A.E. Kieren: Writer + Illustrator

Fareed

2012-01-14T17:46:00.000-08:00

the other night I was out to dinner and Fareed Zakaria was seated at the table next to us.

So this afternoon I drew this little doodle

2012-01-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

something Im playing with for Heartworms

Ambrose and Yoshi

2012-01-04T17:08:00.000-08:00

some doodles of Ambrose Dea and Yoshi Tahakaru for Heartworms

Mercury

2011-12-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

or is it Hermes?

Anyhoo, today i doodled the statue of Mercury/Hermes from the 42nd street entrance of Grand Central Station

whats going on

2011-11-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

dear team

surely you are on pins and needles wondering why I haven't been posting. It has been a month without a post.

Well, my reasons are varied. I assure you that I am doing work. Lots of it. So much in fact that I don't have time to be blogging and posting. Also, the grand majority of the work I have been doing has been for my masters thesis, Heartworms, and my thesis advisor the one-and-only Mirko Ilic has commanded me NOT to post things for the thesis because it could compromise their publishability later on etc

So although no one ever reads this blog, I want to apologize to my imaginary readers and assure them/you that not only is there much that I would like to post but also

a) I dont know that I have ever been this prolific

b) I have never been happier with my work (or had more fun) than I have here with Heartworms.

and c) I don't think I have ever done such personal work

the day is coming very soon when you will be able to see what I have been up to. I intend to self-publish the first batch of Heartworms in January. Until then, know that I love my team and I will post what I can when I can

it seems pertinent

2011-10-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween, team!

this year I dressed as The Riddler, again (this is the third Halloween of my young life that I've gone as The Riddler)

with a new riddler staff and a new question-markified bright green shirt, all of which I made myself

my fighter

2011-10-30T10:57:00.001-07:00

hey team

this past Friday for Carol Fabricatore's class we went on location to the legendary Gleason's Gym. (In the documentary about the MFA program, they filmed Nathan Fox inking at

Gleason's). There we were given the patently absurd task of drawing people who were not necessarily sitting still for us, and also to talk with someone at the gym, draw a portrait and interview him/her.

these are my doodles:

my interview subject was one of the boxers, 32 year old Dom Aragon:

sumi ink panels

2011-10-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

hey team

the other day in carol fabricatore's class we had models posing for us in studio, and we were asked to make a series of drawings in sequential-panel form

this is my naughty little story

2011-10-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

one of my sisters is having a birthday and another one of my sisters is organizing a pub crawl in e. Lansing to celebrate it. COMPLETE with t-shirts that they asked me to design, and I pulled the diva move of insisting that they use Gordie Zalewski of Legion Design to print the shirts

ambrose

2011-10-17T15:56:00.001-07:00

perhaps you have noticed I am using myself as the model for Ambrose Dea, the protagonist in my masters thesis

this is a sketch for an image I will be doing of Ambrose for this weeks chapter entitled "unromantic tragicomedy"

WHO ARE THESE CELEBRITIES?

2011-10-16T16:52:00.000-07:00

so team, I am trying to do something a little different this week. I have always admired caricaturists. I think being able to identify those traits that make a person who they are is a very special gift. I am particularly fond of Steve Brodner.

Anyway, for one of the chapters of my masters thesis I wanted to do a little series of caricatures, and so here are some initial sketches I am toying with. I wanted to have a contest wherein I would promise an amazing prize to whoever is first to correctly guess the five celebrities Im trying to caricature here, but since this blog averages about o.15 comments per post, I think that might come off a little sad.

ink sketches- Natural History Museum

2011-10-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

this last friday Carol Fabricatore took us to the Museum of Natural History for drawing on location.

She is encouraging us to use ink as much as possible, which has been good for me. In the past i have been very loyal to my prismacolor only because I was too much of a pansy to go directly to ink. Well no more! fortune favors the bold.

You will notice that the Alouatta guariba has been executed in walnut ink, which I have never used before but I really dug it. It reminds me a bit of the sublime Delacroix sketchbooks

Adelaide Dwyer

2011-10-12T12:24:00.001-07:00

This is an image of Adelaide Dwyer. Adelaide is one of the original characters who will be appearing in my masters thesis.

(Adelaide is the semi-acrimonious ex of Ambrose Dea, my protagonist who was mentioned briefly in this post)

sumi inky splashy splash

2011-10-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

playing fast and loose with the sumi ink in Carol Fabricatore's class

An Appointment in the Dreamworld

2011-10-06T05:35:00.001-07:00

hey team,

An Appointment in the Dreamworld is now entirely concluded and on display at the SVA gallery on 21st and 3rd ave.

When asked if I'm pleased with it, I can say only that I'm not entirely embarassed by it. I regret certain elements of the graphic design (because I had to design these pages in a matter of hours to meet my deadline, and theres a lot of things that ought to have been thought through a little better).

Design not withstanding, I am very proud of approximately 80% of the art contained within, and the actual book prototype itself (laborious fabricated by hand) turned out quite nice. And to think! I thought that bookbinding class at CCS would never come in handy!

For those of you stranded in Michigan and South Carolina and Guadalajara who will be unable to come see it in person, I am posting it in its entirety here.

disfrutalo:

a sequential page

2011-10-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

more detroit

2011-10-03T05:17:00.001-07:00

Detroit Day 1

2011-09-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

hey team

for my masters thesis, I am getting personal, cultivating topics near and dear. As such, I am doing a series of very short stories that I wrote, all of which take place in glamorous Detroit.

There is a hard-to-describe quality to the city that I am hoping to capture. As a setting, it is a very distinctive place that brings a great deal of flavor.

So, I booked a ticket to Detroit for this weekend. Today I biked around most of the day taking pictures of sad houses and other Detroity things

I would have liked to have sketched, but twas miserable cold and physically could not

a title page

2011-09-26T13:57:00.001-07:00

just in case you are wondering, Ambrose Dea will be the main character in my masters thesis

pheasants

2011-09-25T12:38:00.001-07:00

installation day

2011-09-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

well team,

today me and the rest of the second years hung our book show in the SVA galleries on 23rd.

'twas fun indeed (by fun I mean mostly tedious and frustrating)

if you happen to be in town, you should come to the reception next week Tuesday.

It will be a hoot and a holler.

El Surfero

2011-09-19T14:15:00.001-07:00

hey team

so, this year I am doing ArtPrize again, just something less ambitious this time. I tried to think of a personal project I would have wanted to do anyway and just needed an excuse to take the time to do it (of which there were many to choose from)

As some of you may know, a few years back in Mexico I survived a near-drowning off a beach in Puerto Vallarta. I was rescued by a surfer, and so this is an image about that nameless surfer who I was never even able to thank and whose name I don't know.

I started this turkey about a year ago, and had my friend Erick model for it because he had the perfect look (although he is Costa Rican and doesn't appreciate being cast as a Mexican)

the piece will be on display throughout ArtPrize at Pub 43 on Division

a double portrait

2011-09-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

I did these portraits of my good buddy Brook from back home and his lady, Nancy.

I am still doing that fabric panel shit, this time with a pattern that I found in two color schemes. The pieces are designed to be hung on the wall facing each other at their house

well so much for that

2011-08-21T15:48:00.001-07:00

well team,

the Playboy contest has been decided. That turd Charles Chaisson won. Hurray for him.

Anyway, here is my piece. I thought we weren't supposed to post our submissions, but I found out that everyone else posted theirs, so what the heck.

page decoration

2011-08-10T13:43:00.001-07:00

piggies

2011-07-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

well team,

lest you think I am not actually getting any work done this summer, you should know that I just don't have as easy access to a scanner at the moment until they let us back into the MFA studios. there will be a wee glut of new images as soon as I get moved into the Phillip Cheaney space.

Anyhoo, I did finally get around to finishing the body sculpting on my model piggy

actually its not totally done. she needs to get a little hammier about the rear before she can go on display at the show in september, but at the very least i can start doing some paintings

well this is unfortunate

2011-07-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

there I am, just minding my own business at my internship at Society, when I walk into the PC room and they happen to be filming this:

and turns out I am in frame

oops.

jacob's kline

2011-07-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

hey team,

last summer a friend of my mom's took some of the linocut prints I did on fabric and quilted them so I could try to unload them at one of the art fairs I did. As repayment for her quilting services I was supposed to do a watercolor of a very specific butterfly bush called Jacob's Kline. One thing led to another, I got busy with stuff, and basically, just now finally got around to doing the image.

the new studio

2011-07-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

hey team

as is tradition with the mfa program, they tossed us out of our beautiful studios and out onto the streets for the month of July to deep-clean and repaint the place before we move back in to our glorious upgraded studios for second year (I got lucky and drew the Philip Cheaney space, which is by far the pick of the litter).

In the meantime I am renting a studio space in Chinatown/TriBeCa.

I'm sharing it with my good buddy, musician, Cyrus Baty, who has no web presence and as such there is nothing for me to link to. :(

independence day

2011-07-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

hey team,
did everybody have a good fourth of July? I had a nice time. In the afternoon I went to a party in Bushwick where my homeslice Don Edler was doing his performance art, Free Beer Bar. This is a project that combines several things I love: recycling, interactivity, and alcohol.

then after that I went to Tolstikova's rooftop for the fireworks

wallet

2011-07-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

hey team,
I did some art for a hypothetical wallet at Poketo
the theme was "before life" (because their last open design competitions theme was "after life")
I believe that before life there was purdy minerals!
I tried to use similar design strategy to my rug. Not too literal, subdued colors, etc.

it is a contest, so there will be a round of judging and then finalists will be voted on by the public. When the time comes, I will advise you of how to vote for me

new promos

2011-06-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

hey team,
I'm sending out new promos this week.
Getting the mailing list organized and properly addressed is a lot of work. Good thing I have intern Zach here to do all the peon jobs.These are the postcards:
Are you a high-powered art director and would like to receive one?
please e-mail me at contact@aekieren.com and I will send you one straight away.

another Gillian

2011-06-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

heres another painting I did of Gillian for An Appointment in the Dreamworld

down the rabbit hole

2011-06-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Oy vey team
I know I have barely posted this month and for that I apologize. I have been spending more time in the restaurant than I would prefer, plus I just went home to Michigan last week for a wedding and some other shenanigans I will tell you about later. Though I swear to you that I have been working as diligently as possible, I haven't had much time for photographing, scanning, posting etc,
but anyway, here's something:thats the first of my images derived from that insignia I laboriously sculpted

more to come of course

you know you've made it when

2011-06-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

your art appears in Korean Air's in-flight magazine, Morning Calm
credited or not!

some more chalkboards

2011-06-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

hanging the Pulp show

2011-06-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hey team
yesterday at Society of Illustrators we worked on hanging Pulp Art: The Robert Lesser Collection, to go on display later this week.
Let me tell you, it is quite a show.
It has cowboys, aliens, hardboiled detectives, and a lot of dishy 1940's babes about to meet horrible fates. A perfect snapshot of who we were in America in the 30s and 40s.
Here's a couple quick pics for you, obviously they do it no justice so you will have to go see it for yourself.

some pieces awaiting installation

cover illo from a pulp called The Pirate of Wall Street

some of the hardboiled stuff

this piece was one of my favorites. very unusual for a pulp cover. in spite of the dangling corpse it has a Van Gogh/Ukiyo-E flavor to it

I loved this one. Great paint quality, and observe, there is a tiny man being dissected.

poor lass. there is no telling what that nasty cowboy might do to her.

this piece was the cover for a 1941 pulp entitled (I shit you not) JAPS INVADE AMERICA!

some hand lettering

2011-05-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

well folks, times is hard. as such, I have a gig waiting tables in a restaurant (befitting someone halfway through his third degree)

they let me do the chalkboard, and I'm really quite lucky to have a job that lets me spend sometimes as much as 45 minutes on the clock just playing around doodling fishes with chalk . . .

obviously, I'm no Elizabeth Baddeley, but hand lettering is rather fun, no?

the Wolf Pack reconvenes

2011-05-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

hurray! since I have to go home anyway for a wedding in June, I will be hosting the Wolf Pack at my cabin, where we will relive the glory days from CCS and see if our hilarious voice impersonations of our old professors have gotten rusty or not in the last year.
I'm expecting to see such luminaries there as Brian Remillard (assuming the wife and baby haven't made him too lame), Patrick Tausney, Ben Colin Cloutier, Angelo Aquino, Matt Kobylarek, Chris Hoobler, Jessica Newberry, and MORE!

my secret PLAYBOY submission

2011-05-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

hey team
as you may know, every year PLAYBOY magazine (perhaps you've heard of it?) hosts a closed competition between the elite 40 students of the MFA illustration department at SVA to illustrate their college fiction competition. I just wrapped and submitted my entry and unfortunately, since this is for publication, I can't share it with you here on this blog, at least until such time as the results of the contest are known. Godwilling, I will just win the whole shebang and you will see it in print. Either way when it comes out you should pick it up because the story that won is really great and whichever one of us ends up with the winning illustration will have surely made a killer image too.

Although I can't show my entry to you, I can tell you that the aesthetic I was shooting for, because I'm all about class and good taste, was "James Bond opening credit sequence"
like this:

or this:

ya know, with some booby lady silhouettes and pseudo-phalluses littered about, and then also a dash of blaxploitation, because theres a little of that feel in the story

montey

2011-05-14T15:35:00.001-07:00

after reviewing my options, I believe I have decided to use Deidre's horrible beagle, Montey, as the model for my playboy piece
this is a sketch. I think the dog will only be a very minor element in my piece anyway

there something familiar about that . . .

2011-05-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

this is a promotional image of Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia, the new Lars Von Trier film premiering this week at Cannes.

and this:
is a painting I did in early 2010.

I think I will probably like this movie.

puppydogs

2011-05-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

home for a couple days, and doing a little image research on dogs for the PLAYBOY project

Gil's fancy-shmancy award!

2011-05-06T18:55:00.001-07:00

hey team
last night, Gil Ashby, my senior advisor from good ole' College for Creative Studies was given the award for Distinguished Educator of the Year by Society of Illustrators. He was presented with the award in a packed house as part of the ceremony for the student scholarship competition.

He was introduced by none other than the venerable Marshall Arisman.

accepted the award from Scott Bakal (did you know Scott Bakal was a former student of Gil's as well? 'tis true.)me and Tony DeVito were both there representing illustration @CCS.

Marshall having a laugh with Gil's mother

That's me! I'm really proud of this picture, three generations of educators and students

other notables were there too. here we have Marcos Chin and Yuko Shimizu.

Rudy Gutierrez, a personal favorite of mine.

J.J. Sedelmeier

Tim O'Brien and Tom Woodruff

Guy Billout

Mr and Mrs Eric Fowler (with Billout)

Oh and isn't this rich? Here we have Marshall with Maelle Doliveux, one of the noobs from next years incoming class over here at MFA illustration

the second years' big opening

2011-05-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

hey team,
last night was the opening reception for the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay class of 2011 Thesis Exhibition.

Everybody was there. Classmates! Faculty! Illustrious alumni! Various other prominent illustrators!

Marcos Chin and You Byun!

Erin Supinski and Gant Powell!

Hyesu Lee and Aya Kakeda!

Dasha Tolstikova and Matthew Richmond!

Clay Rodery and Anat Even Or!

Chi Birmingham!

Gregory Crane!

papa bear Will Varner and Minjin Lee!

more papa bear!

Pat Kinsella and Cecilia Cruz!

Tony DiMauro and his lady!

Hyesu and Ben Voldman!

cualquier maldito español cuidando la mesa de mercancía

Carl Titolo!

more Gillian

2011-04-30T09:50:00.001-07:00

some sketches for a couple more images I will be doing utilizing Gillian

dreamscapes

2011-04-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

a pair of landscapes for An Appointment in the Dreamworld

Amanda Sullivan's thesis exhibition

2011-04-23T17:29:00.001-07:00

hey Team,
former CCS compadre Amanda Sullivan will be having her MFA conferred upon her this week by Pratt. Last night I went to a closing reception for her thesis exhibition at the always beautiful Pratt campus.
Miss Sullivan did a sculpture/installation called Western Pleasure. She designed the whole experience complete with sound and lighting and no small amount of mirrors. Oh look that's me!

even the food was thematic

Congratulations, Sully!

oh yes that old gimmick again

2011-04-22T10:43:00.001-07:00

an illustration for An Appointment in the Dreamworld. As you can see, it features that doll that I spent a week sculpting finally getting some mileage.
And, I have fallen back into old habits of painting on patterned fabric

our play

2011-04-21T13:18:00.001-07:00

this is a poster I made for our play that we wrote and performed for the writing workshop

insignia

2011-04-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

the insignia of Rabbit Hole Academy will appear a handful of times throughout An Appointment in the Dreamworld. I sculpted this relief so I can capture it under varied lighting scenarios

Pratt Drawathon

2011-04-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

yo team,

last night I went to the Pratt Drawathon just down the street from my old apartment (making this only the second time in history that it would have been convenient to live there. both times occurring, ironically, after I had long since moved out)
he looks familiar. Probably because I have drawn his boney ass many times at Society of Illustrators.
then I got really inspired by this saucy dame:

though the event went til 7 am, I only drew til midnight, because Im not as young as I once was

nude of the week: endgame

2011-04-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

this past wednesday was our last session in Gregory Crane's figure painting studio.
Oh, the memories.
That makes this the final nude of the week. Commemorate by purchasing.

Gordie

2011-04-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

I did this little doodle of Gordie as part of a larger project.
I also did one of myself, but I don't much care for it and as such will not be sharing.

the piggies are multiplying

2011-04-05T09:40:00.001-07:00

hey team,
surely you will recall the piggy I sculpted. I made a silicon mold and have cast some more heads in resin.
Due to the realities of moldmaking, the ears had to be cast separately from the rest of the head and rejoined after the fact. The tusks are too small to cast and will have to be individually sculpted then attached.
The most important of these castings is the one that will go on the front of a full body sculpture that will serve as reference for oodles of images for An Appointment in the Dreamworld.
But this silicon mold is good for up to 15 castings. This head is just under 3 inches long, so I would like to cast heads, paint and finish them, then mount them on little wooden medallions like wee taxidermied heads. I want to make one for Marshall, one for Michael, one for Randy, and one for my poor suffering mother.
Anybody else that wants one (and who wouldn't!) ought e-mail me and toss me a couple bucks because the resins and silicons and my precious time are not cheap.

my new tigers

2011-04-04T22:57:00.001-07:00

hey team
check out the sexy new Onitsuka Tigers I won on eBay: a pair of sneaker so exquisitely designed I felt I had to make a doodle of them.
this will be the fifth pair of Tigers I own (and the second pair that is purple)

a couple pages of pigs

2011-04-04T12:43:00.001-07:00

I have to sculpt a body for that pig head I cast
must get acquainted with the porcine form

faces of the Met

2011-04-02T12:31:00.001-07:00

through the madness, I got a chance to sneak away the other day and do some real quick sketches of statuary at the Met.
The visible storage is still my favorite part of that museum.

the creepy doll

2011-04-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

for An Appointment in the Dreamworld I wanted to make a Rumpelstiltskinish doll character to appear recurrently in some of the images.
I found a doll at the salvation army and I modified its head and hands with supersculpy.
Her name is Jillian.

the leave-behind

2011-03-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

Going tonight to a meeting with an art director for Penguin Group publishing.
No time for portfolio reviews, but we can do leave-behinds.
My leave-behind is a scented candle.
my portfolio smells like sandalwood.

the Columbia Lion

2011-03-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

a friend of a friend is running for student government at Columbia. I was asked to do a lion with the Columbia crown for campaign materials.

It's good to hook people up. Especially Columbia people. They have a tendency to go on in life and be very successful and influential . . .

I hope he wins!

sketch night at society

2011-03-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

I am in . . .

2011-03-28T21:35:00.001-07:00

nood of the month

2011-03-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

hey team,
todays nudey-doodle celebrates the triumphant return of Santiago!
this month I spent a full three weeks on this figure painting, and how nice to be able to paint at such a relaxed pace. Usually I have to paint away as fast as my little fingers will go, but this month I got to be lazy. What is also nice is that Santiago is the only model we have competent enough to hold a standing pose, and as though the stars were aligned just so I arrived to class on the first day of the pose with a tall skinny canvas.
I am quite pleased with how this one came out. the skin tone is more chromatic than even I usually go, but I don't think I over-rainbowed it (as the students of the great Nancy Mitter were often wont to do back at CCS). My favorite part is the cast shadow. It's shape has a Lautrec flavor to it that I am quite pleased with.
As always, this is for sale on the Etsy (and OH BOY do I ever need the cash). Since I spent 9 hours and not 3 on it, I will be asking the king's ransom of $220. *gasp*
it is 15 x 30 inches and would look great in YOUR bathroom or kitchen.

p.s. Nancy Mitter doesn't have a website apparently. That's so oldschool!

the (completed) head of Carl Titolo

2011-03-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

well team,
I showed you the marionette head I was sculpting of Mr. Carl Titolo
when last you saw it it was merely sculpted,
well now it is painted and flocked, done!
all he needs now is a body (wearing a paint-streaked sweatsuit with a bandana around the neck) and rigging and then I can make some fun videos for the interwebs!

another visual pun

2011-03-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

ladies and gentlemen,
team,

"Poppycock"

for
An Appointment in the Dreamworld
by A.E. Kieren, 2011

Kenneth the Page

2011-03-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

Dear team,
it's no secret that I love 30 Rock, and as all my facebook stalkers well know I got to visit the set of 30 Rock not too long ago in a professional capacity (as a puppeteer's assistant). An early frontrunner for best moment of 2011 was getting my picture taken with Jack McBrayer who plays my favorite human being who ever lived, Kenneth the Page.now that I have a photograph of a recognizable public figure to which I own the exclusive copyright, I made this little doodle:and so now I need all of you 30 Rock superfans to go RIGHT NOW to my Etsy and buy the original so I can eat this month. Thank you.

before they are consigned to the flames . . .

2011-03-06T18:08:00.000-08:00

hey team,
my studio space had gotten filthy of late, and since I am on spring break this week I made my first order of business to thoroughly clean and reorganize it.
Of course that means some of the art, like ugly, unclaimed little puppies at the pound, will have to be put down. Sad but true. The joint is too cluttered up. I will be posting some of the things for sale on the Etsy if you just can't bear to see these pictures thrown away, but some things are going to get chucked and that's that.
Like all these gorillas that the Titolo made us do. As you recall, he wanted us to just obsess over objects and draw them from every angle at every size and in every media, including the dime-sized gorilla toys he got for all of us.
Well it was fun, but with the price of real estate in Manhattan, they simply cannot stay.
But I figured they were at least worth scanning and sharing just this once before they are tossed.

the Armory

2011-03-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

some highlights from the Armory show this weekend :A rabbit egg by Jane Canfield

I can't afford a Fernando Botero of my own at this point, but someday . . .

this handsome functional miniature gate by Wim Delvoye is also on my wishlist this Christmas

did you know that Jim Dine also sculpts hearts?
I also can't afford a Giorgio Da Chirico yet either. Maybe this one will still be available by the time I hit baller status.
I forgot to write down the name of this artist, but FUN!
very beautiful prints by Mequitta Ahuja, represented by Galerie Obadia in Paris, France.

again, I failed to write down the info on this artist, but it's from a gallery in Turkey. I at least remember that much.
A flock of sheep by Remy Markowitsch

this I considered notable because they used gargoyles to hang the painting. I WANT THAT!

my little piggy

2011-03-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

Hey team,
for my rad new book I will have a flying pig as a recurring character. Since nothing makes my job easier than quality reference and props, and since incidentally I am in a class on figure sculpting for illustrators, I am building myself a pig.
So here we have her head. I wanted to photograph her when she still had the rough-hewn sculpted quality about her, even though I intend to polish her up before casting.

harrassing Hoobler

2011-03-03T17:24:00.001-08:00

Ya know what I haven't done in a while, team?
I haven't created any new hybrid literary masterpieces about dear Chris Hoobler!
Here are some exciting new titles in the series
Of course I miss my whole pack, and this week I got a little sentimental and for some reason thought of about a dozen extra-funny new instaclassics. I don't have the time to sit around photoshopping fake book covers all day, so you will have to wait around and catch them in a more staggered release.

naked ladies

2011-03-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

Hey team,
went to sketch night at S of I again last night, and as always it was great. Very, very good musical stylings last night, in fact.
Anyhoo, I never have time in my life to do things like show up to sketch night a half hour early and get the best seats. As a result, I tend to be in the third row, and so I can't usually see the model's feet. I hate leaving the feet off and I don't want to be accused of deliberately avoiding the feet because I'm such a hack. I wish sketch night was a talentocracy in which I could show up ten minutes after the poses commenced and toss someone out of the front row for doing stick figures, but it's just that sort of progressive thinking that the world isn't ready for.

warmups:
5 mins:
10 mins:

20 mins:

indignities fit for an undergrad

2011-02-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

Hey Team,
As you may know, this semester I am in a professional practices course where each week the gang is given a presentation from a successful professional. We have already been lectured by Yuko and the legendary Milton Glaser. We also hear from creative directors and get our portfolios reviewed. Before any of that could happen, our professor, the great and wondrous Mirko Ilic reviewed our portfolios to offer direction on what we should show to the bigwigs.
He announced in front of everyone that I need to learn to paint hands.
I could have died of shame.
He told me the hands were bad in this piece and this piece and this piece and that he sensed I was deliberately avoiding painting sets of hands in this piece and this piece (if that's true I swear to you that it was subconscious).
Now to complete my humiliation and to avoid such future chastisement I have been doing a page a day out of Hogarth's Drawing Dynamic Hands, which is an activity appropriate only for a college sophomore. THE INDIGNITY OF IT ALL!
Hopefully it will cure me of this affliction, even if Hogarth's hands are strangely stylized. He simplifies knuckes into little upside-down hearts/buttcracks, and I don't know anyone who's finger tips are shaped like long skinny shovels . . .

I hope you appreciate the vulnerability I am sharing with you here, team

:(

2011-02-26T08:19:00.001-08:00

no nude of the week this time.
Its a 3 week pose, so in a couple weeks there will be NUDE OF THE MONTH
and its gonna be a doozie

S of I sketchnight

2011-02-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hey team,
perhaps I have mentioned I have resumed my old internship in the permanent collection at Society of Illustrators. They asked me back, and I figured since no one else was lining up to gainfully employ me, I might as well be hanging out at Society and taking advantage of the events there and satisfying my fetish for original Leyendeckers.
Last night I went to their sketch night, which was grand. We had a male model who looked a bit like Devendra Banhart and was so scrawny that all my sketches of him have an Egon Schiele feel. So that was fun. I only stayed for the 5's and 10's though because I had to meet Kikkomonster downtown for dinner later on.

2 min warmups:

5 minutes:
10 minutes:

an announcement

2011-02-20T15:29:00.001-08:00

"Crabapple" by A.E. Kieren, 2011

Hey team,

now that I am at last forever freed of the Yiddish curses project, the time has come for us to discuss my next major ongoing project. For the next two terms I will be working on a children's book of a sort tentatively titled An Appointment in the Dreamworld.

I daren't tell you too much about it because I want to give myself some latitude to let the creative process ebb and flow, and also should the time come that it is published I want you to be obliged to buy it. And nobody's going to buy the ice cream truck if I'm giving away the popsicles for free (tee hee).
I will tell you that this book will have a lot of double meanings and riddles and allegory and other fun stuff.

inspiration hunting

2011-02-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

today my camera and I stepped out with Alaina to finally visit the Library of Morbid Anatomy in Brooklyn, and to otherwise seek inspiration for my new book project, which will consume my life for the next 7 months and so must be done right

so nice to have a day off and feel a little bit productive at the same time

nood of the week (back to doods)

2011-02-18T12:34:00.001-08:00

BUY IT!

the head of Carl Titolo

2011-02-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

As I have maybe mentioned, Team,
this semester I am auditing an undergraduate class in figure sculpture for illustrators. The course is taught by Michael Combs, who as fortune would have it is also an alumni of the very same illustrious masters program in which I am currently conducting my studies.
For my first project we were asked to sculpt the head of a recognizable figure. I sought and was granted permission to do the caricatured head of the inimitable and wondrous Carl Titolo, artiste and professor extraordinaire.
Here is some reference that the boss was good enough to pose for:Some sketching, trying to make decisions about how to caricature and stylize:
And finally the finish:This head was sculpted a tad larger than was assigned, and with some extra hardware involved because when all is said and done it will be a functional marionette, dressed in high-style as Carl Titolo in a paint-streaked sweatsuit with a bandana around the neck.
I have big plans for this marionette, but for right now, it is still just a head

last nights show

2011-02-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

well well well, team
the opening of the Ostracon show was last night, and it went swimmingly. Now that it has come and gone, I feel there is no reason not to let you see the book project in its entirety. And that's all she wrote. Now that project really truly is done done done, and I get to to start telling you about the new bigger better project I'm already at work on. Tomorrow's post is going to be a doozy.

nude of the week (it's a lady!)

2011-02-11T12:51:00.001-08:00

hey team,
men are so much easier to paint. But this week we had a female model who looked a wee bit through the face like Uma Thurman, which I approve of.
I did a close crop of the face and upper torso because usually in these three hour sittings I don't have enough time to give the face the finesse it needs. Actually that's not why. I did this crop because Ryan Hartley made me move so my view of the pose had an extremely foreshortened pair of legs shooting right at me, and I wasn't in the mood to go through that again. Females are hard enough to paint without that.

I suppose it turned out decent enough. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I bought a square canvas, and the flesh and the background are very close in color (which is certainly unfortunate) but that shouldn't stop you from buying it.

installation day

2011-02-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

hey teamthats my name hanging out on 23rd street for all of New York to see

team,
today we convened to hang the show (which you are all compelled to attend)
and now that the show is hung, we are ready for next tuesday's big opening,
which means I am completely, totally, 100% done with this book project

and this is how I feel about that

you are cordially ORDERED TO ATTEND

2011-01-31T13:29:00.001-08:00

hey team

our semester-long ordeal is drawing to a close, and everybody's term book projects are going on display in February. That means my art book of Yiddish curses will be on display along with everybody else's contributions to the Ostracon show, as curated by my homeslice Viktor Koen.
There will be an opening reception on Tuesday, February 15th from 6 to 8 pm. All members of my team in the New York area must either attend or

"may you be married to the daughter of the angel of death"

or whichever other Yiddish curse(s) from the book may be applied to you should you fail to appear

a Yiddish curse

2011-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

my firm deadline for the book of Yiddish curses is in two weeks, so soon I will wash my hands of the accursed Yiddish curses.

ya never know what they are going to like

2011-01-24T13:48:00.001-08:00

The bigwigs at SVA have updated the MFAI website to include some images from our class.
The one they chose for me I find to be a dubious choice, but in this business one never can tell what people are going to like

nekked

2011-01-21T14:03:00.000-08:00

Hey team
so, a slow week for posting. sorry about that, but another week another nude.
this week in painting studio we had that same dreamboat model from last week, only this time I had a better vantage point without his legs coming directly at me, so I think it came out much better. (I'm not going to bother to link to the post im referring to, because it's sitting right there underneath this post. do it yourself.)
And I have decided to conclude the toning experiment with the result: green is the best if it ain't broke don't fix it. no more wacky underpaintings.
As usual, this one is for sale. But its going to cost you. There hasn't been a lot of product moving on the Etsy lately, and I once heard a professor say that art galleries operate in an upside down logic, and when nothing is selling, you don't lower prices, you raise them.
So this puppy will be posted for 50, not for 20. That should give it the gravitas it deserves.
Because I don't want to starve. I'm kind of hungry I think I'm going to go have something to eat right now actually . . .

happy nude year

2011-01-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

ah yes,
the first naked dude of a new year.the legs were coming right at me with some extreme foreshortening, which took me a bit longer to draw accurately than is usual. As a result, at the end of the evening I ran out of time so there isn't as much detail in the face as I might have preferred, and the blue folds in the lower right hand corner were totally phoned-in.
If anybody still cares about the toning experiment, this one was toned in dark burgundy. A sort of cranberry, if you will.
Now lets get something straight, team: I frequently post things that are perhaps controversial or that are supposed to be a secret, and I always think twice before doing it and then remind myself nobody reads this blog.
but that's not really true, is it?
my homeslice Tony D told me that when he ran a google analytics on his website he found that 1/5 of his hits were routed from here, from the link in the blogroll to the left, or perhaps the link from this post. Turns out my traffic stats lately have been very good (although no actual jobs or money have resulted from those stats yet).
Now, team, I know I'm allawesomeandshit, but if I had to guess what would be driving all the traffic on the AEKierenBlog, given the time of year . . . it's probably prospective grad students fretting about application deadlines, considering the program here at SVA, googling it, and finding this silly blog.
So to all you illustration weenies out there who are dreaming of partying with Marshall, you should message me. I know things. I got myself into this program, perhaps I could help you get in too.
In fact, I have an audacious proposal for you. Why not buy this weeks naked dood from my Etsy, lie about its origins, and use it as a portfolio piece when you apply!

(Please don't actually do that. It would be in very poor taste. But you should buy it nevertheless)

my travels in miniature

2011-01-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

is the reader familiar with tilt-shift photography? it makes real life appear miniature.
like this:

or this:

of course, true tilt shift must be done in-camera, but there's a web-generated poor man's version and it can be faked in photoshop.
I tried it with some of my travel shots
Atami, Japan, December 2008:Cliffs of Moher, Ireland, June 2010:
Croagh Padraic, Ireland, June 2010
Inismor, Ireland, June 2010:
fun, right?

Merry Christmas, Team

2010-12-24T13:04:00.001-08:00

from Natalie Portman and I

a Christmas commission

2010-12-19T16:22:00.000-08:00

a little something I did for a nice young couple in Ohio that found me on my Etsy.
what's that you say? you like it and want one of your own? well then contact me, fools. I'm desperate and will do almost anything for some bloody income here.

purdy radials for no reason

2010-12-08T14:40:00.001-08:00

I'm not a fan of digital. Everyone knows this. But illustrator is fun for building pretty decorative things, like these radials I made yesterday for no good reason.

gryphon and dodo

2010-12-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

well look at me. posting digital stuff again. never thought I'd live to see the day. I was forced to do it for a class, though. And I drew it in real life and then assembled and tweeked it in illustrator. just listen to me trying to justify it.

my studio as gallery

2010-12-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

this week is scholarship review over here at MFA illustration. We all had to clean up our studios and dress the walls with everything we have done this semester.I remember when my senior wall went up for graduation at CCS, it was kinduva bummer to see $120,000 boiled down to six feet of wall space. This time, it is the opposite. Instead of money spent, these walls represent the possibility of money to come, depending on how the faculty reviews go.

Ordinarily I would tell you to check back to learn how it went, but since scholarships amounts are awarded arbitrarily, we are forbidden to ever speak of how much we got or didn't get. So, team, you will never know if or how much of a scholarship I got. Therefore, you should assume the worst and go to my Etsy shop and buy something RIGHT NOW so I can buy this claybord stuff that the Titolo is making us work on this week.

nude of the week- Mr. Clean

2010-12-03T08:48:00.000-08:00

this week in painting studio our model was sanitation spokesmascot Mr. Clean!

for those of you keeping score on the toning experiment, this one was toned in green again. I realize that that is somewhat of a betrayal of the experiment, since I paint on green all the time and I know it works, but I had splurged on a fancy-shmancy 15 x 30 canvas and I didn't want to eff it up like that time I tried toning it in pink. Barf.
per usual, this one is for sale, and it's a good one. The tall narrow format makes it perfect for placing above a toilet in a cramped bathroom or the like. Also thanks to that carefully placed foot it's suitably G-rated. Perfect for your dentist's waiting rooms and whathaveyou.
Need I remind you that by purchasing you help keep me fed and watered. I'm wasting away to nothing here, team.

Gaudi

2010-12-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

hey team
like I told you a while back, the Titolo had us make homage pieces about someone who influenced us. I did Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudi.
Since the Titolo is very into mixed media (and so am I), I figured this project was a decent enough time to try things I had often been curious about but never done.
Like mosaic. Gaudi incorporated mosaic into a lot of his designs, and for my part, I have been saving broken china for years with the intention of eventually making mosaics with them. Though until now I had made nary a single mosaic, and all my troves of broken pottery were in my mom's basement back in Michigan. As luck would have it, my sister and brother-in-law came to NYC to visit over thanksgiving weekend, so my mom packed up all the blue and green pottery and sent it with them.
Another element to Gaudi's body of work was his incorporation of landscaping and plant life into his structures. I got to thinking, what if I actually put living plants growing out of the painting?
I said to myself
YOU CAN'T DO THAT TONY THATS CRAZY
then I did it anyway.
This is the finishand this is the final assignment with the type incorporated
The physical art weighs rather a lot, and when I placed the mini-cacti into their pot doohickeys I got some dirt in the still-wet oil paint.
Oops. Hopefully it can be swept off when the paint drys.
Please go see the solutions of some of the 'mates.
Joana Avillez
Cecilia Ruiz

On Newsstands Now

2010-11-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Hey, as I mentioned previously, I illustrated the December issue of RevueWM. I believe the physical printed edition of the paper comes out tomorrow *free* all over Grand Rapids, MI. For those on my team who are not in or around GR, the paper is ready for download in its entirety HERE.
Also, as mentioned in the letter to the editor, each of the 23 original illustrations is for sale on my Etsy. And I sure do hope a few of them sell, so that there will be a turkey on the table for all the little tonys this Christmas

noodie doodle

2010-11-28T12:54:00.000-08:00

even though almost everybody in the class declared without shame their intention to skip wednesday night's painting studio, the powers-that-be decided not to cancel.
So a lonely group of four of us painted this model late wednesday evening while everyone else went out drinking:As part of my ongoing experiment, I toned the canvas with the more traditional burnt sienna this week. I was playing it safe hoping to redeem myself from the humbling shame of the last painting studio when I toned the canvas bright pink.
Anyway, team, go to the Etsy shop and buy it so that I can buy a plane ticket home for the holidays

happy thanksgiving

2010-11-24T09:38:00.001-08:00

hey team,

new blog i joined

2010-11-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

hey team

some of the kids from school are crowdsourcing a new little blog project called What I Ate Today .

go become a follower. NOW.

Its similar in concept to What I Wore Today, which is a project I have often intended to contribute to, but never had the proper get-up-and-go.

I'm going to try to submit oftenish. I think it will keep me honest about what I eat. If I consider eating something that I would die of shame before drawing and posting on a blog, maybe I shouldn't be eating that.

redocumentation

2010-11-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

hey team
remember way back in the spring when I posted Scarecrow from my senior studio at CCS?
the painting sold at the student show, and I had never had a really good, sharp photograph of it with accurate colors, and that had always bothered me.
the gentleman that bought the piece works for the DIA though, and so he was able to have the painting photographed for me by the museum archivist, so now I present to you, Scarecrow, as it was meant to be seenmany thanks to my friends at the DIA, this piece will be submitted to some important shows and it really helps having good quality documentation of the piece