GIRAFFE!

Mr. Giraffe!!  This was a birthday gift for a friend.

I found these little mini canvasses at a College Bookstore for $1. Yay! I figured if I was doing a giraffe, he wasn't going to fit all in one square. I sketched out the giraffe first on the canvas and then painted the flat colors on each one. I think I did two coats for each square.

I used Liquitex Professional Acrylic "heavy body" paints. This is the second painting I have done with these and I'm LOVING them! Above are my paints in their water soaked palette container, to keep them moist. I was tired of using cheap, 87 cent acrylic craft paint, though it works fine. It's just too watery and runny. I figured I should finally make the switch and boy I'm glad I did. As one art teacher described the paint, "They're delicious!"

I thought the background of the blue, red, and green squares looked to plain, so I decided to add some abstract patterns in the background. I was thinking of African art when I was doing this.

You can see the buttery-ness of the paint. He's a happy lil ol' giraffe.

With amazing neck-elongation powers!!

The finishing touch. RdLA for my name, Ricardo de los Angeles.

Wisconsin Trip

Just came back this week from Wisconsin. I was there a month, took pics, sketched alot and went to Chicago aka Gotham City. Below are some pics I took of Gotham....heheehe.

Speaking of Animation! Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois

Get the scoop with the directors of "How to Train Your Dragon" in this INTERVIEW by Speaking of Animation!

Happy Birthday Schaller!

Ok, so it's a week late, but I had to finish it. I can say that this is the proudest piece of art I've done in a while. It mixes caricature, illustration, and graphic design. I discovered graphic design because of Schaller, when I first took Visual Communications my Junior year in High School(8 years ago!!) ....I didn't know what typography, art deco, and Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop was until I took his course. 
   The reason I took it was because I saw one of his students sketching logos, so I asked for what class, and he said visual communications. The next year I took it, and took it again in ROP the following year. We designed and printed magazine spreads, stationary, packaging, books, and posters, all in his fully loaded graphic design classroom/workshop.
     His Cabrillo High School Graphics program is renowned nationally and his students have won truck loads of prize and scholarship money from the California State Fair and California College of the Arts. I had the privilege of being his student again last Fall during a community college design course and was great hanging out with him and his talented students, who are a force of nature! Check out the Official Site for his Program  
and Student Work

He's also been really getting into the Paper Toy and Vinyl Toy Scene, here's some of his creations! 

Baby.

Guess who this is? Was a birthday gift for a friend.