Hoggle is Hoggle's Friend

David Bowie's death really has affected me. My heart hangs heavy today. He was not just a musician, but a cultural icon. He was a true Midas, everything he touched in the entertainment business turned into gold. Thank you Bowie for everything you have given us. 

Hoggle drawn with a tombow brush pen on cardstock, colored in Photoshop.

Caricature Sketching

These days, I use Instagram a lot to share my art, so my blog has been quite vacant. But it's time to update again, let's see if I can keep it up. I'm doing caricature sketches as warmups. This was a sketch from last night, and added color today. I love doing google searches for photos of people. I looked up "old latino" and found a great wrinkled face I used as a reference for this illustration. Really had fun drawing his unique shape of his wrinkles, and the big ears. Handsome people are boring to draw, it's the people with uniquely shaped facial features that make it fun to draw. Its also easier to draw caricatures with people who have interesting or pronounced facial features than evenly proportioned perfect people. I can zone in on a big nose or unique head shape, and the caricature will look more spot on than someone with a classically beautiful face with nothing unique about their face.

You can find me on Instagram as @JesJosAcosta and Twitter as @JesseJAcosta.

My Cancer Story

This last year has been very difficult for me, and my new little family. Last summer, a week after my wife found out she was pregnant with our first child, we learned that I had cancer. Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tongue to be precise. Never been a drinker or smoker either, so it was a real shock to have oral cancer.

Over the last several months, Ive had four surgeries, lost 30% of my tongue from surgeries to remove tumors, had two neck dissections to remove tumors from when the cancer spread to my lymph nodes, a major muscle was removed from my neck in the process because of the cancer, lost my job because of all the surgeries and wasn’t able to do the physical work after the removal of my sternocleidomastoid muscle. Just a month ago, I finally finished the grueling process of radiation therapy on my throat and mouth, and chemotherapy. I lost over 60 pounds from chemo and radiation making it difficult to eat from chemo sickness, and swelling my throat from radiation. The chemo also gave me tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The chemo med I was on is a newer med, cisplatin, and fortunately I didn’t lose the hair on top of my head from it like you see in the movies and tv. The radiation though actually affected all my facial hair, and everywhere they shot me with radiation (below my nose down to the middle of my neck). My beard fell out, and now I can’t grow any facial hair. The worst part of the radiation is losing taste from targeting my tongue. I also can’t make saliva like I used to because the radiation affected some of my saliva glands.

As you can imagine, the medical bills for this have been coming in, and it’s been unbelievably overwhelming. My wife and I have been doing our best to stay afloat, but it’s been hard since I’ve been out of work for all the procedures, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. We’re at about $5,000 in bills so far from cat scans, PET scans, surgeries, hospital stays, biopsies, labs, and I’m still getting bills as we speak. I had a post chemo/radiation CT last week, and the estimated bill for that is $766.

My friends have been great, and started a Go Fund Me campaign. I know a lot of people don’t have the money to assist others, so I’m simply asking for you to share this blog at the very least. You can get to my GoFundMe campaign here: http://www.gofundme.com/n28nnk

Christmas Illustrations!

I've started doing illustrations of Santa and his helpers in worldwide traditions and folklore. Here's my list so far:

Befana

Italian Folklore

In Italian folklore, Befana is an old woman who delivers gifts to children throughout Italy on Epiphany Eve (the night of January 5) in a similar way to St Nicholas. 

Viene, viene la Befana

Vien dai monti a notte fonda

Come è stanca! la circonda

Neve e gelo e tramontana!

Viene, viene la Befana

Viene, viene la Befana

Viene de la montaña en la noche

¿Cómo es cansado! rodea La nieve y las heladas y al norte! 

Viene, viene la Befana

Here comes, here comes the Befana

She comes from the mountains in the deep of the night

Look how tired she is! All wrapped up

In snow and frost and the north wind!

Here comes, here comes the Befana!

Santa Claus
Rankin-Bass inspired design

Santa Claus, in a very Rankin-Bass inspired American tradition.

Krampus
Alpine Folkore

Krampus is a beast-like creature from the folklore of Alpine countries thought to punish children during the Christmas season who had misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards well-behaved ones with gifts. Krampus is said to capture particularly naughty children and drag them off into the black forest.

Bonus Art: The Wet/Sticky Bandits!

Home Alone 

Harry Lime and Marv Merchants were the thieves in Home Alone 1 & 2.

I will update this blog entry when I get a chance to illustrate a few more characters. Trying to approach Zwarte Piet in a very racially sensitive intention. Some more characters in mind: Knecht Ruprecht, Hans Trapp, Elves, Zwarte Piet, Belsnickel, Père Fouettard. I also want to illustrate Santa in a more traditional Saint Nicholas image, and an old world Father Christmas image.

Illustration dump

Here's a bunch of art I've been doing. Haven't been able to fixate on a project recently. But I've come up with something I'm thinking of fleshing out over the holidays.

October Art Shows

Yesterday I setup two art shows in Spokane for the month of October. Both The Blue Door Theater and Giant Nerd Books are going to have my Horror Icons silkscreen posters on display! I was very excited to have this opportunity, it has been maybe seven years since my last art show for myself. This is also the first time I have had my silkscreen work exhibited anywhere. Most art shows I've done were of my acrylic work.

Browse through the walls displaying my art at Blue Door Theater, and the latter half of the photos are process pics at the screen printing press. Yes, I hand made the silkscreen press!

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

I'm so incredibly excited to be teaching cartooning to the kids at The MAC in Spokane again. If a genie were to ask me what job I could have, it would be do teach cartooning and art of all degrees to young aspiring artists. I was telling a friend earlier that if it were up to me I'd teach a workshop once a week and they'd record it on public access for schools, then do some art on a cart magic with schools around the area.
My first art teacher was on TV, Mark Kistler. He hosted Imagination Station, and I learned so many art techniques from his show. He got me even more motivated and excited. I always have adored his show to this day, and wish to leave a lasting impression on others like he did to me.