can be wider than the brush you select, you sometimes end up guessing where your line is going. To be fair though, this is not a precise application, it's designed to make rough sketches and it works perfectly for that purpose. The free version comes with the option of creating 3 layers and that helps up to certain extent but it does take us back to the days of Photoshop 3 where you would save your file every step of the way because it was lacking this feature. The complete version may have the option of having more layers though, I don't know. You can also control the opacity of each layer and you can order them depending of your needs.

The app also allows you to play with text and gives you several fonts to choose from. The only problem I found, was that when I wanted to place the text at the bottom of the sketch, the keyboard would block this area. I'd have to type the text on the upper part of the sketch and the drag down to the position that I desired. You are not able to hit the return key and get a second line. You must type this one as a separate element and if you want to place it underneath the previous line of text, you'll find once again that the keyboard obstructs the view. As I said before, this app was not intended to be precise so it's forgivable.

Overall, I was really impressed with Sketchbook Pro and as you can see by the date on the sketch, it kept me up until basically 2am. I think it's a great tool to improve your speed painting skills. I highly recommend it!!

Latest victim

One more to the ever growing collection of fallen umbrellas. Windy Wellington Winter scores again.

Painting

Eating Dirt, Sweating Mud

I was approached by a group of Theater students from Victoria University to help them out with the design of a poster and a flyer for a series of plays that they will be performing. The title that encompasses these plays is quite clever for it reflects all of the knowledge that they have been digesting and assimilating over the years and that they now have to reflect in the plays that they are presenting.

Regarding the design, the chosen colors relate to earthy tones which one can associate with dirt and mud. Dirt being dry has a lighter tone than that of mud which becomes darker when mixed with water. The stressed grungy font helps to convey this feeling of hard work. The torn paper are elements that give us the feeling of something that has been put together in a very hands-on kind of way. Nothing is clean and precise which transmits the sense that people have actually been working on this project; blood, sweat and tears have been poured into this showcase.

The best of luck to all of them!

 

Student Symposium 2011

The illustration for this year's Student Symposium organized by the MacDiarmid Institute is finished! It seemed that every time I felt it was completed, I wound find a little detail that needed a bit more of work. There might be a few flaws still but I'm quite satisfied with the end result. If I keep working on this I'm sure that I'll keep finding other things that need to be touched up.

I wonder what next year has in store for me. What will the theme be and how will I be able to incorporate these characters. I think that MESA (The MacDiarmid Emerging Scientists Association) will be in charge of future Symposiums.

Asleep

Another sketch made possible thanks to my ever patient and inspiring model, hahaha. The face needs to be tweaked a bit more so you can count on seeing an updated version of this sketch some time soon. Overall though, the colors, the lighting and the shadows turned out to be quite acceptable. Having a great time making these sketches!

Unexpected: Updated

 

After a few changes to the previous version I think I have found a result that keeps me happy, for now. In the previous version, the lower part of the body got lost due to such dark colors. With the change of color to a burgundy tone, the body actually stands out more and you have a lighter feel to the illustration. It doesn't feel so cramped in a sense.

Regarding the background, I'm still not quite sure which option is the best. I can't decide which one to pick. I might need to come back to this in a few days to get a fresher perspective. These are the other ones I had in mind anyway.

Sleep

Lately I've been having the help of a fantastic model who not only is extremely patient but also pushes me to do these sketches more regularly. I've been spending so much time designing with the computer on a specific project that sometimes it's really refreshing to sketch something just for the fun of it. It doesn't really matter how rough the result is, it's just practice and a way to get back to basics.

Unexpected

This is a rough version of something I'd like to spend more time on. However, the hours I spent on this sketch has been more than you could expect. It actually took me several days to get to this result. I'd advance a lot on some days but on others it felt like I was hardly accomplishing anything. I'm still not sure about the background though, I'll have to play around a bit more and see if this will stay. It seems like the lines in the back are giving the illustration a confined feel to it. I'm looking for a more relaxed atmosphere. Love the textures though!

STORK

 

This is a logo I created a few weeks back for an entity within Stanford University that focuses their research in kids. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly which Department was in charge of this project but it might be the Neonatal and Developmental Medicine within the School of Medicine if I'm not mistaken. In any case, the idea was to develop a logo that fell in line with the Stanford seal. 

The color used isn't the official Cardinal (Pantone 201) but that can be fixed at the time of printing. I'm really impressed that you can easily find the Design Guidelines within the Stanford website. It can be a nightmare trying to find official emblems or logos for presentations, posters, etc within some universities.

Syudent Symposium 2011

W.I.P. Here's the illustration I've been working on these past few weeks, it will be used to identify the Student Symposium that the MacDiarmid Institute organizes each year. On this occasion, the theme of the Symposium focuses on the options that Alumni encounter after focusing on their studies.

The characters depicted here are the same that have been used for the previous Symposiums although there has been an evolution. You can notice that the characters seem more mature, the style of drawing although far from being realistic, is less caricature than previous versions. Elements from the previous years have been used and incorporated in order to have a sense of continuity.

There are a lot of details that still have to worked on before I can consider this illustration as completed, however, I'm really stoked with the result so far. It's quite fun to see how everything begins to fall into place, especially when you only have a rough idea of what you want to accomplish.

Previous Student Symposium illustrations:

The Cutting Edge

$cience