Creative Crossover

Lawson Wood

2012-02-06T06:13:00.000-08:00

Lawson Wood is another one of the many great illustrators that I had not heard of until recently. While in graduate school and on a trip to California , my group had the pleasure of visiting the home of Jane Eisenstat( I posted some images and info in an earlier post titled: A Day at the Eisenstats.) The Eisenstats have an amazing collection of illustration , and among the incredible paintings that grace the walls of their home , was an original Lawson Wood watercolor.

Lautrec portrait

2012-02-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Henri de Toulouse -Lautrec

Trying to get a watercolor-ish feel with Photoshop brushes...

Rock and Ice Illo

2012-01-28T07:07:00.000-08:00

Here is a piece I did for Rock and Ice a while back.

Norton Flies On

2012-01-13T07:52:00.000-08:00

Cover

Norton B. Nice interior page

My picture book , Norton B. Nice , has been formatted as an ebook and made available in several different languages including, English , German, French, and Spanish. In order to obtain the book, you must download the Flying Books Eboo reader app through itunes by following this link:

itunes.apple.com/us/app/eebooreader/id466277060?ls=1&mt=8

Once the Eboo Reader app has been downloaded you will be able to purchase Norton B. Nice , as well as many other great books made available through Flying Books.

The Eboo Reader App is free and the cost for the download is only 2.99, and is compatible with Apple iPad devices.

Feats climber

2012-01-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Feats Climber

Watercolor 6"x9"

Here is another one of the characters that I created for the Feats of Strength poster.

Feats Smasher

2012-01-10T06:59:00.002-08:00

Smasher

Watercolor 5"x5"

The Feats of Strength poster featured in my last post was a combination of three traditional watercolor paintings composited within adobe photoshop. This is a technique I have been playing around with recently, and it allows for a lot of flexibility when producing the final image. In addition to the final poster I figured I would show the character paintings as stand alone images.

Feats Of Strength 7 Poster Art

2012-01-09T13:25:00.001-08:00

My good friend and fellow rock scaler Paul Jung asked me if I would be interested in doing a poster for this years "Feats of Strength " bouldering competition . The event is held at the Cliffs Climbing Gym in Valhalla , New York, and has been going on for the past 6 years.Since the name Valhalla has deep connections to Norse Mythology , we figured it would be fun to have some sort of Viking theme for the poster. The image above is the final poster with all the information one should need if interested in attending the event.

Below is the painting without the text, sponsors, etc..

Feats of Strength

Watercolor and Digital

JCL Santa images

2011-12-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas is here and I just wanted to post some of my favorite Santa images created by one of the best illustrators ever, Joseph Christian Leyendecker. Just amazing stuff!

Carolyn Taylor Photography

2011-12-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

This is a post I have been meaning to do for a while about one of my favorite people on this earth, Carolyn Taylor, and her recent photographic journey! I could go on and on about Carolyn and her work , but I ramble enough here, and I would rather that you pay her blog a visit-

http://www.carolyntaylorphotography.com/blog/

The powerful images shown below are some of what you will find within Carolyn's Blog, as well as the stories behind them ..So go and check it out!!

Best Artist EVER!!!

2011-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

Isabella with her tour de force

My niece Isabella was over on Thanksgiving, and she was really excited about doing some painting with her kook of an uncle. I tried to set her up with a small piece of canvas board but she shut me down and insisted that she painted on a wooden panel, similar to the ones I used for my thesis paintings. I didn't have any that size and so we settled on a smaller panel that I had kicking around. Here she is looking serious with her first ever acrylic on panel masterpiece! Pretty awesome job, especially the floaty little hearts in the sky! Love this kid!!!

Trail Runner Illo

2011-12-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

Dog Attack

Digital

Pit Detail

Digital

This image was used to illustrate an article about dog attacks in the December issue of Trail Runner Magazine. Unfortunately I had to vilify Pit Bulls in the piece. Despite the bad rap that Pit Bulls receive they still remain one of my favorite creatures on earth. This was a tough one because I did not want to make a super gory , extremely dark image, as the topic is already heavy enough.

At any rate here is the image in which I came up with. It was created with a variety of techniques and with a combination of both 2d and 3d software.

OLP

2011-11-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

Here is an old video that my friend Phil Schaal shot of me lying, cheating, dabbing, flailing, and invalidly climbing my way up one of Connecticut's best problems, the Owls Lair Project. If you pause the video at 1:45 seconds and look at it through a pair of X Ray glasses, you may get a life! But then again we will need sound to confirm the fact that you are not a total loser.

Power Struggle 6

2011-11-19T08:24:00.001-08:00

Competition season is rolling in and Prime Climb is beginning to prepare for their annual event known as the Power Struggle. Above is the poster in which I created in order to help promote the event. It is sure to be a good time so be sure to come on out for it. For more information have a look at the poster or check Prime Climb out on Facebook, or at www.PrimeClimb.com

Black Dog of the Hanging HIlls 2

2011-11-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

This image was intended to accompany an article in which I illustrated for Rock and Ice magazine a while back. We ended up using a different composition which was much more effective at telling the story of the Black Dog of the Hanging Hills. Although I do enjoy the simplicity and feel of this one as a stand alone image, so figured I would share!

Another WIP

2011-11-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

Saloon Drawing

"Where's the Gold"

digital

Here is another work in progress from my Gold Rush series. There still remains quite a bit I would like to do with this one, including incorporating a 3-D model as a border. Hopefully that will happen in the near future. For now here it is!

Work in progress

2011-10-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Thumbnail comp

Mule character design

Painting in Progress

This is number one of four in a series of paintings I am doing about the Wild West and the days of the Gold Rush. This one is about 80 percent finished, with a bit more to do here and there. As always I like to show preliminary drawings that I have used along the way when creating an image. So here is the initial thumbnail, character design for the mule, and the final painting in progress.

More renders

2011-10-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here are a few renders of Guan the monkey, who is now rigged, weight painted and ready for animation. Now I need to give him eyes and teeth, as well as his cape and hat. These renders show how blend shapes are used to deform the models mesh in order to create different facial expressions.

Getting ready to animate

2011-10-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I have spent a whole lot of time in front of a computer screen working on creating a short animation. In past posts I showed some preliminary character designs, poly models, as well as z brush sculpts of both Ganesh, and Guanteen. These will be the main characters in the animation.

At this time I am finalizing the models and getting them rigged for animation.

Below are some screen grabs of the rig in which I built for Ganesh. This is an image of the controls in which will drive the character and allow him to be animated.

Here are some mental ray renders of my low poly model with its texture maps, displacement maps, and normal maps , applied. These renders show how Ganesh will appear in the final animation, as produced with Mental Ray in Maya.

Looking to have a simple walk cycle of him animated soon.

Angels and Demons

2011-09-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

This is a little detail of an illustration that was published a while back in Rock and Ice Magazine.

WMCC Rendezvous 2011

2011-09-12T17:27:00.000-07:00

Saturday October 1st. marks the return of the Western Mass Rendezvous. The Festivities will kick-off once again at Wendell State Forest at 8 a.m as in past years but the evening excitement will move to Central Rock Gym in Hadley where a full line up of events are planned.

This years event is to include a wide range of activities, including climbing, biking , and kayaking. The focus of the event is to raise funds in which are to be used to protect New England's outdoor playgrounds.

As in years past I was asked to design a promotional poster for the event. So I created this image and the Jeff Squire at the WMCC handled the text and layout. Always a fun project to work on, and for a great cause!

For more info on the event visit:

www.climbgneiss.org

Creature Creation

2011-08-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

Creation of Nesh from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

This short video was created in order to illustrate some of the steps that I followed while creating the Hi Poly Sculpt for Nesh.

Traditional meets Digital

2011-06-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

Monkey in T pose

three quater view

Rough Sculpt before texture and polypaint

rough sculpt2

rough3

Z Brush is a program that draws from all that I have learned over the years as a traditional illustrator. Working with this program involves not only computer knowledge, but the ability to draw , paint , and sculpt. During my undergraduate studies I was lucky enough to do quite a bit of clay sculpture with a great teacher, and friend Peter Bonadies. It is fascinating to me to see how this has carried over to Z Brush. Although you are sculpting on a computer screen it is the closest thing to the real thing, but does not require the space, and time you would need to produce actual clay sculptures. Plus it is all highly editable with a click of a button.As you can see the model is sculpted out according to my drawings in a rough clay like texture, and then later textured and painted.

As a 2 D artist this also opens a lot of doors. These clay models can be posed in any position and used as reference for paintings. This particular model is gong to be used in a short animation I am working on. This hi resolution sculpt will be transferred as a low resolution model into Maya , rigged and animated..

Ganimation

2011-06-14T11:52:00.001-07:00

This is a short walk to run cycle with the Ganesh character model that I created during the Intro to Maya class that I attended this past spring. The Characters actions are a bit jerky, and need to be smoothed out a bit. But in the meantime I am remodeling the character in Z Brush and will plan to create a more refined animation with it.

I had some issues uploading this for some reason here, and i guess that is why the color is all wonky in the beginning..?????Either way it is a lot of fun to see two dimensional artwork come to life in a three dimensional space. Can't wait to begin to fine tune the techniques and build upon what I have learned with this. As for now here is my super simple animation..

Model sheets,Key Frames, and Character Designs

2011-06-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Monkey from Humanality Pencil Test

Climber Key Frames

Climber Turn Around

Saloon Character Key Frame

Guanteen model sheet

Here are some model sheets, character designs, and key frame drawings from various projects I have been working on recently. The top most monkey in this post, as well as the climber where drawings used in creating the Humanality pencil test in which I posted previously. The Saloon Character key frames are scans of actual frames from the Saloon character animation I posted earlier. The Last Guanteen model sheet is a refined character design of Guanteen the Monkey, a character in a 3d animation I am working on.

Z Brush Sculpts

2011-06-06T21:27:00.001-07:00

Guanteen

Monkey Island

Over the past week or so I started to learn the program Z Brush. I have to say it is one of the most amazing tools I have ever used. I can also say that it is also one of the most confusing and frustrating as well..... At ant rate here are my first two sculptures I created using Z Brush. These are assets from the pencil test I posted earlier, but rendered in 3D. These will become the basis for a fully animated short. Versions of these will be simplified, brought into Maya, rigged,light , and later animated.

The monkey model will be recycled for both the Ganesh project, as well as the Humanality short.

Humanality

2011-05-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

This little movie was created as my final project for my animation 688 class at the Academy of Art. This was one of the best classes I have ever attended . The instructor Tom Arndt was awesome, super helpful, informative, and not afraid to tell you like it is..

Thinking I would like to take this to a finished animation but in a 3d format. For now here is the pencil test...

Nesh and Guanteen

2011-05-15T20:58:00.001-07:00

Nesh and Guanteen

This painting served as a way to test the colors and textures that were applied to my 3 D Ganesh Creature model.I plan to post my finished Ganesh model and animations as well over the next few weeks. For now here is the painting in progress.

Ganesh's Monkey Side Kick

2011-04-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

Monkey Designs

Monkey Orthographic Sketch

In a previous post I included some drawings, as well as screen grabs for a model I am working on of a Ganesh inspired creature. My creature is going to have a sidekick which is a monkey and these are the preliminary drawings for what he will look like. These will be made into a 3D model as well with Maya , and animated along with Ganesh.

Gold Rush Character Pencil Test

2011-03-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

A character in which I created for a previous illustration of an old western saloon was the basis for this pencil test. It was also done to fulfill the assignment given for my Anm 688 class at the Academy of Art in SF. For this one we were required to do a simple voiceover. It's rough but here it is:

Ganesh 3D Model in progress

2011-03-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Learning a program like Maya has not been easy, and to be honest, I didn't think I would want to see it through. As I have spent my time knocking my head against my computer , things have started to come together. In this post are some screen grabs as well as renders generated from Maya of my model. The model itself still needs some editing, and the textures are going to be much more refined before he is animated. For now here he is in progress.

Boozy Bachus

2011-03-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

Bachus was the name given to the God Dionysus by the Romans. Bachus is also the Liberator, whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. In the case of my animation, Bachus is a dandy, fat, drunk guy, who can devour barrels of wine. Some of the timing as well as weight distribution for Bachus needs to be adjusted, and this is just my rough pencil test. I hope to post the finished results at some point...

Back to School like Rodney Dangerfield

2011-02-11T21:14:00.000-08:00

Ganesh with Monkey

Ganesh Side

Ganesh Crawl

Ganesh Pointing

Looking to broaden my skill sets as an illustrator and artist I decided to take a few classes in animation at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. So far the experience has been pretty good and I figured I would share some of the preliminary drawings I am doing for my intro to Maya/3d animation class. This character was inspired by the Hindu Elephant Deity , Ganesh. Ganesh is said to be the Lord of success and destroyer of evil and obstacles. In addition he is worshiped as the god of education, knowledge , wisdom, and wealth. For various reasons I am a bit weary about being back in school again. Reasons such as the financial burdens that come along with education in the US. So I am hoping Ganesh will look out for me, even if I happened to cross him with a turtle in my design. These drawings will be made into a 3d model, textured, rigged, and animated. I hope to post the process along the way. For now here are the drawings...

Skunk Skate Punk

2011-01-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

These are the preliminary drawings for a piece of art in which was intended to be entered in a competition that the Purple Skunk Skate Shop in San Francisco was hosting. Unfortunately I missed the deadline, although I do still plan to finish the painting. For now here are the roughs...

Skate Skunk

Skunk Character Designs

DPM issue 14

2010-12-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

Funkt Up Illustration

Digital

Salo Feature

Watercolor

Had the opportunity to do a few small illustrations for Dead Point Magazine issue 14. Unfortunately I do not have the files for the straight up art work at the moment. I will plan to post those at a later time. For now I am using the actual pages from the magazine which can also be viewed by following this link:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=mypagesuite&refresh=2Zt106Rag07H&PBID=67f1340a-6356-428f-8218-146b5065c4a2&skip=

Both features were fun to work on. One of them was about a climber that falls on a poodle killing it instantly. Which made for a challenge , since we did not want to make this to harsh of an image. So I tried to keep it as light hearted as possible as most of us know how hard it is to lose a pet..

The second one was to accompany an interview with Andy Salo. This was fun to work on since I have always enjoyed the comic book character Wolverine.The illustration is the small image used in the newspaper layout. The photo of Andy as well as the other photos in the feature were taken by Tomas Donoso.

Rock and Ice Issue 191

2010-12-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

Chipping Controversy

Watercolor and Digital

This is the image I came up with in order to accompany an article in Rock and Ice issue 191. In this article , the author Bill Ramsey, offers some very good insight to the various contradictions surrounding the topic of chipping holds in order to create rock climbs. Manufacturing holds is a very controversial topic and can be looked at in a lot of different ways and from many ethical standpoints, this article touches down on a lot of them. In my eyes it is a very murky subject , one that can conjure up deep dark feelings on sides both for and against.

Anyhow here is the image. Go and pick up a copy of the magazine if you want to make sense of what it is I am rambling on about here!

PS5 Poster Art

2010-11-17T21:45:00.001-08:00

The Power Struggle is an annual indoor bouldering competition held at Prime Climb, in Wallingford , CT.. I have always created the poster art for these events in the past. Keeping with tradition , Prime Climb's owner Brien Roscetti was nice enough to ask me to create the art for this years event .. Brien threw a few concepts at me to work with and this post shows what we came up with..

I will post more info on the event and the final poster as we get closer to the date in which the competition is scheduled for. For now here is the art work:

Power Struggle Between

Thor and the Frost Giant

Digital

Story Boards

2010-11-15T20:04:00.001-08:00

Here are some story boards that I did recently for my friend Tim at Kemplemedia.com..

Chris Taylor Music

2010-11-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Nikki, Chris, and I hanging out at the Cotton Tail.

New York based Guitarist, Composer, and Producer, Chris Taylor has just finished recording and mixing his solo debut album. The album in tentatively titled "Nocturnal" and will be released in 2011 on the Abstract Logix label. Chris is a long time friend of mine and he is a bad ass musician , so be sure to check him out! For more info on Chris and his music check out his new site:

http://www.christaylorguitar.com/

Congrats Chris!!!

Tiki Luau Surfer

2010-11-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

A little something I did while in Colorado this past summer.

Dropping the Ball

2010-10-31T18:41:00.001-07:00

Alien Head

Graphite

Alien Head/City Close Up

Digital

They Live

Work in Progress

Digital

The John Carpenter film "They Live" is one of the many campy 80's films in which I enjoyed growing up. I was asked to be a part of an art show back in CT. , and the theme was 80's Horror. So I decided to go with "They Live" as the basis for my piece. Unfortunately I have dropped the ball and have not finished the piece in time for the show. For now here is the WIP.

Nightmare Show

2010-09-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was invited to be a part of the Nightmare Show which will be held at the Mac 650 Gallery in middletown.

The painting I am showing is one of the panels in which I created in order to complete my thesis project while working toward my MFA at the Hartford Art School. The painting is titled Tonsai bay, and is 24"x48" , Acrylic on Masonite.

Tonsai Bay

24"x48", Acrylic on Masonite

Here is some additional information pertaining to the show, time, date, location, etc.:

Date Friday Oct 1st

Time 7-10pm

Location MAC 650 Gallery

650 Main Street
Middletown, CT

The North End Artists Co-op Presents: NIGHTMARES!

It's that time of year...the leaves are beginning to turn and fade. Whether you celebrate Halloween, Dia De Los Muertos or Samhain, 'tis the season for masks, monsters, horror and ghosts!

What better way to celebrate than to explore the idea of 'Nightmares'? We all have them! Face your fears and join us at the MAC 650 Gallery where the walls will be covered with nightmarish works from various artists.

Meet the artists at the opening reception from 7-10pm on Friday October 1st. Live poetry readings, music from Rhythmic Circus, and more! Drinks and snacks will be provided for our guests. COSTUMES ENCOURAGED!

The exhibit will be displayed in the gallery for the month of October. The gallery viewing hours are 11-3pm Saturdays and Sundays.

The North End Artists Co-Op is dedicated to enriching the North End neighborhood of Middletown and surrounding areas through art. Support your local artists!

New Web Site

2010-09-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Put together a new web site. My old one is still up, but I like the simplicity of the new one. I just wanted to have one to serve as a nice clean portfolio site.. So check it out if you have a minute..

www.DJYJR.com..

Not so weekly sketch

2010-09-17T00:00:00.001-07:00

Have not been keeping up with my weekly sketch post for various reasons. Hopefully I will get things together here. For now here is one I put together this week:

Rock and Ice Issue 189 Illustrations

2010-08-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Bush Pilot

Watercolor, 8"x8"

River Crossing

Watercolor, 8"x8"

Strappo vs. the Vultures

Watercolor, 9"x11"

Village Elder

Watercolor, 8"x8"

During my recent trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, I was contacted by Rock and Ice Magazine in order to see if I would be able to create four Illustrations to accompany an article in an upcoming issue. The article was about legendary climber, Roger" Strappo"Hughes, and his epic adventures climbing Venezuelan rock formations known as Tepuis . This was one of the most enjoyable assignments I have ever worked on, as the article was full of wild content to work with. Super thanks to Jeff Jackson, Andrew Bisharat, Duane Raleigh and the rest of the Rock and Ice staff!

So get out and and pick up a copy! Rock and Ice Magazine issue#189, should be found at most major bookstores, newstands, and online at:www.rockandice.com

To learn more about the author , Roger "Strappo" Hughes check out this video:

Strappo and the Tale of the Mountain Room Bar from Rock & Ice on Vimeo.

Weekly Sketch 4

2010-08-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

Another page from the sketchbook:

WMCC RENDEZVOUS

2010-08-19T12:57:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year again and the climbing season in New England is right around the corner, and with comes a lot of great things. One of them is the Western Mass Rendezvous. I was asked again this year to create a poster for the event , and this is what I was able to put together while I was on the road in Colorado. I handled the imagery and WMCC president Jeff Squire took care of the layout and type setting. This was a fun collaboration to benefit a great cause ..If you are in the area be sure to check out the event!

Here is some info on the event:

On Saturday, October 2nd, the WMCC will be holding the 2010 Western Mass Rendezvous. A day and evening long event featuring breakfast, bouldering competition, gear demos, clinics, raffles, a huge BBQ, and highlighted by the 2010 REEL ROCK TOUR(www.reelrocktour.com).

Free camping and parking available. More information will be available soon (westernmacc.com ).

All proceeds benefit the Western Mass Climbers' Coalition for the protection & preservation of our climing resources in western Mass.

Robot Attack

2010-08-18T14:07:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years I have been working on various techniques for digital painting. One of them involves scanning a series of abstract marker compositions in layers into Photoshop. Once the marker comps are scanned I will go ahead and tweak the layer properties, opacities , etc.. After that I will see what can be created, by working with the large shapes,textures and patterns in which I have created through this process. This is a very fun way to work, and is kind of like staring into the clouds and picking out an object or image. I usually approach this without anything particular in mind as far as subject matter, and simply see where it takes me. What I love about it is that you will usually end up with shapes and patterns that you would not have otherwise drawn by hand.

This is one of the many things I learned during grad school from fellow illustrator Ron Spears.

So the image in this post was created using this technique:

Robot Attack

Digital

Weekly Sketch 3

2010-08-10T10:38:00.001-07:00

Third weekly sketch.. Nothing fancy , just another page from the sketchbook.

East 28th

2010-08-06T21:29:00.001-07:00

Weekly Sketch 2

2010-08-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

Second weekly sketch here, sticking with the skateboarding creatures theme!

Pool Riding Beast

Saddle Boulder

2010-07-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

Summer climbing conditions are not nearly as heinous here in California as they are back in Connecticut, although they are still far from ideal. Despite the sweltering temps I headed up to Donner Summit with my friends, Alex and Kailin. We ended up having a really fun day and I managed to drag myself up one of the area classics , Midnight Train. This is surely one of my favorite problems for the grade! Here is a little video of it:

Midnight Train from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Weekly Sketch

2010-07-26T16:57:00.001-07:00

Planning to post a weekly drawing or sketch of some sort. We'll see if it happens??? I have been working on a lot of different projects lately. All involve some pretty wild subject matter, ranging from skateboarding dogs to Venezuelan Bush Planes . For this week here is one of the many new pieces in my sketch book.

Skateboarding Pit Sketch

5"x8"

Stranger in A Strange Land

2010-07-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Went back up to the Hallet Boulder yesterday to give another try on the problem Stranger in a Strange Land.

Here is the vid:

Stranger in a strange land v12 from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

A few more from the Rockies

2010-06-30T16:55:00.001-07:00

Evenings in the alpine environment often produce really amazing light. These photos were taken the other night as a few friends and I hiked down from a very fun day up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Although I did not climb the boulder I had hoped to, and ended up with a heinous skin tear on a finger on my right hand, I still had one of the best days out yet. Just being in the mountains with some good people is more than enough to put me in a good mood.

On the day we went up to climb there was a pretty large fire burning around Lumpy Ridge. The fire caught ablaze due to a lightning strike that touched down the previous day. I think that the wild fire had an affect on the atmosphere in which made for a really amazing sun set , and I was lucky enough to get a few photos of it seen below....

Bouldering on the Hallet

Ominous skies Above Hallet Peak

Evening skies above Halllet Peak

Amazing sunset above Estes Park

I have been staying up in Nederland with one of my long time best friends from back in Connecticut, Steve King. We got out to do a little painting the other day at a look out up above his rad new home in Ned...Didn't produce anything I was happy with but it was fun to push some paint around and spend some time with my good friends outside.

Colorado Photos

2010-06-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

I have not been out climbing in almost a week since I have been feeling a bit under the weather. So in the meantime I have been editing some photos , and working on some illustration projects. Here are a few photos from last week in Colorado.

Fire Ball

2010-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hiked to the Hallet Boulder yesterday , and did some climbing. Here's a short vid of one of the problems up there called Fire Ball.

FireBall V10 from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

RMNP

2010-06-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video we shot of the Marble the other day up in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was nice to climb on this problem especially since as we arrived in the park it was raining and then sleeting. We decided to hike up despite questionable conditions and had a fun but short session. So....

the marble v10, rmnp from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Rock and Ice Paintings

2010-05-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

A little while back my friend Tomas Donoso and I started working on a project/photo essay about Connecticut climbing, in which we wanted to try and pitch to a climbing related publication. At first we were not so sure in what direction we wanted it to go in, except for the fact that we wanted to try and do something fresh and unique. For a while we toyed with different ideas in which we talked over while we were out shooting photos of various boulder problems. Tomas eventually decided that it would be great if we could somehow link Connecticut Folklore with Climbing. This seemed to work especially because many of the blocs that we climb upon are situated in the woods in which much of Connecticuts Folklore originated.

Tomas shot some amazing photos of many boulder problems within Connecticut as well as some portraits of a few of the different climbers in the area that helped contribute to the piece. I created five watercolors to accompany these photos in which are seen within this post. The project was submitted to Rock and Ice Magazine and was accepted and printed. The staff at Rock and Ice did a great job with the layout in the magazine as well as the handling of the artwork and photography. Big thanks to everyone at Rock and Ice for accepting this piece and making it happen.

The issue of Rock and Ice Magazine with this feature is available now and can be found at most any major bookstore , climbing gym/retailer, and news stand. I urge everyone to go out and pick up a copy!

Chief Sassacus

Watercolor, 8.5"x11"

The Black Dog of the Hanging Hills

Watercolor,8.5"x11"

Jemima Wilkinson

Mixed, 11"x17"

The Leatherman

Waterclolr, 8.5"x11"

Dudley Town Curse

Watercolor, 8.5"x11"

Final Round

2010-05-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

Time was running thin for bouldering here in Ct. as temps are rising , and even more importantly due to the fact that I am moving to the bay area tomorrow. Luckily before leaving I was able to get my act together and send a problem I have been trying on and off since last spring, The Buzzer Beater.

The Buzzer Beater from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Random Drawings/Sketches

2010-05-17T11:56:00.001-07:00

Haven't had all that much time to get to involved with any big projects at the moment as I am moving to the bay area on weds.. So time has been spent packing things up and getting somewhat organized. While digging through my art work in order to figure out what I am taking with me I came across many drawings and sketches that I have created for various reasons. As you can tell they are pretty random as I think a lot of my work is. In order to keep things fresh, I tend to bounce around between different mediums and subject matter. In addition I like to switch things up as far as the way in which I create my work, as you can see by looking at these drawings. Some are done directly from photographic reference, some are completely created out of my imagination, some from direct observation, and some are a combination of all.

Georgie Porgie

Brush and Ink, 6"x7"

Five Brave Nights Rough

Graohite, 5"x7"

Five Brave Knights Rough 2

Graphite, 5"x7"

Pasadena Prelim,

Graphite, 6"x"9"

Sketch Book Page,Koh San Rd., Thailand, 2010

Graphite, 5"x5"

Kinaree,

Graphite, 8"x11"

Rough Drawing for DPM article

Graphite and Digital, 7"x11"

Cuckoo's Nest Drawings

2010-05-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

Nurse Rached

Graphite, 9"x13"

Shock Shop

Graphite,8.5"x11"

The Ward

Graphite, 8.5"x11"

Mac

Graphite, 8.5"x11"

The Escape

Graphite, 8.5"x11"

Arrival of Mac

Graphite, 8.5"x11"

Chief Bromden

Graphite, 8.5"x11"

When I began the MFA program at the University of Hartford back in 2007 the first class I was enrolled in was known as the "Dream Assignment Class". This class was supposed to guide us along in the direction that we were going to head in for the thesis project, or at least get the wheels turning. This class was completely open ended and as the name suggests was to encourage complete creative freedom.

At first I thought I really wanted to do some Illustrations pertaining to Ken Kesey's , One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. We were supposed to show up on the first day of class with six potential compositions. So in this post I am including the six drawings in which I showed up with that day as well as the final drawing(Nurse Rached) I did during that week at Hartford. Similar to most of my classmates, my thesis project took a completely different turn from where things started in this class. I am thinking about going back and finishing all of these pieces in a digital format.. We'll see.

Back in the Day

2010-05-06T10:58:00.001-07:00

It's always fun to dig through the boxes of old photos from my many cross country j0urnies, in which date back long before I owned a digital camera. I decided to post some as I am getting ready to head out west again very soon, and will hopefully be spending time with some of my best friends depicted in these photos. These photos are from various trips throughout the U.S and the watercolor titled "Cross Country" was one of the first travel related pieces that I had painted. The painting depicts my good friends Josh Adams, Phil Schaal, my dog Ira, and myself all crammed into the cab of my Chevy truck that we traveled in that year. On the back of the truck was a pop up camper,"the Skamper". "The Skamper" hung way out from the bed of the truck on either side blocking mirrors, and sagging the suspension to an all but street legal low.With three climbers and a dog in the cab of the truck, I am sure we smelled like hot garbage , and there were certainly multiple times that we were all at each others throats. Not sure how we never got pulled over???...Good times!!! In many ways this piece was the beginning of my more recent body of work of travel related paintings..

Cross Country
Watercolor, 6"x14",2004

Me in the Redwoods, 1996, on my first trip west
shortly after graduating high school.

The interior of my pop up camper "the Skamper".
I was given the Skamper by Ct. climber J.D Mackie.
Mackie established one of Ct's hardest routes , the Wall of Horrors 5.13
at Ragged Mtn. in 1993.

Steve King on our epic hike after climbing Magnolia Thunderpussy,
Granite Mtn., Arizona,1998

Me climbing at the Gallery,
Red Rocks, Nevada, 1998

Jared Roth on Boone Speed's I Scream in Hell 14c

shortly before he made he second ascent.

Dave Watson on Social Outcast 12a
Rumney, New Hampshire, Ca.1998

A young Phil Schaal at the Happy Boulders,
Bishop, California, ca.2000

Josh's dog Ibex on 9th and Marine
"Get the squirrels"

Josh Adams , aka Swayzee, Swaygina, Swayzleduece
on Get Carter, before his retirement from climbing.
Bishop, Ca., 1999

My Dog Ira
Red Rocks, Nevada, 1998

Climbing in the Druid Stones
Bishop, Ca.
photo: Carolyn Taylor

Wagon Wheel Wrap Up

2010-05-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted the line work for a project that I was working on for my friends at the Wagon Wheel Co Opt.. Recently I had some time to finally get close to finishing the painting. Because of the fact that I am heading out west soon and I will not be able to lug all of my paints and materials I have been making the effort to work digitally. So this one was created using a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. I am trying to mimic the style that I used to create my thesis paintings , which are acrylic paintings on panel, but with digital tools. Thinking I have a way to go but it's a start!

So here is the image. I am still planning to tighten some things up and tweak a few things here and there..

Unused Watercolors

2010-04-29T08:04:00.001-07:00

Digging through some of my many piles and portfolio cases of art I came across a few of the many unused illustrations that I created for my book Norton B. Nice. These images were included in the original book dummy in which was chosen to be published, but were later omitted by the editor at the publishing company. After spending hours and hours creating new spreads these were forgotten, and are also not included in my self published edition of the book. The bottom image in this post (Original character study) was the first painting I created for the book. This painting was created at the kitchen table of a gite that I shared with my great friends Phil, Niki, Chris, and Carolyn on a trip to Fontainbleau, France back in 2005. So this painting also serves as a fond memory of one of the best times in my life. The original designs for the book were created during a children's book design class in which was taught by my great friend , teacher, and mentor Vladimir Shpitalnik.

Norton Detail

Unused Spread

Watercolor, 9"x11"

Original character study

Watercolor, 8.5"x11"

Pilgrimage to the Stains

2010-04-27T21:19:00.001-07:00

Judges Cave, G.H Durrie, 1856

After a few days of rain I figured climbing outside today was out of the question. I was planning to head to the climbing gym but my friend Mike was psyched to go and do the Brown Stain, at Judges Cave (aka the Brown Stains), New Haven. The Stains are nestled in a field above West Rock in New Haven and usually dry out faster than any other blocs in the area because of their exposure to sun and wind.

I usually make the pilgrimage down to these boulders once or so a year just to switch it up and to grab some quality pizza in New Haven. It is by no mean a destination spot as the Stains are comprised of only 3 boulders. Although, just about every side of these boulders can be climbed on and the rock is really solid. The weathered rock has formed some really cool grips and the landings are pretty flat. Starting in May you can drive right up to the boulders, so all in all it a pretty good little spot.

The Brown Stain is the test piece for the area and one of the many fun problems that I climbed on while I was living and going to school in the area. There are a bunch of other lines , eliminates, variations and link ups on the blocs as well. Some being quite tall to extremely low ball, some quite good and some not so good. This was the perfect place to go and rattle off a bunch of problems when I had limited time and and limited gas money to go elsewhere.

These rocks have a very interesting history and the small cave in which the Brown Stain start is the entrance to was once the hiding place for Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, Gen. William Goffe. Here in this little cave the two men hid in order to avoid persecution from King Charles II.. To learn more about this story google: Judges Cave New Haven and you will find all sorts of information about this.

Anyhow here is a little video I shot of a few of the problems on the boulders.

Trip to the Stains from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Final Headless Horseman

2010-04-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

Not feeling so motivated lately in terms of illustration , focusing a little bit more on climbing. I guess this is normal for me, sort of an ebb and flow between art and climbing. Seems like one fuels the other in many ways. Despite the slacking I have managed to finish up a pretty good sized acrylic painting . I showed a color study I did for this piece as well as some drawings in an earlier post. In this post I have included the finished painting along with a little video that shows a little bit about the painting process......

The Headless Horseman

Acrylic on Board 19"x19"

Headless Horseman from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Deadpoint Illustrations

2010-04-19T16:46:00.000-07:00

The newest issue of Deadpoint Magazine is out and features two digital paintings that I created in order to illustrate the story, Rabbits on the Running Boards. The feature is located on pages 58-60 of the digital edition , and is viewable online at:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=mypagesuite&pnum=&refresh=wA058eN11F9q&EID=48b2d8ac-bdca-4946-858d-2fb6d331acf0&skip=

Rabbits on the Running Boards 2

Rabbits on the Running Boards 1

A few watercolors

2010-04-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

When I am traveling I like to try and do as many en plen air or "in the open air" paintings as I can. This style of painting I find to be one of the most challenging as well as enjoyable ways to paint. Over the years I have seen some growth in the paintings I do from life on location. The quick watercolor studies that I do on location have a definite influence on the illustration work that I later create.

Below are a few from recent travels.

Tonsai Bay, Thailand

Watercolor, 8.5"x11"

2008

Nam Song River, Laos

Watercolor, 8.5"x11"

2010

Spring Bouldering

2010-04-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

The warmer temps have arrived, the underbrush has begun to grow green, trees are budding, birds are chirping and so on. You get the point, spring is here. This is a joyous time for many, and is a celebration of growth and new beginnings as everything springs to life. On the other hand for most boulderers this time of year marks a sad time, the end of our season, or at least in the North East.. The rocks become green and alive, like a chea pet. Friction is crap, the woods become overgrown with poison ivy, venomous snakes, bald faced hornets, and worst of all Lyme Disease infested Ticks!!!!!! In other words it is not very conducive to bouldering.....

In the North East we have limited window of time to actually complete projects before the blocs are covered in snow or feel as if they are located within a Cambodian jungle. It's a bit of a bummer. Despite the negatives I have been able to get out and get some climbing in , and it is not completely over yet. So here is a video I put together from the last couple of days out on the blocs here in Connecticut..

4 blocs from around the way from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

Nocturnes

2010-03-31T20:27:00.001-07:00

Arkhip Kuindzhi

Patches of Moonlight

Earlier I posted a color study that I have used for the painting, in which I am finishing up at the moment of the Headless Horseman. The painting is a "Nocturne" or a painting of a night scene, and is the second painting I have done like it. Painting a nocturne is quite different, and a bit more challenging for me. Rather than trying to create light , you are challenged with creating a lack thereof, which entails a lot of other techniques and methods. . This type of painting examines darkness and conditions near its edge. Creating far more unique compositions, nocturnes heavily rely on abstract elements in order to hold the picture together. For this reason, shapes and silhouettes play a big role , often times edges are softened, and the values in the painting are often close to one another. (When I say values I do not mean your personal values, or whether you not you believe in abortion, etc... Rather, I mean values in terms of light to dark. A number 1 value being the lightest and a 10 being the darkest value. ) The typical color palette for this type of painting is of course cool,limited, and moody.

As always I like to look to some other artists for information and inspiration. Above and below I have included a number of nocturnes that have been painted by various artist over time, all equally amazing!!

Enjoy!

Tsuchiya Koitsu

Maizuru Harbor at Night

N.C. Wyeth

The Black Spot

N.C. Wyeth

The Old Pew

N.C. Wyeth

The Treasure Cave

Frederic Remington

The Sentinel

Frederic Remington

The Old Stage-Coach of the Plains

Frederic Remington

The Hunters' Supper

James Abbot McNeil Whistler

Falling Rocket

Childe Hassam

Railway Crossing

Rembrandt

St. Paul at his Desk

Rembrandt

An old Usurer Examining a Coin

Random Sketches

2010-03-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

It's always fun to post random sketches. The ones included within this post were all created for different reasons and or purposes . Some are sketches from life, some are from my imagination, some from photos, some for projects, and some for just plain fun.

Ichabod Crane

4"x6"

Graphite

Thumbnail for interior page of Norton B. Nice

2"x4"

Graphite

Mark Twain Sketch

2"x4"

Graphite

Francis Bacon sketch

3"x7"

Graphite

Atlanta airport sketch

8.5"x 11"

Graphite

Cambodian Nun

7"x 10"

Graphite

Sea Goddess

8.5"x 11"

Graphite

The Headless Horseman

2010-03-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I have been working on an illustration from Washington Irving's short story the Legend Sleepy Hollow. I wanted to focus on the Headless Horseman and I have managed to come up with various compositions and solutions. Finally I have gotten to where I am happy with one and I have included it from start to color study in this post. At the moment I am unsure of what medium I want to use to take it to the finish. I am leaning towards acrylics although it may be fun to do a large watercolor, in which I hope would be a bit more atmospheric and moody than my initial color study. There are still a few things that need to be solved in the illustration such as how and where ,and whether or not I am going to include the Horseman's cape. Including the cape may mean that the fun shape in which the Horseman and his horse create will be lost. So I am trying to find a way in which I can include it, where it will not interfere to much......

Below I have included my initial sketch, my final drawing ,and a color study :

Rough Sketch

5"x 5"

Final Drawing

8"x 8"

Color Study

Watercolor and Digital

8"x 8"

The Art of William Gropper

2010-03-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

Recently I was asked by Bosco Mckinney (www.boscomckinneyart.com) to create an illustration of the Headless Horseman, or something pertaining to Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Typically when I am beginning a new illustration, along with doing tons of sketching, I usually search the inter web for anything relating to the subject in which I am working on.This usually leads me to finding some decent reference, influences, and often to the discovery of great artists that have somehow remained unknown to me in the past.

My recent search for anything having to do with the Headless Horseman lead me to the art of William Gropper(1877-1977). Below , along with several other of his illustrations , is Gropper's version of the Headless Horseman. Gropper's extreme perspective's, exaggerated figures, dynamic compositions, and radical political statements instantly struck a chord with me. Here again I find myself wondering how I did not come across this artists work at an early time?..

Gropper worked in the US as a cartoonist, painter, lithographer, and muralist. Labeled a radical , Gropper is best known for his political work in which he contributed to left wing publications such as the Revolutionary Age, The Liberator, The New Masses, The Worker, and The Morning Freiheit. Gropper studied under Ash Can school artists Robert Henri and George Bellows , so it comes as no surprise to me that his work is a s good as it is.

During the Great Depression Gropper's work was very influential as it spoke out against social injustice and other issues faced at the time. His illustrations were so powerful that one in which was printed in Vanity Fair in 1935, and depicted Emperor Hirohito , caused a diplomatic incident. This resulted in the Japanese Government demanding an official apology from Gropper. In May 1953 Gropper's attacks on Joseph McCarthy led to him being called before the House of Un- American Activities Committee, in which after pleading the 5th, he was black listed but not imprisoned.

To me his work embodies his radical nature, not only in content but in style as well, and is something I look forward to seeing more of.

Here is some of his work. A lot more can be found online.

William Gropper

Anti War Poster

Construction of a Dam

Top Man

The Headless Horseman

Finn Mac Cool

The Coffee Pot

POWER STRUGGLE 4

2010-03-05T08:30:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow we will be hosting the Power Struggle 4, at Prime Climb in Wallingford. This we hope to make an annual event. Although it involves a ton of work , energy, and effort, it is a ton of fun, and we hope to have many more in the future.

I helped organize the event, heckle retailers for free stuff, designed the poster, and am also setting a lot of the problems. It has been a lot of work and I look forward to tomorrows event.

Here is a link if you are interested in viewing a video from last years Power Struggle 3:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=239415116594&oid=239435923426

Hope to see you all there!!!!

Madison Art Cinemas Show

2010-03-01T00:40:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the opening for my show at the Madison Art Cinemas, in Madison Connecticut.

Things went quite well except for the fact that I was a bit unprepared, due to the fact that I had just returned from five weeks abroad. But hey, the paintings were framed and on the wall in time and I was able to hang out with the many great people that came trough. This despite the fact that it was 5:30 a.m according to my body's clock. So things could have been worse. Although I still need to get down there with some labels for the paintings, and a few other things, such as a copy or two of Norton B. Nice..

The show will be up for another month so if you are at all interested please stop by and have a look. I have hung a wide variety of work including the work I did for my thesis project at UHA, some new watercolors, and some digital work as well.

The address is 761 Boston Post, Rd. , Madison , Ct., 06443.

Or for more info visit the event page on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=259849908432&ref=ts

Big thanks to all of the great friends and family that made it by on saturday, you guys are great!!!!! Thanks for the support!!! And a bigger thanks to "Assu" for sending me some photos to show!

Photos courtesy of :

Andrew "Assu" Joseph

S .E Asia 2010 Slide/Video Show

2010-02-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

Back in the USA. It's been tough being back home and back to reality. The carefree sunny days of zipping around on motorbike, climbing limestone, swimming in the sea, and eating great food are long gone. My trip didn't exactly go as planned either, as I never made it to Bali. Five weeks was barley enough to see what I saw, money ran out quickly, and flight prices tripled from the time I left to the time I was ready to try and fly from BKK to Bali. Regardless I had an amazing time and so I slapped together a short slideshow/video show of the some of the fun times that I had during my five weeks in South East Asia this year.

South East Asia 2010 from dan yagmin on Vimeo.

DPM Interview

2010-02-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

Planes, trains, motorcycle's , buses, and boats, are what I have been up to. That is of course because I needed all of these to travel from Laos to Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand, and then down to the island Koh Samet, located further south. During this time I managed to do a lot of things including a visit to the Chiang Mai Zoo, climbing at Crazy Horse, racing around on a motor bike, seeing old friends, and sitting on the beach . I will plan to get some of the photo's up when I arrive back in the States.

In the meantime I wanted to make a quick post about a recent interview/feature that I have in the recent issue of Deadpoint Magazine. Deadpoint is primarily a climbing publication and the founder Matt Stark has some great ideas on how to expand his publication and how to appeal to a larger audience with a wider range of interests. Or that at least how I see it, and D.P.M has been including illustration, and Art features in the magazine. This I think is pretty awesome, as I of course, as stated in the interview think there is a lot more room for this sort of thing in the climbing industry.

At any rate I am really proud to be a part of Deadpoint Magazine and they put together an 8 or so page interview with me about my art, and my climbing. I was allowed to ramble on about all sorts of things, and I think they did a great over all job with it. Psyched!!! Thanks guys!!!!

I have included some of the pages here on my blog but urge you to check out the actual online edition, as it includes a lot of great photos and other fun material pertaining to climbing and the like. So here is the link:

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&pnum=0&refresh=zZ190t5S41By&EID=594323ae-e408-49b9-b9b2-b696b9451427&skip=&p=0

Leaving Luang Prabang

2010-02-07T19:54:00.001-08:00

I am leaving Luang Prabang today shortly, and wanted to add a few more photos.

So here they are:

The Mekong River

Local Architecture

Quiet Temple

Woman selling hand made,

hand stitched children's books

Laos style Tuk Tuk

Luang Prabang Night Bazaar

2010-02-07T04:48:00.000-08:00

Arrived in Luang Prabang the other day which was a nice change from Vang Vieng. Although I really liked Vang Vieng there were also a lot of things I did not like about the place. Vang Vieng is sort of a conflicted place in many ways. What I mean by that is that I couldn't stand a lot of the foreigners that flocked there for the tubing on the river and for buckets of cheap booze.There is sort of frat. party spring break mentality among most of them, and that got old pretty fast. On the other hand I met some of my favorite people I have ever met in my travels, and in this case the good certainly outweighed the bad. I hope this does not come across as if I am a saint and do not enjoy getting a bit tipsy every now and again, because I certainly do. But I get a bit frustrated by the people that come to Vang Vieng for nothing more than to get wasted.

At any rate Luang Prabang has a different vibe to it all together with a bit chiller crowd. The French Colonial architecture is really great, as well as the food, and the views along the mekong are quite beautiful. Last night I went out and checked out the night Bazaar that takes place every night in the center of town. Its pretty awesome to see that a lot of the local economy is based upon selling hand made goods made here in Laos. Most of the stuff you can get here is of good quality and rather unique, unlike some other Bazaars I have been to in South East Asia.

So here are a few shots I snapped the other night:

Night Bazaar Luang Prabang

Child at the Bazaar

Night Bazaar 2

Food Cart

My guest house

Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Thailand. Hopefully before I go I will post a few more pics of Luang Prabang, if the internet connection is cooperating.

Climbing at the Daeng

2010-02-06T07:22:00.001-08:00

The climbing in Vang Vieng ranges from total choss to really good. I have seen some really strange things such as door handles being used for anchors on routes, bolts in seeping dingy caves that are not even suitable for toilets, and boulders that are not much taller than 4 meters with numerous bolts on them. Despite all of that there is also some really good climbing to be had at a zone known as Na Pha Daeng, which we have been referring to as the Daeng. At the Daeng there are a bunch of really good routes ranging from very easy up to 8a plus, and there is certainly a lot of potential for new routes as well. At any rate I wanted to show some photos taken on a few of the routes at the Daeng, as well as a few of the beautiful scenery that is taken in along the 22 kilometer motor bike ride from town to the Daeng.

Nam Song River

Marcelo Diaz Redpointing

A Million Elephants and a White Parasol 5.12b

(photo:Alvaro Diaz)

The next two photos are of the route Dream Catcher 5.12d, and in my opinion the best route in Vang Vieng. This route is rather special because it climbs a line of natural pockets on an otherwise blank wall for 20 meters or so. There is also an extension to the route known as Sweet Dreams 5.13a, which makes the route a lot pumpier and difficult. The crux involves a stab to a small pocket at the very top of the route. A good route for sure!!

Dream Catcher 5.12d

(photo: Melissa Collings)

Alvaro Diaz sending

Dream Catcher 5.12d

The Daeng from the distance

Journey to the Valley of Eden

2010-02-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

My time here in Vang Vieng has been great. The people I have met, the sights I have seen, and the places we have climbed have made it one of the best places I have ever visited. Below is a shot of the Bungalow I have been staying in here in Vang Vieng, which I have gotten pretty comfortable in.

My Bungalow

The other day a few friends of mine from Australia and I went on a little journey to find a climbing cave known as Tham Nam Them. The direction to find this place were pretty vague, and involved crossing a river, trekking in the jungle to a place where two mountains converged, and hiking through a cave for 10 minutes. The climbing didn't turn out to be quite what we had hoped, but we continued our hike into the valley that was beyond where the climbing was. This turned out to be a place known as the Valley of Eden, and was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

The place where the two mountains converge in which

Marks the entrance to Tham Nam Them and the Valley of Eden

Me in Eden

Wild Flowers

Small pond with Water Buffalo

Valley Hut

The Valley of Eden

Mountains on a ride home at Sunset

Journey to Laos

2010-01-30T19:21:00.001-08:00

The journey to Laos was a bit epic , and involved over 16 hours of travel by bus. The first stretch of the journey from Bangkok to Vientiane was not so bad, as I rode a VIP bus with somewhat comfy seats, and was able to get a decent amount of sleep. The last leg of the journey from Vientiane to Vang Vieng was the worst part. I was told it was going to take 3 hours but ended up taking a whole lot longer. The bus was really old and they packed it in as if we were sardines , and was with out air con. or fans so it was quite hot at times. Along the way the bus broke down several times.The transmission continued to pop in and out of gear as we climbed the hilly terrain en route to Vang Vieng. This left us parked along side of the road numerous times while one of the guys who rode on the bus banged on something below the bus with a wrench hoping that it would pop back into gear. At one point there was a lot of scrapping , clanking , and crunching below the bus and we had to pull over for a while. Something that resembled a radiator or possibly a part of an air conditioning unit fell out from the under carriage of the bus and we were dragging it along for quite a while. Fortunately the drivers did not seemed very bother by this, and the passengers , despite the long and tiring journey all seemed to remain in very good spirits. Everyone seemed to think that it was all part of the adventure and there was no use in getting frustrated or upset. The drivers knocked around for a bit below the bus with some tools and once again we were off.

Packed bus en route to Vang Vieng

Our trusty mechanic standing upon the piece of the bus

that fell out from the undercarriage

Broken down again

Vientiane

The journey was certainly worth it and Vang Vieng is amazing.I have met some really great people and the natural beauty of the area is breath taking. For the last few days I have been climbing limestone in the mountains, flying off rope swings, relaxing by the river and enjoying good food!!! I will be sure to post something about the climbing soon. But for now here are a few shots from in and around Vang Vieng.

Temple in Vang Vieng

The view from my Bungalow

Mountains around Vang Vieng

Jet Lagged

2010-01-25T16:16:00.000-08:00

Its 7 a.m here in Bangkok, and I have been awake for the last 2 hours. Even though I have been here for the last 3 days I am still feeling pretty Jet Lagged. From what I was told , it takes one day for every hour for someone to become fully adjusted to a significant time change. This I have found to be fairly accurate , with the first 4 days being totally out of whack. At any rate I figured I would include the Sea Hag Illustration I did a while back. She is part of a series of small paintings in which accompany some silly, simple rhymes that I wrote in my sketch book while visiting South East Asia back in 2008. Here is what I wrote along with the image:

Feeling worn out and tired like an old sea hag! I guess it is a case of serious Jet Lagg!

Sea Hagg

5"x5"

Acrylic on Panel

Below is a map of where I am heading on this journey. Today at 5 p.m I am hopping on a bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos .

Map for this years trip

Quick sketch I did sitting in JFK:

Airport Sketch

5"7"

Getting ready to board my plane in Hong Kong:

Hong Kong Airport

Here is a random shot taken in Bkk, of one of many shrines you will find scattered about the city. It is common to see numerous people gathered around, praying, socializing, and interacting, on any given day.

Bkk Shrine

Ct. Blocs

2010-01-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

Feel like I have not posted anything about climbing in a while.

Guess its because I have not been climbing as much, or at least outdoors anyways. Seems like it is a warm day here if it reaches 35 degrees.Uuuugh!

Either way here is a little video I slapped together featuring a few different climbers on a bunch of boulder problems found in Connecticut.

Escape from America

2010-01-11T21:27:00.000-08:00

I know this is random, but............

Image found on the home page of Escapeartist.com

Just stumbled across this illustration while I was reading an article about Bali.

I do not believe it is an actual printed magazine, but I do believe it is the art for an actual online magazine titled "Escape from America". I guess its a place for Ex Pats to share info and ideas about how they moved someplace else or found paradise overseas, etc...There are heaps of links and other information about how one might go about relocating to another country.

Check out : Escapeartist.com for more info.

I think the illustration , is amazing. Not sure if it was an existing illo. that they photoshopped the text over or if it was created especially for the magazine.

Pretty cool though!

Finished poster art

2010-01-06T20:12:00.000-08:00

Here is the finished art work for the poster I designed for Prime Climb's Power Struggle 4 bouldering competition. I wanted to keep it pretty flat and as graphic as possible , which is tough for me to do, as I love to over work things. I created the color palette for this from an old Winsor Mc Cay comic strip. If you are interested in seeing the image with text included or to find out about the bouldering competition, visit Prime Climb on Facebook.Look for the event titled Power Struggle 4.

Power Struggle 4 Poster Design

Inspired by the Greek Myth of Sisyphus

11"x17" , Digital

Sisyphus

2010-01-04T17:17:00.001-08:00

We are putting on another bouldering competition this winter at Prime Climb. It will be the fourth bouldering comp we have hosted , and is something we plan to make an annual event.

As in the past this comp will be known as the Power Struggle. So I am working on making a little poster to promote the event. I decided to use the Greek Myth of Sisyphus as the base idea for the story behind the design, for various reasons. For one obviously Sisyphus was faced with a very difficult power struggle. For two, I often feel that bouldering , even though I love it is a sisyphean( both extremely effortful and futile) activity. Especially when climbing is not going so well.

Of course I made some changes to the myth in my illustration, because why not, thats what I do and I wanted to make the picture tell a bit more of a story. From my understanding Sisyphus was not a very cool guy, he started a lot of trouble with Zuess, and violated laws of hospitality by killing guests and travelers. So I didn't feel that his punishment was enough, and in my version he is constantly harassed by two monkeys. One uses the rolling rock as a tread mill, and the other taunts Sisyphus with a large stick that he could potentially use to prop up the rock and escape. Tough time for Sisyphus. Below is my initial thumbnail.

Power Struggle Comp Poster Design

Thumbnail

1.5"x 3"

Below is my rough drawing that I will use to create the final. Most likely some more things will change in the next day or so if time permits. I plan to work on the monkeys a bit and a few other things.

Power Struggle Poster Design

Rough

6"x9"

KRS ONE

2010-01-03T07:31:00.001-08:00

I have been continuing to mess around with Corel Painter 10, when I have a chance. I had an older acrylic grey scale painting I did of KRS ONE, in which I was going to paint over using oils. For now I went ahead and painted it on the computer instead using the oil bristle brushes. Not sure about his likeness, pretty distorted, which I like.A fun experiment for me either way!

Portrait of KRS ONE

Digital

Piet Mondrian follow up

2010-01-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

A while back I created a post with some potential portrait projects. One of them was a gray scale study of the painter Piet Mondrian. I decided to take this one to a finish using Corel Painter 10, a digital painting program. I scanned the gray scale painting( seen below) and painted right over it on another layer on the computer.

Mondrian gray scale painting

9"x15"

Acrylic on board

As I have always been fond of Cezanne's painting , Portrait of Uncle Dominque (seen below), I decided to use it as a color guide/palette for my painting. I began blocking in color using the Oil Bristle brush within painter, and selecting color from Cezanne's painting with the eye dropper tool.

Paul Cezanne

Portrait of Uncle Dominique

What I ended up with is the painting of Mondrian below. I still plan to go ahead and paint over the original grey scale study in oils. As of now I want to learn more about digital painting ,so this made for a good exercise.

Portrait of Piet Mondrian

Digital

Iron Mike follow up

2010-01-01T13:21:00.001-08:00

Iron Mike

6"x9"

Watercolor on Arches 140lb Hot Press

Lately I have been doing a lot more painting with watercolor. I forgot about how much I enjoyed the spontaneity of the medium, and how much I like the fact that I can finish a painting in a few hours. It seems like the faster I paint something when using watercolors the happier I am with results. Unlike acrylics, where I feel like it takes me ages to build the painting up to a level I am happy with.

Although watercolors have earned a reputation for being a pretty unforgiving medium , I think they allow for certain freedoms that others do not! Having the ability to work fast, on paper, with only a few colors, only requiring water, and little to no cleanup makes it a pretty appealing medium to say the least.

So over the next few weeks I am trying to do a watercolor a day. Here is my follow up of Iron Mike.

Hers is a link below to one of Mike Tyson's interviews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4l0ZyKmeNE#watch-main-area

Iron Mike

2009-12-27T21:24:00.001-08:00

Here is a sketch of Iron Mike Tyson from my skecth book. To his side I stared to draw Don King as well. I didn't include King because I never liked him, his hair do, or what he did to Mike Tyson. Say what you want about Iron Mike, but there is no denying that he was a tremendous athlete in the ring, a vicious and brutal champion! I hope this sketch captures a bit of that!!!!!

Iron Mike

Iron Mike with Cus Damato

Random Quakers

2009-12-22T20:00:00.001-08:00

Over the last few weeks I have been working on a project , which involves illustrating some old CT., folklore. For one of them I thought that I was going to go in the direction of one of the sketches below. I needed an image of a confused or out right crazy Quaker woman. So the sketches below are some of what I came up with, although none will end up being used for this particular project, I do enjoy them as stand alone drawings .

Crazed Quaker 1

Quaker 2

Young Quaker girl

with thumbnail of old crazed woman

Old Quaker Woman

West Oakland Beast

2009-12-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

I created a series of images for DungeonTraining.blogspot.com while I was staying out in the Bay area this past fall. I did not get the chance to finish one of them, the West Oakland Beast, so I spent a little bit of time the other day trying to finish it up. I still need to do some work on it and will post the final when it comes together. In this post I decided to also include a little detail of the attack dog, in which is based on my friends dog named Alpha. Alpha and her dad Roman run amuck, chewing on buckets, speakers or whatever they can get their jaws on, during training sessions at the dungeon. They keep the riff raff out!!!!!!

Alpha Detail

This painting as many of my more recent paintings is completed with a very limited palette, Ultramarine blue deep, Cad Lemon yellow, Burnt Sienna , white, and Alizarin. I have learned a lot from working with this limited range of color and is quite the change from the 24 color palette I used on my thesis paintings.

West Oakland Beast

Acrylic on Board

7.5"x9.5"

Childhood influence: Stephen Gammell

2009-12-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Outside influences play a large role in who we become as people and Illustrators, whether we like it or not! I find it very interesting to hear about a particular artists influences and whose work they were looking to for inspiration through their lives. I try and look at my favorite artists, and then the work they were looking at. Most importantly I like to, if at all possible, look at who it was in which their influences were looking at. This gives a lot of insight to where a particular style has evolved from.

For me one of my earliest childhood influences would have to be Stephen Gammell, notably the books, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

By Alvin Schwartz

Illustrated by Stephen Gammell

I believe I obtained this book at fifth grade book fair at my schools library in Wethersfield , Ct.. I have to say that looking back I am actually pretty surprised that they even let us have books like these at that time. Although absolutely masterful, the images in which Gammell created are pretty horrifying, slightly gory to say the least. Some might even say disturbing. Many of which I am sure sent a young boy like me hiding under the covers at night! Without a doubt this must have been an issue at that time.

These books have been included on more than one list of banned books . I was able to find one list of banned books online in which Scary Stories was included. The reason Scary Stories was placed on the list was that they went against religion, and included elements of witchcraft and magic!!!I personally do not find the stories in the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,to be anymore scary, far farfetched, or full of magic , as the ones found in the Bible!

Stephen Gammell

in his studio

Despite some of the negative criticism that Scary Stories has received , in my opinion Gammells work is amongst some of the best. Not always is he creating dark and morbid illustrations as the ones that are found in Scary Stories. Many of his illustrations are full of saturated color, and are quite humorous and energetic. Whether he is working in black and white or in color his unique style of drawing remains consistent, and his amazing ability to compose dynamic compositions always holds true.

The Relatives Came

Cover art

Stephen Gammell

Gammell's style has a wonderful atmospheric feel to it, no matter what medium he uses. He is able to create a look in which objects in the picture fade in and out of fog or mist, and meld into the white space of the page.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Interior Illustration

Many of Gammell's illustrations are designed in a fairly simple manner, often including a single item, object, or figure. Due to his great sense of design and control of value the viewer is always directed to where Gammell wants them to be, right on the center of the action. Gammell's illustrations keep us asking questions, and wanting to know more about what is to happen on the next page!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Interior Illustration

For me Gammell has been, and will remain one of my biggest influences in the world of illustration. I know I am not alone with this as I have found many different blogs paying a tribute to this great artist. I have been trying to find out who his influences were, without any luck. One would think by looking at his illustrations that he may have been influenced by, Gustave Dore, the drawings of Seurat , and perhaps Goya? This is just a guess. Anyone out there that may have some insight to who it is that Gammell looked to for inspiration, please share!!!!

Revised NYC Dog Walker

2009-12-10T07:50:00.000-08:00

Currently I am working on a revision at a larger scale of one of my paintings, The NYC Dog Walker. In this post I wanted to share a little bit about he process I used to create the original piece. For the most part it is pretty straight forward, and like most pieces I start off by drawing tons of small thumbnail sketches. For this one, once I had a thumbnail that I liked (pictured below)I went ahead and ran it through some filters in Photoshop.

Dog Walker Thumbnail
1.5"x2"

After the thumbnail went through the photoshop filters, I went ahead and colorized it blue, as seen below. This image will serve as the final paintings under painting:

Thumbnail after applying Filters

This process of running the sketch through filters, and then colorizing it, makes for some spontaneous patterns, shapes, colors, and textures in which you may not arrive at otherwise. Once I have this done I will print this image out and mount it to a piece of board, and begin to paint on top of it. I have an idea where I want to go with the painting in terms of the figures, as this was worked out in the thumbnail stage. I try not to be a slave to my original skecth and make efforts to hold on to the more abstract shapes and patterns created by the photshop filters. From this point I continue to paint pretty directly, making changes and revisions along the way until I arrive at the final image seen below:

NYC Dog Walker
5"x7"

So the revised version of this painting is going to be a bit larger, measuring about 12"x16" versus the original 5"x7". So I wanted to tighten some things up in the drawing , and make some changes to the dog's, vehicle,etc. Pictured below is the new drawing that will serve as the rough for the new painting!

Revised Dog Walker Sketch

Graphite on paper

6"x9"

Random character, and vehicle designs

2009-12-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Working in a digital format is something I enjoy from time to time. At this point in time I am not as comfortable with digital tools as I am with a regular pencil and paper , or with paint and a brush. Although, I do appreciate the tool and try to make as much time to learn as much about the many applications that are available to create artwork both 2d and 3d. I have included some random character designs I have created over time. Some are from my children's book Norton B. Nice and some others are just things I do when I am bored. These are created by using a combination of Adobe Photoshop, and Corel Painter. All of these began with a pencil drawing which is later scanned into the computer and then painted. Sometimes I will create an illustration completely on the computer, but most of the time I begin with a regular pencil drawing on paper first. Either way everything comes down to drawing!!!!!!!!!

Winterg the Wizard

Digital

Norton

Digital

Norton as the monster

Digital

Mother

Digital

Motorbikes

Digital

Blue Monkeys

Digital

Wagon Wheel Final

2009-11-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

Wagon Wheel Rough
Graphite 8"x8"

The earlier Wagon Wheel post was a quick look at some of the preliminary drawings, thumbnails, and doodles I used to arrive at the final. This has been a fun project where I was given complete artistic freedom. When asked to create this piece , I was not given any real guidelines other than to make something fun and cool. Even though it is to be used for a rock climbing related business,(The Wagon Wheel Co-Opt), I was told that it didn't have to do much at all with climbing.

In some ways this is great to have this sort of freedom to create, and in other ways makes it tough due to all he directions in which it could go. We went through various concepts, such as a Pulp style cover, a simple shot of a camper, and a few others. In the end I came up with this final sketch. One might ask how does this relate to climbing, Hueco Tanks, or the Wagon Wheel ?

In my eyes it goes like this:

There is a climber who is in transit, crash pad upon his back, accompanied by his trusty canine companion. They are stuck in a city, that I hope resembles El Paso, which is near where the Wagon Wheel is located. In the air above is a dream bubble in which contains the thoughts of both the dog and the climber about how great getting to their campground at the Wagon Wheel will be. So included is imagery of their girlfriends awaiting their arrivals, one of their friends floating around with golf clubs, and of course an image of Hueco Tanks North Mountain in the back ground. Also they are both thinking about how much easier life would be if they had a jet powered camper to fly from climbing area to climbing area.

The final painting will be acrylic on panel with some digitally integrated items/text.!

Rickshaw Challenge

2009-11-23T06:52:00.001-08:00

As all guys, I of course have a dream vehicle . For some it is a red Porsche, for others it might be an old school Camaro, or maybe a Benz or a sporty Beamer. For whatever reason we are born with inherited attractions to certain things ,whether it be a particular color, a flavor of soda, or a type of music. If you know me , or have had a good look at this blog and my art it should come as no surprise that my dream ride would be a pimped out Tuk Tuk or Rickshaw.

Ever since my first experience whipping around in one of these high powered go carts in South East Asia I have been obsessed with them. Not quite sure what it is about them that makes me so obsessed. Maybe it is the fact that they still embody the old school design relative to vintage vehicles of yesterday. In the modern world of today this style of design has been left behind. Except for in developing parts of the world, where this style still strives. Due to its small size, in large congested cities , old school Tuk Tuk's can be seen out maneuvering the most modern of vehicles. Perhaps my connection with this comes from growing up as the son of a guy who loved to drive old clunkers. When I was just a baby I was carted around in an old Chevy Vega, then an old Ford F 1-50, followed by a 1970's Bronco, a 1970's El camino, and in current times my Pop's still drives a 1970 Chevy Nova.

Vintage Chevy Vega

At any rate there is something I love about these three wheeled vehicles in which has driven me to create numerous pieces of illustration about them. I believe that in Thailand these little machines are referred to as Tuk Tuk's , whether they are powered by a motor or by a human. In India they are known as Rickshaws, and I am unsure of the name they go by in places like Cambodia and elsewhere, but different variations exist in many parts of the world. Tuk Tuks, and Rickshaws , etc. come in many styles and colors, and are commonly decorated to suite the drivers tastes. In this post I have included some paintings that I have done illustrating Thai Tuk Tuk's found in and around the Capitol Bangkok. Also included are numerous photo's in which I took of various Tuk Tuk's throughout Thailand and Cambodia, and an example of the Rickshaw found in India.

Bkk, Tuk Tuk Ride
24"x48"
Acrylic on panel

Tuk Tuk Driver
5"x5"
Acrylic on Panel

Tuk Tuk Sketches
Graphite on paper

Indian Rickshaw

Thai Tuk Tuk Taxi Bus in Ayutthayah

Cambodian Taxi Tuk Tuk

View of Angkor from Tuk Tuk

Bkk Tuk Tuk

Bkk night Tuk Tuk

Bkk Tuk Tuk 2

Bicycle Tuk Tuk , Chiang Mai

Southern Thai Style Tuk Tuk

Aonang

Currently I am trying to assemble a team to participate in something known as the Rickshaw Challenge, check it out at: http://rickshawchallenge.com/

If all goes well we plan to partake in the event this coming July. It seems like a wild, fun way to see India. So far I have a few friends on board and it looks like it is going to happen. Hopefully I am going to create a blog dedicated to this endeavor, as well as have a benefit art show to try and help fund things. I believe that a lot of the money that in which it costs to participate goes to charity in India, something that makes it more appealing to me as well.

Below are a few fun videos, one in which I slapped together quickly from some old footage, and another of someone doing some Rickshaw stoppy stunts!! Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAwenLnBnLs&feature=related

Thai Tuk Tuk Ride 2007

Wagon Wheel Preliminary Sketches

2009-11-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

El Paso Sketch

3"x5"

My favorite part of the illustration process is the thumbnail sketch phase. This is the stage where the basic shapes that will make up the composition of the painting as well as the basic overall look of the characters, vehicles, etc., will be worked out. I try to do at least 20 to 50 tiny drawings that do not measure more than a few inches on either side keeping them very loose and free flowing. Next I will edit the sketches and pick a few that I like. I may combine different elements from the various thumbnails using tracing paper or photoshop to make a final composite image. Having thumbnails plus composites/variations of them gives me a lot of different compositions to choose from. I believe that when designing an image one must try all possibilities in terms of composition and design, include everything and edit the material later. Never should your first sketch become the final!

Once I have a composition that is working I will go ahead and work it up in scale and detail. In this post I have included some of the thumbnails recently completed while working on my initial plans for a painting I am doing for the Strongs and the Wagon Wheel Co-Opt in Hueco Tanks, Texas . The piece has gone through a lot of stages and I have done tons of sketches while working on it. Most of the skecthes in this post are minuscule not measuring much more than 1.5 inches on either side. I will post the final composition soon, which has moved pretty far away from these initial concepts, although elements of these will be found in the final.

Wagon Wheel rough 3"x 5"

Thumbnail1, 2"x 3"

Thmbnail2 , 1.5"x 2.5"

Thumbnail 3, 1.5"x 2.5"

Tiny sketch, 1"x 1.5"

Tiny sketch 2, 1"x 1.5"

Tiny sketch of a dog 1"x 1.5"

Utah Bouldering

2009-10-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

Returning to a great climbing area after a long period of time has passed is always interesting. Arriving in Joe's Valley after almost 10 years conjured up memories of the place that had been long suppressed. Memories of my cross country journey's as a young lad with my dog Ira and my friends Josh, Phil, Nadeau, and Watson rushed through my mind. Details of certain boulders, trails, and trees resurfaced from deep within my memory banks and made it seem like it was yesterday that I last visited. As a climber it is always nice to return and to complete climbs/boulder problems that had been to difficult in the past. Revisiting a place and climbing things that were far to challenging in the past can certainly leave you feeling as if you have progressed in your craft,which is always nice!

In other ways it's somewhat tough to come back to these places after such a long time, as for me it makes me think about where the past 10 years of my life have gone. It's a reminder of the fact that I am getting older and those care free days of traveling , sleeping in the dirt, and living on tuna fish and pasta are long gone. So in some ways revisitation of these places are revisitations of my past which lead me to question my present. Questions about where I would be in life had I been a little more focused on things other than climbing rocks. While climbing in Joe's I began to analyze the amount of energy in which I have put into climbing a rocks, and began to wonder about the bazillion other things this energy could have been applied to.

Thinking about this put me in sort of a dark place for a bit, and I do not think it should have! In the end I truly believe that the rich experiences I have had as a climber, the people I have met, and journey's that climbing has taken me on have made me who I am today. The memories I have accumulated through my years of traveling and climbing are priceless. Although I am without a lot of money, a house with a white picket fence, or a fancy car, I still feel as fortunate as any!No amount of money or material objects can replace the great times that I have been lucky enough to have!

The current battle is now to find a way to stay active as a climber while continuing to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to creating Art!

Well then, let me end this rant and share a little video that my friend Will and I put together while climbing in Utah:

Utah Classics from w w on Vimeo.