Lluvia’s work is inspired by the complexity of lines and shapes. The process of making them, incorporating color and human figures, become an intriguing odyssey for this artist. Lluvia starts by adapting her patterns to the surface she chooses, then explores ways to make the composition work in terms of color and shapes. When it comes to portraits, she creates elegant and elongated shapes that evoke sensitivity and vulnerability, characteristics which can also be distinguished in her color palettes and the expressions on her muses. The intuitive elements in Lluvia’s process keep her work fresh and varied in each new wonderful project she undertakes.

To see more of her work:  www.lluviajimenez.com and www.instagram.com/lluviajc
To contact her, write at jimenezllu@gmail.com

The 124th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 7pm at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, room A510 (Klein Conference Room), New York City. Free and open to the public. Please note the new location for this event!

The Eternal Question: What’s Funny About This?! 

The Eternal Answer from Arnold Roth.

Arnold Roth will present a profusely illustrated talk with a selection of his works through the decades, from the philosophical to the filthy.

Arnold Roth is an award-winning cartoonist based in New York City. His cartoons have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, TIME, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Punch, the New York Times, and many, many more. Since 2011 Arnold Roth posts on his weekly blog http://www.humblug.com.

Lale Westvind: Shake A Line! Images of Motion.
Lale Westvind will screen several of her hand drawn animations as well as segments from a new work in progress titled Cunt Eyes. Following the screening there will be a talk and slideshow describing influences, process, function of animation as inner space and the expression of kinetic energy in static and moving images.
Drawing movement has always been a fascination and a goal of Lale Westvind’s work, motion being the life force or energy of the physical space. This lecture will highlight the visual vocabulary created as a means to that end.
Lale Westvind was born in 1987 in New York City. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working in animation, comics and painting. She has self-published over a dozen comic books and two anthologies. A segment of her series Hyperspeed to Nowhere was featured in the 2014 issue of Best American Comics and her self-published comic Hot Dog Beach #2 won an Ignatz Award in 2012. She teaches animation at Parsons.

Jessica is a New Jersey grown illustrator who enjoys delving into the relationships between people, whether they are positive and platonic, or negative and destructive. She uses lighting, color, and composition to create mood and meaning between her characters’ interactions. Jessica’s goal is to make her audience feel distinctive emotions through the understanding of what her characters are experiencing. Using her Wacom Cintiq, ink, watercolor, or silkscreen, this artist digs deep to create a story that enables the audience to be immersed in her fantastical worlds.

You can see more of her work at www.jessmercado.com. To contact her write at jessgetsisnspired@gmail.com or follow her on Instagram @jessmerco!

The 122nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 7pm at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Eric Bernard: A Child’s View: 19th Century Paper Theaters
 A rather unique and enchanting entertainment for children emerged at the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century.  Before the wide availability of children’s periodicals and mass-produced toys, small tabletop theaters—constructed out of printed paper, adhered to cardboard and mounted on a wooden frame—introduced a unique visual entertainment into homes.  Nearly every major European country, as well as the United States, developed its own tradition of paper theater during the 19th century into the early 20th century.  It was Juvenile Drama in England, Papiertheater or Kindertheater in Germany, théâtre de papier in France, dukketeater in Denmark, and teatro de los niños or teatrillo in Spain.  Today, these small theaters and their vast repertoire of plays remain invaluable records of contemporary professional stage performances and theater design of the 19th century.

Eric Bernard has collected antique paper theaters for 30 years and had an extended exhibition of his collection at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut in 2011.  He holds a BA in music from Texas Christian University and an MA in Arts Administration from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Eric’s career in arts management has included Lincoln Center Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, and, for the past 17 years, the Metropolitan Opera.

Suji loves to illustrate stories. Something about finding out the best visual solution within specified parameters is always exciting for her. It’s a process that requires personal interpretation within restrictions, but these restrictions often help Suji to be more creative. This talented illustrator works in many mediums and styles, and explored children’s books, portraits, as well as other types of book illustration. Regardless of which style she uses for each project,  her goal is to create an intriguing image that stirs the viewer’s interest!

 

The 120th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, April 7, 2015 at 7pm at The New School University Center, 63 5th Ave., room L104 (lower level). Free and open to the public. Please note new location this week only!

Drew Friedman on 40 Iconic Paperback Book Covers.
Artist Drew Friedman shares and discusses 40 of his favorite paperback book covers. Paperback books are the cheaply printed (held together by glue rather than stitches) books released by publishers in a low-cost format.  Friedman has amassed a large collection of vintage paperbacks over the years. The book covers were all scanned from his personal collection and range from pulp-fiction and non-fiction, horror, humor reprints, (MAD, etc), comic book reprints, (Tales From The Crypt, etc), cartoon collections, joke books and show business biographies, predominantly from the nineteen fifties and sixties. Featuring artwork by among others, drawing legends such as Harvey Kurtzman, Virgil Partch, Frank Frazetta, Sanford Kossin and George Wachsteter,  Friedman will dissect each cover and explain why they had a profound influence on him and his work over the years as a cartoonist, illustrator and fan of pop culture.

Award winning artist Drew Friedman‘s comics and illustrations have appeared in Art Spiegelman’s Raw, R. Crumb’s Weirdo, American Splendor, Heavy Metal, National Lampoon, SPY, MAD, The New Yorker, BLAB!, Time, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The New York Observer, Entertainment Weekly, among many others, as well as numerous book covers and art created for Topps and SHOUT Factory. His work has been collected in five anthologies, the most recent, TOO SOON?. Drew Friedman’s Sideshow Freaks was published in 2011. Steven Heller in the The New York Times wrote of his three volumes of portraiture of Old Jewish Comedians: “A festival of drawing virtuosity and fabulous craggy faces. Friedman might very well be the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt”. His latest book of portraits, Heroes of the Comic Books, was published by Fantagraphics with a foreword by Al Jaffee. Friedman’s 8-page comic strip “R. Crumb & Me”, detailing his friendship and association with the artist R. Crumb, appears in Masterful Marks, edited by Monte Beauchamp and published by Simon & Schuster. Friedman lives in rural PA with his wife and frequent collaborator K. Bidus.