A Child Of Atom

Whew! Following the Sun interview, and the mention on Gothamist, I received a new mention on Moleskinerie, and it's been a race since then! I've been approached by a new gallery, two more newspapers, several individuals inquiring about buying pieces, and a video podcast show that would like to interview me. This is turning into quite the debut for the book, and the funny part is that it's all happening at the same time through nothing more than serendipity. I'm glad I finished up the book in time.

(By the way... I apologize for the exceptional number of exclamation points in my posts in the past few days, it's just been exciting! Ooops. I mean... "exciting.")

One of my absolute favorite city resources Gothamist linked me today!

I guess, based on their article, that I won't be riding the PATH train any time soon...

So... to all the Gothamist readers: Welcome! You can see all the subway sketches here, and if you are so inclined, order the book here!

Hope you all come back by to visit, I post a new sketch every couple days, but I'm usually here kvetching about something every day.

These are shots of the set I've been building for the stop motion movie. The location for this shot is a run-down tailor shop. I built about 95% of what's in the photo, except for a few minor detail pieces like the irons, the bucket, the whisk broom, stuff like that. This is all at 1 1/2" = 1' scale, meaning that a 6' tall person would be 7 1/2" tall in this room. It's really a great deal of fun, I love doing work like this. Today I built an upright piano for next set, a music store down the street from this location.

Don't forget to check out the book! Sales are doing really well. Have you gotten your copy yet?

She had the teeny-tiniest squintiest little eyes I've ever seen!

After the gallery show in December I decided that I'd like to try and self-publish a book version of the show so it could be distributed a bit more widely. It took a lot of research but I chose lulu.com as the right publisher for me and started working on the book. Then came the hard part. I decided to edit the show a bit, so I chose 99 of the sketches, including 7 that had not been drawn by the time of the show and I started putting the book together. There was a bit of a delay in January when I was overwhelmed by other work, and then in February I kicked the project into full gear and got it done. The process of laying out the book took me about a month, and then the process of uploading it all to Lulu took about a week and a half, since it turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. Then I ordered the first proof...

And it's here!! I got home this morning to find the proof copy sitting in my mail box, and after a short perusal, I think it is finally ready for public consumption! So if you are a fan of my subway sketches, please go here, or click the button in the sidebar and head on over to Lulu.com to get your very own copy.

The sketches are presented in chronological order, and at the actual size that they were sketched. There is a also brief introduction, (though there probably isn't much in it that visitors here haven't already read).

I'm really proud of this project, and the results and proud to be able to present it to you!

Well, Day 1 may have been a bust but Day 2 is starting out well!

Yesterday I got an email from a reporter at the New York Sun. Turns out that she is the transit columnist and was writing a column on New Yorkers who find inspiration in the subway. Well, that's me! So check out the New York Sun today. (Read the online version here.)

(The article spoils my announcement for Day 3, by the way... but I'm going to ignore that when the time comes, probably early next week, monday or tuesday.)

So if you are here for the first time as a New York Sun reader... welcome! You can see all the sketches by clicking here, all my posts about the subway (including text posts) are here, anything else you need to know? Enjoy and, I hope you come back often!

Well... it didn't air. I'm working out at the studio tomorrow so I'm sure they'll have something to say about it. Oh, well...

Here's hoping that tomorrow's exciting announcement actually happens or this whole thing is gonna fall apart!

Okay... I don't watch the Tonight Show normally, but tonight I have it on in hopes of seeing the piece that I worked on. And as life for me often does... coincidence steps in.

If you were watching, when Jay finished up his interview with Howie Mandell, Howie was plugging the home game version of Deal or No Deal (game shows still do home versions? Who knew!) and then he tossed the copy he had out into the audience.

So what's the coincidence? Well... the guy who caught it? I know him. He's an actor who worked with me last year at the summerstock I was at. I watch this show once expecting to see my own work, and there sits a friend in the audience. (Hi Ryan!)

There's lots and lots of cool stuff going on in my life right now!! Keep checking back, I expect to be making two more major announcements in the next few days, but first things first: Got a TV? Got a local NBC affiliate? Well then you might want to catch the Tonight Show tonight. There's no guarantee that it will be on, it might get bumped for time, or whatever, but the Episode of the B-Team that I worked on is supposed to air tonight. I painted all the backgrounds, and in a career first I puppeteered the Olsen Twins in a couple of the shots!

More to come....

Well it didn't work when I tried it for Christmas... but I figured I'd post these birthday wishes since we have about a month until that date.




Either of these would make me happy happy happy. (Anyone detect a theme to my wish lists?) Both are available here. (In fact the second statue, the bust of Rachel, is exclusive to them.)

Edward Scissorhands, as a dance piece, at one of the most respected "art theatre" houses in New York City, The Brooklyn Academy of Music. What is the world coming to? This production is entirely wordless, existing purely in a world of dance.

I don't even know what else to say about it. It looks... well... it looks... awful. But BRILLIANTLY awful. I mean... look closely at this next shot:


Those are people. In shrub costumes. SHRUB. COSTUMES.

The mind boggles.

(Aside to Kevin: THIS is my Ghost Rider.)

In the life of a freelancer there often come... periods... week, months, maybe even years, when there just isn't any work.

It's scary.

In January I was frantically running about town trying to get the costumes and sets ready for two different shows, buried under more work than I knew what to do with, and loving every moment of it. (Well, maybe not EVERY moment. That night I spent sleeping in the office of the theatre on a pile of old curtains was not a career high point...) After that things crashed. After sleeping off those weeks of work for a couple days I awoke to... a whole lotta nothin'. January and February are notoriously slow months in my line of work, and March and April are DEAD. So I usually have to work my ass off in November and December in order to bank enough to get me through to May. The problem was, I hadn't.

I was headed into middle February without much in the bank, and not a single job lined up. In fact I didn't have another gig until April, and it was a non-paying one. It was all I could do not to panic. I considered temping, that old fall back, that I consider every time I get in this situation, and I considered... well... all sorts of things.

Now, here I am, just around the time that my money was scheduled to run out. So where am I? Well, the situation is considerably less bleak. The proceeds from my gallery show have come in (well, the check is in the mail...). I'm back working on the movie that I was working on back in October. And since they are being filmed in the same studio that led to working on a new episode of The B-Team (see older episodes here, I am painting the backgrounds and making a few random props). Plus I'm doing props for an Equity Showcase downtown. And tutoring a colleague in Photoshop. And, and, and... a half a dozen other ands.

In other words, plenty of work. But no... WORK. Nothing in the vein of what it is that I actually do. Lots of stuff on the periphery of what I do though, and I guess that's okay. It just feels like I am not progressing much in the next few months which leaves me feeling a bit bleak.

But at least I won't be feeling a bit hungry, and that's what matters I guess.

This month I didn't have a specific theme or style in mind when I set out photographing my day, but one quickly developed over the course of the day, and then became obvious as the day went on: Multiples. (This is all based on a project started by Chad Darnell.)

I spent the night at Kid Flash's last night and forgot to take my camera with me, but he was gracious enough to let me borrow his for the day. Let me tell you, his little Canon PowerShot SD400 is a lot easier to carry around than my Nikon D50! I may have to look into getting something small like this for these projects and reserve the D50 for portfolio shots, which is what it was purchased for in the first place.


I was working this morning for a company out in Brooklyn that does stop motion animation films. They ate gearing up for there next piece and the studio was littered with pieces of dolls that were being prepped for the shoot. The puppets they use are all made from various doll parts.


My job was painting the still backgrounds for the shoot. It is part of an ongoing series, so there are some existing pieces that will need to be matched, and some others that will need to be touched up, or modified for the new story.


The dolls are EVERYWHERE and can get little weird to work around frankly. They've all been reworked to look like various celebrities or public figures so any given pile might be a dozen Madonna's mixed with Bill Clinton's or Paris Hiltons piled on top of Randy Jacksons.


A multiple of little birdies that I saw when I went for lunch.


Speaking of lunch...


A sketch of one of the backgrounds that I'll be rendering later in the week, Mann's Chinese.


The hall outside the studio features this... unusual... flock of birdies.


After work it was over to Manhattan for the weekly card game. (Which seems to fall on the 12th quite a bit...) This is a stop on the R, headed in.


And my final stop in Manhattan.


A swing through Starbucks for a snack to take to the game.


Multiples showed up during the game too.


More game artifacts.

Tomorrow is another day off, while the interns at the studio prep art boards for me, then Wednesday I'll be back in to start the real paintings.