Recycle

My sisters 23rd birthday is coming up next week, so I thought it'd be appropriate to make her something. I had an old painting that was lying around which I didn't care much for, so I thought "hey, why not take it and make it into something better?"

This is what I came up with. And for the record, the quote is from this hilarious show called "Bob's Burgers." 

I started out with this. It's acrylic: 

I then went on Microsoft word and since my printer was broken, I decided to painstakingly trace over ever letter of helvetica on the computer screen onto prices of paper to cut out. Then because I'm a diligent little shit, I continued to tape down every one of these little suckers. 

I took white acrylic and painted over the taped down letters. The purpose of this was so that once it dried, I could pull up the paper cut outs and that would leave the unprinted painting behind.

My original plan was to stop here, but something didnt feel right. I didn't really like how to came out- it was missing something. I sat around and listened to my painting- I slapped on some red, and I'm glad I did.

Whale, whale, whale..what do we have here.

Recently, I feel like I've been in an artistic rut. I'm not very inspired to do anything- nothing BIG has come to me. But who knows...great ideas are developed, not thought of. I talked to Luke about this and he said something that made me feel a bit better- that I'm working in a lab, not a factory. 

I've been jumping all over the place, but I haven't completed anything solid yet. To combat the boredom, on Friday I decided to play around with some charcoal plus a huge roll of paper, and this is what I got out of it: a whale...air balloon? I don't know. But what I do know is that I like it- it looks like it could be found in a children's book of some sort. Least now I know the anatomy of a whale.

*EDIT*

I expanded on this and made it into an oil painting. It's a WIP.

Bison Skull

This is currently a WIP! It's made out of mesh, wire and mod podge as of right now.

Some thoughts I'm having about this piece is possible creating a full skeleton and suspending it in mid air with fish wire, or something if the sort. Then, illuminating it some how.

My hands are terribly cut up, but I knew that this was going to happen going into this project. It's practically inevitable. Now lets just hope I don't get tetanus.

Tarot Card Etchings

Sarah and I are working in conjunction to create part of a deck of tarot cards! We are planning to etch them eventually, but we will deal with that when we get there. This is my half of the concept art.

Constellations Mural

Since I still haven't seen North by Northwest, Mr. Ganes exiled me from class today and shunned me into the STAC room. I took this time and practiced some human body sketches. They were originally in pencil, but I decided to ink them with sumi after.

How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: A Photoshoot

I shot Andrew's photos for the school play, and I must say, I think that came out quite well. Here's the raw photos, then the doctored photos. Overall process (shooting to photoshopping) took maybe 4 hours.

The Wolves, the Women, and a bit of that Old Song

So, I got assigned this little weird project. My partner in crime is Shiana, which is cool. I haven't worked with her before, so I assume this might be interesting.

I don't know how I feel about this project in general; it makes me feel whimsical and playful in a good way, but it feels very far out. It's so relaxed, and I guess that's a good thing.

My first pick was "Amazingly Good-Looking Cut Paper." This is what I came up with- magazine pictures of women wearing sunglasses, where the lens are cut out in designs.

Herricks 53rd Scholarship Fund

Myself along with a couple of other people were originally assigned to work on a poster for the Herricks Annual Scholarship Fund Dinner.

Eventually though, it turned back into my project. This is my second big poster project, and I believe it turned out quite well! It was not strenuous in the least, and it was quite fun to do.

The only different thing was that this was carved into a much softer linoleum and it wasn't mounted on anything. I wasn't used to carving it since it was so soft, haha. I think I still like carving linoleum blocks, but it requires more energy.

Drawing with Galen- Day 1

Galen came in today and worked with the artists! We worked with some still lifes in charcoal, and hopefully tomorrow we will be working with paint.

Even though we did do work and what I did today was practice, that's all I feel like it was. I did things today that I already knew how to do. Now I'm not trying to say that I know everything there is to know about sketching, but the things that Galen came in to talk about was already things that I had learned. There's still one more class left, which is great, but I really do hope we get to paint and learn techniques dealing with paint instead of charcoal.

Paintings with Galen

I know I haven't even started yet, but I just got Luke's email about the painting classes with Galen for tomorrow. I'm already giddy and eager to work and marvel at his skills. I flipped through the dude's Flickr photo stream of his painting, and holy crap can this guy PAINT. I noticed that a lot of his paintings look like they branched from expressionism/post-expressionism, which I absolutely adore.

I am so excited.

Life of Pi

This was a poem I came across whilst digging through my folders from last year. It's a poem that I wrote based on the book, Life of Pi.

One boy
One tiger
One vast Pacific Ocean
One sky
One God

Survival of the
Fittest
Through perseverance

It's fear
That is
Life's true opponent

A force that holds you
A force that judges you
A force that drives you

Hope and Trust
Fear's two sisters
Separated at creation
Can overthrow
The throne that
Fear
Sits upon

But slowly
But surely
God stands besides you
Guiding you
Protecting you

One boy
One tiger
One vast Pacific Ocean
One sky
One God

Time Chunks

Luke recently provided the visual artists with some Reed pens, sumi ink, and calligraphy brushes. With some extra time today during STAC, I decided to entertain myself.

I think I'm going to include this in my portfolio, but I'll have to get Mr. Ganes' opinion.

This is my second linocut! It's for STAC LIVE, and hopefully I'll get it printed in turquoise, purple, red, violet, and green.

I ended up stabbing my hand with the tool in the process of making this, but hey, you give something, you get something. In this case though, I got blood..

I'm happy with it.

I'm working on my second linocut today for STAC LIVE posters! I forgot to take a photo of it for documentation, but I promise I will. I'm going to finish it up tomorrow, and hopefully print it or something. Woo!

Finished!!

Finally finished with my sculpture.