style your sole!

if you aren't familiar with TOMS shoes, you should think about fixing that. {read here to see why you really should buy a pair.}

this past saturday they had a promotional event, style your soul, where customers could purchase shoes and then artists would paint them at nordstrom's.

together with fellow local artists and friends hannah, sean, colt, jordan and hilary and others, i painted, markered, and drew on shoes for six hours. it. was. a BLAST.

within half an hour of the event's opening, we were already at full capacity for the waiting list of who's shoes would be painted. we would have loved to stay forever to paint shoes, but we weren't in charge of how that went down.

[this beautiful piece work work is hannah's]

unfortunately, i didn't get shots of all the shoes i did. but here are cool details

soooo....
if you have a pair of unworn shoes that you would like custom painted, we will paint some for you!

...they don't have to be TOMS shoes (but way cooler if they are, or course)
...and YOU can choose your design (or just give us a vague idea and we'll paint some Awesome).

let's talk: kgull.art@gmail.com

i brought my camera and went snap-happy. these photos were taken by me, sean and hannah. for more pictures, check out hannah's post about the event.

jack became my best friend

...over the past week.

forgive my blog hiatus. this is why:

this is work for my concept art class, taught by jake parker. if...you couldn't tell, it's jack and the beanstalk.

i most definitely did the majority of the work for this in...well...a few days? i sketched and inked them by hand, then took them digital. the film kind of took over my life this semester and the jack stuff was a huge push at the end. but i'm not done. i am calling it good for now; check back soon and you'll hopefully see better inked figures and such.

feedback is encouraged and welcome!

didn't davinci say something like, "art is never finished, only abandoned at an interesting point"? well....yup. guess that's how we roll.

a cottage for jack

so this semester in jake parker's concept design class, we designed characters, props and environments for jack and the beanstalk. we were encouraged to design it more traditionally, without changing the story or and making it more disney-esque. it was a good challenge.

i only wish i had more time to actually take advantage of having jake there -- he's an amazing artist and great resource for ANYTHING art. but, alas....

anyway, here's a preview of what direction mine is going.

more to come. likely when i'm not sitting in the final presentation for jake's class.

life drawing :: my process

i had the privilege of teaching the friday illustration labs for the freshman seminar class last semester (fall '10). i only had two hours with each group of pre-art major students, and constructed my labs so that ideally, we'd cover three main areas within that time: we defined illustration and the illustration program, established basics of life drawing, and let the students practice after my demo. it was crazy full, but there were some good times to be had. and the students were troopers.

...

i made the following slides* as part of my presentation. don't take this as doctrine, but hopefully it makes a little sense of what probably went on in my head as i drew.

let me know if this is at all helpful, or any other thoughts or questions you might have. i'd love feedback!

the final product: 

i'm highly influenced by my professor, bob barrett. if any of the above process makes sense to you and want to learn more, i would suggest studying his life drawing book which goes into great depth. 

*apologies for the quality of pictures; when i drew it, i wasn't intending on using the process pictures for anything other than checking my progress. obviously my cell phone camera isn't the most hi-tech thing in the world....

me[h]

sometimes, you just need to draw out your frustration. i forget that sometimes. but it is very helpful. 

i'll probably ink and/or color it later.

birthday chair!

today is my birthday! i spent the majority of the afternoon trying to figure out estefan's chair. so...i'm just going to say it's my birthday chair. unless i have time to draw something more festive (which is unlikely today). enjoy :)

wish i had a chair like this, actually. i bid you all a very merry my-birthday!

ny trip :: the words

well, i got back from the big apple last week. i'm super behind in my classes and the film project, but hopefully i will be able to take all the inspiration from new york and incorporate it into my work; i've gotta buckle down like none other now and crank out drawings like crazy. just wanted to record what we did~

we visited....

these artists:
kinuko craft, burt silverman, paul zelinsky, brett helquist, and brad holland.

these museums:
norman rockwell museum
the frick collection (my favorite!)
the metropolitan museum of art
the museum of american illustration (at SI, along with the other galleries there)

and these other Awesomes:
abrams books (publisher)
richard solomon (agent)
society of illustrators

for me...
it was fun to visit new york again, where i spent 6 weeks of this past summer interning for brett helquist and the society of illustrators. my old stompin' grounds! also, check this out: we made it to richard solomon's blog! i'm most definitely in the first picture. my expression isn't one of boredom; it's probably one of pain from sitting on the heater for over an hour.

and because a post isn't complete without art, here's just my first sketchbook page of stuff from the trip.