Odeh A. Amarin / Visual Art & Illustration

Hello, Goodbye

2011-11-06T11:45:00.000-08:00

Kazuhiko Sano was my instructor for the Narrative Illustration class and some other directed study classes at the Academy of Art University/San Francisco.

I honestly loved his classes as he was very encouraging and his works were very inspiring. On the other hand, I am one of many others who used to pose for him. You can see above some of the paintings where he used my figure as a reference. I can't be more delighted having been part of his work and talent.

However, Kazu passed away a while ago and we all miss him dearly. Lois Wang decided to launch an art project to honor his memory. You can check out some of the work that was done by his friends and students as a dedication for him at www.tributetokazu.blogspot.com.

Thank you Kazu...

"ARE YOU READY..."

2011-10-02T18:15:00.001-07:00

A 12" x 16" oil on board painting of Jonathan Davis; the lead vocalist of the metal band KoRn who inspired me greatly.

Truth Can Be...

2011-10-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

As we were hanging out in New York City that day (ano tgul bil 7ara), Shereen pulled out a paper from her bag and showed me a little note that she once wrote and wondered if we could put it into a short video. And I said "No"... Just kidding... We started taking the shots right away. Enjoy :)

Digital Paining...

2011-09-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

I discovered that my true joy comes by working traditionally. However, I also try to keep my digital work fresh by practicing. The work above represents two pictures that were redrawn and painted digitally using Photoshop. As you may have noticed, each of them has a totally different flavor reflecting certain characteristics and feeling...

Soaring Stage

2011-08-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got the chance to throw out a bunch of watercolor pieces I've been working on. I'm quite happy with the outcome... I didn't have to spend much time worrying about any details this time, instead, I was freely letting out some negative energy.

Little Me

2011-08-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

An experimental sketch showing one half of my face at an early age and another at the age of 25 incorporated into one photo. Whenever I look at it I always wonder if we were born with certain personalities that develop but don't change...

I'm thinking I must try this once again when I'm 50, since my head will be more rounded and it'll be a better match with little me!

Downtown Oakland Map

2011-05-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

"Design Your City" is a graduate thesis project by Denisa Trenkle. She's a graphic designer whom I helped to create a 2D/3D style map for downtown Oakland. In her project she aimed at promoting this region by an efficient use of space and adaptive reuse and rehabilitation of existing structures and improving public facilities.

Blackout

2011-03-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

boXes... (by Shereen Amarin)

I have learnt to block any kind of human related emotions… the titles are nothing but fake to me… I don’t believe in friends forever, because there’s no such thing as forever… I don’t believe in love either… love doesn’t last… those beliefs save me tons of future disappointments and they help me enjoy the moment…friends of the moment…love of the moment… You can’t keep a candle burning…the spark and the thrill are always in the new experiences that we encounter… everything else lies in the common comfortable used up zone that we get used to after the fire burns out…

The moment can be tricky though…I should know that…I’ve been trusting people blindly…coz if the future doesn’t exist they won’t betray me…but the future happened and it is now the past…and everything I told them in secrecy has been coming back to me in the strangest loops…sometimes in the exact words…other times, a hint behind a twisted truth…the moment was supposed to be simple, but whether we want it or not, we always seem to be getting ourselves in the midst of it all… A knot in an empty space creates tension and attracts us like silly particles having no control upon ourselves… we seek drama…and none of us can keep their mouth shut…we add more tangles to the knot…until it’s a world of weaved up connections and dead ends… we either spend the rest of our lives trying to untangle and break free… or we simply escape but soon enough run into a brand new knot…

The dark side of the moment is that the moment always passes… and in every moment we are born, we live and then we die… in every moment we create the first knot…our belly button and then we grow into a huge entanglement…and we burn out and the blood drains out of our earthly flesh and to the earth we go back…we die… in every moment there is a box… in every person a box… and a million possibilities… We can decide to open or close or seal it up…we decide whether we want to lock it and swallow the key or keep an extra key in an extra pocket… we decide what we put inside…what we take out… we decide to keep it or discard it…drown it…give it to another pair of hands…or burry it… The box is trust…and it’s betrayal… the box is the secret… or the gossip…the box is the moment we lived and it’s what died inside of us… the box is a box… but what’s inside is… is the inside…

Akram 6

2011-03-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

This watercolor portrait of my Dad was done before christmas 2010. I also meant to finish it before my visit to Amman to give it as a present to him. What I really liked about the original picture were the highlights, shadows and cast shadows along with this particular look on his face that reflects his diligent character.

I called it Akram 6 tp place emphasis on the six drops at the bottom that represent his children, who he constantly keeps fighting for.

Recently Robotic

2010-12-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

These watercolor paintings are samples of the visuals that represent an editorial piece written by Shereen Amarin. The article is a self expression -from a personal point of view- concerning the material fast-paced world we're living in nowadays and how its affecting most of us. Besides the verbal voice, my visual exploration shows humans as bulky helpless robots, who lack all sense of control... lost in a world that doesn't care anymore...

Metal Time

2010-11-25T00:04:00.000-08:00

Few weeks ago I watched an old video of the band KoRn doing a live performance. The originality of their sound, lyrics and style in that video couldn't be better... Music is their way of expression, it's their only way out... It's Their lives...

The videos above are two sketchy jokes that I did for fun. One of them is a nice drum solo fixed into a video of my Dad; playing around in Guitar Center "Reno". The other one is a KoRn Flakes pack!

Écorché

2010-10-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

An Écorché is a figure drawn, painted or sculpted showing the muscles of the body without skin. I signed up for this class with my friend Mo on Spring 2010. We both were interested in learning more about the human anatomy, knowing how important and essential this would be for our majors. The image with the full figure front and back shows my work. The detail shot shows part of Mo's work with its absolutely nice finishing. I recommend this class to every artist willing to improve his skills.

Skype Magic

2010-10-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

It has never been easy to be far away from the people you love the most. "I miss my family" has become my permanent status. Thanks to Skype that made this a bit easier... I talk with whoever is available on the other side almost every week... I also get to see their cheerful faces, and they get to see mine. Topless brothers, balloon face dad, my sister's sweet little babies and much more. But something always bothered me when it's time to say goodbye and hit the hang up button... I can't feel them anymore... They're not around... and their image doesn't leave my head... Even when I'm asleep!

Traditional Animation

2010-07-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

I couldn't bare the thought of leaving school without taking at least one animation class... So I decided to take the traditional animation class, which is considered to be the classic way of dealing with frames. Everything is drawn by hand on a light table, using a special kind of paper (An expensive one). A really simple action could require up to 40 frames to make it look natural and smooth. What shocked me the most is that the procedure of doing the trick is almost the same as the one I did 10 years ago... But I must say I've learned a lot...
This short clip was an exercise of someone drinking something and reacting to it. It was shot on a program called flipbook. It took me about 70 frames to create the whole thing. My brothers helped with creating the sound effects.

How They Met

2010-06-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

This is one of the works that I submitted for the AAU Annual Spring Show 2010. It was done for the Graphic Novel class that I had in Spring 2010. Originally, it's a 3 page short story, but I'm only showing the first page. As you can see above, this is the process that I went through to get this done; pencil sketch, Inking and then digital painting. I also looked into some old pictures of my parents, as this story was inspired by them...

Amarin Family Tree 2010

2010-03-25T20:26:00.001-07:00

I finally managed to work on some modifications concerning the Amarin's Family Tree 2010. I started working on this project a year ago... Ammo Balsam asked me to create a nice and clear tree for the family that has the names of all the males and females in the family. He did a great job contacting some people and getting all the needed information to make it accurate. This image is the finished version that was printed on Easter 2010.

Cardboard Deer Head

2010-02-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

I've always found animal head mounts interesting, and I wanted to have one in my future farmhouse. On Christmas break 2009, I was walking around in down town San Francisco. I found an amazing cardboard deer head hung on a wall in a jeans store. I kept looking at it for almost 10 minutes. Well... I memorized the number of all parts, sizes and shapes. I wanted to do one myself so bad! So that night, I got some reference images and drew all the shapes on a digital software and printed them out. The next day I bought a huge cardboard and started working. I had to finish it in 2 nights, because I was leaving to Florida after, and I wanted to take it as a present for my sister there. And this is how it came out... Pretty accurate :p

Zein Scars

2009-12-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

Zein is a beautiful girl whose smile reflects her joyful character. Not that I'm a wizard, but I saw more behind that smile. I then thought that if her insides were meant to reflect her outer figure, then this is how she would look like. I believe in letting imagination enhance my art. Decorated with wreckage and decay, this insect-like figure is flying in the garden of life helpless but hopeful. Pointillism is a technique that I always wanted to examine, and working with this style was a rewarding experience.

Abu Odeh

2009-12-19T16:00:00.000-08:00

I've seen this in a book when I used to work in advertising. And since then, I kept seeing my father's face depicted by the same concept... So I did this a while ago, and this is how it came out. You can also see the lovely picture that I used, to copy the face from.

Wooden Strings

2009-08-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

"This was my concept (read between the lines). Being someone's doll is like having your hair brushed like silk, having a new unseen color be named after you... it's like dancing in a blanket of stars... ... it doesn't take long until you realize you're being locked behind a rainbow of bars... the sparkling stars are nothing but a camouflage... the dress were knit to fool you, the jewels were cut to fascinate you... everything in the set invites you in... you went for the trap of an exhilarating melody of notes but you missed out on the sound of the huge golden gate shutting down right behind you... you went for the mouthwatering smell of poisonous mushrooms... you gave up to your heroine of greed... you can still break free... it's only a matter of choice." By Shereen A. Amarin.

Many thanks to Omar Amarin, Rawan Zreikat, Dunia Ghasib and Ala'a Amarin for all the support and the good times...

Oil Painting

2009-08-26T20:33:00.001-07:00

I still remember when I asked my instructor about the way him and other students painted, where they somehow abbreviate the structure and build the painting out of a wide range of colored brush strokes. He then told me that painting is like language, it doesn't matter what language you speak as long as you're speaking it right.

Also it turned out that the style I'm working with is much harder than the one I liked!? And if I can get better in it, then it wouldn't be hard to learn the easier one. Those two portraits are my father and my sister Ruba, a grueling exercise that I needed so bad.

Mistakes...

2009-08-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

This video shows seven stages of my father's portrait painting process. You will notice that I did a lot of mistakes with colors, and tried so hard to fix them over and over again... Until I came up with a final combination, which unfortunately is not even close to what I had in mind! It's strange and tough. But as my friend Mike said: "Education is a necessary evil", We slowly, painfully yet unmistakably absorb these skills, and sneak in what really provokes our learning: the imagination.

Omar Portrait

2009-07-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Our Portrait Painting teacher asked us to come up with a good reference to paint a monochromatic painting, at the time when my brother Omar was in San Francisco for a short visit. I took a couple of pictures of him at one of the academy buildings, where they had good lighting lamps. And this oil on board painting was the result! My teacher pointed out a lot of issues that I need to work on in order to get better... And I'm working on that...

Magazine Cover

2009-07-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

This was a magazine cover exercise for the Narrative Illustration class. The teacher wanted us to pick a well known character and make a nice setup that suits them, and reflect their nature. As you can see, I picked Marilyn Manson because he has an interesting dark look! Anyway we had the freedom to use any medium we prefer. So I worked with watercolors because I wanted to improve at that. But we had to go through thumbnails and sketches before the final artwork, and that helped me think more about what would be more convincing when depicting a rock star.

Head Drawing

2009-07-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

Those are some drawings for a bunch of models that I drew from life in a head drawing class. I was trying to measure stuff as much as I could, and find some relations between different parts of the face in order to be accurate; as I was doing head studies. This class was an experience that I would never forget. I was also introduced to a lot of master artists' works that I learned a lot from.

Charcoal Drawing

2009-05-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

The girl with a hat is one of my best charcoal drawings. I worked carefully on the details as I was moving from one part to another, and it took me around 20 hrs to finish it. One interesting fact that I'm proud of is that if you took a closer look at it you can barely find any white spot. Maybe just her eye's highlight and a small part of her white shirt. It's a drawing rich with tones, and smudged very neatly which gives it a photograph quality.

Clothed Figures

2009-05-09T01:40:00.000-07:00

Those two drawings were my last homework for the Clothed Figure Drawing class. The teacher asked us to draw two figures with two different poses, one with the head towards us and the other with the feet towards us. I asked my sister and brother to take specific shots that reflect what I had in mind, to used them as my direct reference. So I came up with a reclining figure for a girl who drugged herself to death, and a sitting figure for a weirdo!

Caravaggio Copy

2008-11-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

A copy of the masterpiece "Amor Vincit Omnia" by Caravaggio. It was a homework assignment for the Figure Studio class, a charcoal 45 x 60 cm drawing. My teacher was impressed with it, he loved the details of the musical instruments at the bottom. This class was really hard, I've never used the charcoal before or drew nude models, but I think it was a good experience that improved my skills.

Gargoyle's Graveyard

2008-10-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

This was my homework for an illustration class at the AAU*. The instructor asked us to come up with a conceptual line drawing of a street using the one point perspective grid, where all the horizontal lines that are traveling away from the viewer diminish at a single point on the image's horizon.

We completed the drawing by adding shadows being casted by one light source, according to the correct rules of construction. The coloring was an extra work that I decided to do just for fun!

Anger's Playground

2008-09-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

This clip belongs to our latest video collection End of My Own World*. It describes anger from different points of view... I uploaded the first half of the video only, because of a size problem! The whole scene was filmed by us The Creepers*, except for the song which is by Marilyn Manson... Enjoy! (PG-13)

Dumb School

2008-09-20T00:21:00.000-07:00

We had a great fun doing all the crazy stunts in Dumb School Experiments* 2005, and this clip comes as an introduction for all the great memories... The song used is "Word Up" for "Korn".

Stan

2008-09-12T13:22:00.001-07:00

This picture was taken for Stan in our backyard within his last days. I made this guy out of old newspapers and transparent roll-tape. He was sitting straight, always held an empty plastic cup. His body was full of bad news from all over the world. I barely touched him during his life... I wanted to see how natural forces will treat him. He was getting older everyday, just like us! And this is how he ended up... He used to be a good friend for some people. Stan lived a sad life, but he taught us a lot. "Waiting all this time, I've got nothing to hold on, but the faces of my life, I can see before I'm gone".

Eng. Akram Amarin

2008-09-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

Above are some sketches for Eng. Akram Amarin (Abu Odeh) from Odeh's New Life* main characters, showing his different reactions, and his head from different angles. But in the actual story -the comic book- it's done less professionally, or simpler because of the huge story-line the series are based on! But anyway you'll notice that lines are much cleaner, and the images are colored which makes it more valuable... Eng. Akram is my great father whom I dedicate all my works for.

The Cemetery

2008-09-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Davis from Korn, in The Cemetery*. A mixed media work, pencil illustration and photoshop painting.

Girl in the World

2008-09-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

The pale and deadly style of mine! My illustration concepts got more serious. They are not those roughly sketches anymore, it's all based on what my brain wants to show and hide at the same time...

In this drawing appears one of my best friends. Somehow I felt what she always felt and drew this for her, and I added some lyrics from a song we like.

My Five Magic Beans

2008-09-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

This poem was written by Shereen A. Amarin my amazing little sister. She always knew that her biggest fear is a future fact. I couldn't but do this illustration as I agreed with her... Well yes we maybe are her five magic beans, but she is our one special bean.

My Adidas

2008-09-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

As I was in one of my studio classes, the teacher gave us a 45 minuets break... I had nothing to do but to draw on my Adidas! One of my friends once wrote me an amazing note, that starts with "Odeh... Follow the light-", so I had to write it down as it popped in my mind and linked it to Odeh's New Life* theme. The note ends up with "Live to Ride... Ride to Live!".