paint paint paint.

"tree 5", acrylic.

this was one of the last paintings i did during fall quarter and easily the most time consuming. each leaf is individually cut out, painted, and glued on.

"om-nom-mon-ster", acrylic.

easily the fastest painting i did last quarter, was also the last. i had a lot of fun with this.

"fireworks", mixed media.

okay, i lied. this painting took the longest. i started this soon after the forth of july, fiddled with it over the summer and kept working with it all through the quarter. it's definitely different from most of the other work.



this is my homemade studio for break. yep, that's my kitchen table. this break has been kind of dull. i'm still on the hunt for a job. so in the mean time i've done some painting and whatnot. i did do an awesome teenage mutant ninja turtle painting for a friend for christmas but i gave it to her before getting a picture of it.


here is a close up of a painting i've been working on during break. it still has a lot of work left before i'm satisfied with it, that's why you don't get to see the whole thing.

winter break

wow so i really got off the ball with updating this.

well, the quarter ended well. i got a 4.0 overall and finished my internship with the girl scouts. actually, that's a lie, i think my last day with the girl scouts is probably going to be today. i'll be sure to post pictures of the paintings i did over the quarter up here as well as maybe some of the stuff i did while at my internship.

it's been pretty lonely here at school since thanksgiving. most of my friends here are in europe for their senior year experience classes (i didn't have to take one because i'm in honors). plus, most of my friends from home aren't finished yet, i know a lot of them have finals this week.

the not really having a job thing is killing me. my money is slowing going down the drain without any funds coming in to replace. i'm thinking about opening up an etsy account and selling monster/doodle paintings from there. thoughts? advice?

wish me luck on finding a job, i applied at lowes at that's still looking hopeful but they need to call me back. (i've already called once and i'm not sure if i should call again!)

good news is that all my christmas shopping is done so i don't have to worry about that anymore. i just need the stuff i ordered online to come in and to wrap everything. i've been spending most of my break so far cleaning (my room was beyond needing a real cleaning), and getting random stuff done. i did manage to sneak into the art dept. yesterday to stretch some canvas and bought some primer. i think i'm going to a serious of 3 monsters but i'm still a little undecided. i might use one for a landscape i've been thinking of insted. i also need to finish (/start!) my sketches for my honors project. plus create new business cards and postcards. geez i have so much i want to get done over break. good thing i'm off till right after new years!

illustration class, check.

well i'm all done with everything illustration class related for the quarter. here are the final pieces that i'm turning in tomorrow.

"conversations", pen and ink.



"the star money", mixed media.



"bj kocen, the breaks" cd cover, cut paper, colored pencil and digital text.



"growing up", aacpu magazine cover, acrylic and digital embossment.



"celebrating 150 years", westerville magazine, cut paper and digital embossment.



"tree 1", acrylic and pen.



"tree 2", colored pencil and pen.



"tree 3", collage.



"tree 4", cut paper.

everyone should go!

TONIGHT: CSCA Creative Best at the Arena Grand 6:30 Social Hour-and-a-Half 8:00 Awards Show!

end of the quarter is almost here.

2 weeks plus finals is all thats left of this quarter. i turned in my graduation forms today, making it all too real. on the good side, i had a major break through the other day with finally coming to terms with truly wanting to be an illustrator instead of a designer. apparently some of my friends figured that out way earlier, but decided to let me discover it for myself.

other news: i might have gotten the cover for the bj kocen cd. just a few minor changes to be made. i believe this would be my first published piece!

also i might be quitting my job at the coffee shop and going back to my old one (retail). my hours keep getting cut and promises getting broken. i might not like the actual work as much but at least it will be reliable, plus it'd be a slight raise since i had taken a pay cut to work at the coffee shop (i worked for less than min. wage because of "tips" but tips are a joke there)



the fish and umbrella painting has evolved yet again. i don't know if i'll ever be 100% satisfied with this one. if i could go back easily i'd probably tweak the composition quite a bit. actually i think i would make the canvas much more narrow, taking out the face entirely and cropping out quite a bit of the big fish.



for this one i was assigned to do a still life based on the style of either van gogh or cezanne. i was shocked when i realized half my class didn't even know who cezanne was! i chose van gogh just for the fun of it. while i have a lot of respect for cezanne and van gogh has become a bit cliche, i always thought it'd be fun to do a piece in his style. in true impressionist this painting only took me a couple hours if that. i worked in a very classical sense in that i worked from background to foreground.



this is a magazine cover illustration for AASCU. mine is in the top two for being chosen, somehow i just need to make it relate more to the main article. i have a few ideas in mind, so i'll be sure to post updates as i make them.

experimenting.

mid term progress

midterms have already passed, where has the quarter gone? here are some of my latest pieces from my classes this quarter.


this was a piece done for illustration. based on the grimm brothers fairy tale called "the star money". the figure was done in colored pencil, cut out and placed onto the background. while for the background i decided to use a combination of marker, pen and acrylic. i was the only model i had at the time which sort of makes it a self portrait as well. this is one of the two pieces of mine that my professor entered in a Society of Illustrators ILW 48 contest. i'm keeping my fingers crossed to place in that one.








this is the second really complete piece i've done for painting. (the fish and umbrella has evolved since my last post) it was supposed to be a timed piece done in about 7 hours. pretty sure i finished this in about 4.5-5 hours. i can't help but paint fast. the dry brushing technique done for the details was a lot of fun and something that i don't do too often. this one didn't evolve too much from start to finish. our assignment was to do a portrait, specifically a headshot. i knew i wanted to use a comedian, and after much research and deliberation i chose charlie chaplin. his history with women alone made him interesting enough for me to paint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin. my professor absolutely loves this piece, which is a definite bonus.





here is the latest piece i've done for my illustration class. it is a cd cover for bj kocen. we were given the name of the cd, the breaks, and basically told to run with it. the only stipulations were no beach scenes and no just black and white. i decided to use cut paper. it's a method i haven't really used in this kind of scale. but it was a lot of fun (i didn't even cut myself!) and the whole look goes very well with bj's style. i connected really well with his music and i think it shows in this piece.

painting

this was my first painting for class. i decided not to do the assignment (i get to skip 2 projects to do my own pieces). this was done from a sketch i had done last winter while doing a piece call mouse adventures for computer art. (http://sportybillygoat.deviantart.com/art/mouse-adventures-113255067). it was just something fun to do. captein is a much tougher professor than joanne ever was. so much more structure which is helpful in the long run but very frustrating at times. i changed the background probably half a dozen times before being satisfied.







these are pictures from my second painting. the assignment was to use 6-10 recognizable objects in an unrealistic background. i kind of twisted the definition of 6-10 objects since i believe they were all supposed to be different objects. creative license right? i focused a lot on texture, although i'm not sure how well that comes through with the pictures. click on them for a full few, the texture is much more noticeable then.

baaaaack to schooool.

here's a few more mucha studies. of course i should probably start doing some compositional studies so i can start the actual pieces but these are way more fun.

so i've survived the first couple weeks of senior year. crazy. graduation is just a few short months away. i'm doing my best to prepare myself for the "real world" i suppose. i only have 2 classes this quarter, painting and illustration (my favorites!) plus my work and my internship.

finished my first projects for both painting and illustration this past week. i'll post some pics later on after i remember to take my camera to the art dept. with me.

internship

it's official. i'm interning as a graphic designer for the girl scouts. i'm so stoked!

so these are the favors i collaborated with my friend ashley to do for our friend alisha's wedding this saturday. it's not the best scan quality, but whatever, you get the general idea. alisha's wedding has a "homemade" theme to it. she wanted her favors to incorporate her wedding colors and be little unique date ideas for her guests. alisha linked us to a great site: http://galadarling.com/article/very-definitely-not-dinner-a-movie

i finished my 60 favors and ashley is finishing hers tomorrow.

also on the good news, my cold is almost gone, i could actually breathe out of my nose during part of the day.

and...

i have an internship interview this thursday! keep those fingers crossed!

blarg

i has a cold. i is not happy.

hoping still to finalize an internship this week.

to do list

so it's crunch time! school hasn't even gotten back in session and i'm going crazy with all the things i need to do.

• get portfolio pages on LinkedIn
• complete my LinkedIn profile
  
• contact Kristen H. about internship opportunities
• send Brian St. my portfolio, my bio, what i do, what i'm looking for...
• complete the johnny cash inspired piece for Blake
• print/fill out/turn in first friday festival form for starving artists
• contact hannah and allison about getting the starving artists materials/tub/paperwork
• finish my fireworks painting
• do more mucha studies for my honors project and actually read some related material
• get my work schedule
• by a dress for alisha's wedding
• meet with ashley to complete alisha's wedding favors (they're going to be so cute!)
• remember to breathe...maybe watch some gilmore girls
  

summer studies

here are some mucha studies that i've been doing this summer.

interview

today i had my first interview for a design internship. i'm hoping i did a heck of a lot better than the dude in the comic.

photoshoot

i got to help my uncle jim with a photoshoot this past week. he is doing a series based on pin up girls from the 1950s. gill elvgren is jim's favorite pin up artist and it's easy to see why. e http://www.gilelvgren.com/GE/ the cool thing about the shoot was that we got to use howard christy's studio. he was really famous for his "christy girls" and the "signing of the declaration of independence" and he also has a huge mural in the cafe des artistes in nyc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Chandler_Christy his studio is in duncan falls (just down the road from my grandparents) and it was recently renovated. we were the first people to use it in over 60 years.

cities galore

so i've decided my new goal is to visit all the cities that i potentially want to live in. i figure it might be a good idea to have a feel for the place that i'd like to be at for at least a few years. after graduation i'm gone. i love ohio but i want to try something new. i'm scared shitless to do it but i'm going to no matter what. i've already visited new york and it's been checked off the list. it's a great city but just too new york for me. i need a more laid back kind of town. i'm hoping to go to boston over columbus day weekend. then visiting my uncle in seattle over my winter break. the others on the list include pittsburgh, san francisco, san diego, and chicago.