aboutimage galleriescontactsubscribe

Today's Op-Ed: Kabul, Afghanistan

JANUARY 24, 2008
I did this for today's NY Times Op-Ed, accompanying a story about how Kabul has become a dangerous place again after it appeared to have become stabilized.  The Taliban is back and attacking hotels and restaurants that cater to the international community.  The full Op-Ed story is online here.

The assignment was for a black and white piece, but I did it in color and converted it after scanning.  Sometimes I do this, I feel I can get more tonal values by working in color.  I also get more into the drawing when working in color.  They ended up running the color piece on the internet.
Brian Rea is the art director, always fun working for him.  I've been able to do a variety of work with him over the years.  Some of those other assignments are in an Op-Ed gallery  here.

I took some pictures while working, you can see those when you scroll down.  The story behind the creased paper is that back in the 90's when I traveled to places like Cuba, Europe or Northern Africa, I used to take large sheets of paper and fold them to fit in my bags.  I never knew how big I was going to work when I started drawing on site, so I would tear off pieces of that large paper on site.  Sometimes my drawings would spread and keep going over the creases in the paper.  I started to like that because it created spaces in the composition within the drawing.  They were drawings within the drawing.  Now I have a bunch of folded papers all over the place.  I like having a surface like that to start on so I don't have a precious surface to have to think about.  The rougher reportage type work I do evolved from all of those travels.
Anyways, here's how this one went:
Final art: Charcoal, Acrylic, Spray paint, and Ink on paper, 9" x 11"
Topical: NY TIMES OP-ED  
© 2024 Edel Rodriguez