FALL SEMESTER 2013

On September 3, 2013 I began my MFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York. To me, SVA is the Hogwarts of art schools. My 20 classmates come from places like Shanghai, Tehran, Austin, Pittsburgh and St. Louis. They each have strong personalities and will make fantastic illustrators. Every student is exceptionally talented and extremely bright. We are taught by some of the best in the world. The school has a long legacy of producing the top illustrators in the field.  I hope to be one some day.

One of our first assignments was to make a dog mask and tell a true personal story. It was a moment to set the bar for what kind of work we were going to do. 

I made a Weimaraner out of papier mache and felt.

 It was a great project because it got us talking. We are pretty close group.

Alex and I started the season with some apple picking. We drove upstate with her parents to a really cool farm. 

It was an unbelievably beautiful orchard.

I've always doodled in notebooks and kept things written down as idea books, but in the summer leading to this semester I began keeping sketchbooks. 

I draw everywhere. 

Doodling in class is not discouraged. 

 I draw on the subway a lot. The rocking and unpredictability adds some interesting artifacts to the work.

I sketch out ideas for stories sometimes.

Occasionally, they're just strange thoughts.

Marshall Arisman is the head of our program. He assigned us to enter a few illustration competitions. My work was selected for all three. 

This sketchbook appeared in the Moleskin store on Spring Street as part of their Marcel Proust event in partnership with the French embassy.

The piece below was chosen for the AKA SVA scholarship.

We were also invited by Paul Stuart to illustrate pieces for the store on Madison and 45th.

Mine is the one with the mammoth.

I'm known for my pen and ink line work, but I also experiment with digital illustration.

I've started doing some professional illustration. This is for the digital musician Zweihander.

We closed the semester with a book project that challenged us to create a body of 15 to 30 images for a bound work.

It was a lot of work. 

Here is my space and book.

The Park is still the park. I'm happy with my part-time job as a copywriter. Most of my duties revolve around publishing a monthly e-news. I write a lot about the history of Prospect Park. 

We recently opened a new skating rink on the lakeshore. It was years in the making.

I was bundled to walk to the ribbon cutting. 

Bloomberg was waiting for me.

I submitted an auction item to the November gala, under the condition that the money it raised would be used to purchase a quadcopter. "Chris Bonnell will draw your house" sold for $575. 

For years, I have dreamed of taking aerial photos of Prospect Park. The technology and the cost was prohibitive. I can't describe how awesome it was to open this box. 

It takes pretty sweet pictures, too.

We had a really nice Christmas and New Years Eve. 

I'm in the third week of my spring semester.  We are starting our second book project. This time I'll explore early New York history. I can't wait.