SCADDY and ADDY® WINNER!!!!

At some point during spring break I received a mail with a gold award that I won at the SCADDY awards show, back in January. I was totally surprised ‘cause, though I knew I got into the show with my Frank Zappa piece, no one ever told me I had actually won an award! I was also happy ‘cause the winning pieces from that show would go straight into the ADDY® awards which is a national advertising competition here in the US. Today I’m uploading a pic of the award and I am also taking the chance to celebrate that today I got an email saying that I won a National student ADDY - award, which is GREAT!!!! Now I’m gonna have to go to Texas to pick up my prize!!!  (if I get the money for the plane tickets or something…Hahahaha)  Cheers!

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Hace más de un mes recibí un correo con un premio que gané en los SCADDY awards, en Enero de este año. Fue sorpendente porque aunque sabia que había entrado en la exposición con mi ilustración de Frank Zappa,  no sabia que había ganado premio! Lo bueno es que las piezas ganadoras de ese show tenían entrada directa a los ADDY® awards que son una competencia nacional de publicidad aquí en US. Hoy subo una foto del premio y aprovecho para contarles que también hoy recibí un email, diciendo que gané un National Stundet Addy Award!!!! Lo cual me hace muy feliz!! Ahora me toca ir a Texas a recoger mi premio si es que consigo dinero para el viaje jejejeje!

Out to Launch!

As usual, lots of things happening these days, which is fun but at the same time it can be overwhelming. One of them was Out to Launch, the signature career event of SCAD Atlanta where really talented senior and grad students exhibit their work to clients from the art industry. I was invited to participate, which was a real honor and surprise but at the same time I wasn’t sure of what to expect since I’m just starting to develop my portfolio and some of the participants have been at SCAD for more than one year. At some point I was scared but in the end, I humbly tried to do my best and I guess it worked out well.  It definitely was an eye-opening experience because it can actually give you and idea of what it means to go pro with your stuff.  Sometimes you wish you could stay in the studio working on your pieces and forget about the rest but is not that simple. However, it is fun (needless to say it is extremely important) to start thinking about promotion, clients, employers and all those things happening out there in the professional world while you figure out how are you gonna get there.  Here some pics of my booth with some new pieces that I’ll upload soon!

Morning light study

I was checking out Dice Tsutsumi’s site and I saw some really beautiful studies that inspired me to start doing some studies myself. Sometimes I feel like time goes by so quick and I just can’t seem to do everything I want to. For that reason I’ve been trying to push myself to take some time and do stuff beside school. I guess these studies could be a great chance to do that and to improve some coloring skills.  I’m pretty sure I’ll get stressed out and frustrated but eventually I’ll learn to work fast.  It’s always fun to do this type of things, though.

(#1)

(#2)

And these are part of a larger series of images that I don’t think I can share just yet since they’re all part of a bigger project that`s gonna take a while to be finished. The only reason why I’m showing this is because I actually feel happy with what I did and I finally can say that I’ve found something interesting about my own work that I want to pursue. Now I don’t wanna sound pretentious at all but you know what? these things rarely happen; in fact, most of the time you’ll be like “oh a hate my work…” or, “oh, I’m not sure yet” and in the best case “yeah, whatever, could have been better” so, to hell with that this time. This time I’ll say, yes I’m happy with what I did. Is far from being the greatest shit on earth, but I’m still glad I did it. 

Digital, 8” x 11.7” - 10.6” x 7.7”

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Y estas son dos de una serie más larga de imágenes que aún no puedo mostrar porque hacen parte de un proyecto que tomará más tiempo en ver la luz. No obstante, debo admitirlo, me siento feliz de haber llegado a estas piezas. Por fin veo algo que realmente me interesa de mi trabajo y que definitivamente voy a seguir explorando. Será un camino largo, pero es un comienzo. 

Digital, 21 x 30 cm, 27 x 19.5 cm

Alice

#1

#2

Ok, these are some of the pieces I did in the last weeks. First: Alice in Wonderland. Uhm. BIG challenge, and actually this is a very personal approach so don’t expect anything related to Disney’s Alice, nor to Tenniel’s Alice. It`s really awesome to have some time to explore your own interests, but it can also be very demanding and difficult. Anyway, I’m glad I did this ‘cause for some reason I’m starting to feel like there’s something hidden, something that needs to be discovered and that If I keep pushing a little (maybe a lot) more, I’ll get it out.

Two out of 4 pieces.

Digital, 11 “ x 15.7” (#1), 8" x 11.8" (#2)

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Aquí algunas de las imagines que hice durante las últimas semanas. Primero: Alicia en el país de las maravillas. Tremendo reto y la verdad esta es una visión bastante personal, no esperen nada relacionado con la Alicia de Disney o la de Tenniel.  No obstante es muy, muy bueno tener tiempo para explorar algunos intereses personales. Creo que empiezas a ver cosas y tener ciertas intuiciones sobre tu propio trabajo que con algo más de esfuerzo, tarde o temprano terminarán cuajando. 2 de 4 imágenes con las que me siento felíz.

Digital, 28 x 40 cm(#1), 20x30cm (#2)

   

Baba Yaga

Stuff I've been working on lately. This is a series inspired by the russian tale Baba Yaga.  It was a really interesting and challenging project. And though I'm not crazy about the result, it wasn`t that bad either.

Graphite and digital.   

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Serie inspirada en el cuento ruso Baba Yaga.  Un proyecto difícil pero divertido y aunque no quedé totalmente satisfecho con el final, tampoco me pareció tan mal. 

Grafito y digital

Ghost I

Lately I'm leaning towards traditional media and I wanna experiment a little bit more with both digital and traditional stuff. This is a quick test. 

Pencil, watercolor and digital.

13" x 8"

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Un rápido experimento entre técnica tradicional y Digital.

Lápiz, Acuarela y Digital

34 X 22 cm

Ode to a Nightingale

Inspired by John Keats' poem

Digital,  8" X 11"

Zappa!

Another really fun technique, The theme: rock goddess. And I chose Mr Zappa.

Watercolors over Acrylic monoprint  11" x 14"

Burrowing Owl Wine Label

Exploring techniques

The main purpose of this exercise was to create a wine label (In this case Burrowing Owl Winery).  The technique was rather difficult but really interesting.

Pastels over watercolors 16"x16"

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Explorando técnicas. El objetivo del ejercicio fue crear un sello para un vino (En este caso Burrowing Owl Winery).  Técnica totalmente nueva para mi, difícil pero divertido.

Pasteles sobre Acuarelas 40 X 40 cm

If you wanna see more sketches just visit my tumblr and check 'em out!

Sketches!

Finally I get some time to upload stuff.  I've bee working on several things lately but let's start with the basics....sketching..... After dozens of doodles and scribbles (yeah sure....maybe less) I can say that I am starting to gain a little small tiny bit of confidence again, still it's a long way to go but what the heck, I'm giving it a try and that's something.  I wish I could find more time to draw more, or better say, I wish i knew how to optimize my time to be able to draw more.  Anyway, hope I`m getting somewhere.  I realized that I don't take good care of page composition so I have to cut drawings from here and there and then put them all together in Photoshop , I'll try to work on that but hey! it's a sketchbook, is not meant to be pretty.....(until you see James Jean's sketchbooks, right?).

These are mostly 2-3 minutes drawings and it's killing me.......'cause it makes me fell like I really suck on this, but then sometimes I get more time and I do worst so.... nevermind 

pen and/or ball point pen on paper

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Por fin algo de tiempo para subir cosas, Aquí algunos bocetos, de los varios que he hecho ultimamente.  Aún falta mucho mucho para realmente hacer algo decente pero algo es algo.  Al menos es un comienzo.  En fin, ojala algún día suba cosas más decentes, pero por ahora, seguiré tratando de encontrar todo el tiempo posible para trabajar más.

esfero y/o micropunta sobre papel

Lemon Bars!

Lemon Bars!  This was a fun class assignment.  Although i don't feel confident with traditional media (It's been a looong time since I did something "traditional"), this came along decent.  It was created for "They Draw and Cook", a very fun website for illustrated recipes,  You can take a look here!

Watercolors on illustration board

Bacánika

Piece for Bacánika Magazine. This is an illustration for an article giving instructions on how to "take" or endure a Chiva party (don't know how  to exactly translate that...). Not bad for a day of work. Oscar Abril AD.

Digital

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Ilustración para revista Bacánika. El articulo se titula Instrucciones para aguantar una chiva rumbera.  Oscar Abril D.A.

Digital

2nd Place winner!!!

Wow! it's been a crazy week.  tons of work... including writing like hell.  I haven't even had time to celebrate that I got second place at Generate!!!! YAY!  that's a good start! so there's gonna be a sweeeeet price! and other stuff but hopefully I'll get a spot at Little Pink book's website!  I'll get back on that as soon as I get more news.

Now the I look at the image again i  would definitely change some things but that was the point of the challenge... to come up with something in 24h. 

By the way the image was created for Little Pink Book, a website dedicated to promote women success.

Anyway...I'm happy for it so, cheers!

"a bit rusty"

It's been some time since my last post  but from now on I might be posting things on a regular basis. (or at least I'll try).  It's also been a while since the last time I did figure drawing (hence, I'm a bit rusty... Actually, I suck!).  Among the sketches I've done so far this are somewhat not so bad... Anyway, I really expect to get better on this but for now there's only one thing left to do: just keep on doing awful scribbles 'till I get to some decent sketches.

By the way I got tumblr, as a sort of exercise to practice some quick writing and to share pretty much nothing important.

Monkey Grinder

This one was for SoHo magazine.  First of all I'd like to thank LuisK (AD) for giving me the chance and specially the time (which rarely happens) to do this. Now, I gotta say It was a challenge 'cause I wasn't quite fond of the article I was supposed to illustrate.  However,  setting apart my personal opinions, I did found a couple of good ideas to work with.  The article was a sort of tirade about ecologists and the part I focused on was on how huge multinational companies, enterprises, governments, etc take advantage of this subject to supposedly contribute to the cause while  promoting their own brands or just turning the environmental problems into a new world business.  Basically, widespread hypocrisy (Nothing new right?).   Anyway,  I like the way it all turned out. Somehow I was able to give a personal commentary on the subject, and not just illustrate the writers opinions (which in this case I barely share). Hope you like it!

Digital

SoHo magazine #136

Publications

It's been a while since my last post. I've been doing lots of stuff (unfortunately not exactly related with my work)  and I believe it's gonna be like that for a couple of weeks more.  However I`m really exited 'cause as soon as I'm done with all of it, I will go straight into my drawing and illustration again.  For now I have two great news.  Two months ago (yes, a little late but... you know what they say!) I was invited to participate in LaMaga,  a great digital magazine that promotes colombian graphic artists.  Thanks to DoñaGloria team for the invitation, It is a real honor to be part of this.

On other news, finally this month Furiamag (a new digital magazine for young colombian artists) has launched it's first issue and I gotta say it was worth waiting for it .  It's wicked!  A really beautiful project that kinda reminds me of another art magazine I used to read (BAK magazine).  And not only was I selected to participate but I'm also part of the standout artists, which is great!  Huge honor!  Thanks a lot to furiamag team!