silkscreen- drawing & color separations for Alice

drawing separation w/ sumi ink & oil markers

light process cyan

rocket red + magenta with transparency

halftone + cadmium yellow w/ transparency

custom mixed tan w/ transparency

white w/ transparency

"Night of the Nick-Nacks" opens this week!

art inspired by the movie Return to Oz
Opening Reception: Feb. 27, 2010 6-10PM
Gallery Meltdown, LA
http://gallerymeltdown.wordpress.com/

I actually have not seen this film until now! After I got invited to participate in this show, I went out to rent it right away. I watched it with my roommate and we really enjoyed it (we found it thoroughly amusing that Dorothy was pegged as a loony from the beginning) but anyway!

For this show, I did a portrait of Jack Pumpkinhead.

watercolor, brown india ink & acrylic on Rives BFK, 10"x12", framed

"An Aurora of Polar Bears"- A Children's Primer

I will be in a group show in LA opening this Saturday at Gallery Meltdown, located behind Meltdown comics shop. Each artist gets to interpret a group of animals, choosing from a list of "terms of venery" established during the 15th century.

Opening Reception: this Saturday, Dec 5 2009 6-9 pm
Gallery Meltdown
7522 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90046
For a full list of artists and their animals, go here!

I got to paint my own version of "a Grist of bees"

Brooklyn Comics Fest & Smoke Signal #3

Going on this weekend- the very first Brooklyn Comics Fest.
Everyone should go to this, it's going to be good! (poster above by Charles Burns)


Where: Our Lady of Consolidation Church
184 Metropolitan Ave. Williamsburg Brooklyn
When:Dec. 5th, Saturday
11AM-7PM FREE

Plus, after-party at Death by Audio. Music performances by comic artists!

On the left here is a super sweet cover done by Anders Nilsen for the 3rd issue of Smoke Signal, a free comics newspaper put together, printed and distributed through Desert Island comic shop (also the host of the Brooklyn Comics fest mentioned above)

I have a new comic that is part of this new issue. Smoke Signal #3 will be available at the comic fest this weekend, (fresh off the printers!) so be sure to stop by and pick up your copy!

color version of my contribution to Smoke Signal 3 (a B&W paper)

**also!!!** my new silkscreen book "rainbow & i" will be available for purchase at Jon Vermilyea's table at the festival! Table 18.

APE 2009

here i am placing postcards on the Tong/Vermilyea table!

I can't seem to get enough of San Francisco! Being there for APE made it my fourth time visiting this year and it's never short of a crazy good time. The weather was near perfect, different from last year when it rained and I was worried about not having plastic bags for the posters I sold.

The party at Lasp Gasp which kicked off the weekend was so good... it's a good feeling being surrounded by millions and billions of books while enjoying beverage in one hand and fancy h'our dourves in the other. (Or as Eliza and I put it, a cartoonist's wet dream) Seriously, endless platters of smoked salmon (!!) lots of cheeses and fruits, spicy curried chicken... bbq pork sliders. yummm

Jon and I did very well at our table! It was fun getting to meet and hang out with some folks who made it out. Got to know and chat with Helen Parson, she is super sweet and I hope to run into her much more. Chatted with Cat who is super cool. She was doing a residency in Oakland and has now returned to NY! My new book did really well, I brought just a handful and made it out with 1 copy left. :) We went to a party at Ryan's place and got to check out his rooftop with an amazing view of the city!



We did plenty of touristy things of course :) Jon and I sure are speedy walkers! We walked pretty much everywhere, all the parks, saw the full house houses. Japantown (checked out the New People store) Did the Golden Gate bridge and Haight st. Ate lots of amazing burritos.

The photo above is of Jon in the distance and one of my all time closest friends, Angie, at the sutra baths at Ocean Beach. We explored some caves and ended the evening at the Beach Chalet. We got there when they had an amazing happy hour of 2 dollar pints and oysters! They brew all of their own beers, my favorite was definitely the Fleishhacker stout. :)

My new book "rainbow & i" is now available to view on my site! Be sure to check it out. :)

the beauty of off-set printing

I am currently on the verge of finishing my second silkscreen book, and I'm very excited about it! My new book will make its debut at APE in San Francisco, where I will share a table this year with the very talented Jon Vermilyea.






I've been spending a lot of time this summer at the SVA print lab. Here are some pictures of pages of my book being racked.

What I really like about silkscreen is that, unlike painting, I have less control over the result of the image. I'll have somewhat of an idea of how it will turn out, but especially dealing with color transparencies oftentimes I won't know the resulting color tones until it gets printed, and sometimes it's a nice surprise.










Another wonderful thing about silkscreening is that not every print will come out exactly the same as one another. Sometimes the result of off-set prints can be a beautiful thing, that's another thing that makes each print unique (if in subtle ways.)


The new book will be 20 pages like my last book, Pink Lemonade, but with comic panels so it will feel longer.

accidental silkscreen proof

I have a computer again! ...after living over 2 months without one ever since the screen stopped working on my last one. hello again, world.
So, I will definitely try to post more, as long as I have the time and my internet doesn't fail me.
Here's a close-up scan of a recent silkscreen print. I printed the second separation upside-down accidentally after the first separation and decided to keep flipping the paper and printing that way, omitting the line work in the end. There's only one original copy of this print-proof, which I recently gave away as a birthday present.
Stay tuned for some proper preview images of my new book!

Currently listening to:
Yacht - See Mystery Lights
St. Vincent - Actor
Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP