IF: SPIRIT

Happy Holidays Everyone! It has been some time since my last Illustration Friday post. My fall has been packed with teaching, shows, a public art commission (I will share more on this soon), my book, set design, and of course my favorite job, motherhood.  This is my annual card going out to somewhere close to 80 folks/families this year. This little birdie happens to have erected a house for himself that looks an awful lot like my house (although I have yet to hang any lights).  I am tired after such a busy fall, but full of spirit as is this little bird. And with that I wish you all a wonderful Holiday season and incredible art-filled new year!

archival greeting cards

These are just some of the hundreds of greeting cards I create each year for ArtWalk. Each are about 5x6.5", hand made, signed and sealed. I try to create a card for nearly every full scale traditional or digital piece I create. I love the idea of making owning a little piece of artwork affordable at only $5, they can be given away or framed.  If you are ever interested in some, just let me know. I am still behind on my website and etsy shop, so a personal email to aliciagome@gmail.com is the way to go:)

I Love to be a Daddy- hits the streets!

Here it is! I finally got to hold it in my hands yesterday and have been itching to show you since, a quick pic here of the book John Fenyes penned and I illustrated. The format of this book is a little different than you might be used to. Somewhat traditional illustrations, but the text is organized in a way that the right side of the spread is home to the rhythmic rhymes of the children's story, while the left offers a personal reflection on fatherhood, with stories and encouragement from John. A moment for the reader while the child is looking at the illustrations. Beautiful job John! So proud he invited me to be a part of this project! Thank you John for the amazing collaboration!

A website to order the book is coming soon, but in the meanwhile you can contact me via e-mail:)
aliciagome@gmail.com

Illustration Friday: Together

Together:
This has been an eventful week for myself and my sister. I decided to honor her and her team and the amazing work they do "together".  She has for many years been paddling with an incredible group of strong women, "the wikiki beach boys" in an 6 person outrigger canoe. This act alone is commendable, but this weekend they raced in the 35th "Na Wahine o ke kai" This race takes them from Molokai to Oahu over 41 miles in what ended up to be 6 hours an 19 minutes. They came in second to long time rivals by a mere 7 minutes.  They had hopes to regain the title after a year without, but had an incredible race regardless.  They did it together.

(ps, just in case you didn't know, you can click on the pic to enlarge)

more on my news another day:)

Illustration Friday: TOTEM

I couldn't resist, upon seeing the Illustration Friday topic for the week. I'm not showing you the whole drawing and this one has been manipulated a bit for color and focal point. This happens to be part of a spread in "I love to be a Daddy" where the ever evolving dad morphs himself into a totem pole while the family is on a camping trip. He shares stories of family history along with some wonderful camp stories. I enjoy the preteen son listening but pretending not to:)

Illustration Friday: Power

Illustration Friday: Power

I drive by this each day as make my way onto the 110S freeway in Pasadena. This is Pasadena Water and Power. An old sketch revisited with digital painting.

Illustration Friday: Fresh

Illustration Friday: Fresh.
Wow, it's been another busy week, so this isn't a new one, but I haven't shown it yet.  It is one of the cover comps for a book I illustrated due out in October. I thought it fit the fresh topic, This Dad is cookin up all sorts of fresh food for his kids.  Mostly Mac and cheese, but it's still fresh:)

Illustration Friday: Hybrid

Illustration Friday topic: Hybird

Come one come all to see the "Wondrous Wanda ride and play her Hybrid UniBaseCycle"

It's interesting that in considering a hybrid topic I landed here.  I often assign hybrid creature creation in my character design or photoshop classes, and it is always a favorite assignment. But I took a different route here.  

The drawing is a hybrid of sorts, traditional first (ink, paint, pencil) then digital manipulation (photoshop)

Illustration Friday: Jungle

Illustration Friday topic: Jungle

The jungle tour bus was my starting point, in this drawing, it was the first thing I drew and the city sprung up around it.  I also limited myself to one Sakura Micron 01 pen for the entire drawing which measures about 10 x 10.5in.


Last week I missed the deadline for posting the Robot topic, but I did post it here on my blog if your curious.

Illustration Friday: Robot

This little boy looked outside to see his new robot neighbors
playing a game of ball tag with umbrella shield. 

Illustration Friday: Travel

It has been a while since I tackled a topic for Illustration Friday, but I was excited to find the time to jump in on this one.  My thought process had me traveling a number of places in considering the theme, however this resolution came to me as I watched my son play in our small backyard yesterday afternoon.

Nearly each day, he asks that we go outside and I choose a show to watch from what he calls Reidivision.  Based on his name of course, he offers me a list of titles, sometimes previews, and I choose one.  Then it begins, he acts out every part, envisions the mountains, the ships, the other worlds, creatures beyond description.  He is truly traveling in our yard, going places I try to imagine with him, but he is by far there, right in the jungle, the swamp, the city, the future, the past, or places alive in his mind.  So with that I thought this the perfect solution for how one might travel without travel.

Blue door in Iranian Village

One of my previous students sent me an image of a door from a village in Iran, where she is from.  She knows of my love of beautiful architectural details. This sparked my interest in looking for more of these simple weathered blue doors. I found this one, I don't know where it leads, but it seams to hold many stories.

 

Illustration Friday: Liquid

11x11in ink on toned paper.


With no land in sight this society floats about the salty sea, distilling the liquid on one boat and transporting it to various boats through tubes for farming, drinking, and washing.

Illustration Friday: Tribute

I wanted to send out a "thank you" card to Penelope Dullaghan for creating Illustration Friday.  I have enjoyed participating on and off for the last few years and am so grateful for the inspiration to step outside of other projects. I have also enjoyed being introduced to so very many talented individuals and their work through the site.  I have also used the site as a tool for inspiration in my classroom, and am so happy to see current and past students joining in!  Thank you Penelope!

Illustration Friday: Train

Metro crossing the arroyo near Avenue 60 in Highland Park, Ca.

This is an version I created in the series of bridges for a show this past march. It came from a hike through the arroyo and just as we made our way to this vantage point the metro came through.This wasn't used in this way, in seeing the topic for the week, I wanted to share it with you.

Illustration Friday: Wild

Go Wild!!!

This is a sketch from the book I have been busy illustrating. Hope to get to show you the finals soon.

Into the Woods: backdrop painted

My brilliant friend Carole Kim and I tackled painting the backdrops yesterday.  She rocked the foreground foliage canopy and I painted the 10x20 forest backdrop.  I haven't painted on this scale in a while, and to do it all within a few hours was so fun. 

looking forward to seeing them hanging in the theater!

Into the woods: Woods progress

Three of the flat panels for the set and the three trees on white will stand alone on the stage in the foreground. 

Illustration Friday:Urban

I pulled this one from the Autohomography archives.  Autohomography is a series that looks at my life story through houses I have lived in.  This was my most urban home, and I thought fit the topic for the week. This was my warehouse in dowtown Los Angeles in the late nineties until spring 2000. It housed myself a few artist friends, our dog, a gallery, live music, indie film premiers, a rubber fashion company.

Such a short life this space had, but so very many wonderful things happened here.

more set progress: Into the woods

left cinderella's, center Jacks, right the Bakers house. Set Flats.

And the woods. in progress.

Progress: Baker's house and Cinderella's houserProgress on Set Designs

Baker's house 4.5 x 7 ft flats for "Into the Woods"

Cinderella's house 4.5 x 7 ft flats for "Into the Woods"

Illustration Friday: Egg

This Egg cottage is an idea for a theater set panel I am currently working on, the eggs will not remain in the final, but for now they were fun to include as I test out compositions.


This drawing is typical of my current working format, I draw traditionally, ink and colored pencil, then scan and manipulate.  I will include another version of the drawing that was a straight scan before I changed the composition.

Thank you for stopping by to see what I am up to!

Illustration Friday: Swim

You may have seen an earlier version of this.  This is still not quite final but it is from the book I have been working on for a while now as a side project. The book follows a dad who loves being a dad, morphing into various things for the sake of his kids (and his own fun).  We are in the final pre-flight stages and I am excited to get to share this with you.

Illustration Friday: Eye Glasses

Beware the Wolf in Disguise.  IF:Eyeglasses

My friend recently took a picture of my son wearing his self created wolf hat.  I just got to see the picture today and was reminded of the theme for the week, not that my son was wearing or does wear glasses, but the idea of a sort of clark kent disguise for a wolf man popped into mind and here we are.

I have been very busy finishing final illustrations for a book, prepping for the most recent artnight here in Pasadena (if you want to see what I did please check my other blog http://aliciago.blogspot.com/ the first two posts have pics and info) and caring for my little guy who has been at home sick for more than two weeks now. He is finally feeling better and I am so happy.

To my IF friends, although I haven't had time to post or comment I have been trying to keep up with what your doing.  I have seen some great work and look forward to checking in again!

You are invited! Artnight @ the Armory

 

 

 

 

ArtNight @ The Armory Art Center - Connections 

6-10pm Friday March 8th, 2013

145 N Raymond Ave.

Pasadena, California

You are invited to enter a multidisciplinary collaboration exploring connections through
live music, 30 ft of projections, photography, and drawings featuring the work of

Buddy Zapata’s Junkshop Republic (music)
Kat Roberts (photography)
and myself
Alicia Gorecki (drawings, large scale prints, and video animation)
The work focuses in on local architectural bridges and support structures through the eye of each local artist.

Bridge: a connecting, transitional, or intermediate route or phase between two adjacent elements, activities, conditions, or the like.
For those of you unfamiliar with ArtNight in Pasadena, it is an amazing night out.

Local museums, galleries, performing arts venues and other locations have work on view from fine art to performing arts and music, the variety of work and performers is incredibly diverse and suitable for audiences of all ages depending on the site.
It is all free and shuttles are available to take you from location to location, just make sure you stop by and connect with us at the Armory! (Did I mention there is also FREE BEER?)
Related websites

Buddy Zapata's Junkshop Republic
 www.facebook.com/BuddyZapatasJunkshopRepublic

Mine
www.aliciagorecki.com

Kat Roberts
www.flickr.com/helenahandbasket

and
A BIG thank you to my brother Aaron Gorecki www.mosquitocurtains.com for fabricating the Projection screens

Event Facebook page (public you don't need an account)
https://www.facebook.com/events/394807600614775/

and the general artnight page
http://www.artnightpasadena.org/

IF: STORM

I have been working on a series of bridges recently and I just finished this one today.  Although the sky was clear and blue originally, the Illustration Friday topic: storm inspired me to imagine the dark clouds in the distance.

The drawing is 8.5 x 26in, ink and acrylic on toned paper. 

IF:WINGS

The weekly Illustration Friday topic wings had me instantly thinking of a day a summer or two ago when I walked out onto my back porch to see the little neighbor girl up in her tree house (which nearly hangs over my yard) wearing a pair of wings. She was on her knees and just sort of surveying her domain.  She stayed there for a few moments and then proceeded to climb back down into her yard. 

Save the Date, ArtNight - at the Armory.

I have been busy!! Made it through the Holidays (with some much needed rest), nearly finished with the book I have been illustrating, and just got word that I have been invited to collaborate in a multimedia installation with the talented musician Buddy Zapata, and amazing photographer Kat Roberts, and myself.  We plan to take you on a journey with us from Pasadena to Los Angeles, home for all the included artists. More to come, but for now save the date! March 8 from 6-10pm inside the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena.

IF:OCEAN

 Weekly Topic:Ocean!  Hello everyone, again it has been a few weeks since my last post.  I have been trying to catch up on projects before I started a new term teaching (which began this week).  The book I have been working on is nearly there.  I can't wait to share it with all of you. 

This morning while my son was eating some breakfast I managed to put this together.  I have missed participating in IF and really am trying to squeeze it in, but just haven't found the time.  Let's hope as things get back in to swing I can manage it and check in on what all you other inspiring illustrators have been up to!