Another Beginning

Well another semester has begun! I am going to be keeping up this blog as well as posting in a WordPress blog for my next digital course...if I can convince my professor to let me just use this one I will but if not I will just update both with the same posts! It seems like the winter break flew by and now I am back in school once more and getting ready for the first round of "let's see how broke I am after supply shopping!"

This semester consists of a painting course, a sculpting course, a digital course, a visual concepts class and a philosophy course which sufficiently knocks out my last gen ed requirement. I have gotta be firing on all cylinders this semester! I'm beyond nervous thanks to the illustration screening process next semester and seriously want to impress some people and get my name out there.

Aside from classes, I am also coming up with a children's book! I have completed the writing portion, with the exception of some word changes of course, and will soon begin the process of getting the illustrations going! I'm eager to get my career going and this might be my way in!

So bloggersphere, get ready, this semester's gonna be a wild one!

Oh yeah, here's a little painting I did recently too. I'm thinking of doing something on global warming to make it so little kids can understand it? Who knows! Lots of ideas!! :)

3D Final

Alright. This project I wound up nailing, screwing, gluing, and a slew of other adjectives in order to get everything all put together! I drew all of the images, with the exception of the heart which I photocopied and then painted over. I painted the inside of the locket which says "Aorta Love You" because I'm silly and cheesy. Anyways here is what the final wound up looking like! My goal was to make it interactive, to make it so that anyone could reach in there and start unfolding and revealing different parts of the project.

Parchment drawing

This isn't my final for my Drawing course but it IS what was just turned in and graded last and I forgot to put it up here! Basically I did a study where I textured/tinted my own paper and used a calligraphy pen to do this squid drawing with subsequent studies etc. 

The making of the parchment like paper wasn't really all that difficult! I looked up several different methods of tinting my paper and wound up using this one. Basically all you do is crumple up your paper, flatten it out again, heat up some water and put a couple tea bags in it and let it sit. Then you put the paper in a pan and pour the hot tea over it until the paper is lightly covered, you can use the tea bags to make certain areas darker than others as well by rubbing the teabag and squeezing it over those spots, slide the pan in the oven on low heat, and wait for most of the tea to evaporate. You can blot at it a bit as well. After that you take the pan out, let it dry, and tadaaa!!! The one thing was that the surface completely changed after the tinting so drawing on it was definitely an experience! The paper didn't absorb as much ink, because go figure the paper had already absorbed a whole lot of tea! All in all though I think the end result was pretty neat and it was a really fun drawing to do. 

The First Final!!!

I have officially completed my Digital tools and Concepts coursework! I am going to post my video here partially to show what I've been doing but also to get a couple extra credit points!

Okay, this video didn't take long to put together but it took a hell of a long time to set up! Basically I had to sketch out each frame, which adds up to over 100 frames, then tape the page to the wall and take at least 2 or 3 video clips of each frame to ensure I got a good shot. The sketching part probably took the longest because during that time I had to come up with a simple story to tell in less than 2 minutes. But once I had the concept down and the sketches done it was just a matter of uploading all of the video clips to imovie (I had to borrow a mac computer) and then import all of the clips, choose the ones I wanted to keep, and insert the music.

Honestly I think that the process it took to figure out how to save this film in a format that was usable took longer than the process of actually uploading the video and getting it all in working order! Anyways I hope you enjoy the first final of finals season. One down Four to go!!

The End of a Chapter

Yes the end of the semester is rapidly approaching! And so I am prompted to reflect on how this semester has benefited  me as my last "assigned" blog post. My digital course is by far the most different of all the courses I am taking. It is also the course that pushed me farthest out of my comfort zone! But in today's rapidly computerized society digital art is becoming more and more prevalent and is becoming a valuable tool for my trade as an Illustrator. I have always found digital art amazing, but a little impersonal. I like being able to feel my materials and physically make the markings on paper. However, this course has shed some light on the subject of digital art for me. While I still prefer traditional media I have to say that there is way more that you can do with the computer today than I ever really thought!

Originally I always thought of computer animation when I thought of anything artistically inclined with graphics. I never thought about drawing and painting on the computer, at least not in a professional manner. And I never thought that Photoshop could be used for anything truly college level class related! I had only ever really heard about Photoshop through friends who liked to play around and make their pictures all goofy. This class really expanded my point of view on digital art. Looking at other artists works and seeing how many different ways you can go about approaching mark making and creativity through computerized means, it really gave me a new found respect for digital artists.You can make art that looks just like traditional media art, you can enhance pictures you've taken of your work, there are a million different things you can do!

My favorite program would have to be Illustrator mostly because I can mimic water color with it and I feel more like I'm actually creating something new than I do when using Photoshop etc. I feel like Photoshop is more of a collage making program. All be it a very professional collage making program but it is still collage making none the less! Illustrator feels more like the artists program to me. I felt so much more in my element than in any of the other projects, it was less like I was trying to learn a new language and more like I was getting to speak my own language for a change! There were some elements that I didn't like however. After learning how to use Photoshop in a basic form first I got slightly confused in Illustrator. The fact that you can't do any photo cropping in Illustrator. You can re size the image but so far I haven't figured out if there is any cropping function at all. It's one big learning process anyways!

I am looking forward to my next digital courses and the challenges that they are going to present. I will be keeping up this blog as well! I can't say that I am fully comfortable using my computer as a means to express my creativity just yet...but I'm learning! Slowly but surely. Hopefully as time goes on and I learn more this will become a valuable tool in my Illustrators arsenal!

My final projects are all being finished this week and will be posted as they are finished! If not right away I will catch up the blog at the end of the semester after I've gone into the traditional coma that is required to recover from finals week!

The problem with art history

Alright. I am a good student. I work my butt off for each of my classes. But for some ungodly reason I can't seem to keep awake in my art history class!!! I don't know why! My professor is hysterical so I know that isn't the problem. But the lights are so dim and I've just eaten lunch and I don't know what else to do! So I sit here and sketch and try desperately hard to stay the hell awake!
Today I actually had to get up and go get candy just to give myself that little bit of sugar rush to stay awake :/ I feel like a terrible student. Maybe I have a weird form of art history triggered narcolepsy....

 
Yup that is how I feel!! Anyways, it's gotten worse now that finals are upon us and I can't help but want to sleep all the time! My finals will wind up on here as well as the last projects I've done! I have a couple things to show you all like my foray into sculpture and my Squid project! This semester has been a wild ride but it isn't over yet! It's time for some crazy finals! Two weeks left let the madness begin!

Digital Self Portrait Numero Dos!

I have to say this was definitely my favorite project so far! It was so much like regular watercolor painting! I love how you can actually make something like this on the computer I think it's amazing. This portrait is my final self portrait for the Digital course I am taking, we just completed a web page as well and are now on the last project of the semester. Which would happen to be video...can't say I feel completely confident about that one! But I guess as long as I can avoid filming MYSELF then it should all be good! I don't ever know what to do when I'm on camera so usually I revert to being an immense dork!

Anywhoodles I have reached the finals portion of the semester and final projects are being announced! I figured I should put them up here, seeing as this is my record of my art career and all. In my drawing course our final project is to do one last self portrait but this time full scale. He wants it to be near life size or larger, from head to toe, and with a background that is convincing as far as making the figure have a solid space behind it etc. As for 3D I have an assemblage project for my final which I already have a few ideas for, a research paper for my writing course and last but not least an exam in Art History. Then my semester is done!

I realize I had dissappeared off the face of the earth for a little while but I am going to be catching up the blog with my projects as of late, including one done with a calligraphy pen, and get back to writing at least once or twice a week =) I am a busy bee!

Anyways the next post will probably be about the sculpture I've been working on and the wonders of vermiculite, for now I have some writing to do. Until next time!