The Decade of Nothing

Here's to a decade that now is part of the void that its type symbolized: the Nothings before the Somethings. No one knows what to call it. Some call it the "Naughties", others "The Big Zero" or the "Double-Os". Regardless, the nature of a name with this number-logic had a psychological effect on me. The mortality of seeing a number, a decade, counting down (or up, depending how you look at it) makes a person want to seize it before the next number. Something about '00s creates a different flow.

I don't know what to make of the decade; there were a lot of ups and downs, bests and worsts of. But maybe that's the point. Don't have an absolute claim to make in such an expanse of time, but make it bold for the next decade because you already know how it is not to. The Nothings before the Somethings, turn to the Nothing that Is.

And with that I give you a nice The Decade that Passed present. It's a free-association drawing I did in '01. I thought it fitting for I drew it in the onset of the decade (it starts with the first year, not '00, you know), a worldly, significant, sad, and impressionable year, and because as a free-association drawing, making it as you go along without consciously knowing what you are drawing, with no intentions, making it seems a lot like life itself. And also, it's a drawing of a nascent of a man waking out of his cocoon. Yes, very fitting.

Happy Decade that Passed and a Happy New Decade!
(hey, you only get to say 'Happy New Decade' once every ten years; make it count!)



PS: Thank you so much to everyone who Subscribed to SmokyMirrors! I so appreciate the love and interest. This is the kind of thing that keeps me moving onward.

And to those that are not in the know, to my first 100 Subscribers, as a big "Thank You!" for letting me into your Inbox life, I'm drawing small limited-edition sketches. One-of-a-kind drawings about any subject matter you desire, drawn specifically for you, and I'm only doing this for 100 people. I still haven't reach my first 100, so there's still time to have something cool.

Fesk

Mag spread graffitiesque (or urban calligraphy/typography, as it's being called as of late). Done with color-pencil, a bit of watercolor, markers, and Photoshop for embellishment. I left negative space for the headline, subhead, and lead-in paragraph of a hypothetical article.

That's my tag right there.

Rammer Totem

Take a gander at another Rammer logo, a symmetrical totem. I'm not sure but I think this one constitutes a bilateral/mirror-image ambigram too (can any ambigram friends put me on whether or not?). Though there are some negative space issues here, doesn't it look like a person, or if you rotate it, a fish? And the name can repeat itself vertically ad infinitum (a la wallpaper), for the first 'R' is the same as the last 'R', forever.


I'm following up my previous post's last drawing, the one with the logo and abstract lady. It was an abstract, monoweight, geometric, black/white theme I was going for.

Studying (?) in class... Sketches

Here're some quick line sketches, the roads of my neurons, while thoughts on the topic at course careen ablaze. Well... It's a multi-tasking possibility. Have fun:



Oh, his one I must comment specifically. Abstract symmetrical logo doodle of, guess what website... (plus a dash of a hint of a foggy layout). I like the lady in particular.

Friends

Every now and then I draw whatever I see, sometimes scapes, sometimes things, sometimes my friends. Here a some of the latter:

Joshua D. Cochran
Joshua D. Cochran is a writer. I had him as my prof for my last English class in City College of New York. He has a book, Echo Detained from Fractious Press on Amazon.com, and though I never read it, he and I share publication in City College's Promethean, the 2004 issue. His poem, Dance of the Nomenclature is one of my highlights. Google him; he's around.

This is what happens when you think with your eyes in class:


Lenny
Quick one of my boy Len, while playing cards.


Felix Luis García
Poet with the last punto.


Hristo Atanasov
The random brains behind Rather Random Reality. I play the games he designs and creates, I look at his drawings, I watch (and sometimes contribute) his animation. His latest one won him a spot on the front page and a Daily 3rd Place award on NewGrounds.com. It's called Cigar Wars: Lightersabers Collide!, and worth me reserving a post to hightlight this nice masterpiece.

This drawing says 'Aku' to the left, for Aku is the wickedest shapeshifting master. Actually, there is evidence Hristo might be this world's Aku master:


See!?

Still Pending

My boy Key Soto is a man of many hats. He is Key Melodics, MC to your hearts, but he's also Key Soto, film director, producer, editor, screenwriter and the man behind Enigma Films. And yesteryear, on a cold winter night, he shot Still Pending, of which I was the Art Director for.

He has Still Pending on Key's YouTube page, along with music videos and PSAs he shot. Watching this in its fruition makes me think it a prologue for a series of movies causing mayhem and "shitting the fan." Still Pending's ambiguity, which I feel might make question marks to some people's faces, is really the verve of its mystique. Favorite bit:

Nevin: Fucking psychos.
Teddy: That's the cost for survival.

Check it:

I'm Not Here

I did some storyboards for a long-time friend of mine Karly Beaumont. I'm Not Here is a very short but very potent, 4-minute film, so how can I summarize without spoilers? Let's just say that it drags a very real but very abusing reality to your pupils, one that we all know somewhere in our hearts occurs every single fucking day. I'm happy to be part of the message it brings, and to work for such a great person. I'm also happy to say that I'm Not Here was accepted to the 2006 NY International Latino Film Festival, and "has been screened nationwide at various, educations institutions, conferences and festivals."

But hey, dig the storyboards:








Below's the storyboard to still frame comparison. I was happy to see some of my storyboards make it to the final shots (like this one). Makes me feel like I did my job. Melissa Cruz knocked out her debut role. She literally was the star of the movie.



Also, if you're already itching to see this short, here's a YouTube:


Can't wait to see what feature Karly's got next.