Shout out from Philebrity.com

WHOA! I've been honorably mentioned on the superblog, Philebrity.com about the Nation of Evil Men show. Among the favorite pieces chosen, my Dahmer piece was one!



My piece is on the bottom right on the green paper.

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Drape Drape: Sewing Japanese

Surprisingly, I've had more free time the past month than I had anticipated. 

I'm even doing TWO different prints for the ANOEM show, which opens this Saturday, February 5 at Masthead Print Studio, 340 Brown Street. My last minute print was an idea to do a piece on Jeffrey Dahmer. A Nation of Evil Men, indeed.

The upcoming Age of Reptiles show will open on February 25 at Paradigm Gallery, 2020 South Street. I plan on starting on this project ASAP. Weather prediction: screen print with a chance of repeats.

Most importantly, I've been chipping away at more of my Japanese pattern books lately. Although, I have not committed myself to making all of the garments in this book, Drape Drape, it looks as though I will complete a good amount of them by the time we reach the Spring/Summer seasons! Hooray!

This book is completely in Japanese, but this guide by label-free comes in handy when determining measurements.

A peek at the Drape Drape book, photos from lulalouise:

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A Nation of Evil Men: Elizabeth Bathory

The show, A Nation of Evil Men, curated by Sam Heimer and hosted by Shawn Hileman of Masthead Print Studio, includes depictions of infamous evil people throughout history. The show opens on Saturday, February 5 at 6pm at 340 Brown Street, Philadelphia.

History Lesson, please!

Elizabeth Bathory was born in Transylvania in 1560, married to Count Ferenc Nadasdy at the age of 15, had four children between the age of 25 and 35, and widowed at age 51. She was known as a beautiful, intelligent, and well-educated woman in Transylvania, but also obsessed with remaining that way. She believed that the blood of young women was the secret of eternal youth. For four years until her death in 1614, she abducted, tortured, murdered young women in the area for the purposes of bathing in their blood. There are implications that the story of Dracula is strongly influenced by Elizabeth Bathory's obsession with blood.

She is gruesome tale and has now inspired this piece, hundreds of years later:

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Sketchbook Development

I've been recently developing a sketchbook for my most recent class project, sketches of Philadelphia. This class demands a lot of drawing from observation and the usage of color - Most of these things, I do not practice on a regular basis. I've enjoyed my experiences so far: I've gone to the zoo, gotten a lot of the urban landscape of Philadelphia, the library, and most recently the Wagner Museum by Temple University's campus.

I'm hoping to start a trend of visiting a new place every week for this class. Anthony Pedro has accompanied me on some outings, who has an incredibly keen eye and an effortless drawing style. 

Some sketches from the past few weeks:

Penland Summer 2011 Catalogue Cover

Guess who's on the cover of the Penland catalogue?

Yep. That's me!


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Sketchbook Project Submission

This year, I am participating in the Sketchbook Project. This is a sketchbook that invites participants from all over the globe to fill a moleskine sketchbook with sketches, drawings, collages, and everything under the sun according (loosely) to one of the many themes that they offer. I chose the theme of "Jackets, Blankets, and Sheets" and chose to draw, from one cover to the other, patterns upon patterns.

This is a preview of the sketchbook: (will post the page by page scans soon!)

Many of the pages were blockprinted with an image of a jacket or an image of a bed to be filled. I used prismacolor markers to draw most of these patterns and chose to keep it playful and sketch-like.

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A Nation of Evil Men Show Opening

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From Sam Heimer's blog:

Saturday, February 5 · 6:00pm - 10:00pm
Masthead Print Studio

340 Brown St.

Philadelphia, PA

Masthead, ASOP and the Philly Cartoonist Society presents an expose of the faces of evil that make history grimly entertaining. A collection of the debased, comically villainous, perverted, violent, controversial,and grotesque figures that were truly stranger than fiction. These faces and persona have been the fodder for a million books, movies, history channel specials, and bad jokes; A Nation of Evil Men will bring them all together for your viewing pleasure.

Hosted by Shawn Hileman

Curated by Sam Heimer

Participants Include:

Jeffro Kilpatrick

Paul Romano

Kirsten Harper

Sam Heimer

Justin Gray

Jay Bevenour

Christian Patchell

James Heimer

Mike Wohlberg

Jennifer Gin

Matt Cavanaugh

Tom Augustino

Amy Houser

Paul Palcko

Mark Price

Anthony Pedro

Kevin Mercer

George Tan

Eamon Dougherty

Justin Miller

JP Flexner

Christine Larsen

Tim Durning

Brian Meitz

Max Gordon

Shawn Hileman

And more...

Adbuction Print

My digital camera is no longer with us. It does not want to turn on. It does not want to charge the battery. It does not want to read any SD cards. Its stubbornness has got the best of it. Hopefully, I'll be able to scrounge up some change and save up for a new one in the coming months. I'm open to recommendations on cameras.

The lack of a camera has motivated me to start scanning my projects, which I have been putting off for a long time.

This print was for the Hallowed Halloween show at Proximity Gallery that my friend, Sam Heimer, put together beautifully. It was a really fun project to complete and I had the opportunity to work on it for months in preparation.

"The Abduction" by Jen Gin.
screenprint, block print, ink on paper



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Kickin' New Coat

This past winter, I made myself a new coat. It was time to retire the puffy thing and move on to something that looks more grown up. I found a pattern from one of my Japanese pattern books, "Sweet Dress Recipe" for a new coat.

This is the new coat that I've made for myself. Sadly to say, my camera was on its last legs at the time. It did not open any of the pictures, yet I could see the thumbnail preview. The camera now no longer turns on. Womp womp...

The coat turned out great. It fits me perfectly and it helped me shake out all of the gray and black in my closet.

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Child's Vest

On one hand, I am very glad that the holiday madness has ended. On the other hand, I'm not too excited to return to work. In the past few weeks, I've made and wrapped many presents. I'm especially proud of this vest for my nephew. He is currently four years old and loves to play in the snow!

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Final Print Collection!

In the final stretch of my print class, we had to design a collection of prints: 2 main prints with 3 coordinates that matched. The 2 main patterns were supposed to be different in aesthetic, motif, and structure and this is what I came up with.

Sea Exploration and Air Exploration.

My inspirations for this project came from the writings of Jules Verne. The idea was to make imagery that alluded to what people predicted could be possible for the future during the turn of the victorian era: flying machines and underwater exploration. When I was very little, I always thought I'd be wearing silver spacesuits and driving a hover car. We'll see if those things ever happen.

A Swarm of Moths

This is my latest project. The concept is to create a repeat pattern that deals with camouflage using nature as inspiration. I started reading Biomimicry by Janine Benyus, which is all about how we can learn to create a better society with better technology with better ways to fee ourselves simply by looking to nature. Why do we keep reinventing the wheel?

The moths are hand painted in gouache and manipulated in photoshop (I finally updated from CS3 to CS5 and it is a dream!). The branch background is of cut tree branches, originally intended as staffs for last year's Halloween wizard costumes, and photographed on a black background. I dropped in a green pinstripe in the black background for a punch of color.

The same pattern mapped into an interior bedroom space with matching pillows:

Old City Windows Student/Recent Grad Winner

Yep, that would be ME! My letter that later dispells my complete and utter surprise at the opening:

Hooray!

Rooftops project - The final!

I realized that I never posted the finished product for the rooftops project. This is done with marker and ink and it's all about creatures hanging out on rooftops! Anything can happen at night, I imagine that wildcats and mice climb up and down ladders while the entire world owns a lot of birds and birdcages.

Design Philadelphia

The Design Philadelphia events have been really enlivening the city the past week! Fortunately, I've been able to attend both panels of Fashion Forward: A Two Part Series on Sustainable Fashion and Philadelphia.

The second installment of the Fashion Forward panel was just last night and it was incredible! The panelists were Natalia Allen from Design Futurist, Kristin Kantner of Deviant Jeans, Seun Olubudon of Duke & Winston, and Nicole Fisher of NIC*FISH. Each of them shared their own origin stories of how they built their own companies within the past few years, the trials and obstacles they withstood, and gave advice on the challenges that designers face for the up and coming.

It was inspiring to know that people can be successful, even during a time of an economic recession - especially those involved in the fashion industry. They didn't cut corners with materials and design/manufacture locally and also consider what it means to be responsible in design. They all touched on subjects ranging from innovative materials that can biodegrade, cradle to cradle design, target markets, and capital.

Making It

I was accepted into the juried alumni exhibition, Making It. This show was at the University of the Arts and featured 38 artists that graduated from their programs between 2005 and 2010. I am a 2007 graduate.

The opening was last night, October 8, from 5pm-7pm and the turnout was great, met some great folks, and the work included was excellent!

I had some challenges figuring out how to install three yards of hand printed fabric. The solution was to buy 4' dowels and attach the ends of wooden chairs to each side of the dowel and have the fabric rolled up like a scroll with two dowels.

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Old City Window Display

As a part of DesignPhiladelphia, the businesses in the Old City district of Philadelphia are paired with designers to create an interesting window display. This year, I chose to participate and was paired with MG Real Estate, located on 20 N. 3rd Street, right above Market Street. They have a wonderfully huge window!

Vote for your favorite display via web or text my window number #3939 to 215-259-VOTE!



I wanted to create an ethereal and natural looking installation, utilizing the depth of the window. After thinking about how to use the space, I decided on making MANY paper mobiles as inspired by oh happy day's blog post.

In total, there are 78 hanging mobiles in the window.


Step One.

Doodle on hundreds of feet of vellum.

Step Two

Cut up the vellum to 1" x 3" strips

Step Three

Get to sewing!

Rooftops Pattern

Fo my next repeat pattern, I am taking inspiration from the world's first known town - Catal Huyuk. With its mosaic-like town structure and lack of space between buildings, this is an opportunity to create a unique landscape that borders on the surreal.

sketch of idea

The buildings are drawn with marker, ladders and cats with ink.

The Finish Line

First Repeat Pattern for Print Design Studio Class

This week has been very productive! My first repeat project has been completed. The lotus flowers have found an icy pond. The repeat is 27" x 27", painted in gouache. The background is painted gouache on illustration board with a layer of tracing paper adhered on top to simulate cracked ice.

The tracing paper ice

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Not only did I finish this project, the gallery deadline for the upcoming Halloween show is also this week. I finished the entire print - all eight colors - with ink, hand drawn on top. I cut the mat to size with beveled edges.

Opens at Proximity Gallery on October 1st!

Lily Pads and Lotus Flowers

One section of my 27" x 27" repeat for 60" wide cloth


I've been going crazy trying to get this color right! After mixing multiple color palettes, I think I've found where "chill" is on the spectrum. The background will change from white to.... ??? I'm going to experiment with making textures with tracing paper and painting geometric shapes in varying shades of gray.


Staying frosty!

Concept Board and Color Mixing

I can now say that I am a Master's candidate for Textile Print Design!


Classes have officially started and I am venturing into my first project: a floral print design based on an assigned color word and an assigned tactile word. The color word is "chill" and the tactile word is "punctual". The word, punctual, threw me for a loop as I scrambled to equate punctual to the sense of touch. I associated it with clear and defined edges with a smooth texture.


We made concept boards for color. This is mine (at the third try):

Mixing colors to match the concept board:

The assignment is to create a floral motif that fits in a 27" x 27" repeat that will span across 54" cloth, typical size of cloth for home furnishings. For the flower, I am choosing the lotus flower. Tonight, I'll be working on abstracting the lotus into a "punctual" and "chill" design while experimenting on some textured gesso on paper, mesh, and tracing paper.

Halloween Project Underway

Attempting to spend as much time on this as possible, I haven't gotten as far as I would like, but this project's imagery is coming along much better than what was originally planned. There is more depth to the image and a narrative is beginning...

The image now has trees with eyes and a town in the background, while something spooky is happening in the woods.

Since this will be printed, I like the idea of using a border around the entire image since I will not be giving this a real frame. The border will be stamped on to the paper.

Panorama Quickie

We went on a row at the shorehouse to bug island and played with some jellyfish.

Birthday Makings

I thought it would be a great idea to have a summer camp birthday party this year to ring in the year of 25!

This may be too soon: It's Pin-the-cap-on-the-oil-spill !


We also had a slew of good treats from funfetti cake, hot dogs, strawberries, and beet cole slaw.

Glassblowing Tool Pouch

Complete!

After some stamp carving and screen printing, the tool pouch is complete. The forest print is on the outside, while a fleur de lis is stamped on the first pocket. This is a gift for my friend, Mitchell, who is visiting on Thursday (right on time!) who loves his home city of Louisville, KY – The fleur de lis is the city’s symbol.

The pouch measures approximately 30” x 35” with four pockets of varying sizes around 9” x 5” each to fit the appropriate tools for glassblowing.