Jorge Manuel Dengo 1918-2012

Jorge Manuel Dengo 1918-2012

Today, Costa Rica mourns the loss of an invaluable man. Universally acclaimed by Costa Ricans as a visionary, Jorge Manuel Dengo was the incorruptible voice of reason, both extinct traits within the rulers of our country.

My dad tells me that as a child, I sometimes drew for catharsis, as a method to deal with the loss of numerous pets. As I am far away from home, my guttural instinct was to draw this, quickly, as a way to cope with this loss. My sadness stems greatly from the fact that I did not get to know my grand uncle better, but I am joyful that the response from "Ticos" has been so universally heartfelt. It is a reminder, and an inspiration, that there are those who have sincerely sought what is best for the country, and not just what is best for themselves.

"We are left without one of the greatest, of which there are none left." 
"One of the best that Costa Rica has ever seen." 
"An example to follow."
"A visionary."
"We are left with his legacy."

Rest in peace, Jorge Manuel.

Happy Halloween at The Electric Keychain

I am so excited to announce my new project, The Electric Keychain! We are a group of illustrators who want to create art together. For our Halloween launch date, we made costumed self-portraits. You will periodically find new work from us. We are also open to work from contributors, so, you'll also find work by many more artists!

We also have a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account @Electric_Key. Tweets by Sherbert the shocked sheep.

I absolutely wanted to include a book in my portrait and after a wonderful suggestion from Jackie, figured a witch hat would fit right in. Witches have spell books, right?

To follow the keychain theme, we also made it optional to have a key in the portrait and I definitely wanted one.

While working on this piece, I suddenly became very excited about the project since I only had the opportunity to celebrate Halloween about 3 times in my life back in Costa Rica, the last time being 2nd grade. After 2nd grade, there was a sudden, country-wide rejection of Halloween and people just sort of stopped dressing up and widely giving out candy. Since then, I sorely missed Halloween but working on this project felt like celebrating it in spirit. Happy Halloween!

To avoid criticism...

So I just graduated from SCAD (woo!) I will be going to NYC next week and meeting some art directors and illustrators (can't wait!) But before I go, here's a new illustration: