"The Heart of Stone" graphic novel was my thesis project

in the MFA Illustration program at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

“The Heart of Stone” is based on “A Fratricide” by Franz Kafka.

In the Kafka story, "Pallas" from his window witnesses a violent crime on the street below. He has time to yell a warning to the victim, but instead chooses to watch a crazed killer with a knife murder the man. As I developed a modern day framework for my story “The Heart of Stone,” I explored how I have ‘witnessed’ death both personally, as a visual journalist and as a consumer of mass media. The character "Carl" is a bitter man, an artist who grapples with his own demons as he toils at a newspaper and moonlights as an artist designing sets for a theatrical production of “A Fratricide.” Here are a few pages and images from the graphic novel project:

Drawings and Sketches

Some recent drawings created as part of the Illustration Isolation drawing night seesions hosted by The Illustration Academy and Visual Arts Passage.