Migratin'

New blog! Moved all of my new work to Tumblr. Also check out my new portfolio website at vanjazmin.com If you like the early art, go to my archives on Deviantart. Thanks y'all!

van jazmin, van jasmine, van jasmin, van jazzmin, van jasmine art, van jasmin art, van jammin' on some art

Live Artists

http://vanjazmin.tumblr.com

Hungry Freaks

Shamrockers

Ink with digital halftone. Sarasota folken lovin' on Fancy Rat, town heroes of the indie music scene.

SRQ is small, but delightfully colorful and electric for a gulf coast locale. There's an unpredictable creative energy here that I thrive on. Also, I hope to do more illustrations like this over the summer! Nothing I love more than to sketch at shows. Gets me pumped.

Crossposted at From The Rat's Nest

John Ringling Poster

Ink brush with digital color.

John Ringling held a many important titles in his lifetime, serving as president and chairman for a number of companies in the railway industries. What I do admire about him is that he kept his cool. Apparently Ringling was quite reserved and polite, despite his stunning wealth and prestige. Not to menion, his refined taste for baroque art and Italian architecture continues to bless Sarasota with a fine collection of history on display at the Ringling museum.

Monkey On Your Back

Illustration about a colleague who's trying to quit. Acrylics on bristol. I wanted to emphasize the weight of that monkey and the uncomfortable agitation of the student's addiction. Everybody has to deal with the monkey-mind distraction time to time.

In Watermelon Sugar

Book illustrations for class. I chose In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan: A must-read for all you who enjoy the surreal, and strangely comforting imaginary worlds.

Pastel, watercolor, and pencil on aquaboard.

It Is A Mystery

Ink, colored pencil, & oil. Big thanks to Clay and Gunnar for cooperating with the prior photo shoot.

Froilan

An unforgettable man. Scratchboard. Featured in this year's llest of Ill Exhibition. I'm grateful that it was Froilan's sister who purchased this piece.

Before New York

Assignment: editorial illustration about the Mannahatta Project. This excerpt influenced my concept...

"You might find it difficult to imagine today, but 400 years ago there was a red maple swamp right here in Times Square," he said one day not long ago, as he waited for the light to cross Seventh Avenue. Dressed in black jeans and a Windbreaker, he didn't look much different from the tourists beside him on the curb. But unlike them, in his mind he was following a trail along a swampy creek that disappeared beneath the entrance to the Marriott Marquis Hotel at the corner of Broadway and West 46th Street. "Just over there was a beaver pond," he said, as a bus rumbled by. "It would have been a good place for deer, wood ducks, and all the other animals associated with streams. Brook trout probably, as well as eels, pickerel, and sunfish. It would have been much quieter, of course, although today's not so bad."

Organic Popcorn Label

I learned an oil rub technique in class and then used it in a commission piece.
This fellow is the friendly manager of the Sarasota Farmer's Market.

Self Portraits

Homages to Parmigiano & Picasso.
First is acrylic on clayboard, second is oil on canvas.

Mangabey

Acrylic on illustration board for illustration media. Based on this striking photograph by Keven Law.

Figure Studies

"Art is a lie that tells the truth."

Thank You

Froilan used to tell me, "Stand on my shoulders." This memory inspired this illustration which I intend to make into cards to send out to people who've supported me over the years. Maybe it's not my strongest composition. It's a simple drawing, but it definitely means something to me.

The Sounds of Silence

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence..."
-Simon & Garfunkel

I have to admit: this is my first time using Adobe Illustrator. It was maddening to a degree. I am accustomed to pixel art, so vectors are a whole new realm of perfectionism.

Buster Keaton

I learned the oil rub color pencil technique from Octavio Perez.

"Buster plainly is a man inclined towards a belief in nothing but mathematics and absurdity ... like a number that has always been searching for the right equation. Look at his face — as beautiful but as inhuman as a butterfly — and you see that utter failure to identify sentiment."

Tattoo Virgin

In progress:

Final painting (oil on masonite):

Originating sketch:

The Bird

Charlie Parker, a legendary alto sax player and brilliant mind who died too soon. This is a prepatory sketch for an oil rub. And here's the result...

Subterranean Celebration

the Six Gallery Reading in San Francisco in 1955, where Allen Ginsberg first read HOWL. Pen, Ink brush, black pencil. I couldn't find any photographs from the actual event, so it was an interesting challenge to create the setting and audience from scratch. I hope this will be accepted for Illest of Ill!

Color Studies for Ill251

Brooke Nicole Olivares, a 2006 Ringling alumni from 'Frisco, is my illustration professor this year. She encouraged me to look at the work of Ralph Goings, among other realist painters. I am working on my own take on the diner scene based on a visit to IHOP. When the waitress found out I was there to shoot artistic reference, she gave me free coffee and alerted me before she bussed any table so I could look at the leftovers. Damn it feels good to be an illustrator.

Dennis Randall

Dennis is an original character of mine. He is making a come-back. Behold his vanity!

Kevin and Gibby

2 minute Paintchat portraits!

Do It Yourself Tattooing

H o m e b o y 's T a b l e

Dark Night of the Soul

Photography

X-periment

Crayun Portraits

Drunk Flys Playing Scrabble

This fly swam in a glass of whiskey & cherry coke, took flight, made a sideways clumsy landing, and then it crawled on the Scrabble board using the letters as a roadway.

I've Got No Energee, Baby

Final Days of A Wise Man

My good friend is terminally ill, but in the meantime he is living history.

Listening To Stories