Rafael López's Blog, page 12
December 5, 2015
Study for Maybe Something Beautiful
Here is one of the studies I created for Maybe Something Beautiful due out next April. The story was inspired by the work we have done with many dedicated volunteers in the East Village of downtown San Diego. I was looking for mood and atmosphere as the story written by Isabel Compoy and Theresa Howell starts with a little girl who lives in a grey city.I wanted to try something new and challenged myself to experiment with this book. Riding around on my bicycle I shot photos of buildings in our neighborhood. I then painted the outer shapes of the structures using acrylic paint on wooden boards to get the texture background. One of my favorite downtime pastimes is photographing textures and these came from my urban file. This was compiled digitally to deliver the grit I was looking for.
December 2, 2015
Maybe Something Beautiful
This year several new books took flight from my drawing table. This one hits home.
Maybe Something Beautiful written by F. Isabel Compoy and Theresa Howell due out this April from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The genesis of this book was a personal journey that started in 1997 when my wife Candice and I bought an old car garage in an edgy neighborhood at that time, the East Village of downtown San Diego. We were in our thirties and put down all our savings to make it happen. My mother in law cried when she first visited and couldn't fathom our choice of a first home in a such a challenging part of town. Undeterred we rented two industrial wet vacuum cleaners to scrub the car grease off the floors and began digging car parts out of the back yard. For ten years we worked with our friend Daniel to transform our home into a live/work studio where we could create and dream. In 2007 we stood back and took a deep breath. The once cold, dark 3,200 square foot space at last felt warm, and inviting. We were happy, sort of.
You see there was a big issue all too evident the moment you opened the front door. Drug dealing and related violence ruled the streets. That gray darkness outside extended into our home. Surrounded by crumbling SROs, rehabilitation clinics and shelters, we noticed that most people walked looking down. They were sad, depressed or perhaps just afraid to make eye contact. The signs of struggle were all around and the few families who lived nearby rushed across the streets to get inside quick and lock their doors. Not knowing what to do we put up flyers and held a meeting at a local school to try to figure something out. We decided the best thing to do was something that what we knew and use art to transform our neighborhood. After many meetings in our loft which became the paint station and staging area, the Urban Art Trail was born. It started with the painting of electrical boxes once used as makeshift offices by drug dealers. I developed a series of large murals that worked like giant paint by numbers so untrained artists could be involved. The trail grew to include benches, sidewalk poetry, sculpture, urban bird houses and mosaics. Working together with neighbors, children, students, graffiti artists, teachers, designers, residents of women's and homeless shelters and many others we transformed our community.
The East Village today is a great place to live and work.
Imagine my excitement when Isabel Compoy and Theresa Howell crafted an inspiring story about young Mira and her neighbors based on the actual Urban Art Trail. Below are sketches from the pages of our book. Featured in this 2016 Picture Book Preview from Jbrary thanks Lindsay and Dana for your support of this new book.
As this is based on our own story it felt right to take some risks and try new mixed media techniques that blend original photographs I shot of the East Village, digital, watercolor and acrylic on wood. I look forward to sharing these techniques in future posts.
Maybe Something Beautiful written by F. Isabel Compoy and Theresa Howell due out this April from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The genesis of this book was a personal journey that started in 1997 when my wife Candice and I bought an old car garage in an edgy neighborhood at that time, the East Village of downtown San Diego. We were in our thirties and put down all our savings to make it happen. My mother in law cried when she first visited and couldn't fathom our choice of a first home in a such a challenging part of town. Undeterred we rented two industrial wet vacuum cleaners to scrub the car grease off the floors and began digging car parts out of the back yard. For ten years we worked with our friend Daniel to transform our home into a live/work studio where we could create and dream. In 2007 we stood back and took a deep breath. The once cold, dark 3,200 square foot space at last felt warm, and inviting. We were happy, sort of.
You see there was a big issue all too evident the moment you opened the front door. Drug dealing and related violence ruled the streets. That gray darkness outside extended into our home. Surrounded by crumbling SROs, rehabilitation clinics and shelters, we noticed that most people walked looking down. They were sad, depressed or perhaps just afraid to make eye contact. The signs of struggle were all around and the few families who lived nearby rushed across the streets to get inside quick and lock their doors. Not knowing what to do we put up flyers and held a meeting at a local school to try to figure something out. We decided the best thing to do was something that what we knew and use art to transform our neighborhood. After many meetings in our loft which became the paint station and staging area, the Urban Art Trail was born. It started with the painting of electrical boxes once used as makeshift offices by drug dealers. I developed a series of large murals that worked like giant paint by numbers so untrained artists could be involved. The trail grew to include benches, sidewalk poetry, sculpture, urban bird houses and mosaics. Working together with neighbors, children, students, graffiti artists, teachers, designers, residents of women's and homeless shelters and many others we transformed our community.
The East Village today is a great place to live and work.
Imagine my excitement when Isabel Compoy and Theresa Howell crafted an inspiring story about young Mira and her neighbors based on the actual Urban Art Trail. Below are sketches from the pages of our book. Featured in this 2016 Picture Book Preview from Jbrary thanks Lindsay and Dana for your support of this new book. 
As this is based on our own story it felt right to take some risks and try new mixed media techniques that blend original photographs I shot of the East Village, digital, watercolor and acrylic on wood. I look forward to sharing these techniques in future posts.
November 29, 2015
Power to Persevere
Looking back at the year I've been thinking about the power of perseverance and it's importance in my own life. What mattered most to me about the story Margarita Engle wrote about Millo Castro Zaldarriga, was her determined courage to keep going. It's much easier to give up than persist through setback and disappointments.
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In early November, I made this drawing of Churchill, someone I greatly admire. Sure he had vision and leadership but his persistence is what really stands out for me.
Three BIG ideas from Sir Winston:
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no less enthusiasm.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking your potential.
He struggled with poor health, hives, boils, rashes, pneumonia, strokes, a lisp and was practically deserted by his parents. As a politician he was sometimes disliked by his colleagues but each time he fell down he stood up again. He wasn't afraid to take a stand and was known to cross the aisle if he believed in something. He pressed on and on to lead his country and the world.
Bessie Coleman from Wikipedia
Bessie Coleman came from a family of sharecroppers and grew up in poverty abandoned by her father. She walked four miles to school each day and excelled at Math. An avid reader, she was compelled to fly after reading about World War I pilots. As a black woman she would never be accepted to an American pilot school so she took a French-language class at the Berlitz School in Chicago and moved to France. Bessie simply refused to take no for an answer. She enrolled in flight school and eventually did exhibition flying as a barnstormer and gave lectures across the United States from 1922 to 1926. She turned down opportunities to perform unless audiences were desegregated and her career as the world's first African American pilot inspired those who would follow. Today there is a postal stamp in her honor, a library and middle school that bears her tenacious name.
JANE GOODALL the determined scientist and conservationist whose patience and persistence to understand animals contributed so much to the world.
MARIE CURIE whose admirable persistence in the face of many research obstacles made a difference. She used her amazing discoveries to help develop therapies for disease.
EINSTEIN took years to formulate his theories of relativity. Despite learning disabilities he persevered transforming the way we look at the world. This amazing thinker said "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer".
I've learned that for every sketch that works, there are reams of ideas on tracing tissue ideas that simply don't. I file them away in drawers, hold on to them just to remind myself to keep drawing. Sometimes an old sketch might spark an idea for a future project but often they sit there turning brown as the years go by. As an artist it's important to get over perfectionism because procrastination will take over if you let it.
Through my own struggles, I've learned to tell my son he works really hard. I want to encourage him to choose more challenging tasks and know that in the marathon of life persistence counts. I believe we all need to model persistence and teach kids it's good to make mistakes and fall short. Let them feel those big feelings when they fail, tell them to take breaks but most importantly keep going.When learning not to give up you may beat your head against the wall but we need to aim their sights at the door and teach them how to find the opening.
I hope the story and images in Drum Dream Girl will spur children to ask thoughtful questions and keep dreaming till they solve a problem. To never give up and grow the determination needed to achieve their goals and keep practicing.
[image error]
In early November, I made this drawing of Churchill, someone I greatly admire. Sure he had vision and leadership but his persistence is what really stands out for me.
Three BIG ideas from Sir Winston:
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no less enthusiasm.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking your potential.
He struggled with poor health, hives, boils, rashes, pneumonia, strokes, a lisp and was practically deserted by his parents. As a politician he was sometimes disliked by his colleagues but each time he fell down he stood up again. He wasn't afraid to take a stand and was known to cross the aisle if he believed in something. He pressed on and on to lead his country and the world.
Bessie Coleman from WikipediaBessie Coleman came from a family of sharecroppers and grew up in poverty abandoned by her father. She walked four miles to school each day and excelled at Math. An avid reader, she was compelled to fly after reading about World War I pilots. As a black woman she would never be accepted to an American pilot school so she took a French-language class at the Berlitz School in Chicago and moved to France. Bessie simply refused to take no for an answer. She enrolled in flight school and eventually did exhibition flying as a barnstormer and gave lectures across the United States from 1922 to 1926. She turned down opportunities to perform unless audiences were desegregated and her career as the world's first African American pilot inspired those who would follow. Today there is a postal stamp in her honor, a library and middle school that bears her tenacious name.
JANE GOODALL the determined scientist and conservationist whose patience and persistence to understand animals contributed so much to the world.
MARIE CURIE whose admirable persistence in the face of many research obstacles made a difference. She used her amazing discoveries to help develop therapies for disease.
EINSTEIN took years to formulate his theories of relativity. Despite learning disabilities he persevered transforming the way we look at the world. This amazing thinker said "It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer".
I've learned that for every sketch that works, there are reams of ideas on tracing tissue ideas that simply don't. I file them away in drawers, hold on to them just to remind myself to keep drawing. Sometimes an old sketch might spark an idea for a future project but often they sit there turning brown as the years go by. As an artist it's important to get over perfectionism because procrastination will take over if you let it.
Through my own struggles, I've learned to tell my son he works really hard. I want to encourage him to choose more challenging tasks and know that in the marathon of life persistence counts. I believe we all need to model persistence and teach kids it's good to make mistakes and fall short. Let them feel those big feelings when they fail, tell them to take breaks but most importantly keep going.When learning not to give up you may beat your head against the wall but we need to aim their sights at the door and teach them how to find the opening.
I hope the story and images in Drum Dream Girl will spur children to ask thoughtful questions and keep dreaming till they solve a problem. To never give up and grow the determination needed to achieve their goals and keep practicing.
November 14, 2015
Solidarity with Paris
Compelled to create an image after the tragic events in Paris.
Standing in solidarity with our French brothers and sisters.
October 31, 2015
Jamming with the Moon.
After my last post, it was exciting to find Millo jamming with the moon on The Horn Book Guide 2015. Happy Halloween!
Thanks to Tim Wadham at School Library Journal for his post Hands on Titles that Celebrate Maker and Latino Cultures.
September 28, 2015
Howling at the Moon
"There are nights the wolves are silent and only the moon howls"-George Carlin
Perhaps it was because my mother used to sing an Argentinian song Cancion para bañar la luna to me as a child, but I remember staring for hours on end at the moon. As an artist I've succumbed to the moon's magnetic pull on my work. In San Miguel de Allende there is a tradition of giving your house a name and ours is called Manto de Luna-meaning cloak of the moon. Last night was one of those rare celestial events-the total supermoon lunar eclipse, right out of a science fiction novel. I found a dark corner of Coronado Island and waited for the moon's hue to reach a blood red tint.
Winter Moon, Planter's Moon, Harvest Moon, Dragon Moon, Snow Moon, Wildcat Moon, Mulberry Moon, Moon when all things ripen, Twelfth Moon, Moon when geese return in scattered formation, Singing Moon, Lightning Moon, Flying Fish Moon. These are nicknames to describe the changing moon from Native American, New Guinea, Colonial American, Celtic and Chinese cultures.
Illuminating and inspiring poetry, music, literature, art and ME. Today I wanted to pay tribute to Earth's only natural satellite, LUNA.
Total Supermoon Lunar Eclipse from Coronado Island
Perhaps it was because my mother used to sing an Argentinian song Cancion para bañar la luna to me as a child, but I remember staring for hours on end at the moon. As an artist I've succumbed to the moon's magnetic pull on my work. In San Miguel de Allende there is a tradition of giving your house a name and ours is called Manto de Luna-meaning cloak of the moon. Last night was one of those rare celestial events-the total supermoon lunar eclipse, right out of a science fiction novel. I found a dark corner of Coronado Island and waited for the moon's hue to reach a blood red tint.
Winter Moon, Planter's Moon, Harvest Moon, Dragon Moon, Snow Moon, Wildcat Moon, Mulberry Moon, Moon when all things ripen, Twelfth Moon, Moon when geese return in scattered formation, Singing Moon, Lightning Moon, Flying Fish Moon. These are nicknames to describe the changing moon from Native American, New Guinea, Colonial American, Celtic and Chinese cultures.
Illuminating and inspiring poetry, music, literature, art and ME. Today I wanted to pay tribute to Earth's only natural satellite, LUNA.
Total Supermoon Lunar Eclipse from Coronado Island
May 21, 2015
New York Times Bookshelf Feature: Music Makers-Drum Dream Girl
Is it a dream or was Drum Dream Girl was featured in the New York Times Book Review? Grateful to Maria Russo for including our book in her review Bookshelf Music Makers.
April 19, 2015
Time Lapse Mural Magic
This time lapse video of a second mural I created for Coasterra condenses a week's work to around 2 minutes. It's visual caffeine so put your seat belt on. Grateful to my hard working, talented assistants Daniel Renner and Brie Witko as well as my friend Gil Gutierrez for his vibrant music.
April 12, 2015
ARTISTS FOR PEACE
This past month I created this poster as part of the Dialogues: Poster Art of the Soviet Union Show at the City Gallery at San Diego City College. Rare historical Soviet posters from the period of Perestroika and Glasnost were featured alongside contemporary posters with political, social or arts themes and a Russian twist. My poster was about the potential of the arts to promote peace and social change. To craft a culture of peace you have to first imagine it. Artists around the world and throughout history have given voice to that ideal. A sharp pencil can be a powerful weapon to communicate the pathos of war. I’m greatly inspired by folk arts, many of which are living traditions. Birds are a common theme in Russian folklore and this region has a particular gift for storytelling. The folkloric pattern inside the bird represents a diverse patchwork of beliefs and opinions. The colors tip their hat to Russian Constructivism. When creating this poster, the recent peace agreement and conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists was on my mind and in the news. The two leaves symbolize differing points of view with the pencil of the artist providing a stable perch for the idea of peace to take hold.
You can purchase a high quality, 20 by 26 giclee poster for $65 with all funds going to the Doyald Young Reading Room. I am such a believer in books and this design and illustration library at City College is open to students and the community. I'm supporting this effort as this reading room is a great place for aspiring illustrators to find their way.
Dancers in historical costumes performed barefoot in the gallery at the opening. Photo by Edward Honaker
Photo by David Eichinger
April 11, 2015
Mural Making
Had fun last week making the first of two COASTERRA murals for the Cohn Restaurant Group and this time lapse video.
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