We're big fans of Andrew Ho's colored pencil illustrations. The California-based illustrator has a way of rendering the everyday activities of his anthropomorphized sports fan characters into vibrant scenes. Mundane activities like watering plants in a household garden or taking a nap on the couch easily become eye-catching scenes with Ho's eye for color and composition. We had to know more, so we emailed Ho some questions.
What's a typical day like? What time of day do you usually start working on illustrations?
Honestly, my days are inconsistent. I do not have a normal cycle by any means. For the most part, I work at night. There's something about the quiet and coolness of night that my mind really responds to.
What kind of materials do you work with?
I work with pencil. I have no secrets.
The brown and yellow striped upholstery in the Patrick Ewing fan's living room [Doubt] is pretty amazing. Can you talk a little about your work with color and texture? Seems like you intentionally want some things to clash.
When I make an image I always consider composition. When I draw one thing I will always consider things already existing within the image. Everything reacts to something else and equilibrium must be maintained. That aside, color, shapes, value are all considered in my process.
What projects are you working on now?
Currently, I'm working on a landscape drawing. Recently, I've been making drawings based off of some still lives, and I thought it might have been time to switch it up. So I've been studying various works from the Impressionists to the Hudson River School painters and I've been trying to implement some of their ideas into my work. It has been hard.
What's one place you'd love to see one of your illustrations? A bus? A billboard?
Honestly, the greatest place for my work would be in the possession of individuals who can appreciate what I have done. Knowing that my work is in the hands of someone who can value my labor is more than enough to grant me peace of mind.
There's a lot of sports imagery in your work. Is it hard being a Knicks fan in California?
That's funny. Um, well I don't have many friends that watch basketball with me and the few friends that I have are rather civil. We get into arguments here and there but it's all good fun. But believe me... we get into it.
See more from Andrew Ho at AndrewChuaniHo.com
The fridge is a very private part of the home. It's not that the number of onions in the drawer or the expiration date on a crusty bottle of hot sauce are marks of shame, but the food items we keep around provide a certain amount of personal narrative. A new photo series on Micropolis:NYC will take a look inside New Yorkers' fridges, and publish autobiographical profiles in the form of each subject explaining their life through food choices. Check out the first installment below.
Here's an excerpt from the profile about those 17-year-old bonito flakes:
"I have a jar of bonito flakes dipped in soy sauce. It’s been in my fridge for 17 years, since I came to the US. I use this is for making rice balls, but it’s never been changed or cleaned. I think it still has some essence of 1995. This is an important condiment to me. But I like to keep it. It never goes bad. It’s like a gem. It is impossible to go bad. You put the sauce in the middle of the rice ball and then wrap seaweed around it."
Follow Micropolis:NYC for future profiles.