"Bones" with Dangerous Signs for Video Project

I and the cast of Dangerous Signs presented my original ASL poem titled "Bones" at National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in Panara Theatre about 2 months ago. We had to perform this poem several times for the professional videographers to get everything right in different angles, views, lighting, and so forth. This project is for making a real high quality video of Dangerous Signs for marketing purposes. 

Here are great photos, credited to Avi. You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Hearing Aid, Heart, Deaf and Gay Identity Drawing

I created this work about a month ago. Hadn't had a chance to put that work into this blog. It's color pencils on a white paper. Took me about 2 weeks to complete. The hearing aid was possible to draw because I used my real hearing aid as a reference. I also used my hand as a reference to draw the hands. I found photos of the lips and the ear online to use as references to draw them. As you see, I had to rely on these things as references to make them look right proportionally and so forth, which do help a lot, than trying to remember how they look in my mind. The heart was just simple heart-shaped and only added the shades and lights for forms. I then used rainbow colors on the background for my gay pride, according to my identity as much as being hard of hearing or deaf, whichever anyone can call me, as I don't mind being called either one. This work conveys the message upon my love, pride, and experience of relying on lip reading, the ear, the hearing aid, and the hands (American Sign Language). Henceforth, here is the work below.

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Statue of David

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This project took me about 2 weeks to complete. It's color pencils on color paper. I have a 2 foot tall marble sculpture of Statue of David in my living room, set on the floor. I used that as a reference. I relied on my right hand to use as a reference for the hand drawing. I then found a photo of Earth online to use as a reference to draw the Earth. The most challenging experience was trying to draw planet Earth which I have never done before. It took me a while to figure out how to do the clouds and landscapes, make the planet 3-D, and make it work behind the statue. The hand was a challenge as I had to make sure the fingers are proportional and the shape of the hand is correct as possible. The other obstacle I had to overcome is how to make the Earth and the statue distinguishable, for they both got muddled up and looked confusing. I had to draw the white outline around the sculpture and the hand. That solved the problem. If you look closer, you'd notice something in the statue's ear: it's a hearing aid. Henceforth, it's a message on deafness identity. The rainbow beams coming out of his eyes refers to gay identity. The hand shows someone's desire to touch him. Enjoy!

Drawings

These are color pencil drawings that I created. There are several science fiction themed work plus gay pride issue and deaf culture subject matter: "Deaf Aliens", "Rainbow-Winged Dude", "Android and Robot in the Lab", "Virtual Reality Traveling", "Alien Animal on Orange Planet", and lastly (currently working on it and not completed yet) "Deaf-Love-Pride". Enjoy those photos. You can click on them in order to see them bigger.

Robot in the City

I have been working on this science fiction drawing for about a month long. It was tough with the buildings with all of those windows and trying to make them look straight as possible with no ruler or anything to draw perfect lines with. This work is done with color pencils on a red color paper. It's also a challenge to make the robot look metallic and shiny as best that I can make. The eyes were tough to somehow make them glow behind the dark black eye screen. The yellow van parked behind the robot seems a little flat, but I wanted to make it fade away and less important than the robot. So are the buildings behind the van. The clouds are even very faint in the sky. This helps make the robot stand out more and shows the distance as well. Enjoy the image and you can click on it to enlarge it.

Wood Carving of Nude Man

I realized that I have the little wood carving tools that my father gave me for Christmas left somewhere in my apartment and wanted to do the carving. I found them in the storage room downstairs and brought them up. My landlord's wood pieces were left here and there near my artwork stuff in the storage room. I found a good square one and brought that up. I have an old gay porno magazine that I left, not looked at for along time, and found one image of a nude guy. I cropped down to just his chest/stomach area on the sketchbook with a pencil. I then used the image on the sketchbook as a reference on a square wood piece. I then began to carve. What a real challenge. I have never carved an image of a nude man with forms, shapes, shadows and etc before. I did carve a nude man with just the outlines of the body on another wood a while ago. It took me a while to figure out how to create the form of the chest, stomach, nipples, and etc, chipping here and there. Once I was done with carving, I then applied water color paint. Oh, yeah, another challenge as I had to figure out how to make the forms, shades, lights, and etc look just about right on the male figure. 

Here is the photo of the work. You can click on the image in order to see it bigger.

Graphic Art of a Nude Man

I created this nude man in PhotoShop. Originally, the image of the male body was painted on a glass with acrylic paint a while ago as a graduate student at Rochester Institute of Technology. I just put that male body glass painting on the scanner and scanned it into my computer. I then changed the colors of the body into purplish/bluish hues/tones. I also scanned a small jewel ball, the blue square-shaped plastic jewel stickers that you put on your face for parties or halloween or whatever, the Mardi Gras necklace, and the thin paper flowers in rainbow order which used to be a necklace, given to me by someone at the pride parade. I then put those scanned things into the computer and arranged them around and over the male figure the way I wanted them to be. I have a photo of a rainbow flag, saved in a folder, and put that into the male figure. Henceforth, it's an image that conveys upon gay pride and celebration. 

Here is the photo and you can click on the image in order to see it bigger.