The Crying Show (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition)

CLEAR YOUR CALENDARS FOR THIS SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2010! This day, (8:00/7:00c) my episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be airing, on ABC! Set your DVRs, VCRs, Tivos, tripods with a camera, or whatever you have to to be sure not to miss it!

Back in November, I was contracted to create a mural for a young girl who's into theatre. It was a rigorous process to concept, draw, ink, color, and email (yes, email!) the final result to be install in just ONE week. All of it was worth it, though, because I hear the house turned out beautifully!

Working for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EMHE) was truly and exhilarating experience. The show really does take place over a week timeline (assembly in 72 hours), making the sketch-to-finish process a major challenge. Although the project was stressful at times, I'm excited to have had the opportunity to work with EMHE to give a family the home of their dreams and I can't wait to see the expressions on their faces.

In case you miss it (and you better not) or you just want to watch it over and over again (better idea!), you'll be able to find it for all your viewing pleasure on ABC's website.

Oh, and I almost forgot; the special guest hosts are pretty spectacular!

Front Runners New York Annual Report 2010

Annual Report season is upon us. I was asked by my running club, Front Runners New York, to create a cover for their first published annual report, to be released in February. It ended up being a little more work than I anticipated; after submitting four concept sketches, I was asked to create two of the images, instead of one.

I was touched that all the sketches went over so well, but I was working down to the deadline to get it all together. The image above is the image for the cover and below in an image for the interior. I'm really happy the way they turned out; as I attempted a new technique.

Usually, I draw a piece entirely by hand and color it digitally. I've been working more and more on the computer these days (designing websites, layouts, etc.) and graphic elements have already begun to appear in my work. It was only a matter of time before I gave them a larger role in a piece. It seems like a such natural step forward for me.

The foregrounds are created the way I traditionally work, while backgrounds are created entirely in Illustrator (with the exception of a few added textures fo' flava). There's still a few kinks to work out in the process, (and I'm already looking at these pieces seeing how I could have done them better) but I'm really happy with the approach and am excited to work this way in the future.

I love the cover (above). The image wraps around the front and the back of the report, so that it is actually square. I was really wanted to make sure I made it a representation of both the city and the park, since they're both so present in each run we do. Since the background takes up such little space in the image, it was great to have a second image, where the opposite was true.



This piece was originally planned for the cover, also, but I think I liked it better as a landscape. It just had a nicer flow to it. The additional space for the roadway opened it up more and made it feel freer. I'll have to have to post the sketches so you can decide for yourself. It looks great inside the report, though. (I've been lucky enough to get a sneak peak of the whole report, designed by Sandi Rowe. I'd share it with you, but then I'd have to kill you...). Actually, the whole report looks AMAZING! I can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy. I'm so glad I could contribute this year.

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas everyone! I know I'm a little late but I've been out of town celebrating Christmas with my family in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. I just got back into NYC today and wanted to share a little project I worked on over my break. This Christmas I decided that I would record my Christmas in pictures. So, throughout the holiday I carried my sketchbook with me and took time to sketch some of the memories.

As it does for so many of us, Christmas began with the task of getting home. The first image I drew in Penn Station in New York, waiting for Amtrak to announce the gate of my train. Not only was this project a great exercise to keep myself working over the break, but it was also a great way to keep myself from getting bored... It actually worked a little too well, though. I missed the station announcing my train and nearly missed my ride home!

All was well, though, and I made it safely to my seat as the train left the station on it's way to PA. I was worried for a bit this second image wouldn't get made. As I sat down and pulled out my sketchbook, the person sitting next to me asked about my work. We ended talking all the way to Philadelphia about art and the growing acceptance of digital work in the Gallery scene. It was one of the most pleasant rides I've had on Amtrak. Figures it would happen when I had grand plans for the trip!

Luckily for my project, my friend exited in Philly and I was free to draw for the second leg of the trip.

The next montage I have to admit I drew from Christmas Eve photographs. There's no way to capture on paper a toddler at Christmas. Seriously. This little lady is my niece. Christmas was all about her this year. Last year she was only 10 months at Christmas, so this year was the first she was able to open her own gifts and everyone was sure to spoil her. She could not have been more excited (or cute).

The third image of her is after two gifts (in her right hand you can see the Minnie Mouse I gave her). At his point she's debating how to reach back into her stocking an pull out gift three, without putting down gifts one and two. I swear, funniest thing ever.

Christmas Day!!! We spend Christmas day at my aunt's house because of her giant kitchen (shown above). Pretty much everyones shows up at Vicki's and we have a huge feast. There was so much food this year I couldn't fit everything on one plate! I decided this year that if for going back for "seconds" you don't actually get anything that you got in the first round, it should still count as the first round. Although by that standard, I didn't make it to "thirds" this year as I usually do, unless you count the baked brie appetizer or the whole table of desserts... Anyway, there's a lot of food.

The next two images are post dinner. Basically they're capturing everyone falling into their "food coma." Following the "food coma" all the kids start running around like crazy from all the energy they've just absorbed and everyone else just tries to keep up. More presents were exchanged, football was watched, snacks were had and merriment was all around.

Unfortunately, this is where the images end. Turns out, I didn't adequately prepare for this little project and didn't notice I only had a few pages left in my sketchbook. :( Things that happened this Christmas vacation that missed capturing:

- Times with old friends

- Sam the oversized black lab with his oversized Christmas gift dog bone

- My friend's new engagement ring!

- The process of cleaning out my old room at my mom's (Three bags of clothes for Goodwill, two boxes of toys and books, one bag of recycled magazines/newspapers, and Five black trash bags full of crap!)

- Penn Station, Harrisburg

-Also, to round things out, I would have liked to draw the train ride back to NYC, but that wouldn't have happened anyway since I slept the whole way...

I guess I'll have to try again next year!

I hope everyone had as an amazing Christmas as I did and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Extreme Muraling

There's a certain makeover show that happens to air on Sundays that I just did a mural of the Paris landscape for. The image covers three entire walls plus the ceiling!

It was an extremely difficult project because if the short time table I had to work with. I'm extremely happy with the result, though. Honestly, it just came out beautifully. This may be the fastest I've taken a project from start to finish and is certainly the largest files I've ever worked on. Did you know that Photoshop has a Large Document Format for files that exceed 2GB? I do now...

Not certain of the date/time of the airing of the episode, yet.

More to come!

NYC Marathon 2009

Congratulations to Meb Keflezighi (2:09:15) for being the first American in 28 years to win the ING New York City Marathon and to Derartu Tulu (2:28:52) of Ethiopia for her victory as well!!!

The NYC Marathon was last weekend, running through the five boroughs of New York City. It was a thrilling race with stacked rosters in both the men's and women's races. I went out early to about mile 11 to cheer for the leaders of both races but then focused my energies on cheering for my friends and Front Runner teammates.

I was sad not to be running the race again this year (we'll see about 2010) but was super duper excited to be on the sidelines with my sign screaming. I got quite the workout hitting three spots along the course and meeting everyone at the finish. By the end of it, I felt like I had done a race, myself, but I'm sure I was feeling nothing compared to the 43,000 finishers.

Front Runners alone, had 18 women and 95 men running in the race, with 4 women under four hours, 11 men under three hours and oh-so-many Boston Qualifiers and Personal Bests that I don't care to count. I'm so proud of all my teammates and can't wait to see them out at our next fun run or whenever they're able to walk again...


Pictured: Myself, Kelsey Louie (2:55:35 PR), & David Lin (3:31:05)