I've chosen 3 of my favorite watercolor pieces from 2008-2010, all done for fun. I read the book Ghosty Men and was fascinated with the Collyer Brothers. I found their story quite touching, I won't go into it in detail here but you should look into it.
Life of Pi, 2009
My favorite section of the book Life of Pi was when the bolt of lightning strikes the water and he describes how it looked like a white tree with roots.
Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, 2010
Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus was definitely not his finest hour, but it inspired this painting which I love to this day. I like the patterns and the composition.
I created these in-between freelance jobs and around my full-time day job. It's very important to do personal work, it's a way to build up a portfolio of the kind of work you'd LIKE to be getting. It's a hoot looking at this stuff now, it seems like someone else created them- it's so weird.
On December 8, 2010 I joined artists Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen to speak at the Fashion Institute of Technology about "How I Got My First Job". Heidi Younger contacted me and it was all very exciting. My lovely friends Esther, Matt, Woo, Luis, Monica, and Lavon showed up and Woo was nice enough to record it for me. Check out the above video clip, and here is the original flyer...
I talked about my first job which was an illustration of golfer Michelle Wie for NY Press in the summer of 2006. Here is the image:
Michelle Wie Illustration by Silent James
And here is the clipping from the newspaper:
I remember I was so excited, I told all of my friends to pick up a copy.
My favorite part of the lecture was getting to meet Hope Gangloff and Kim Rosen, they were such delightful people and we felt like a team. After performing in immersive theatre for 3 years and being a graphic recorder, I have definitely gotten better at public speaking since this video was shot, but I think I did a pretty good job. Years later I ran into SASHALYNILLO at a gallery show and she recognized me from the lecture and told me it was pretty entertaining. I would like to do more of these talks in the future!
There's more to the video where I discuss other projects, I'll share those in future posts.
