Tom Tian: Visual Artist: Hypocrite Reader

Showing posts with label Hypocrite Reader. Show all posts

7/18/12

An Epiphany, Illustrated

Some spot illustrations for an article about the author's personal journey of faith, featured in the latest issue of the Hypocrite Reader.

India ink & Copic Sketch 110 on Bristol; vectors drawn in Illustrator.

"Despair was in the mirror, in the streets, in the faces of my friends; behind my eyes were nooses and pills and razors."

"All at once I recognized that her eyes were of a different class of being than her coat was. I recognized that this was consciousness, that she was right then in the act of perceiving, and that perception was individuated and unrepeatable...A human being is made animate by forces within."

"I was happy and I felt very alive and a sentence came fully formed into my head: The world is made animate by benevolent forces...This was exactly the kind of invisible, instantaneous transformation I'd been waiting for...Air was no longer merely air, but a substance trembling with light that communicated my own living essence..."

4/16/12

And God Said It Was...

Drawn in Photoshop CS5

...an illustration for this month's issue of The Hypocrite Reader, this time for an article about transcendence and re-creation in Genesis. I thought that a mostly typographic, calligraphic solution was most fitting given the importance of language in creation and connotations of divine grace. The lettering was initially hand-drawn, then scanned and digitally inked.

1/12/12

Aboard the USS Pickle Jar

India ink on bristol board; digital colors; click for hi-res. version

A sneak peek at this month's issue of the Hypocrite Reader, the theme of which is "Home and Heartache." The corresponding article discusses the uncertainties that attend modern cottage industry--its author, a twenty-something recent graduate, sells jars of home-made pickles (among other craft goods) out of her apartment.

7/14/11

Morbid Commute (& Lady Gaga)

India ink on bristol board; digital colors

A sneak peek at the July issue of Hypocrite Reader, to be published tomorrow. The figure in the back is the personification of death from "The Seventh Seal," not a ninja. For those who are interested, the full process is documented in an animated .gif:

On an unrelated note, here's a drawing of Lady Gaga in a chicken getup leaving the Grammys. It's related to another Reader article, which I did not get to illustrate but nonetheless took a stab at since I found the premise hilarious.