Lightness and Weight

Making some new work for a print that will be in a show at The Clip Art Gallery (put together by the lovely folks that bring you The Soapbox Gallery!) called "Lightness and Weight"..

I'm exploring more clouds and moving further towards some buildings.

Carving Stamps

I've been preparing for Flag Festival, a Victorian-themed festival in Old City, Philadelphia on June 11. I've been creating hand-carved stamps, carved out of rubber and mounted onto pieces of wood that were branch pieces. The images include, hot air balloons, ladders, gears, and feathers so far.

In the next few weeks, I'll be getting together prints and other goods for sale and will have a print-your-own-shirt station for the festival goers! Come out and join the fun!

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Sweet Summer Shirt Dress

I love my Japanese pattern books. They are full of endless and easy clothing possibilities, which is just what I need since I've decided that I wouldn't buy any more clothing and commit myself to making clothing.

I made a new summer shirt dress from Sweet Dress Recipe:

zigzag!

Even though I can't read Japanese, the book makes everything super easy with illustrated steps and good pattern layout. All of the patterns offered in the book are on one big page overlapping each other. In some books, it is impossible to find all of the patterns pieces and Sweet Dress Recipe makes it easy for your by organizing patterns by page number.

Sketch -> Print

I am going to attempt to make an exact replica of this sketch from my sketchbook of the PECO area in Gray's Ferry, Philadelphia into a screenprint without any digital processing. We shall see how this turns out...  So far, I've been armed with a filme opaquer marker for obvious non-textured line work and making china marker rubbings on acetate to simulate the pastel/paper texture.


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Going Up

I've had a long obsession with ladders. It reappears in work over and over again, which is odd because I have an acute fear of heights and it specifically focuses on going up ladders (don't ask me to go up more than 3 rungs on a ladder).

"Going Up" was made specifically for the First Flight show, in celebration of the advent of the spring season, at Masthead gallery and print studio, 340 Brown Street, Philadelphia - The show opens on Saturday, March 12, 2011.

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Celebrating Spring

This is the beginning of a new screenprint to celebrate the advent of spring! It is all hand drawn linework at this stage, but will soon be transformed into a repeat pattern.


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Business Cards: I'm for real

I've decided it is time. I am finding my way across many invisible bridges as an artist. A business card is a valuable tool that any artist needs.

In the business card, I wanted to show the hand drawn quality of my work and voila! Here are my cards, printed locally at Fireball Printing:

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Dahmer's Altar

This is the second print that I did for A Nation of Evil Men: Dahmer's Altar. When Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested, the police found a lot of disturbing things in his home. Things like parts of dead bodies rotting in vats, a human heart in the freezer, and a collection of skulls in his closet that was painted in a craft paint finish to look like stone. This collection of skulls was interesting to me since it was like a small shrine that he built to remember the people that he murdered.

The closing reception is on February 26, 2011. Masthead Print Studio is at 340 Brown Street, Philadelphia.

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Pterosaurs in the Sky!

These critter are pterosaurs swarming over a swirling ocean! The screenprint is for "Age of Reptiles", opening at Paradigm Gallery next Friday, February 25 at 2020 South Street, Philadelphia. I had a hard time coming up with the idea, since we don't really know what dinosaurs looked like. Pterosaurs are one of the most diverse dinosaurs, ranging in small to gigantic sizes, fur, beaks, and pretty much everything since they migrated far and wide. Deciding to go with a more graphic approach, I used the pterosaurs silhouette to create a pattern design.

Experimenting with colors was a crucial part of the process:

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Shibori-Esque

Two yards of 36" silk, folded into four sections, ruffled by machine, and painted with brilliant red dye paint and then soaked in a black dye bath to produce a gray-ish cast on the once pure white silk. This is for a collaboration project with Mitchell Noah in Louisville, KY at the O.Z. Gallery, which opens on February 25, 2011.


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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.