i am not an elephant.

in all the holiday splendor, i forgot that i never wrapped up my fall thesis. here is the last track, the delightful "in an aeroplane over the sea" by neutral milk hotel. i think this one is my favorite palette. also, the wraparound cover follows, with lots of tiny mixtapes for everyone.

the final book is finished and constructed and all that, but is in baltimore, and i am not. i will properly document it with my shiny new christmas camera as soon as i get home to the city to share with you.

as far as the spring goes, things are still a little up in the air. and by "a little," i really mean I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING NEXT. stay tuned for updates. i hope.

final final project! starring: my hands.

the semester is done. summer is here. and making its big debut: the last of my final projects, officially titled "A KID'S GUIDE (or for anyone who's curious) TO THE REALLY cool, not-taught-in-schools but totally super-mega IMPORTANT skills, strategies, and other THINGS IN LIFE." complicated, to say the least.

first up is a (shoddily compiled) image of several views of the actual book itself. then the nice spreads from inside. then the book all open and crazy looking. it's bound in a modified squash style, for any of you book-making nerds out there, and closes with a jazzy purple slip band (seen below). the actual illustrations and text were all hand-done in ink and gouache, then scanned and cleaned up a little and printed (so i could arguably make millions! or not) to make the final specimen you see before you.




the end! i start my screenprinting class on thursday, so there should be something fruitful from that, AND i am using the summer as a testing ground for my "oh god i have so many things to do, can i slash will i choose to, and actually follow-through with, making some semblance of art too?!" fear that my unavoidably official senior-status has forced to the surface. so i'm working on some things to that end as well. i'm also holding down about twelve different jobs this summer, sticking around in baltimore, and hopefully taking some semblance of a vacation to nyc at some point. and trying to iron out my thesis. and i have about 5 months' worth of daily illustrations scanned into my computer, waiting to be... something more exciting. so, the moral of the story is hopefully my blog will remain active with proof of these lofty goals taking place throughout the summer. so stay tuned!

unnecessary drumroll.

after an emotionally traumatizing day of lessons in nothing-prints-out-as-nice-as-it-looks-on-screen-or-in-real-life-ology, i played angry frisbee for twenty minutes, then decided it was time-wasting time. so here we are. because i also happen to be fast approaching the end of finals time (supporting evidence of the severity of the above learning curve), this is also the time for the big reveals of all the things i've been promising and hinting at for weeks on end. and because the print-outs look like balls, here are the nicer, but not quite as nice as in person, spreads and such for my illustrated version of 'freak the mighty', a young-adult-ish book.





the book is written from max's perspective (the big kid, purple sweatshirt), about his unlikely friendship with kevin, aka freak (the little kid). the two of them play to one another's strengths to conquer the world! or, you know, go on adventures and things. a surprisingly depressing book, i found out as i reread it, like bridge to terebithia's lesser counterpart. it was also made into a (pretty awful) movie with kieran culkin. i illustrated the book as max's journal (featured in the book, as the book itself) and fleshed it out to accompany the text. there are all sorts of "knights of the round table" references throughout the book as well, hence the horses and "fair guineveres" abound. the end! ooh, except the book would arguably have a full page illustration like this for each of the twenty-five chapters in the book, i just don't have them all because, um, yikes.

swappy pen-pal art.

so this was a book cover design for "the book of lost things" by john connolly. we were partnered with sophomore illustration students in the u.k., who we art directed to design a cover for us (mine was "harriet the
spy" by louise fitzhugh) and vice versa. it was a really obscure slash jam-packed book to try and illustrate without having read it, but ultimately, i think it turned out pretty okay, if not a little confusing. not an easy assignment to get fully invested in for a final, but a lot of people had a lot more trouble with the art direction coming from their person, so i think i got off lucky.

it's "malcolm in the middle" meets "x-men evolution".

so i know it's been quite some time since i've shown my face in this joint, for which i express my most sincere apologies. it just so happens that fall break, in conjunction with a couple longer-term assignments has stretched out the availability of final products for me to put on display for your viewing pleasure.

i have here my last on-going sketchbook contribution, a cover design for this book on octopi. my word to include was cyclone, as exhibited by the scared octopus running away from a water-tornado of some kind.

in other news, i am attempting to scan my bad-ass (translation: really really big) illustration map from last week's concepts class. once i do that, it will be uploaded, but a few things have come up and pushed that to the back-burner for now. also keep your eyes peeled for the first of my character design for my tv show pitch, "the not-so-secret diaries of luke merriweather". it's about high school and nerds and magical powers and angst and video diaries. you can barely contain your excitement, i can just tell.