Almost Spring Break!

Happy Tuesday!

Yes, I have fallen behind on my blogging, and yes, it's because I've been busy (like that's news!). But this weekend was particularly crazy, I had a project due on Monday that I thought I could finish by Saturday afternoon, so I went out with friends, planned to go hiking, took lot's of breaks. And then one of those "you know you're in college when" movements happens, the live-in-the-library, eat-from-the-vending-machine, no-time for-showers sort of moments. There was some crying and screaming, some thoughts of dropping out of school to become a beach bum, but in the end I got the project done. And even though it's not my best work, I'm pretty proud of it. I taught myself how to use Photoshop and I learned a lot. I never want to go through that again, so I'm trying to pick my battles more carefully for the rest of the semester. 

I will upload nice picture of those soon! I have InDesign CS4 at home, and at school we us CC, and they're not compatible because Adobe likes to be complicated (?). So I'll have to turn my InDesign files into normal photos--JPG and such--at school. 

In the mean time let's look at what I've been doing in the past couple of weeks. Here are some prototype posters I'm making in a typography class. I know I never mention this class, and that's because so far we have not done anything remotely interesting in it. 

 

Please click on the pictures so you can actually see them. This is a project is about creating a promotional poster for an art show that took place decades ago and for some reason this has turned int a typography/graphic design project for art students everywhere. Art school, go figure! 

Here is the final final portrait I did in the style of Gabrielle Munter, an expressionist painter. I'm very happy with it, the colors are really fun!

And here is my final astronomy print. Unfortunately I had some trouble with it. Perhaps there were too many colors piled up on top of each other, perhaps I hurried while I was carving, perhaps I printed on wet ink, or perhaps I have somehow angered the printmaking gods. The last color I printed, dark blue, did not completely cover up the yellows and red I had printed first, thus, giving outer space a green tinge on one side and a purple blog on the other. Outer space is not green! I was so sure it would be OK, but alas, I was wrong. All I can do now is move on--and maybe scan it and try to fix it with my new Photoshop skills. . .

That's it for now, promise I'll be back soon! 

Stuff is gettin' real

Happy Sunday!

Things are in full swing now, and I'm as busy as ever! I have been getting a lot of stuff done, I've been drawing a lot, painting, and printmaking (Not to mention other school and life stuff like reading books, doing chores and homework). It has been an exhausting semester and Spring Break cannot get here soon enough, I need a break.

But that's enough complaining, on to the art! Printmaking has been real slow going, but I just printed my first color! It's official, once you reach this phase it's basically smooth sailing from here. I'm getting this done by the end of the week gosh darn it! I need to finish it in order to send it to off to an art contest too, and the deadline is getting close.

One print is done on official BFK paper, and the darker one is done butcher paper, which I use for test prints. 

For painting I have my first major assignment to complete, which is a portrait done in the same color palette as a master artist. It doesn't have to be in the style of said artist, but the spirit of the color palette should be conveyed. 

For my master artist I chose Gabriele Munter, a German expressionist painter who worked in the early 1900's. You might have caught her Google Doodle back in February 19, 2014 for her 137th birthday. I chose her not only for her interesting and weird color palettes--which I enjoy because skin color is nearly impossible to paint--but also as a way to learn about a cool female artist at a time when women were still not really allowed to be much more than wives and mothers. 

I found out that her family actually supported her desire to become an artist and sent her to a women's art school. As her career took off she rubbed elbows with big names like Kandinsky and Matisse. She helped create an impressionist group, and was one of the very few women who really participated in the movement. We know big names in impressionism like van Gogh, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec, but forget the women who probably didn't even get to reach their full potential since they were not allowed in the big art schools. 

As a way to remember this amazing woman, I am honoring the color palette in this groovy portrait she did. I printed out this horrible picture that does not do the real thing justice and practiced the colors with a simple recreation.

But I'm also doing a real painting, which I just started today. My lovely friend A posed for me. 

I decided to sort of keep the background, but abstract it a little, and also painted my friend sideways, because it'll have a creepy feel to it that way--which is a very different feel from Munter's lovely landscapes, but I have to use her color palette, not her aesthetics. Also, art school: do whatever you want while you still can! 

Lastly, before this post gets too long I'd like to share a prototype for my next illustration project. It'll be a magazine spread for an article about a local vegan restaurant, and this is a cartoon I made of the owner there. Eventually I will have 2 full page spreads, one will be a 2 page illustration with the title of the article and an intro, and the other spread is the actual article with spot illustration. There will not be a real article, as that takes journalism skills I do not have, so it'll just be placeholder text--lorem ipsum or something--but it'll look like a real magazine article! 

The owner is this super nice older woman who just wants the world to enjoy vegan food.

Until next week!

Late Valentine's Day Post

Let's pretend I'm posting this on February 14. 

I did a lot of printmaking this past week, which was amazing. In the spirit of love and friendship, I made these cards with a linoleum print. 

In more serious printmaking matters, I have been making progress in my hourglass print! There is still quite a ways to go, however. I have the first plate carved here:

This will be the last part I print, black, on top of silver for the hourglass, as well as reds, green, and blue for the black hole and other celestial objects. I'm currently carving the second plate, which will be a reduction print containing all those lovely colors. I will try my best to document the process. I have given myself a bit of a tricky project, and I will be learning a lot, but I'm really looking forward to it! 

Lastly, I will share one of my favorite paintings so far from my figure painting class. This class, by the way, has really been kicking by butt. We've been doing a self-portrait a day! I am a super slow painter, and I'm not used to busting out pallets and paint very regularly, so it's been quite a challenge. I know it's for our own good, and we'll come out as better artists in the end, but jeez it's been terrible! These portraits have been taking over my life.

Until next week! 

El Nino

Really quick post before I pass out from exhaustion. Not really, but I have been coloring almost non-stop for about 12 hours, which not only sounds like a ridiculous thing, but it sounds like a fun thing. It stopped being fun 6 hours ago. 

It is my first project for an illustration class, and it is due in 11.5 hours. And I just finished it. Which is actually much better than my last big illustration, which was finished at 1:30AM. Beat that by 2 hours, whoop! 

So this is El Niño, a weather phenomenon which causes the weather to go out of whack, floods in places with little rain, drought in places with regular rainfall. So it's an angry kid, which comes out of the water off the coast of South America, and he's angry! 

Back to printmaking

Not much happened this last week, being only the second week of school and all, but I do have some art to share. It's always a slow start at the beginning of each semester, and it helps that the first week was only 2 days and the second week only 3 days long. It's a nice way to ease back into school instead of taking a plunge into the frenzy that is undergrad. This week will be the first full week of classes, so I feel like things are about to get serious. 

One thing that just got serious is printmaking. I just started my first print! It had been a slow start since I haven't actually met with my professor yet. But since technically I can do whatever I want, I went ahead and started to carve. Walking into the printmaking room after all this time was magical, like walking into grandma's house after years of not being there. The smell of wood, ink, and whatever crazy chemicals that are used for lithography hit me and I couldn't help but smile and feel right at home. 

This is the hourglass I mentioned in last week's post. A black hole eating up stars, planets, the universe itself. 

I'm also taking a painting class this semester. I still have not decided how I feel about painting. I love paintings, looking at them, thinking about them and their creators; yet I'm not sure how I feel about my painting. It is a lot of work, it is difficult, time consuming, and I'm not very good at it. On the other hand, there is something hypnotizing and soothing about painting, and I feel so accomplished when I do finish a painting. Maybe this class will help me figure out how I really feel. Here are some doodles from last week. 

They look creepy because they don't have eyes. We were supposed to get the general feel of the head instead of focusing on details like eyeballs or nostrils. I apologize in advance for the nightmares. 

Lastly I'd like to share a little illustration I did. 

I came up with the pun while driving yesterday, and I had to draw it. 

Until next time! 

Happy 2016

Happy start of a year! 

I thought I would do at least one post while I was on break, but time just slipped by me. It was a short break, but it was good, and I did get a bit of art done; though not nearly as much as I would have liked. Art just takes a long time, like watching-several-seasons-of-a-show-while-working long. 

The main project I took on this winter break, while I wasn't hanging out with my mom in her sewing room, or making an impromptu road trip to Texas, was a series of three self-portraits. One of myself as "I woke up like this," another as if I'd no skin, and the last showing just my bones. I have the first nearly done, though I have been putting off the hair since I think that's the least interesting part. 

This is the second one, I thought it was done earlier today, but I might revisit a couple of parts on it. 

As for the third, I'm not sure when I will be able to get that done. It seems as though I will have another very busy schedule this semester. 

This is another project I did over break. It was a gift to my grandparents in Idaho, who I have not seen in years. They visited various parts of Arizona in their younger days, and really enjoyed it. So, I figured I would offer them a little piece of the desert. 

I found this amazing paper at an art store and had to it. There were other like it too, just square sheets of paper with photographs, geometric patterns, bits of larger paintings. I wasn't quite sure what I would do with them, but I did this piece and hope to make more like it. I'm not sure it'll be more desert landscapes, usually I don't do landscapes in general; however, I am open to exploring that genre. 

Lastly, I offer some pictures of my sketchbook. 

These are some ideas for my first project for my current illustration class, it's about the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. More details on that later. 

This is an idea I had for a relief print (Did I mention I'm taking an independent study for this? That means I can do whatever my little heart desires, it's very exciting!) 

The concept is about how black holes eat up stars, even whole solar systems, if given enough time--that is if they don't emit too much Hawking Radiation and annihilate themselves. I have been doing some reading up on black holes, 'tis the time for some very interesting astronomy news! I used to be a huge astronomy nerd (yes, I know why Pluto is not a planet and should remain that way), so I hope I can realize this as a print. 

And lastly, I present some angel wings, made out of spaghetti and meatballs. This was a friend request; more on this later as well! I just wanted to get caught up on some of my latest artistic endeavors. 

Till next week! 

End of the Semester!

Hi Friends,

So it is the end of another semester of college, only 3 more semesters to go! It has been a little hectic, trying to get all my work done on time. Thankfully art major don't have finals like most other majors due, you just have all the projects due at the same time. Here are my final projects in all my studio classes. 

First up, figure illustration. 

The project was the create a drawing of something that was 75% non-human, and that could be anything, another animal, robot, goo, food. I chose an alien bug! This drawing is inspired by Octavia Butler's "Blood Child." Butler was one of the very few African-American women in science fiction. Her stories often include social criticism on issues of feminism and racial equality. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards and was a very cool lady all around. She describes her short story "Blood Child" as her "pregnant man story." It's very good, a little gory, but really interesting. I totally recommend it. 

Up Next: Printmaking.

This was my first linoleum print, and it was both wonderful and anxiety-inducing. The linoleum was a dream to carve, it was so soft and did everything I wanted it to; unlike wood, which just does whatever it feels like doing, it splinters, it's really though. . .

Unfortunately though, the more times I put it through the press the more it stretched out, it grew a couple of millimeters both length and width-wise.Even though this is a minuscule amount, it makes a difference on a print that depends on correct alignment. So each time I put a print through the press I got a different result, it was maddening. Usually I get 90% good prints and screw up the rest. This time I would consider that only 30% of them are good. Most of the rest aren't terrible, they are just so obviously out of alignment that I was ashamed of them. 

And look how many I had to print! 22 all together. Here's one that turned out pretty well.

It's a blood orange. Our theme this time was heart, so I thought about "heart" as the center of something, like the heart of a city, or an artichoke heart; and then blood because hearts pump blood! This one is not real deep, but it's pretty. 

Lastly: Sculpture! 

Let me tell you that metal work is not my thing. I can be in the wood shop all, sculpt with clay all day, but metal sculpture, yuck. I'm not sure if it was the uncomfortable gloves and head/ear/eye protection we had to wear, or the 50 lb saws and other tools I had to manipulate, or how unforgiving metal is, but it was not fun to make this tiny pill bottle. It looks good in the end, but I don't plan on doing this again anytime soon. 

So this one is a bit complex. It is a trophy both for myself and for modern medicine. I know that I cannot give it to modern medicine, since it's made up of a bunch of people, ideas, chemical compounds, equipment, etc., etc., but it's still a sort of ode to modern medicine, science-based medicine. The base represents the steps it took through years of trials and errors to get to where we are today: where broken bones can be healed, where many cancers can be cured, where half of children no longer get polio and die, and where I can get the medicine I need to (mostly) function like a human. 

I thought the bronze was appropriate not only because it's a nice, shiny material, but also because it was the more expensive option (the other one was aluminum); and we all know medicine can be expensive. Also, bronze in sporting events signifies 3rd place, gold is first, then silver, then bronze. This means that even though science-based medicine has made it this far, it's not perfect yet. Humanity has yet to eradicate many diseases, and maybe one day we could alter babies DNA in utero to take out the genes that cause Hemophilia or Down Syndrome. Maybe one day we could heal burns instantly. But we're not there yet. 

So that's my end of the semester wrap up. But don't think that just because school is over I will not be arting, I have a lot of things I want to do. Let's see how many I can get to when I'm not binge watching shows or baking gingerbread cookies.