NY Winter 2011 - Work and Play
Monday, January 17, 2011
I had to work a lot while i was in New York and upstate. I can't afford to say no to jobs. That's why there aren't a lot of pictures and why i had a lot less fun than i should have, plus I'm from NY so naturally i wouldn't be taking as many pictures of stuff.
they don't really have delis in asia
or my love, bologna and cheese, always there for $6.50.... WHAT! when the F did bologna and cheese sandwiches become $6.50! i was amazed by how much everything went up in price in NY.
like this chicken cutlet sandwich, another staple food but it's like $5. what the hell.
they tell me there was a huge bed bug problem in NY.
vietnamese sandwich on 12th st.
I visited my friend John Jay's studio on Meserole in brooklyn. He's an illustrator and teaches at FIT. I wasn't in school when he started though. He's sucessful, has agents in NY and Paris, and maybe more. After this visit I really want to get a studio. Maybe in HK.
www.johnjayart.com/
some stuff he was working on. below is more of his work
graphic novel
we went to the society of illustrators sequential and uncommissioned opening uptown on 63rd and Lex. Edel Rodriguez always have smart stuff. the guy on the right is Nimit Malavia, he's young and coming up fast so what out for him
http://nimitmalavia.com/
as always tight work from yuko shimizu
http://www.yukoart.com/
this guy sam makes some awesome stuff
http://www.sbosma.com/
after the opening its upstairs to bar where all the top dogs of illustration are boozing it up.
party time at Fat Buddah on ave A and 13th st. with a bunch of buddies i haven't see in a while.
it seemed like everytime i went out i was getting drinks spilled on me. is NY really 400x more spilly than Japan? probably, cuz they respect personal space more
some of a section of the FIT crew, except for who the hell is that girl in the front?
it hasn't done this in tokyo in the 2 winters i've been here.
grey's papaya hot dogs are now like $4.75 so its not really worth it for me anymore cuz i could eat like 10 of these.
halal lamb and rice with white sauce and hot sauce from sammy's cart somewhere on 6th ave near 4th street. oh how i missed this. and then immediately remembered how unhealthy and weird it makes you feel afterwords.
Posted byJason Raish at 6:09 AM 0 comments
Presbyterians Today Lenten Devotional Booklet
Saturday, January 15, 2011
cover for a Lenten devotional booklet that comes inside of Presbyterians Today. This year they were translating it into Korean as well so they wanted a Korean influenced crossover style cover. Last year it was done by Heidi Younger, who teaches at FIT now, I wish i had her when I went to FIT. They saw that I lived in Korea before from my website bio so they decided to call me. I'm Korean and was born in Seoul, and studied there for a year in 2001 but this is the first time i've ever drawn a hanbok (traditional Korean dress).
alternate colors. I don't know which i like better
spot about ash wednesday.
i'm showing this final drawing to show how i sometimes edit the drawings in photoshop. I usually like skewed and distorted drawings but the client probably wanted something more "beautiful" so i tried to make the final product more symmetrical and beautiful.
spot about foot washing that happens during lent.
reading the bible.
spot about palm sunday
spot about fish and loaves that fed the masses. I used a young photo of my brother for this one. I had to tone down the indignant smirk on his face that he is infamous for though. and i updated his flannel shirt from an 80's flannel to a modern hip pattern. I want that shirt.
Posted byJason Raish at 9:09 PM 0 comments
Movie Inspiration - Tarsem Singh's "The Fall"
Monday, December 13, 2010
The Fall is directed by Tarsem Singh. The film was shot on 26 locations over 18 countries. This is an unbelievably beautiful movie. Is it cheating to use the most exotic and beautiful locations in the world as your set? If so then its ok with me. Singh funded this movie himself, risked everything he owned, so its his baby and it shows. Ebert is all up on this movie and i usually agree with the guy. The child actress Catinca Untaru was great and was an excellent choice. This movie is more style than substance but what an amazing style it is. If you're an artist or a lover of vast, beautiful, sweeping landscapes then you've got to see this movie. Excellent camera movements, cinematography, composition, color, and all that technical stuff. The guy is an artist. I'm gonna make it to that blue city of Jodhpur someday!
the kind of compositions that i dream about. I wish i had this kind of space to work with in my illustrations.
i know this is framed and all but its still amazing that there is a wall of sand this tall somewhere in the world.
Jodhpur, the blue city, India
also India somewhere
Posted byJason Raish at 6:26 AM 1 comments
Labels: Movie Inspiration
Phobias Book Singapore
Thursday, December 02, 2010
A big 20" x 20" illustration for Kult design agency in Singapore. Its for a book about fears. my assigned fear was Gephydrophobia - (Fear of crossing bridges). Some people with this affliction imagine monsters under the bridges they must cross. I thought this would a great time to illustration some Japanese themed stuff i've been wanting to draw. this illo almost didnt happen. That bridge took like 8 hours to complete and i had to do it all over again because the photoshop file got corrupted when i was halfway done with the whole illustration! then my keyboard stopped working and more time was wasted finding the fix for that. This is acrylic paint, pencil, japanese patterned paper, chinese ink, and photoshop. I used a sponge for the tree leaves and moss. What a monster it was completing this. I'm sorry to say I logged 60+ hours on this one.
I have seen all this stuff while living in Japan, except for the monsters of course. Jizo are little stone statues that are the protectors of travellers and children. they often are decorated with red clothing. Ravens are bad omens. There is a whole encyclopedia of Japanese monsters (Yokai). Here are 6 (and a raven, so i guess this continues my Japanese crow series too). They are all based on the original Japanese design but with my twist of course. I sourced some real life disturbing looking animals for some of these. The melting face guy in the back is based on a blob fish (truly disturbing). The red oni is based on a Chinese girl in my Japanese class hahaha. the bug eyed furry guy is based on a Tarsier (some kind of monkey with huuuuge eyes). The guy on the upper left is a Hitotsume-kozo (one eyed monster that resembles a bald Buddhist priest)
an umi bozu (sea monster)
a Suushi Nuppeppo (animated lump of decaying human flesh), a Kijimuna (a forest sprite from Okinawa). All Yokai have crazy stories that are super strange and intersting to me as a westerner, for example the Kijimuna bug-eyed monster on the right, here is an excerpt "a kijimuna may offer to carry a human on it's back as it leaps through the mountains and over the seas. The kijimuna dislike people passing gas on their backs, however, and will immediately throw the human off their backs, no matter where they were at the moment."
Seen here is a kappa (turtle like thing that will do bad things to you but has a hole in his head with water in it so if you bow to him he must bow to you therefore losing the water in his head and disabling him so you can run away), an oni (demon/ogre, you throw beans at people wearing these masks on setsubun day)
awesome japanese papers i found at various stores for the kimono.
and one final thing you didn't want to see. After 3 days of not shaving and not very much hygiene I was dead but had met the deadline. why do i always make these things so complex so i have to work 16 hrs a day on them?
Posted byJason Raish at 1:24 PM 3 comments
