Happy Holidays!

Hope you all had a wonderful christmas, and let me wish you a happy new year 2012. I leave you here with a video of the laser show they are doing in Oaxaca for the holidays. Enjoy!

                                

Teorico-Practico de Especializacion para Ilustradores

This is the second workshop that I took in CASA. In this class we worked on how to illustrate a poem. You can see most of the process through the photos. It was a great class where I learned a lot about some of my habits(Good and bad habits as well! ) as an Illustrator and worked to improve for the better. We learned that we as illustrator are in control of what we want to do, and that we should let life influence us not just illustrators we like. I also learned to not be afraid to do something out of the ordinary to come out with a different style.It was a fun and intensive 4 days of class, now time to enjoy the photos.

The Poem

The Sketch

The Final Piece!

About Gerardo Suzan: He was born in Mexico city, studied graphic design at the UNAM in Mexico. He's been professor for more than 20 years. He won the prize IBBY Mexico in the category of illustration in 1985.He has illustrated numerous books and he also directs the postgraduate class of illustration at the Academy of San Carlos. Gerardo works in various mediums,but mostly in Acrylics.

Check out his blog ( and remember google translate is your friend) @ http://suzanilustrador.blogspot.com/ 

Enjoy the rest of your week :)

El Esqueleto de los Cuentos

"El Esqueleto de los Cuentos" is one of the workshops I took in CASA. It lasted 4 days from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM. I learned a lot about what takes to start a story, we worked here a project of a simple book of 7 pages for little Children. A children books doesn't always has to have a morale, it can be meant for inspiration, entertaining, bringing a laugh  out of you or just sharing the simple things of life. We learned about styles, style doesn't has to be just drawing it can be anything that you want it to be and that you enjoy doing it. Here is a photo of the dummy book of my story, about a little kitten that runs in the morning and one day encounters a big, BIG dog. Enjoy:

About Antonio Santos:

Antonio Santos is a Spanish Children illustrator that works with different mediums from paper cuts, sculptures, ink, printmaking. He has published numerous books. He was 2nd place in "Nacional de Ilustración de Libros Infantiles y Juveniles"in Spain and also won the daniel Gil prize for best illustrated children's book in 2003. He also represented Spain at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Feel free to visit his blog @ http://santos-lloro.blogspot.com/ to see more of his work(It is in spanish, but with google translate you can read it in English)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Centro de las Artes San Agustin

During four days I took two illustration classes held in Centro de las Artes San Agustin aka CASA. CASA is located on the outskirts of the city of Oaxaca in a Pueblo call Vista Hermosa.

CASA is such a beautiful place and it has strong history.It used to be a textile factory, and you can still see some of the machinery used. The factory closed in 1989 and it was abandoned, until one of Oaxaca most know artist Francisco Toledo proposed saving the building, hence it was restored and brought back to life  as a space for artist to learn and communicate and create wonderful pieces of work. It is truly a palce to find inspiration, and learn new things (I truly did) and I plan to come back many times.

Please visit the website for more info @ http://casanagustin.org.mx/

Now some pictures for you to enjoy :)

I took two classes the ones taught by Antonio Santos and Gerardo Suzan,
I will talk about each class in the next two blog posts! 

Mi Ciudad...My City: Oaxaca de Juarez

I truly love where I come from, and I'm glad i'm getting to know my city again. Here is a great video of Oaxaca by ViveOaxaca.

I have finally installed internet in my home, so updates will be happening more regularly.