"The streets of the city are a non-stop parade of humanity. It’s a kind of grand, unchoreographed ballet of human locomotion. One of the great pleasures and measures of being urban is losing yourself in the crowd, with your feet and mind wandering, alone in your head but elbow to elbow with an inexhaustible supply of strangers."

I found this in the New York Times, it was created and posted by artist Jeff Scher.
He has a fresh approach by integrating painting, collage and animation.

Click here to see the animation in the New York Times.

Manga Manga Manga.
I've started teaching kids drawing. The class started with 5 girls and ended up with 4. Drawing is joyful and is like discovering a new world that exists within and around oneself. The goal was to get them up to speed with a short amount of time. We began with drawing from observation (still life of various objects), basic shading, seeing and drawing negative space around and through an object, acknowledging surface quality and dynamic composition. Well okay, I'm glad it went over as well as it did. They also got some perspective lessons. You know the eye level, what is above the eye level and what is below, vanishing points, ... and so on. It was a lot to cover in 4 classes. I didn't want to be a joy-killer about drawing but it is a discipline and I need attentive students. 9 year old kids have a lot of energy, a little challenging to focus. If you want to get their attention, you need to tune into what they are interested in (and repeat yourself a lot).

It turns out that they loved the idea to use Manga as a starting point for figure drawing.
The next 8 classes were focused on Manga styled characters. Manga is a comic book in Japan and may be characterized by big-eyed characters with big heads, small mouths and long bodies. It is a unified style that is familiar and followed a certain formula of proportions and technique. This was our vehicle to learn anatomy/figure drawing. This is exciting because it creates a foundation for visual storytelling and compliments the need for creative expression. Everyone has the ability, yet it needs to be practiced. Its true that some students assimilate direction better than others.
We spent 4 weeks drawing manga characters, starting with heads, hair, hands, facial expressions, full figures, and dynamic poses.

The next round of classes focused on the making of a sculpture of a figure in the Manga Style.
The first class of this series we created a large scale drawing of our character, we defined the age, the costume and name. This was going to be our reference for our sculpture. We determined that the sculptures were to be 18 inches tall. So, the next class we started the sculptures with a 8 feet piece of wire. I determined the size and shape of its circular head and the height of the character by making a fold at the feet. I told them to think of the wire as the "line gesture" that continues through figure-form. In art school we spent weeks drawing gestures and figures. I'll never forget Burne Hogarth's evangelical hollering and passion for figure drawing, but that's another story.Where was I?
So, they bent the wire into the shape of the figures that were drawn previously. I helped them to look at the figure from all angles and emphasized the desire for something "dynamic".
The wire sculptures were mounted on wooden bases so that we could proceed bulking up the figures with aluminum foil, paper and tape. Plastered gauze was put on as the exterior shell that would solidify our sculpture. This provided a great foundation for our paint. Seeing these characters come to life was really great. From the beginning of the drawing (the idea) to the wire (3D drawing), the muscular form, surface and detail of paint. Nothing was lost in the translation. These are uniquely their design and responsibly Manga in style.
Teaching this small group has been thoroughly fun. To see more pictures of the evolution on this project please visit my photo album called Art Kids.

Illustrator James jean's art for the poster NYC bicycle film festival poster and the original moleskine sketch.

Also, check out the trailers for the past years bff on the link below.
BFF will be in LA later this summer.

http://www.bicyclefilmfestival.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpubbAzKSY

trailer for one of the films being presented at the bff
Directed by Benny Zenga & Brian Vernor. Four months on a bicycle between Cairo, Egypt and Cape Town South Africa is not your typical African safari. En route with the Tour d' Afrique

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whitelock-design

The lost birds have returned.
Cut from plywood and layered with pieces of paper and paint using acrylic gel medium. Raffia wrapped wire has been used for the feet and are free-standing sculptures. These birds are at home on a coffee table, next to plants, on a bookshelf, or by the computer.
Now available on Etsy.com

Another Mixed Media and Collage class being offered to you through UCLA Extensions beginning June 23 2009, now enrolling.
Check the website for the schedule and details. WE will explore the craft of collage and the application of hand-made design.

I will have some collages in this One Night Only event. Come see Daniel Ash and Gram Rabbit.

Art Tank, May 2, 7 p.m. until 2 a.m. Live Bands, DJ: Daniel Ash, 15 LA Artists
Lacy Street Lofts, 2684 Lacy Street, LA 90031 (@ 5 & 110 Fwy nearest cross street Figueroa)
Google Map

Contact Art Cardiel @ 213 926 2756 get in.

The Gleaners and I is one of these amazing movies. Often, I find myself talking about it to my friends and so I thought to write about it here. Agnes Varda, the director, is of the French 70's "new wave" genre of filmakers known for "Vagabond" and "Cleo 5 et 7". Here she has fixed her lens, a video camera in this case, to shoot the French countryside and the people who live off of the unwanted harvest of potatoes and grapes, vegetables etc. The unwanted stuff. The type of food that doesn't make it to the grocery store because of it's odd size or shape.

Agnes Varda has included herself as a subject, gleaning images and compared filmaking to the act of survival, and innovation in a streamlined world. The Gleaners, en Français Les Glaneuse, was released in 2000 (I believe) and two years later it garnered such a response from it's viewers that "and I" part included a Special Feature where she revisited people in the film and some people who responded to her by letter. I could have been one of those people. It is so inspiring when an artist gives form to a notion, a movement, that hasnt been clearly defined or hasnt been given a voice.



Pictured here, François Millet’s “The Gleaners”. Gleaners who were people that would go through the fields after a havest to collect the remnants. Gleaning is generally frowned upon. But in my neighborhood, there are lots of fruit trees that go unpicked because people would rather buy from the store or eat some junk. Here is a good resource, FallenFruit.

If you bother to read this, bother to see it. The Gleaners and I. Please share the inspiration if you do.

Support the things you love, you can make a statement with what you buy. How you live is your art, daily-life is your performance. What kind of statement are you making? Or were you aware of it. The magazine Adbusters is so refreshing sometimes. This is a very clever image. It is grotesque and delicious at the same time, I want to eat it... and I want to subscribe. Those shoes would look fabulous with some cheesy shirt and faux lunchmeat slacks.

White Trash Pad Thai is the most recent of my video collages. It features a recipe I created using very simple ingredients. Animation by James Fish and Music by Damien Heartwell.
Click here to view this video or visit all my videos on VImeo.

ART CLASSES!
Come on join us in the studio atmosphere at UCLA Extensions for Mixed Media and Collage for Designers and Artists. This is a class for all skill levels and is aimed to rediscover "Creativity" with hands-on materials. I will teach techniques and encourage individual interpretation and implementation of those techniques.
The class starts on March 31 2009 and runs 12 weeks from 7-10pm.