Roc Boys 3.0

I was commissioned to do an illustration for a song titled “Roc Boys 3.0″.
I honestly don’t know too much about the song but, the illustration features Jay Z, J. Cole, and Jay Electronica.
Did the painting on canvas, added the text digitally.

Detail:

She’s Gotta Have It Poster

This year is the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It”.

I’ve been wanting to get into freelance film poster illustration since doing my For Colored Girls poster.
So, I decided to do a quick painting of Nola Darling, and create my own 25th anniversary “She’s Gotta Have It” poster:

I painted Nola Darling on canvas, leaving a lot of white space for the text, which I added later in Photoshop.
Once in Photoshop, I played around with making the painting black and white – which I actually ended up liking better. lol.

This is the painting as it stands alone. I wanted more visible brush strokes, a more painterly look, but it ended up a little less like that:

And a detail:

Photography

I recently made a photography portfolio. I’m not set on calling myself a photographer just yet. I’ve always admired photographers. I get inspiration for my paintings more from photography than from other paintings most of the time.
I only have a camera for now. I originally got it to take high quality reference photos for my paintings. Of course I still use it for that but I also like how some of the photos stand alone. I don’t have a bunch of different lenses or flashes or equipment. I just want to take interesting photos for now. We’ll see how it goes.

Iran to America to Being

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Iran To America To Being, Oil and paper on canvas, 22×28 inches, 2011

Self portrait. The background is a paper composition of an English to Farsi translation dictionary, a photograph of my Iranian family members in Iran, and a letter mailed from Iran to my father in America.

The paper was pasted onto canvas, and I painted in oil on top if it. This is something I did once before in a similar piece, Standing From What Was. I like the aesthetic. I’ll continue to explore this process.

Detail: