The Apartment

I haven't finished this piece because I felt like it looked better this way. I live in an age where young adults that are my age, work and live for the weekend (I don't anymore, I work at a restaurant). This was inspired by my generation of people who work and live for the weekend, we do what is needed to be done and live for the weekend later. It's called The Apartment

This was done using watercolored pencils and light pen

Mirrors

I was feeling down and at the same time creative, the only way I really express myself is in drawing/painting through my pieces. This piece is no different, it's called Mirrors. I used bits of broken CD-don't worry it wasn't Beyoncé-and created the illusion of a shattered heart by (in the color version) using watercolor paints.

I used the illusion of broken CD because I wanted to get across the message that you can't play a broken CD, therefore, the music's stopped. You're left looking in the bits of broken CD and seeing your reflection, while at the same time your heart is broken.

I'll also do a tutorial on how to take an old CD and DESTROY it to make a masterpiece.

Marilyn Monroe

When I was in high school, I was emailing around to try to get sponsored to be a juried artist at the SoFlo ArtCenter. Being a juried artist essentially means that you pay them rent for a studio and you get a certain space (depends completely on your budget) to present your art work, no matter what medium and when I heard about the program I was psyched.

Anyway, while emailing around, I found a potential sponsor, who I unfortunately lost contact with who wanted me to draw a picture of Marilyn Monroe from the Playboy magazine and he said that if he liked it he would be happy to sponsor me. I think I did a pretty good job.

This is the original picture I drew from, Marilyn Monroe as Playmate of the Month in December of 1953

This is my drawing. I was in love with it until after I colored it. I decided to use watercolor for the skin and hair because it's very soft and light like Marilyn Monroe's features. I used acrylic paint for the background, this is all done on sketchbook paper.

Freestyle Graffiti

I'm not a professional tagger or anything but one day I got bored and decided to do some freehand drawing. I posted a status on my Facebook that said 'If you like this status, I'll draw your name in graffiti letters and post it on your wall/timeline. These aren't all of the names, just some of my favorite, all done with Sharpie Marker.

Here's what I came up with:

Biggest picture: Jean, Top right: Brittney, Middle left: Eric, Bottom left: Vanessa, Middle bottom: Shanice, Bottom right: Todd

Artist Spotlight: Vik Muniz

Brasilero, Artist-I think we're soulmates.

Vik Muniz is the first artist to be featured in my artist spotlight. I love to give credit where credit is due and this man deserves credit for his artistic abilities. He can literally make treasure out of trash!

What initially drew me to Vik Muniz was the fact that he is Brazilian (Viva Brasil!) and the fact that he's just amazing at what he does. That's why he's just one of my favorite artists.

Vik Muniz use to work for an advertising company back in São Paulo, Brazil. While on his way to a gala, he witnessed a street fight and attempted to break it up. Muniz was shot in the leg and one of the men involved in the fight, paid him money which he used to travel to New York. This is where we came to the wonderful and spectacular Vik Muniz.

His most famous piece is Waste Land it is also a documentary of Muniz's work, it's available on Netflix if you have it and probably available on YouTube for free somehow. But this work was about the catadores (garbage pickers, recyclers) of Jardim Gramacho which is one of the site of one of the largest waste lands in the world and their strifes of life-including getting paid to pick through trash and recycle. The recycling team is comprised of people of all ages. It was also the site of Vik Muniz's most popular project. Anyway, the proceeds from the documentary were donated back to the catadores of Jardim Gramacho back in Brazil.

Aside from being a humanitarian of some sorts, Muniz has also given to us, his magical works of art, he's created pieces using diamonds, caviar, chocolate, wire, sugar, thread and even air! How do you ask? He's simply a genius who wants to create piece of nostalgia buy using materials some of us touch/use everyday.

How can you be a humanitarian and an artist at the same time? Be Vik Muniz :D. If you want to watch a trailer for Waste Land the documentary you can click here: The Waste Land Documentary Trailer and if you would like to view all of Muniz's work, you can head to: Vik Muniz Online

Below are some of my favorite pieces done by Vik Muniz.

This piece is called Apple Tree, After Gerhard Richter and is done using thread. (1994)

This piece is called Ironing Woman (Isis) and is made out of garbage (Made during the filming of Waste Land in 2008)

This piece is called Paparazzi and is made out of chocolate. (1997)

This piece is called Valentina, the Fastest and is made out of sugar. (1996)

Weekend at Wynwood

One of my earliest mixed media collages, this creation was done using the distressed paper technique, I will do a tutorial for the salt technique and for the distressed paper technique in the future. But basically, the distressed paper technique is done using Scotch tape and paper, you can give it a aged looked by pressing the tape to the paper and carefully ripping up the tape and painting over the paper in a yellow, this can be a sunny yellow color but go as light as you can. You can also glaze over it to give it a laminated look.

This piece was inspired by one weekend my cousins and I attended Miami ArtWalk. It's very fun, it can get a little too crowded for my liking sometimes but it's a lot of fun considering I'm an art geek and this is Miami. There are a couple of stickers that I took from some of the galleries, one of the galleries were giving out free cupcakes and that kitty was printed on the box so I decided it would be cute to put the kitty in this piece.

This piece is done using magazine print/distressed technique, acrylic paint and of course the printed media from the box. It's also done on paper in a sketchbook.

Black Ballerina

Growing up, my sister was always involved involved in some sort of singing or dancing activities, she's a performing arts freak. She lives and breathes dance, it's her passion. She lived her dream when she became a part of her high school's dance program, now disbanded unfortunately.

I would work together with her to create costumes for her dance recitals and still to this day I give her ideas and help her create her dream costume for her shows. This painting was inspired by her, the Black Ballerina. It shows a Ballerina, who is resting, she looks nervous, her eyes are closed, she's not sure if she's good enough for the stage but she is about to go out and give the audience all she's got. That's the kind of determination I see in my sister when she dances, all her insecurities and problems disappear and she focuses on her dance.

This painting is done in acrylic paint on canvas.