Anatomy Studies

"Amanda (Live Model" 3 hour Anatomic Study



Self portrait a 12 hour drawing study of anatomy & chiaroscurro


"Ben (live model)" 3 hour anatomic study


Me & Ricardo, a 4 hour study on facial structure

These are a few studies that I have tried to in the course of 2 weeks. I still have a lot to work on, my primary focus is to train my observation skills in drawing objects on an angle, and then getting shapes and forms into proportion. I feel like I have improved in the past 3 weeks of drawing, and I am slowly gaining confidence in line-work and shading. Hopefully, by the end of this class, I will be able to come up with a decent drawing.

Look What Your Beauty Has Caused

Excess beauty creates ugly waste.

another project inspired by william mcdonough. source = fragonard; "The Swing".

The origial painting is by Fragonard, who is a painter from the Rococo period. Rococo was known to build images and architecture upon beauty and music rather than content and functionality, or meaning. I feel that modern art has become this facade of excess pile of narcissism and self promotion that we need a revolution in the art world, we need to give back to this planet. There are too many pretty pictures, but we need to bring back functionality in art.

The reason why I chose to reproduce Fragonard's painting SPECIFICALLY in this piece is because I WISH TO MAKE NEW THINGS OUT OF OLD MATERIAL. This painting was THE PAINTING of the Rococo period, it was an old painting with an old message that was recreated into a new piece with a new meaning.

This project was constructed through silk-screening (Serigraphy), and the assembled with found wood, and founded plexi glass from the OCAD fabrication studios. It is simply a study on how things can be remade from old material. William mcdonough quotes: "Waste = Food."

I also wish to remind all artists that art does not have to always be a promotion for self arrogance, rather we could use it as a didactic tool. Society see print as a fine-art practice in the art world, but we often forget the functionality in PRINT CULTURE.

Excess beauty creates waste and superficiality which is 90% of the world right now and it is too wasteful. we should be using art as a tool RATHER than the object and focusing on curing the planet into a better and positive world than to be drowned in our self absorbed arrogance and self promotions.

This waste bin was fabricated with founded ply wood and plexi-glass. Image was screen printed with acrylic ink.

Chickadee Heaven

In our modern culture, art and design seem to become further apart because of the different ways of thinking. Artists argue that design is too commercial, and design seems to argue that art holds no importance because it is based on aesthetics. The fact is art and design can co-exist with each other, but they can also be stand alone concepts. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci and Bernini were masters at architecture, drawing, and painting. People see print culture as a fine art practice in our modern world, but they often forget that if it was not for the invention of the Gutenberg Press, we would not have photography, MAC computers, commercialism, or even graphic design today. The possibilities of edition, reproduction, mass production is all made possible because of print culture. Print culture has played a vital role in our modern technology. Like fashion fads, things that go can also return. Chickadee Heaven explores the functionality in design, as well as the aestheticism in art by its printed symbol of the Chickadee that identifies it as a Chickadee bird feeder.

Chickadee Heaven is an ecological project designed to invite the immigration of the Chickadee species of birds into the city. The Chickadee and European Starling are the two most common types of birds in North America. The Chickadee is more common in the forest, and the Starling is more common in the city. The Starling species is known to hoard food and shelter from other birds. There are over 200 million of them living in our society today. The Chickadee Heaven is a bird feeder that would essentially discourage European Starlings from eating from the feeder. It is designed so that the Chickadee will have to eat from the bottom of the feeder. Starlings are not as flexible as the Chickadees, so if they tried to eat from the feeder, they will fall off from the bench that is attached. The digestive system of the European Starlings also can only digest minimal amount of sucrose. That means the food that is contained inside this feeder will mainly hold food that contains sucrose. If multiple editions of these feeders are installed around the parks of a suburban city, perhaps it will regulate the Starlings.

William McDonough is an American architect and a designer in sustainability, he also is a huge inspiration for many of my art works. Many of his ecological projects strive on safety for the environment and for the inhabitants of his architectures. His “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy reminds us to take a step back from our daily habits and rethink about our social economical practices, instead of thinking “Cradle to the grave”. Cradle to Cradle promotes growth in human experiences with beauty, enjoyment, poetry and encourage environmental health at the same time. His phrase, “Waste equals food” means re-using waste and growing it into something that is useful. McDonough has inspired me to change my ways of using art as an object. Art is now a tool to me, and it should not be the object itself. When I used art as an object, I found I was just creating waste because I was taking inspirations from the planet, and not really doing anything with it. I wanted to give back to the planet by creating ecological art.

Chickadee Heaven was constructed with rez-n-bond and plexi glass. The image was hand drawn and then serigraphed on the plexi glass.