I had been interviewing fellow illusrators and publishing the article in a Japanese magazine called ILLUSTRATION （イラストレーション）for a little more than two years. The magazine is now going through a big direction change, and the popular feature of foreign (from Japanese point of view) illustrators have ended for now.
I specifically recommend these intervies to illustration students and starting out illustrators, who are working really hard but sometimes have doubt in their future as a professional artist. I am sure their words will inspire you, and encourage you to keep going.
I don't like it when day light savings time ends, and day gets shorter and shorter. I get the annual winter blues.
Today is Winter Solstice. Yes, the shortest day time of the year. And, there is something to celebrate: Look at the bright side, the day can only get longer from here on!
Well, of course, colder weather awaits in front of us in January and February. But I always feel like today is the day I can exhale and think that the worst has passed.
Have a very Merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, and whatever religious or non religious holiday you are celebrating. And, a happy new year.
See you again in 2012, everyone.
PS: This illustration was originally created for The Atlantic Magazine's Gallery section, published in the middle of the horrible winter last year.
It's December. This is the time of the year when I look back and give the light of the day to the sadly killed jobs for one reason or another. Yap.
This year, it happened in January, and I knew immediately that it was going to be my "killed job of the year"
My first TIME Magazine cover that never was.
Yap.
When TIME called and asked me to do an illustration, that, by itself, I was really excited. I have worked with TIME in past, but not so often, so phone call from them is always exciting.
I think the good thing was that when they initially said 'half a page or full page" later turned into "maybe possibly cover", then "maybe possibly a cover and interior illo", I didn't take it too seriously.
Oh of course, I did take the job very seriously. But I have worked long enough to know not to keep my hopes too high when I hear something that sounds just too good to be true. (Although, I know Tim and Edel and a few others here on Drawger have done multiple TIME covers in past. For me, it is still a dream. And I am in peace with it. )
When eventually, the magazine has decided to go with a photo for the cover, I wasn't surprised. The photo felt more like TIME to me anyway.
It was a bit sad when eventually neither of my illustrations got published. But hey, the one with the tiger and piano got accepted into both American Illustration and Society of Illustrators annual, and then published in my first monograph (I will talk about this book some other time). I cannot ask for more. Thank you Andree Kahlmorgan and Emily Crawford for giving me an opportunity to work on an image that I am really proud of.
It was an article about tiger mothers. Remember, it was all the rage in early 2011? So, initial cover ideas were on top, drawing actual tiger. Then they asked me to draw the big mother and small daughter, which would look great as photos, but not so interesting as illustrations, I thought.
I found the image on the right on TIME website. Works so much better in photo than illustration, I think.
This was my pitch for the cover, and although killed, I am still very happy with the image. Most of the illustrations I do have a lot of details, but I am a big fan of simple graphic image.
PS: Comments welcomed. But do not write things like "illos are better than photos" kind of stuff, please. Thanks!
Tomorrow evening at The Visual Arts Gallery is an opening for a show The Influentials. It is a show of SVA female alumni and their mentors showing works together side by side. I don't know how I got to invited to be in this show of mainly fine artists, many of them very established, but anyway, I will be showing, together with Thomas Woodruff, who was my undergraduate illustration instructor, then grad school personal advisor, and currently my boss/chair at BFA Illustration program where I have been teaching since 2003.
I wasn't sure what to show at first. I wanted to show something I hadn't shown anywhere, which, in process, is not illustration.
When last severely cold winter was getting started, University of the Arts kindly invited me to participate in the Von Hess Artist Residency, to create a limited edition multi separation offset print with the master printer Amanda D'Amico. Since the print got finished, I was looking for an opportunity to show. So, this will be what I will be showing. Without Amanda's literary 'master' skill, I would have never be able to make this 6 color separation prints. Although the original image was created last year for Blowup show at the Society of Illustrators, this new version is nothing like digital print outs.
Opening reception is tomorrow. (invite on the bottom of this post).
If you have time, or if you are already planning on opening hopping at Chelsea's new gallery season, please schedule a stop at The Visual Arts Gallery.
Big thank you to everyone at the gallery, everyone at UArts, especially Matt and Amanda, and Thomas Woodruff.
These are the six separations. 1)gray 2)blue gray 3)first red 4)second red 5)skin color 6)white dots for flowers
I had no idea any color on Pantone is pretty much be mixed from generic print ink
inks, inks, pretty but stinks.
cleaning the plate before printing
very old fashioned offset printer. It is a machine, but the result depends on how the master printer adjust the machine according to the image as well as the weather of the day and other factors.
color getting printed...
Amanda checking the alignment. Minor adjustments are made often.
almost there.
final prints finished on the machine.
This is the beauty of the print that never exist in digital output. White dots are printed last with white ink. To make the color crisp, white was printed twice. For 6 color separations, print was pulled 7 times for the result.
