Happy New Year!

TOM - Happy New Year, everyone! 2011 is going to be a really awesome year, I'm excited
to finally start it! 2010 was a wonderful year full of new experiences, accomplishments, and big changes.


I watched this year end and start a new here in Portland OR, where I’ll be spending the next few months. I’m having a blast so far, it’s an awesome city and a really great place to make art.

However, being away from New York makes me realize just how ‘New York’ I really am. One of the things I’ve realized is that my history, up until this point, more or less lies within the city of New York. All experiences that have shaped me and made me who I am today, occurred within those five boroughs. I’ve realized that New York is more than just the backdrop in the story of my life, it's a major character, sort of my co-star. As people come and go, as jobs change, as apartments change, New York is always there, absorbing each experience deep within it’s concrete and brick. It wears me as much as I wear it. And like the drawing above, it’s written all over me. They’re imprints on my being and they range from the sweetness of a lip print to the pain of a battle scar. Though where I once tried to hide from them, I now wear them with pride and will carry them with me wherever my journeys take me throughout life.

I’m Thomas Pitilli and I represent my city.

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'Jalissa' Print

'Jalissa' 2010

TOM - Sure has been a while since I've made a post here! For good reason though, been busy with new and exciting projects, moved across the country, plus I illustrated this awesome new print! This was printed by silk screener extraordinaire, James Flames! I was down in his North Carolina studio earlier this month and he really hooked this one up. Just in time for the holidays, this print(including a brown variant) is now for sale on my Etsy shop.

'Jalissa' (Brown Variant)

This bad boy(or girl, rather) measures 19" x 25" and is printed on on 100lb Poptone Sweet Tooth French paper. It is an edition of 26, so get 'em while they're hot!

Detail shot

The brown variant also measures 19" x 25" It is printed on on 100lb Kraft Speckletone French paper. This one's even a shorter run, only an edition of 8, so they're even hotter!

Detail shot

If you're interested in purchasing one of these prints, please visit my Etsy shop for all the details. Hope this finds a home on your wall soon!

Thanks for reading and more updated soon!

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Painting a Mural for the "Long Live" show

JAMES - I drove up to Raleigh a few days ago to paint a mural for the show. Here's a little video that captured most of the action. Saturday night is the opening - psyched!

James Flames: Long Live
@ Amplified Art Gallery, Raleigh, NC
November 20-December 10, 2010
www.amplifiedartgallery.com

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How I make an Illustration

TOM - I haven't done a process post in a while, so I thought I would share with you how I created this week's 'First Time' illustration for Nerve.com It's a sex column where people write about their 'first time' and although it's fun to draw people humping and kissing, I would get bored if I had to draw that every week. The young woman writing of her experience describes herself as a quiet outsider who likes books and cats and wore glasses that she thought made her look like an owl. I loved that line and decided to use the owl comparison as a jumping off point...

...so I start off by brainstorming on a sheet of paper. These are just scribbles at this point, I work really fast so that I could get all my ideas down before I start to over think anything, that comes later. I don't care about drawing on top of another idea, it's a total mess. I could understand it, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to.

Then I tighten a couple ideas up and this is the one that we finally decided to go with. Like many birds, owls build their nests in holes of trees and keep it very guarded. I decided to put the woman in a nest that has a suggestive shape. She's guarding her own 'nest' so to speak. It's kind of subtle, but the goal is to make it work as an interesting illustration whether people pick up on that or not.

Then I light box over the sketch so I could tighten up the composition, add detail, all that good stuff.

My favorite part, the inks! I used a mix of a nib and brush to ink this one. The nib pen allowed me to add textures in the tree and to the owl, where the brush helped differentiate the woman from the rest of the piece.



Then, it's into Photoshop for some coloring. I wanted to make this a nigh time scene, so I used blues, greens and grays. I used limited white which I hope draws the viewer in as well as push the whole 'owl' metaphor.

Is this a sex illustration? I don't know, but I had fun regardless and I hope you enjoyed reading about my process. Enough about what I think though, let me know what you think in the comment section below!

Take care.

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Catching up...

TOM- I'm happy to say I've been producing more work lately than I can keep track of. One of the downfalls is that I forget to post some of it. So here are some of the latest illustrations. Above is an illustration I did for New York Press about a male prostitute.

Here's one for Nerve.com about things heating up during an argument. My kind of argument...

Here's another one for Nerve.com about a young american man's expierience with a wild woman in Vienna.

These last two are a couple of sketches I did, just messing around with textures, patterns and materials.




Thanks for reading! A lot more stuff on the way!

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