Devouring Ache
Devouring Ache was one of the first (in a not so many—-YET!) illustrations that is kicking off this idea of combining typography with figure. I don’t know if there’s a term for it, if anyone knows, give me a heads up. This work was conceived yes, on a trainride and I didn’t have my sketchbook at the time and created a rough sketch that looked more like something terribly scrawled on an atm receipt! I drew a girl’s head with the word “ACHE” forming her through the letters. I am still not sure why, but I like em girls when they’re smoking. Maybe because it’s badass? Or maybe I’m just hung up on being angsty and never got over the 80’s and the grunge period! By the time I got home, I drew it with a ballpoint pen in lines on my sketchbook and this is what came out:
I then scanned the image and started to render it n complete vectors and mesh gradients in Adobe Illustrator. It takes a lot of work creating mesh gradients because it’s almost done in the 3D manner where you create points of bulk and depression in each shape/form. The only guy who can do this masterfully is japanese artist Yukio Miyamoto.
The total work hours I spent creating it in gradient mesh and deciding on the color swatches took approximately 8 hours! It takes a lot of darn practice and time. Some people may wonder why I can’t just paint it, it’s because the want to get some hands on practice with this art, and for me, if I learn something on my own I don’t want to just take it lightly and I want to harness it. It’s the whole technical aspect that I like to conquer and knowing a few mediums has always been something I’m interested in whenever I find free time. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy because there’s so much that I wanna learn, practice and integrate it into what I do. This is the outcome:
The piece in its outline form, showing all the gradient meshes involved in creating this:
There came other illustrations during trainrides and sitting in between times to kill boredom. I have started integrating typography in one of the current oil paintings I am making for a show (that I hope happens!) that involves the realm of death, evolution, extinction and endangerment. Right now I’ll just keep sketching what comes to mind. I’ve been doing a lot of research, reading articles and histories of things and using what I know from years of slackeriffic designing into my artworks. Can I call them artworks?
These days, I am working on my way to being happy just drawing, painting or moulding weird funny things out of clay. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Sometimes I am plagued with the idea of death or growing blind, or having my arm or hand injured at night when I’m all alone… I don’t want these things taken away from me. Not when I’m just starting.
