Notre Dame Magazine

When I was in Argentina I received an email from Notre Dame Magazine's art director asking to use one of my paintings on the cover of their summer issue dealing with the current economic crisis. I just got word that it's been published and is now available.

The Sin Show

Recently I finished my newest illustration for SpeakeasyDC's show that will premiere at this year's Capitol Fringe Festival (opening tonight).

rough sketch

final drawing

final illustration (graphite, blue pencil & colored in Photoshop)

By the way if you've never been to a SpeakeasyDC event, storytelling for adults, then go!

TETRO

I don't normally have contributors to my blog, but I thought that this post would be a good one to start with; it's written by my lovely wife).

"The other night, thanks to the generous help of my sister-n-law and a friend to babysit, we had the chance to go to cinema! What a luxury!

The film that we went to see was Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola's newest film shot in Argentina. The script is simple, it features two Argentine/Italian brothers who reconnect in Buenos Aires to explore their family's dark history. The film is definitely Coppola's best in a long time and the first script he has written himself since The Conversation. Though it's a family drama, it's chock full of suspense, humor, and " artsy" scenes (or memories) of the past. As one reviewer wrote about this new film "It's taken over 30 years for Coppola to discover what kind of films he should be making, art films."

And the acting is solid. It's star, Vincent Gallo (Buffalo 66 & The Brown Bunny) is perfect in portraying the tortured soul of his character, Tetro. 18 year old Alden Ehrenreich, makes a really convincing debut as well and Maribel Verdu (Y Tu Mama Tambien), as always, was fantastic. It was a nice surprise to see so many Argentine actors as well. They represented well, De la Serna (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Bredice (9 Queens) were very funny, Susanna Gimenez (Argentina's answer to Oprah) was herself (thankfully), but my favorite by far was Mike Amigorena (Los Pells), he's hilarious!

Now it's entirely possible that you won't like the story or actors, but we're sure that you'll agree that the film's strongest asset is the cinematography. It was great to see such beautiful shots of Argentina! We've long ago noticed that Argentine cinema (in general does a pretty bad job of shooting exterior shots and lose the opportunity to show how beautiful the country is. Our favorites shots were one of the Obelisco (Argentina's cousin to the Washington Monument) and others of glaciers in the Patagonia. It seems to us, Coppola did a good job in portraying Argentina and the Argentineans without too many stereotyping them too much.

By no means do we think that everything about this film works, but overall it's entertaining and a film we recommend seeing. "

Brushstrokes II

The other night I just happened to walk out onto our balcony, look to the right and see this...We have great view of Rock Creek Park and the National Cathedral but last night the sunset was pretty dramatic!

J Davis does Tiki for kids!

Talented and super busy DC artist and scenic designer Jared Davis does Tiki Onesies. That's right, you heard it here first!

Kids love 'em!

New Illustration

The following illustration was done for Education Week and accompanied an article exploring the idea that battling philosophies (in terms of education) need to put their differences aside and solve the never ending education crisis.

rough sketch

final drawing

final illustration (graphite, blue pencil & colored in Photoshop)

Argentina, Buenos Aires, La Boca, Benito Quinquela Martin and Cordoba

As I've already mentioned in an earlier post, my family and I recently got back from a 6 week trip to Argentina (Buenos Aires and Capilla del Monte, Cordoba) to introduce our newly born son to my wife’s family and old friends.

It was a great trip, really important for the family to meet little Luca at such a young age, but I have to say it was definitely tough to go from winter/spring here in the states back to fall/winter there. By the end we were more than ready to come back to summer!

What did we do while we were there?

we rented an apartment (for the first time) across from BA's morgue (not on purpose)

We took the subway (alot) to see art.......

In the neighborhood of La Boca. (If La Boca was turisty before, it's insane now!)

there we saw El Che and Evita...



 

and we went to the Museo de Benito Quinquela Martin (hugely popular argentine painter)

we had plenty of meat


saw more art at La MALBA.....


Botero

Cordoba

then we went to Cordoba and enjoyed the outdoors....

and of course we had more meat!

Like I've said before, if you haven't been to Argentina, go!!!