TOONS! East River Jellyfish Swallows Williamsburg Bridge

I had a lot of fun drawing out this concert poster for the band, TOONS. I got to draw the Williamsburg Bridge getting swallowed by a giant mutated East River jelly fish monster. The Williamsburg Bridge is the lovely connection between Brooklyn and the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It is my favorite bridge in NYC because the J train goes over it and takes me home! I love walking or riding my bike over it enjoying the gorgeous view of the city. I plan on making a larger scale version of this idea and selling them as prints.

If you'd like to see more process shots behind this wacky jelly monster poster check out my website alexarizaart.com

The TOONS logo was originally hand drawn. I went through many variations until I ended up with this little gem.

One shot deal, all the letters came out legible enough, the spacing was decent, and the style was fun. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I thought the text had a strong energy it. You can tell it was done quickly. It captured the "boldness" and "confidence" of the band's sound. Anyway, I thought it was suitable, the band loved it, and that's what counts.

After scanning it, I took it into Adobe Illustrator and used the live trace tool to create a vector image. From there I was able to make any modifications I thought were necessary.

Using Adobe Photoshop I removed the notebook lines to make it easier for Adobe Illustrator to live trace the image.

Vector version of the logo.

The vector version of the logo is super helpful when I need to design things in all different sizes. You wouldn't be able to have that much freedom if you were stuck with just a normal bitmap or rasterized imaged.

I've been doing hand drawn logos for a while now. I really enjoy having that extra bit of control in graphic design instead of having to slave away on a computer messing with paths and all that other nonsense. It feels more natural to me, and of course, in my experience, my work flow is far more efficient for getting ideas out.

For a more in depth look at the Live Trace tool on Adobe Illustrator check out the Adobe website! 

Baboon Jungle

Baboon Jungle Acrylic on 12 x 16 in. canvas panel 2013

Baboons, I find, are some of the strangest and most frightening creatures on this planet. Funny enough, I think human beings, specifically men, are pretty damn frightening as well. Since we are animals ourselves we have innate tendencies to react to stimuli in a rather uncivilized way. I myself have felt urges, pure primitive ones, at the sight of women. The painting of the baboon is how I imagine my inner voice to look like. It is wild and fierce. Its eyes directionless and aimless because it cannot focus on just one.

I was inspired heavily by Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings. His nude women, and the wild creatures around her. I am also inspired by Walton Ford and his amazing watercolors of wildlife having human like characteristics/motivations.

The Witch Doctor

The Witch Doctor Bears a Gift  Acrylic on 6 x 6 wood panel 2013