WARNING! POTENTIAL OVERLOAD!

I don’t want to over dramatize my situation and of course my artistic degree of freedom always allows me to exaggerate the title just a bit, but this is not such a case.  To tell you the truth I have never been busier in my whole life and keep in mind that I’ve studied my 4-year Bachelor in Business Administration twelve years ago, worked non-stop for 10 years in my family's business, and even had some companies of my own in between. I’m a firm believer that if you want to get some place better you have to study relentlessly, work hard and dedicate yourself hundred percent to the task. Now I must have elevated the percentage a notch because I have barely time of my own (Like Spinal Tap’s amps that go up to 11. If you haven’t seen this scene please click this link because it’s hilarious http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll7rWiY5obI). I remember that college wasn’t that hard back in the day, but there are two main possibilities why I think this first month of my Sophomore-Junior year has been so difficult. 

The main reason is basically because I’m mixing my hardcore classes of sophomore year with my time consuming classes of junior year. Why, you ask? Because I already met all my humanities requirements in my previous degree in business and they were around thirty credits. Normally, as you may well know (or not) a bachelor consists of hundred and twenty credits, so basically I shove off one year of my program. But is it too much, I wonder? Yes, it may be, but gladly I’m fully committed to my studies, which keeps me focused. It was either that or doing my regular 4-year program with tons of electives that traduces in spending unnecessary time and money.  The other reason is that I actually didn’t rest over my summer vacations (Which now I know why students need them!… yeah, you guessed it! Potential work overload!). I went to Florence and studied art history and Italian. It doesn’t seem that bad I know, and the classes were pretty laid back, but I guess you need that recovery time of doing nothing in between semesters. Well, it’s not an option for me to spend four months doing nothing so I imagine that I just have to man up and get the job done! :) 

One of the things that worry me the most is that I’m taking some classes from my junior year that basically assume that I have all the knowledge from the classes of my sophomore year. This is not the case because I’m taking those classes simultaneously. In order for you to clearly get this idea I need to explain to you what my classes are all about. Don’t forget that my foundation year is over, this means that you probably won’t be seeing any fine art paintings any more, at least not as homework from my classes. This year will be more focused on my major, which is cartooning. I’m going to start describing my sophomore classes: Principles of Cartooning, Drawing for Cartoonists, Digital Coloring, and Gouache Techniques.

Principles of Cartooning may be my favorite and more challenging class this year. It basically teaches you to consciously know the rules of making a comic in order for you to bend or even break them in the future. I’ve been reading comics for 20 years now (Yeah, I’m that old) and I would’ve thought that all the knowledge would come naturally to me. This wasn’t the case. It’s like understanding a language similar to your native tongue. It’s hard! You may not comprehend everything, but you get a general idea, right? Well, try speaking that language without studying? It is pretty difficult if not impossible. That simple metaphor encapsulates what I’m feeling right now in this class. It’s like a whole world of options are opening right in front of me. Of course some things come naturally when you are drawing a comic (after all, it is a form of communication I’m way too familiar with) but knowing the theory behind those unconscious decisions gives me the opportunity to adapt or modify them in different scenarios. I’m talking gibberish I know, but I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not as easy as it looks and it has a LOT of information to learn. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about “drawing”, that I can do, and I can honestly say that I do that fairly good. Here I’m talking about storytelling, which is basically drawing in an effective and clear way in order to convey some information in hopefully an entertaining way. (I came up with that definition of my own :)). Just visualize a class discussing the numerous ways to draw a panel line or composing those same panels in the page. It seems irrelevant or unimportant, but beware!!! They are far from it.

It also helps that the teacher in this class is the famous Klaus Janson (inker of the Dark Night Returns and penciller of a Black and White short story of Alfred Pennyworth. Of course he has much more achievements but those are my favorites). He is very demanding and seems like a great teacher. He is very strict and I like that, although he “called on me” while I was texting in class. In my defense we were on a break! But I took no personal offense by that; he clearly used me to set an example for the other kids to learn that texting is BAD! At 34 I’m not used to anybody treating me like a kid, but I guess I look younger than I am (Kudos for me ;)). One of the phrases (that the teacher clearly claimed that he invented) is “if you keep failing, fail better”. It sound so wrong, but it is true in drawing. You have to learn to crawl before you learn how to walk, and clearly we are going to make mistakes, but the good thing is that they’ll be better than the ones before. Am I right? Ok, for this class homework we had to make a single page explaining what we did on our summer vacation. I really liked this project because I wanted to summarize what I did in Florence this summer “vacations”. Everybody got a B just because we did not include the question in the page, for instance, a panel showing that we were going out of school. I would’ve included the question, but I don’t feel like a college kid so I didn’t. Anyways, I still got a B+ for the assignment. Also all our homework must be done in pencils (I did ink this page but it takes a lot of time so I’m not sure if I will be doing that again for this class) and with no words! We are supposed to tell the story without any kind of dialogue, which is a little bit harder but the storytelling is more effective if you can achieve this.

SUMMER IN FLORENCE

My next class is Drawing for Cartoonists. This class is a requirement but I really enjoy it. It consists on drawing the human figure (male and female nude models of course) from life. So far I haven’t learned anything new and since this is drawing from observation I feel ahead of my classmates. Remember that my classmates now are only cartoonists and illustrators, and they have mostly spend their time drawing cartoons, while I spent 10+ years drawing from observation (on and off). In any case, you cannot go wrong in this class because there is always room for improvement, especially in getting to better understand the human body, which is an essential instrument for storytelling (unless you want to do a comic based solely on animals, but that’s not here nor there). Also, the teacher of this class is Phil Jimenez, which is another recognized artist from DC and Marvel Comics. He is a very talented and successful comic book artist who has penciled Infinite Crisis and Wonder Woman (DC) and the best seller Amazing Spider-Man # 583 (Barak Obama cover, even non comic fans bought this issue because of the political connotation). I really like his artwork and he's one of my favorite pencillers for superhero comics, so I intend to get the most out of his advices. BEWARE though, he corrects you by drawing on your art! At first I felt uneasy by that, but later on I didn’t care anymore. It actually helped me a lot to loosen up. Because these are 20-min poses, no drawing in that class is actually good enough to post it here :(

Another class that I really have enjoyed so far is Digital Coloring. This is an elective and it consists on coloring comic book pages by using Photoshop. Since I really love drawing this is a perfect complement because by coloring a black and white drawing (or ink) makes the art seem more complete.  Bear in mind that in the industry there is the penciller, the inker, and the colorist. If you are the penciller you may do your own inking, although it takes a lot of time or you could in fact be an awful inker. Nevertheless, it is uncommon for the penciller or the inker to do the colors. It is still a lot of hard work and time consuming but I guess is the less difficult discipline of the three. Right now we are learning the basic stuff, which is coloring in flats (plain colors) and rendering some shadows and highlights (this is harder than it looks). Still, It is easy to be a colorist, but it is really hard to be a GREAT colorist, and knowing this stuff would make it easier for me in the future to communicate my wishes to the assigned colorist. I had to color this Wonder Woman page by myself. It's not that well done, but as I stated before, it looks more finished.

Another elective that I chose is Gouache Techniques. I get really frustrated with this class, mainly because there are so much talented kids in my class that make my work look like my nephew’s art (which is pretty good for his age). We have to put our homework on the wall and criticize it. I have to admit I feel a little ashamed and even though I try hard, this technique is difficult to master. I really enjoyed oil painting last year, but this is completely different. It is a very meticulous way of painting. Also, It is so challenging for me to really get the right colors, or for lack of a better word, values. For instance, what color is the sky? Some will say blue, and you won’t be completely wrong, but certainly incomplete. Assuming you can see the clouds on a clear day, the colors bouncing from the sky are blue, white, grey, purple, or even yellow. It doesn’t seem that way, but you actually have to concentrate really hard in order to get the right colors. Forget about what you think you are seeing because form, or line, can be misleading; you just have to see the values, and once you get that you’re ready to be a painter. I hate my pieces in this class, but I like the fact that I’m learning more about color, although I’d really like to show my drawings to my classmates in order for me not to feel as an untalented excuse of an artist.

SELF-PORTRAIT USING GOUACHE

IMPRESSIONISTIC PAINTING BY MONET

Now let’s cover my junior classes: Pictorial Problems and Culture Survey (It seems that as you advance in this program the course titles just seem more ambiguous and intellectual). To tell the story short, Pictorial Problems is about making your first comic book. It is like the thesis project and that’s why I’m kind of worried that I’m also taking Principles of Cartooning simultaneously. I mean, to do this thesis I should know the principles by now. Anyways, I see that my drawings are not bad but they do need more perspective, shadows and overall, composition. Saying that, I’m working my ass off so I can get a decent grade and most important, I could learn more from this class. The theme of this year is “Man-made Monster”, which is a very broad subject. You can go from Frankenstein to Charles Manson. The approach is based on a lot of research and references. My comic is an accurate adaptation of the book by Robert Louis Stevenson “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. It is classic and most of you know more or less what this book is all about, but if you haven’t, don’t panic!!! Because you’ll be reading my awesome comic at the end of April ;) I’ve even gone to the New York Library Picture Collection in order to get a lot of references of London, Interior shots from the late nineteenth century, and of course, the monstrous Mr. Hyde. It’s going to be fun and I hope the end result will be satisfactory because it'll be my first official comic book. Here I’ve done some portraits of the main characters. Also we had an assignment to do a mini-comic about myself so I hope you enjoy it.

DR. JEKYLL

MR. HYDE

MR. UTTERSON

Finally, my Culture Survey class shares the same theme as my Pictorial problem class "Man-made monster". This is basically a Literature class. I can honestly admit that I love it. So far we have read “Othello” by Shakespeare and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, which I found macabre. It’s only five acts so I highly recommend reading this, preferably at night. Here’s the link: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/wf_rose.html. This class is amazing but most of all is having the privilege of taking it with this particular teacher. So much passion about literature is not easy to find anymore.

I just turned 34 and I feel good. I’m not going to lie to you, it is unavoidable to feel a little depressed by the fact that I’m much older than my classmates and that at this age I’m just starting out my career. I don’t know, I feel like even though I work twice as much as my classmates I will never achieve the greatness I’m aiming for. After all, they have all their life ahead of them. I don’t want to sound fatalistic, I’m not that old, but watching these kids talk and share their ideas make me feel even that way. I guess it all falls on your perspective and your surroundings. Just a day before I turned 34, a new girl from my Gouache class asked me if I was the professor. It shouldn’t affect me, but somehow it does, because I can’t stop doing math in my head and figuring out where will I be in 16 years from now when they’ll be 36 and I’ll be 50. Ok, enough about that! I feel good because I love what I’m doing, and maybe I’m just over thinking it way too much. Saying that, could you imagine a responsible 34 year-old doing this:

CLASSMATE'S METHOD OF TRANSPORTATION

The ambiguous art word of this month is CREATIVITY. We can all agree that now creativity is as important as literacy, but can you teach someone to be creative? Am I creative? And if I am, am I creative enough to compete? I don’t know, this word cracks my head open as much as the word “composition”.

And to wrap this up: a quote, a pledge, and a request:

1. “If you are afraid to be wrong, you’ll never have anything original” (Sir Ken Robinson from TED: Ideas worth spreading www.ted.com).
2.  I swear that I’m going to get through this year. It is my commitment to my fellow readers and to myself!
3.  Please bring back Wally West (The Flash) to the DC continuity.

Thanks for reading and as always...

Godspeed,

José Luis Molestina

SWEET DISPOSITION

People will always question your motives and your decisions, but one thing I’ve learned is that this journey is not about pleasing everybody… it’s about getting more out of life; and one of the best feelings is the ability to surprise yourself one more time (I may have stolen this from the movie ‘America Beauty’ but if it fits perfectly, so sue me!). I’m still here, in the center of a town older than history, grasping… for a second time… what it has to offer me. I’ve learned so many new things in my trip to Florence, and the most important of them had nothing to do with the classes I’ve taken. It’s been a ride all by itself. In a rhythmic dance of emotions I’ve been through hell, purgatory, and paradise (which fits poetically to Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, who was also from Florence). I came to this city based on a rather convenient conclusion in which I needed to take 6 credits (two classes) from art history in order to get my Bachelors in Fine Arts in only 3 years rather than 4. My first time in Florence was 11 years ago, and although I had a great time back then, I couldn’t go through with my plans and ended up returning sooner than expected. For me it was not only incomplete but somehow a failure and I wanted a second chance to try again. It would not be a fair comparison though. The first time I was here, I was just a boy eager to go back to Ecuador and start working a steady job in order to be successful; now I’m a man more interested in culture and who enjoys studying in order to be fulfilled. We are two different people, and probably I’m another man compared to the one that got here three months ago. (This may be a little philosophical but bear with me; this has a simple solution and does not require a time machine).

11 years ago with "Il Porcellino"

Now at the same place

The way I see it, life is a big staircase full of knowledge, but I don’t think you ever go down. No, that is not the way it works! You always learn, even from bad decisions. This was one of the good cases where I learned so much based on a great decision. Yes, I learned a lot from my art history and Italian classes (which by now I could say that I do speak fluently Italian), but what I really learned made me grow up even more. I learned a new culture, to do laundry, to cook for myself, to live with a roommate, to be more outgoing, to be more patient, and tons of minuscule things that added up make me a better and more valuable person now. Granted, I guess I knew all of these things before (not the cooking though, that is completely new) but I may have, for lack of a better word, relearned them. Sometimes I felt lonely, and other times I desperately needed my family and friends, but I understood that there always have to be sacrifices in order to follow your goals. Ok, I’ll stop preaching now, sorry about that, but I just felt the need to express my feelings regarding this second chance and all of these could be simplified by the word “rediscovery”.

Laundry "alla Fiorentina"

I stated in my previous entry that this blog was not going to be about my traveling through Italy, but guess what, It will be, because my involvement in art cannot be dissected from my experience in Italy. I tried, believe me I tried, but at the end I felt it was necessary in order to properly show my artistic evolution. I’ve been in Florence for three months now, but I had a third objective in this trip and it was to get to know as most cities from Italy as I could. I guess that for a sedentary guy such as myself this has been mission accomplished. I’ve been to Prato, Pisa, Rome, Milan, Venice, Padova, Elba Island, Principina a Mare, Cinque Terre and the Chianti region. Just by reading that sentence I’m already exhausted. I have around 1700 pictures (3.20 GB on my hard drive). Of course I won’t be able to show you all the pictures, but at least I’m going to show you the ones I really like. In any case, what I won’t do is tell you about all the places I’ve got to visit in each city. Why not? Because it will take on forever to write a faithful and fair description of my experience, so I’ve decided just to let you know about the things that somehow are more relevant to this blog.

When in Rome I encountered the Trajan’s Column. If that is not a comic I don’t know what is. It definitively is an early example of narrative storytelling of yore. I remember reading about this in Understanding Comics (a MUST READ book for comic fans) by Scott Mccloud, as an early example of graphic storytelling. It was enlightening to see this Roman triumphal column with lots and lots of reliefs depicting chronologically the battles from the Roman emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. He also mentions the Bayeux Tapestry but I will probably cover this in the far future when I go to Normandy (you never know, right?). A friend of mine came to Rome and we had the chance to go to the Vatican museums. It was a very long line, almost 3 hours, but at the end of the museum I saw something magnificent, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo. I ended up wondering if artists from today could surpass this masterpiece.

Trajan's Column

My visit to Milan was fun and very interesting. Obviously I got to visit all the important places but what I really enjoyed over there is that I got the chance to get into my time machine and travel thirteen years back in time. You see, I stayed in a friend’s place, but he is 20 years old and the most important thing that I noticed was that everything changes, but everything also remains the same. Gotta love my contradictions! Anyways, I’ve spent a Saturday afternoon the same way I did when I was in my college years in 1998. We were drinking beer and playing Playstation. That was it! And I had a great time, no worries, just hanging out. Of course back then it was Nintendo 64 and the game was either James Bond Golden Eye, or Mario Kart 64. Now it was Call of Duty World at War in Playstation 3. I spent the whole Saturday killing Nazi zombies and then I remembered why video games are the worst enemy of comic artists! It is impossible to play this type of games and meet a deadline in time. Luckily I already overcame this. Wait, when is it that the new Zelda, Skyward Sword, is coming out? November 20, 2011??? DAMN!!!

Brings back memories...

In the middle of July I got a visit from my dear cousin Nastassia. She stayed with me until the end of my trip. I have enjoyed her company a lot and naturally we’ve got to know each other more through this month and a half. Also she traveled with me to some of the places I mentioned above. It’s been refreshing and I know I will miss her… a lot… when she’s gone. But all good things come to an end I guess. In any case I learned two important things about her, that I love her dearly and that I can’t be chatty when she just wakes up ☺ Miss you already Nats! You can actually see a sketch of her in one of my previous entries.

Me and Nats in Venice

Regarding my classes I can honestly say that I’ve learned plenty of information, especially in my “Hidden Meanings of Renaissance Art”. Doesn’t it sound cool just to say it? It was really fascinating but the lectures were also very very long! We examined some paintings and it is impressive how much information it is hidden as symbolisms. Now I really know how to observe a painting, which I can admit I had no clue before. All the details are there for a reason, and the main thing to consider is that a painting is not a photograph, so all those symbols were put intentionally to communicate something. I enjoyed it a lot, when I could manage to stay awake for the whole lecture of course. I got an A in both of my art history classes ☺ I was so happy with my grades that I ended up thinking this feeling is what successful entrepreneurs feel when a business goes well. The reward cannot be only money, right?… right? I don’t know, maybe no one really appreciates a great grade, but I wear them as medals of honor because they represent my all out effort in this journey. I learned another language but somehow I speak it better when I have 3 or 4 whiskies inside me. This formula also applies to speeches, which I haven’t done for a while. I guess I have to remedy that in the near future. (Stop babbling José!)

I’m also glad to mention that I finish the main lessons on bones and muscles of figure drawing that I was taking. It was hard to listen to these lectures (via my laptop) and draw intensely each muscle and each bone in order to feel more comfortable in drawing the human figure from my mind. Although I feel I still need a lot, the progress is evident and I’m pretty happy for the result. The video is called “The Structure of Man” by Riven Phoenix, and you can get it in www.alienthink.com. I’m uploading five examples from finished lessons from the video. Also you can see two free drawings I made, one was at Piazza Signoria and I decided to draw from life this statue that turned out to be really difficult (or probably I was extremely tired). I did not like the end result but it was time well spent. The other one I did like and it’s a drawing of the mask of Guy Fawkes from the movie V for Vendetta (based on the comic by Alan Moore of course). And no, I’m not associated with Anonymous, but I can’t argue that I kind of dig the concept ;).

This entry was very difficult for me to write because I feel that I’m leaving out a lot of experiences that I’ve found equally important as the ones mentioned, maybe even more. Also I haven’t written for almost 2 months now, and this may be because everything I have experienced has been so overwhelming that it was very hard for me to properly organize these ideas. It is time to go back home though. The race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself. Perhaps this part of the race felt too long. I guess three months is just about enough. Don’t get me wrong, I love Florence, but I’m way too homesick right now. Can’t wait to go back to New York and start my classes at SVA, to see my family again. Also, right now this weather is just way too hot for me… and I don’t think only one fan is going to cut it anymore ☺. See you in the near future.

Godspeed,

José Luis

CIAO FIRENZE

I’ve been in Florence, Italy for over a month now. Let me tell you this has been a trip to remember and it’s not even half over. I have to be careful not to treat this entry as a travel blog, but how can I not? This, in fact, is part of my evolution as an artist, so bear with me if you see some pictures of myself in the city where it all began… again.

First things first though, I have to remind myself that this adventure did not start well, in fact, it was a complete nightmare getting here and finding a place. I boarded my plane to Madrid on a Saturday afternoon, around 6 PM and if things had gone well I should’ve arrived on the next day at midnight. Guess what? Things did not go according to plan! Big Surprise!!! Everything was OK in Madrid and I did get to my flight to Rome with time to spare, but of course the flight got delayed and not only that, but it couldn’t land and stayed on the air for probably one hour more. For people who know me, by now they could guess I was close to have a nervous breakdown. I thought to myself “Could somebody please show me the gas tank of this damn plane?” I don’t like planes and having already been in a 10-hour flight was way too much for me to handle. Still, I somehow managed, but of course I missed my non-refundable ticket and last flight of the day to Florence. So by then, I was tired and utterly alone with my thoughts of desperation at the Fumicino airport in Rome. It wasn’t a good experience! I couldn’t understand a word and even worse I couldn’t speak nothing either! Damn you PIMSLEUR method for making me think I was ready to speak Italian.

I brought some cash with me, but nobody could break my bills, so it was like having paper on my wallet rather than Euros. Because it couldn’t happen any other way, I left my passport with all the cash at a cash exchange counter. Luckily two minutes later I realized I didn’t have it on me and panicked. Went back to that counter running, and out of breath I could see an honest guy telling the clerk somebody has left that on the counter. I could only say a million times “grazie” to that man. So I tried to calm down in order to think straight but that airport is not like any airport in the United States. It’s like you don’t have where to sit and it didn’t look kind of safe at almost midnight. There was a train that I could get on in order to get to Florence at 3 AM; so one of those unofficial taxi driver told me he could get me there in 30 minutes, and the train was scheduled to leave in 30 minutes, very convenient huh! There I was running like crazy to get to the taxi, but the driver was running faster with my 50 kg bag!!! By that time I was just trying to get to the driver to recover my bag! We got there and he told me it was going to be 70 Euros! Screw that! I was not going to fell victim to that crime. So I went back and decided to board a train from the airport to the train station in Rome to board a 6 AM train to Florence that arrived at 8 AM on Monday (Keep in mind that my classes started at 9 AM).

I was thinking of waiting at the train station until 6 AM. WRONG!!!! At midnight that place looked like a dark alley with criminals around every corner. Luckily, I was in contact via Blackberry with a very important person to me, who practically convinced me to stay in a hotel for the night (Thank you a thousand times for doing that). At first I didn’t want to but then I understood that my life, or my belongings, could be in danger. So I went with a guy who was passing by promoting his “hotel”. He took me to a place near the station that did not look like a hotel at all, didn’t even have a sign, so I turned away but the guy didn’t want to let me go. So I just walked away waiting for the knife at the back! Finally, I went to the EXTASIS hotel and I gladly paid for staying there for four hours. I showered and tried to get some sleep, which I could not of course. I went to the train station at 5:30 AM, and to keep this story relatively short, there I was running again with my luggage because who the hell can understand the train system in Europe (later on I guess I got the hang of it, but still sometimes it’s just luck). I arrived to Florence at 8 AM and took a cab to a friend’s apartment (who has been really helpful in this journey) to at least leave the luggage there until I finished my classes for that day. After that, everything worked perfectly well… uh… NOT A CHANCE my friend!!!! ;) I was supposed to have an apartment by my arrival to Florence, but somehow the place was no longer available. I could not stay at my friend’s house and also I didn’t want to bother her, so I decided to stay for a couple of days at a place that my friend told me about. It was practically a convent; with those friar cells I’ve seen so much in Florence. It wasn’t very comfortable either. By that time I could only watch the clip I had in my mind of getting to this beautiful city and be mesmerized by its architecture, but no, what I was experiencing was not it. I couldn’t sleep there either and after 2 and a half days without sleeping I finally got my nervous breakdown and considered to go back to my beautiful New York City.

I felt like I made a mistake by coming here and I was willing to buy my ticket back the next day. Luckily my mother convinced me (and basically paid for it) to stay at a hotel until I’d find a suitable place for 3 months. I cannot thank her enough for doing that because I may have not done so by myself. I finally slept and everything was good, at least for a while, because at the second day I hadn’t yet found an apartment and was going out of my mind. At the end of the class, on a Wednesday, finally I got an appointment with a realtor. It was a beautiful loft, totally cozy with just two disadvantages, no air conditioning and the bedroom was in the upper floor connected by a spiral staircase to the first floor where the bathroom is (it is really inconvenient), but what the hell, it’s not like I had any more choices so I TOOK IT!

Believe me when I tell you that the next day Florence was beautiful again and the birds welcomed me with a lovely song, the bells from the churches were happy to have me, and the statues all seemed to have been smiling at that point ☺ What can I tell you, good things don’t come easy! Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you that my loft is next to “La Casa di Dante” (Dante Alighieri’s house) so everyday at home I hear “La Casa di Dante” in all possible pronunciations, dialects and languages. Like I said, it has a few disadvantages, but for Europe, and specially Florence, it is a perfect apartment and now I love it. I guess I extended way too much the part of getting to Florence, but you should understand what I went through in order to appreciate what is yet to come. Getting here was an experience all by itself that I’m not looking to repeat any time soon, but now that I’m here I can tell you it was worth it.

LOFT

Staircase from hell

So let me tell you a little bit about my classes. In order to get my degree in 3 years and not in 4 I had to take two more art history classes. Remember that I got some humanities credits transferred from my previous bachelor, so I needed to get these requirements in order to shave off one year. What better place to take art history than here in Florence, where the Renaissance took place. For people who are not familiar with art history (don’t feel bad, before I decided to study I had just some vague idea) the Renaissance is an important period for art and for civilization as well because it was the rebirth of the classical art (Greek and Roman) that had been forgotten or put aside for centuries. It was also the time that Neo-Platonism was at its utmost height and culture and literacy was increasing at an amazing rate. So, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello (if you are thinking of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I may as well put a bullet in my head right now, then again, I think it is inevitable to think of them), Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Alberti, Lippi, Fran Angelico, Botticelli, etc. are the main artists of this period and I could spend hundreds of entries talking about them. But art history is for me to learn so I won’t bore you with this stuff (Although is really interesting). What I really need to tell you is how priceless is to study these artists and their masterpieces, and after the lectures just go with the class to actually see them in person. So I just finished one of my art history classes, Early Renaissance, for my first summer, and an intermediate Italian course. I think I did fine but I have to wait a couple of weeks for my grades. Which brings me to my next topic, my itinerary.

You must understand that I need order in my life, so it wasn’t hard for me to create a schedule for my days. I wake up at 7:30 AM, make breakfast, shower, go to Art History class at 9 to 11:30 AM, go home (7 minutes from class), take a 20 min. nap, do my Italian homework, eat a Panini (sandwich) or cook something (out of necessity for survival, I’m not particularly fond of cooking), go to my Intermediate Italian class from 1:15 to 3:45 PM, take a 30 min. nap, draw by myself at home for two hours (maybe from 5 to 7 PM) following “The Structure of Man” DVD Tutorials to create a human figure from your mind, go out for dinner or cook something, take a shower, do rehab for my Achilles tendonitis injury for 1 hour, watch TV (downloaded episodes from my laptop) or read a book for 1 hour and then go to sleep. Next day, repeat! It sounds very anal but that’s me. Fridays I don’t have any classes so I decided to make them “Culture Fridays” and go to museums to draw or simply to learn. Saturday and Sunday I’m OFF! As you can see my schedule is very busy, and not laid back at all. Still, it feels more relax than my actual classes at SVA.

SMILEY SKULL

I’ve just heard right this instant “La Casa di Dante”. I SWEAR!!!!!!!

Also, for my art history class I had to make a paper and a presentation of the “David” from Michelangelo. Because I could not take any pictures in the Galleria dell’ Accademia where the original David is located, I’m uploading a picture of a replica situated at Piazza della Signoria in front of Palazzo Vecchio (I sound very sophisticated, Am I not?). Still, I assume and hope everyone knows who the “David” is. Because I’m an overachiever I decided to go to the museum and draw it from life. You have no idea how good it feels when some tourists come to you and tell you how amazing your artwork is, how much talent you have, and how you’re going to go places in the future!!!! It’s a confidence boost. Someone even took a picture of me drawing ☺ I’m not necessarily that good, but they are not art critics, they’re tourists who happened to admire the process and liked the final result. At the end my art is for anyone who enjoys it! I don’t have to get use to those compliments though, because at art school you just get critiqued, which is a good thing to better yourself, of course. This is my second time in Florence, my first time was in 2000 and when I was here I drew the David also. Therefore, I’m posting a comparison between them in order to see if I’ve gotten better. I have much to learn but even I can see the improvement, but you’d be the judge of that. Also, it seems that the right hand is way off, but I read somewhere that the statue’s right hand is in fact out of proportion, so I’ll stick to that in order to keep my artistic ego intact ;)

COMPARISON

DAVID

I had a few guests in Florence so I didn’t feel lonely this month. The only problem is the fact that I got used to being with people I knew, and haven’t made any new friends. At the end they had to return to Ecuador and now I do feel a bit lonely. Thanks God for the Blackberry messenger and for my high speed Internet at home. The time difference is a bitch but still I can manage to speak regularly with the people I love. Like I said before, good things don’t come easy! (Please remind me whose song was that! It is definitely an eighties song).

CASA DI DANTE!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRGHHHHH!!!!

So now it comes to the list of undeniable truths:

- People have loved action figures since the dawn of time. (Say what you want about my Superman statue, but I see heroes or gods everywhere in the streets of Florence).

- Italian supermarkets don’t know or can’t control their inventory, so things run out.

- Cars and bikes here are far more dangerous than in New York.

- When it rains hard it probably means NO INTERNET, NO LIGHTS.

- NO air conditioning!!!

- NO dryer machine!

- One cinema theatre (Odeon) with one movie (may be American) for each day. Forget about multiplexes.

- They close stores to go to lunch! If you’d just arrived the second they’re closing, they tell you to come back in two hours.

- NO customer service! And if you complain about anything they will probably yell at you.

- You don’t really know for sure when they’re pissed off at you or when they’re just messing around.

- NO Milky Ways (I had a hard time with this so now I eat Magnum Ice creams daily!)

- This city is 40% students, 50% tourists and 10% Italians (not an actual study, just my humble observation which could be mistaken of course)

- Art is in the air.

- Italian language, even for people who speak Spanish, is not as easy to speak and is even worse to understand an actual Italian.

- The city is so beautiful that all of the negative aspects I’ve rant about above seem as little inconveniences.

- Also food is simply amazing!

This really is a lovely and amazing city, and I’m absorbing everything it has to offer me, but if you ask me, there is nothing like American comfort, so if I have to live somewhere I’d rather live in America ;) Still, I cannot regret this great opportunity and from time to time I realize how old this city is and how good is preserved. Simply gorgeous!

And if things don’t go according to plan, well, there is always plan Y and plan Z.

And there was Pisa also,

Finally, two more pictures not related to Italy but definitely connected to my artistic formation. One is the painting I did for a friend of mine, but it is nice to actually see it hanging on the wall, it makes me feel… I don’t know, official. The other one is an original art that I bought from Derek Riggs, the famous artist that illustrated all Iron Maiden covers! This has a huge value for me because when I was fourteen I drew the same character (with my blue BIC pen) and it was fairly good for a fourteen year old artist. Full circle! Thanks Derek and Kim for this great opportunity.

SALEM PORTRAIT

EDDIE

With nothing else to add, and from far far away, I hope you are doing what you love because God knows that I do! ☺

Godspeed,

José Luis

THE HARD GOODBYE

So I finished my first year at the School Of Visual Arts majoring in Cartooning. My thoughts??? It was a blast. I’ve never been so exposed to art and I’m not just happy but completely satisfied of what I’ve learned. Seriously, this school ROCKS! Of course there are moments of stress, which I tend to accentuate, because worrying too much is part of my personality. Maybe I should lighten up a little bit ☺. Still, I’m enjoying the ride and the scenery and knowing the fact that I’m doing everything in my power to make this dream happen. I got my grades back and of course I’m going to show them to you! Right this second…

GEEK REPORT CARD

Ok, so I didn’t have to include my grades from last semester since I’ve already posted them in a previous entry, but I guess it is OK to brag a little, is it not? I worked too damn hard for it! This geeky report card would’ve made students kick my ass back in High School and make me look completely uncool in college, but as you may already know I’m a dreamer lost in time and I’m studying my second career at my 33 years of age.

So what’s my reward? Well, I gave myself a pat on the back, a ticket back home, and a summer in Florence, Italy. Going back home is always a very good experience. I really love my family and the chance to spend time with them is priceless. The only drawback is that I don’t have a drawing table over there and because of that I don’t draw enough! Well, that may not be the main reason; I actually get immersed in my old life, where I have to go to the office and help out my mother in her businesses. To be completely honest, I didn’t do much of that either! But hey! I was on vacation so I spent my time in Guayaquil, Ecuador as I saw fit. I saw my friends and ate at my favorite restaurants. I enjoyed my family and sleep a little bit more than usual. I drank at parties and got horrifying hangovers. The sad part is when I have to say goodbye to everybody. I guess I’m too old for these college goodbyes. This time I’ll be out of my home country for 7 months and I think this will be the longest period of time away from home. I miss my nephews already and saying goodbye to them is always heartbreaking! I hope to see them soon because I love them too darn much! So, it was a great vacation with just a few surprises, but hey, you wouldn’t want me to get too personal, would you? I did manage to find the time to draw some stuff though.

What I did draw was a study in anatomy from the mind. I’m pretty comfortable in drawing from observation. Sometimes you don’t get it exactly the way it actually is (way too many factors for that to happen) but most of the time I get the proportions accurately and I think it is time for me to move to the next step. I’m pretty sure I will learn all of this in my drawing class next fall, and with tons of practice I’ll get substantially better, but I want to master this skill so there’s nothing wrong with getting ahead! I’m following a 10 DVD course with maybe 100 hours of tutorials on how to draw anatomy (and figure poses) from my imagination. This is essential for a cartoonist, especially if I want to draw very realistically. If you’re interested in this course you can go to Riven Phoenix website at www.alienthink.com. His method consists mainly on a conceptual understanding of the human body. I’ve watched 39 tutorials already and I’m still at the skeleton. He is thorough and very methodical. Also he gives you tons of formulas, but don’t get scared or unmotivated by this approach because he tends to simplify them as you move along. At the end you’re so into it that you draw the proportions perfectly because it is imprinted in your brain. This is by far the ultimate figure drawing course. I can’t wait to start drawing muscles. My plan is to finish this huge course by August 26, which is the date when I return to New York. So I guess I’ll be drawing a lot in Florence.

I decided to go to Florence for the summer because I had to take two art history requirement classes, and what better place to study them than Florence, the home of the Renaissance. Also, I want to finally learn Italian. This is not the first time I go to Florence. I actually went for a couple of months back in 2000 as a reward for getting my degree in business administration. I was planning to stay for at least a year, but at my tender age of 22 I got some cultural shock. I think I’m more mature to confront it now. Not only that, but in that summer previous my trip to Florence, I got a new girlfriend and I missed her so much that I just couldn’t wait to see her. Finally, I was too damn tired of studying! I’ve just finished my four year degree in business at the University of Miami, and I just couldn’t wait to start working and earning some money. In conclusion, the love story didn’t end that good (because it did end after a while), and after 10 years I decided to study ART! AGAIN!!! And this time more committed than ever! Funny how life is, but well, what can I say; you just have to connect the dots! I have always regretted the fact that I finished early, or quit if you will, so that’s why I’m going back. It’s like they say: “When you fall off from a horse, you have to get back on it”. It is a question of commitment and I have to prove to myself that I can get through this. The odd thing is that I really loved that city and can’t wait to live there once again.

Since I have not drawn a finished piece but instead multiple studies of anatomy for artists, I will show you perhaps one of my earliest drawings of my father when I was a kid. I really can’t be sure what my age was back then (maybe 7 years old) but what I’m sure is that I loved to draw even back then. Also, I found another picture from my family album and it is hilarious to see myself as a kid doing what I love, even now!

MY FATHER AND BEAR

AN ARTIST FROM THE BEGINNING!

Always follow your dreams, and trust in your gut! I think you always know what is best for you; you just decide to forget for a while to concentrate on banal priorities. Nothing is more fulfilling than doing what you love, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

I’ll write more in Florence and I’m sure I’ll be able to post some drawings. Sorry for not having any now!

Godspeed,

Jose Luis

Pd.- I have to confess that I wrote this on Saturday before travelling. I have sooo many anecdotes to tell you, but I’ve been on Florence since Monday ☺