truman art adventure }

I'm Getting Stuff Done, I Promise!

2012-02-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

Things have been....good. Getting better.

My computer is near the state it was in before I had my accident and I am treating it extra carefully. There are still things I am missing though, so I am considering emailing Matt or Rusty about PDFs that I have turned into them in the past....hope they keep things for a while! I still don't know if I should go to the guy in OP about my old harddrive, but I'll figure out what to do soon.

Oh, gotta figure out next semester as well. I'm planning to study abroad but the hard part is figuring out what to do and where to live when I get back in the spring. Geez Vis Comm it would be much easier to have VC3 in the fall and have our break in the spring. It would make everything so much easier and give us more time to prep for study abroad.

I've got ideas for my bookcovers....doing 451 F since I did Gatsby last semester in illustration. I think it is hilarious we are doing assignments again, but I guess it is good. I don't have anything else to post on this computer ATM though so that will have to wait.

Rusty likes the burning letters one, so I've got another illustration to work on. Like my concepts this time though. However, doing minimalistic, clean design feels like cheating to me because of the amount of work involved.....even though I like it SO MUCH.

Aside from VC, I'm really interested in customizing my desktop on my Mac further. I've always admired Rainmeter for PCs but it turns out there IS an app called GeekTool that allows you to write scripts that can do just about the same things as Rainmeter can. Exciting! I shall research this tonight and put my CS skills to work.

Example of GeekTool desktops... NOT MINE, but good inspiration.
In the future, I also can't wait to have my own dual-screen desktop battlestation to implement this stuff on. I feel like desktops can definitely stay on longer and thus are almost like an existing piece of art in the room.

Mobile Test Whooo

2012-02-06T13:10:00.001-08:00

Okay, so my parents surprised me on friday with a cheer-up visit and also showed up with my old pc and external HD. It's hard readjusting to Windows (I keep trying finger gestures and using the opt. Key) but I'm so glad to have it. My phone was due for an upgrade so we got that done as well. Now my phone doesn't need its umbilical cord yayyy! I can use apps and blog from my phone now so maybe I'll post more. Parents took my poor baby to the Apple store and got it repaired. I'll pay them back after the summer. HD is toast but I hope to one day see if some important files can be recovered by the pros. It's scaring me. I need portfolios for interviews. I need to invest in a Time Machine from apple one day. Auto wireless backup! Until then, learned a lesson.

Getting stuff done, but a roadblock ensues...

2012-02-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm still really enjoying Viz Comm. Everything was going well and I was getting stuff done on time, however, a couple nights ago, once I finished my hw in the morning before class, my computer has an accident. I don't know if it is yet fixable, but we shall wait and see.

Anyway, I at least have PDFs of some of my latest work, but none of my revisions now.
I also just spent the last few minutes this class period rebuilding the homework I had done that night from memory.

So, first up was the poster for Yellowstone. Looks all pretty, yay! We can use more colors now and have bleeds so that is really exciting. I want to properly resize the image to fit the 13x19 (or 11 x 17??) requirements though. For revisions, Rusty basically would like me to move the text and triangles up and around.

Red Barn, yay! This was a rough / beginning draft of my idea. Silhouette of a barn, being painted and all. Everybody said it looks like a tshirt though.... Rusty gave me a great idea of doing a proper illustration for the poster, so I'm looking forward to finishing that.

This is the redo of my spread for Detours. I swear it looks exactly the same as the one I finished before my mac broke. Yay good memory!

Idea / rough for Herpetology. I had an image of two cute frogs facing each other between the text that I wanted to use as an illustration inspiration. IDK, we shall see. :P

VIZ COMM II WHOOOOHOOOOO

2012-01-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

No really, I'm super excited. Having one viz comm course has been wonderful since I now can focus all of my graphic design energies into one class at a time. Since I've had Rusty before, I know the format of the class (not to mention this is at the same time and place as illustration was), which is a plus. I'm also enjoying the constant review and revision of our work coupled with the fact that we are taking skills from Typography, Illustration, and Viz I constantly and using them in each project we have. So...yeah. Yay Viz II!

Time to go over what we've done so far. 2 weeks into school and we've begun FIVE projects. Woo!
Everything (except maybe the 1st project) is in revision and will have to be finalized before they are due. When they are first "due," Rusty goes around with his trusty red pen and tells us what we need to change. I'd like to post those eventually as well.

Okay, 1st was revising a campus-found poster that advertised Truman's MAE program. We had to come up with 3 b&w typographic 8.5x11 layouts with no bleed. 2 of the posters needed to use provided stock photos. This is what I have so far.

Next was.....uh....TYPEFACE POSTER! Promote a typeface with a poster. After going through Helvetica, Futura, & Garamond, I ended up happy with Baskerville. B&W no bleed. Current version lacks the line on the right. Oh, we also had to put it in the Monotype web site!

Numbuh 3 is a revision of a Jazz combo poster with vector-focused illustration. Black and 1 spot pantone color. Bleed allowed. Limited copy. We had to make up a headline. I played around with edgy puns. Yay puns. Very punny. Here are the 2 versions I have had so far.

Number 4 was a newsletter : B&W type only 4 pages - 2 11x17 spreads duplexed.
Here are both sides of my newsletter so far.

What was due this morning was a revised newspaper layout. 8.5 x 20, b & 1 pantone spot. Cinch for me! Here's what I've got so far.

So...yeah. Yay! I'll post higher quality versions once I've got finals.

Final Exam - Final Portfolio

2011-12-12T21:54:00.000-08:00

Holy Crap.....65% of our grade riding on 4 pieces of work....where to begin.
Well, I felt like this portfolio was much harder to choose for than the last. Not because we had to only choose 4 works - but because we had to choose 4 works from a much smaller selection of material. Also, because I felt that the mediums that I used this last half of the semester were much more limited. Earlier on, there was more required (and projects that worked better with) watercolor and drawing. This half, I focused on mainly my digital technique.

The first piece that I knew would be in the portfolio was my Society of Illustrators. I was able to reprint it without the color mix up and largely love this assignment because of the scale and also because of the open concept. I feel that this work is a great display of how I can use the computer as a digital painting tool. I labored over this on my other dying computer for days and hours. I feel like after a lot of trial and error, I finally painted a lighting effect that would mimic an underwater glow. I gained a lot more experience with the technique I used. I normally am not able to paint such large-scale finished works because of the time involved. Despite all the time spent on this, I only came to realize how much more I could do with double or triple that time (and a faster computer to run SAI on).

My second choice was my World Record work. I spent a comparable amount of time on this graphic to get a clean-looking vector with a lot of detail. I learned a lot about using transparent layers of color to build up a graphic or to change other colors beneath it. Although the face doesn't quite show, I learned a lot about creating one with illustrator without a reference to look at, which helped with my later vectors.

Third, I chose my Native American illustration and fixed it so that the typography lacked the previous mistakes that were pointed out. I really appreciate this poster mainly because of the detailed graphite drawing that I worked on. Even alone, I think it is quite a good-looking illustration. For the poster as a whole, I am quite happy with the balance of the composition and juxtaposition of vectored text with a rustic drawing.

Finally, I am using my book cover as my final work. I was able to take the vectoring skills I used in the World Record and create a detailed finished work much more quickly than before. The concept is solid to me and definitely illustrates a main conflict in the book.

Illustration was a blast to be in and be a part of. I'm actually sad that it is ending, and would have liked more projects that forced me to go back to watercolor or graphite drawing. I learned a lot from my professor and from my classmates. I'm definitely going to be using the illustration room for personal works in the future though. It's a great space to work in. The only frustrations that I have had is not ever really knowing what specifically to target or what previous works of mine were "worth." Critiques offered ambiguous, but helpful criticism that only confused me more. If I knew much earlier on what of mine was good and bad, and what specifically distinguished that...I feel that my work could have changed for the better even more. It's crazy to only have one set of grades to go on.... Rusty, what do you want! xP Guess I'll have to find out in Viz II next semester.... Same time and place....maybe it will really feel like Illustration still hasn't ended. :)

Blog Blog Blog

2011-12-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

Well well well.....before the Final Review post that I would like to write, I need to make sure to post what I was able to do in Illustration since the Society of Illustrators poster.

We finished the Native American Heritage Month posters and I was able to turn the following in. It was a big challenge to try and make sure it was only 2 pantone colors, but I managed after wrestling with it for a while. I really liked the finished piece because I haven't had time to do some nice graphite drawing in a while. I love watercolor, but I just can't wait until Drawing 3. The typography was done hastily though since I had trouble with coloring and Rusty made sure to point it out in class. Sorry....I will never make that mistake again! xD

Next was the lovely classical album artwork. I had trouble thinking of an idea for this one but found a funny punny thing about Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach being known as "the 3 Bs".....so naturally I envisioned them as bees....that was my first idea. I looked forward to it, but Rusty suggested I pick something else. I ended up picking Ballerinas......with some encouragement from classmates. This was an extremely busy time of the year for me so it took a long time for me before I was able to finish it. However, I really like the end result. I painted the ballerinas and background, and just pasted on the heads and did the typography in PS. We had to have 3 sizes printed....so much foam core.....all gone!

After that, we had the World Record illust. I originally conceived drawing a guy furiously head-chopping watermelons, but that was deemed too literall. After weeks of thinking, I found one that would be fun to illustrate. I chose the World's Highest Bunny Hop...which only ends up being like 4 ft, or something.....but I'd rather exaggerate. I chose to vector it so that I could do it quickly....of course....I spent more time than I meant and was glad to finally realize I DID have more time! I am proud of the detail it has. I even spent 4-5 hours on the face, but ended up thinking it looked wierd and covered it with sunglasses.....The early printouts in AI and ID, however, had a lot of problems, so I had to drop it into Photoshop and flatten it to finally get it to print out right.

IDK maybe I should have kept the face.....it's good....but he seems.....too happy & not "cool" enough.....not sure.
Without sunglasses:

Finally, we had to do classic Book Covers! Hooray, I had a really great idea for this and felt like I executed it really well. I chose the Great Gatsby, and after the success with my world record vector, I chose to vector the cover as well. It ended up with just enough detail and was able to finally utilize transparency and the Color Editor in AI to edit large groups of colors. Here, we have Gatsby and Daisy holding hands behind Tom's (Daisy's husband's) back. Once again, we needed 3 sizes.

Huh.....what have I done since Midterm...

2011-11-09T03:04:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah....thought the first was Life & Death, but it was actually # 5 I believe... Yikes...I don't have those files transferred to this computer yet though...have to do that later!

AH WAIT...found it on my flashdrive...the final at least. I'll put the comp up later.

What else for #5? 5 dollar footlongs, of course....did most of this at home during midterm break on my kitchen island. Did the rays and some color punching after Rusty saw it for the first time. Printed it so fast I forgot to do any ps editing and the printout looked horrible....

Life & Death Comps.

I was very fond of the cat one and the video game hearts. The other one was done sloppily and because I had no other ideas...something of how the best of life is the little moments when drinking hot tea or sitting outside at night or warm laundry, etc....and the worst of life....the death of me is being incredibly busy and having all these appointments and things to do and no free/down time to appreciate those little things I love. Kind of ironic since I over schedule and overstretch myself and my time anyway. Something's wrong with that...

The hearts would have been easier and quicker to produce, and I also like the minimalistic qualities it has. However, I was more humored by (and Rusty also liked) the Schrodinger one. It's comp was approved and I went on to the final. With his advice, I did the 2 works separately but similarly and saved lineart for photoshop.

Did 2 versions with gouache + watercolor and it turned out looking like crap. Scrapped those upon Rusty's advice and did two more in just watercolor which turned out looking enormously better. Very happy with them. I had also just bought some cheap glossy paper which actually looks great and makes my printouts look amazing as well! Very happy.

Then there was Society of Illustrators, which was basically a do-whatever-the-hell-you-want (awesome!) project. Did a bunch of sketches for this....

Rusty approved the snorkeling one so I comped it quickly...

Used Sai on my PC for the final one. Wanted to work with it more but my PC kept freezing and SAI kept bitching and etc. Still spent a good 10-20 hours on it. Here's some of the process pics....

Color-edited finished with lighting stuff....when I printed it, the dark shading on the lower horizontal half of the girl unfortunately got really bright and looked strange to me, which was strange since it had no weird layer overlays and it was on the same layer as other elements that printed correctly. Meh....the rest of it looked really nice at 16 x 20 inches though!

I just really wanted to do an underwater scene I guess. 2 of my sketches dealt with underwater scenes. Made sure to look at a lot of underwater references but I still could have made it more realistic... And wanted to be able to do something really detailed. It's easier to do a lot of little detail digitally than in a traditional form.

Here's my unedited native american comp for the poster. Working on the final and will post the approved comp later.

Midterm Portfolio

2011-10-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

3 Traditional Line art Illustrations
These were my personal favorite examples of line art only - They were fun to draw and have a great level of detail and a pleasing composition to me. The lines are largely organic and quite gestural. In all of my artwork, I like to have, or at least tend to have, mostly gestural lines.

2 Watercolor Illustrations

My favorite watercolors so far have also been my largest. My two 20 x 30 watercolors are the pieces this semester that I have spent the most time on and because of the scale, were able to include a large level of detail. I spent 30-40 minutes on the lucy for each and the sketches were as pretty to look at as the watercolors. By this time I was able to use my nicer watercolors which led to a better finished product. I think that these are also great examples of using tonal variation and different hues to create shapes and implied lines and forms - rather than implying on line to ground a figure or use it to be able to distinguish it. This, in my opinion, leads to a more believable representation.

3 Traditional Line and Color

Although I believe I have had many good examples of using line and color, I like these three the most because of the simplicity of the watercolor washes and then using the ink line to really ground the form into place. It is what gives structure to the figures while the watercolor helps to add an interesting visual effect. I like watercolor and line best this way. Imperfections are best with wash and line.

1 Gouache Illustration

Although we have only done two gouache illustrations so far, I haven't been AS happy with them as I have with my watercolor works. I think I will like it if I try to do more of the matte medium lifting technique, but out of the two works, I like my lincoln the most. It actually is a gouache/watercolor combo but primarily relies on gouache. I did use the matte medium technique on the background which let the gouache & watercolor mix flow so much more to create a more interesting texture.

1 Digital Line Art

Definitely my puppies. Spent the most time on this illustration and the line weights really intrigue me. Also, Rusty, you liked this well enough to put on the blog so that must mean something is good about it. :)

Digital Line Art & Color (lion) PLUS 1 My Choice (self portrait)

Okay, these are both digital color and line art and I wanted to put them both to stress my proficiency at digital illustration. I could have chosen my Herbal Essences Product Illust. but I thought I already included enough proficient watercolor. The self portrait had me spend hours on my face and then scribble together the rest of the drawing. However, the time I spent was well spent and I'm pleased with everything about it. The lion is a better example of what I could do in 30-40 minutes and uses more lineart than my self portrait, so I chose it to represent the color/lineart example.

I'm very happy with what I have accomplished in only half a semester and can't wait to see what else will come out of this class!

Lincoln's a Badass

2011-10-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

...and so I drew him as such.

I'm too lazy to blog about my past illness and I would like to honestly forget it as soon as possible so I won't do that. Moving on and focusing on getting everything done. I do feel that I'm up to date with illustration, however being sick seriously affected my study time and project time for art history, computer science, and digital graphics.

Gouache isn't all that bad if you mix it with watercolor...but I don't like how it's halfway between acrylic and watercolors. I like acrylics. I like watercolors.....can't stand halfway inbetween. Not opaque and goopy enough to get messy with but not transparent and flowy enough to look like watercolor....maybe it also has to do with my cheapo 24-tubes-for-9-bucks set as well. I bought watercolor tubes that were 9 bucks a tube and those things are like liquid gold. I think most of my newer projects will continue to be in watercolor or digital illustration.

So here is my lincoln comp and final piece. Pretty close! :D I'm glad I made the decision to add the purple bg wash in though. I put matte medium down first and it really let the gouache flow. That's got to be the only good thing about it. I don't think I could do that with watercolor quite as well.

3 Image Montage

2011-10-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

Busy now. Focused on logo work....will write very lengthily later....

3 image gouache montage. Gouache......we need to talk....

Unfotunate Events

2011-09-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

So....I'm sick....I've known that for a long while. But this morning was a totally new experience. I got out of bed and nearly fainted. Felt miserable...I can't tell if it's in my head or my chest yet, but I thankfully don't feel as bad. I couldn't make my classes. "Trying" to get ready was a joke and eventually I told my school-junkie self to send out emails and take care of myself for once. I hate that I overwork myself all the time and expect too much of myself and it definitely doesn't help when I get sick. I also hate the feeling of letting my professors or fellow club members down when I know they are depending on me to get stuff done. I just feel so guilty and rotten.

I was able to get some more sleep, then finally eat something and then pushed myself to go to my proficiency meeting. I knew it would be hard to make up and since I knew it would be over quickly that it may be doable. I made it in time but I totally was brain dead as soon as the professors started asking questions. I must have looked so sloppy or high or sleepy... But I have a feeling it went well. I remember what happened and passed, which I wasn't worried about. I thought the feedback was good and am proud that there was such a positive response to my work. Now the only problem will be taking the work down....

As for illustration, I am SO HAPPY I left my painting and print out on the wall last night. I was unable to make it to class so I hope, Rusty, that you were able to pick them up or at least see them. I am now super super worried that if you haven't collected them that they will get lost or stollen though. *Scared*

I'm feeling well enough now to sit and do some vis comm hw but I hope hope hope it gets better from here on. Being sick has got to be the worst thing in the world. Makes you really appreciate that you basically have nothing and can do nothing in life without your health.

Note to self...

2011-09-27T20:15:00.001-07:00

....take photos of / scan my lineart before painting. The lineart always looks prettier...

9.28 Second 20x30

2011-09-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Whooohoo! Posting before the due date today. I'll be too lazy to blog later.

Anyway, another 20 x 30 - free subject matter, which I immensely enjoy and appreciate. I just feel that if I had another hour or two I could have kicked this watercolor's ass a bit more....it's tough to be constrained by print monitors' schedules...

I used a -freetoreproduceaslongasitisntcommercial- photo by Hakan Photography, an image I had saved to my DevArt favorites. Wonderful and colorful fashion photo! Fun to paint as well...just wish I had more time with the face...

{http://hakanphotography.deviantart.com/art/Village-Roadshow-2-163281879}

9.26 Digital Color & Product Illustrations

2011-09-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Okay....5 color digital illustrations. Very excited about these. Spent hours and hours on the first three....the jumping guy & lamp....like....5 minutes each. Hahaha. Oh well, I think the first three are strong enough to not need the other two.

Also, product illustrations! I like how mine came out. I did my bottle of Herbal Essences that I had in my bathroom. didn't want a flat line to show how much was left, so I tilted the bottle a bit to get the curve before I shot my photo. Had to print and mount it as well....ugh. I did like how much better it looked when it was printed though...

9.23 'profile pics' and digital illustrations!

2011-09-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, 5 square self portrait watercolors, have to actually use one as a profile pic. These went okay, but I'm not really super excited about them. :S

And heeeerrrreeee are the line art drawings we did with our tablets! Thankfully, I already own the same tablet we've been using in class so I can do my illustrations in the comfort of wherever-I-want! :) It was late though, so I was too tired to do anything too detailed after I drew my puppies. The next set will be great though!

9.21 Landscape 20x30 in.

2011-09-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited! I got to use some really wonderful watercolor paper for this project and my Prang set of colors. I spent close to 5 hours on this last night, which is about how long Rusty said it should take.

I really didn't want to paint anything that was too simple or too complicated, so I choose this photo to trace and reference from my DA favs. I liked the clouds and simple shapes on the horizon line. I also liked that there was a splash of color in the foreground. It was much easier to paint and trace this on such large paper. I tried doing a warm up on a small sheet and couldn't access much detail. I probably spent 30-40 minutes tracing this on Lucy and then another 4.5 on watercoloring. I really wanted to take my time and build it up layer by layer with drying time in between.

I'm satisfied with the outcome, but wish that I could have gotten some even darker values into the clouds. I had to blot some of the pigment up at the end so that it would dry faster. I didn't want to risk transporting wet media. I also agreed with the critique in class today that I should have spent more time defining the boats, but I felt like I needed to finish faster again. I took Rusty's advice as well when it came to taking the tape of the edges - to pull sideways - which I think worked well. To be safe, I also stuck the tape to the table first and then lifted it off to get rid of some of the initial stick. Some of the paper still lifted off, but relatively less than before.

I think that so far, this is the best one I did in class and even more so because of the scale. Definitely frame-worthy, I think!

9.19 Memory Portrait + more

2011-09-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hooray, hooray, hoorayyyyy!

I am so excited to have remembered that I have a small basic set of Prang watercolors that I brought with me to school. If I remember correctly, they used to be my grandfathers and thus are quite old. The ancient-looking 89-cent sticker is still mostly attached.

The colors work wonderfully though. They are so pigmented, flow nicely, and don't feel chalky at all when they dry. They also do that thing where washes are outlined by a thin strip of more opaque paint. These paintings were all done using the new colors. I may mix them with my old colors for now to get more color variation, but I'm trying to use the Prang set as exclusively as I can.

So here is my memory portrait and 2 in-class paintings I did to experiment with the colors!
Also, boo epson for destroying a little bit of color intensity. I'm too lazy to photoshop though...working on my big landscape.

9.16 Hooray! Improvement! :D

2011-09-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

On Friday of last week, we had two 9 x 12 watercolors and one 12x18 watercolor and 3 blown up ink drawings (about 11 x 8) of illustrations that we had already done.

I feel amazing about the watercolors I did, especially the fish and the face. I know that I overworked the face, unfortunately. It looked so so so much better before I tried to make the eyes a little darker with some more brown. They lost a lot of that vibrant orange color. Still, I've realized that when doing things from reference, I am a whole lot more patient if I know where I'm going to be painting. Sketching under the painting is my new secret weapon.

For now, I am using old 90 lb drawing paper from last year as watercolor paper. It works well enough and much better than anything else I currently have at the moment. However, I have recently acquired a few bucks now thanks to my awesome parents and hopefully may be able to find some watercolor paper at the bookstore or some art store in town. I've heard that watercolor paper is scarce all around though since people have been needing to buy so much. I'll keep my fingers crossed, though.

Also, I am including two of the four paintings that I did in class for the day, based on references from photos of course. I'm really liking red / orange watercolors.....wonder why...

9.14 Washes & Line Art

2011-09-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

I absolutely loved doing this set of watercolors. There is something extremely beautiful to me about line art with a messy splash of color underneath. I also feel like my crappy watercoloring looks a lot better with line art on top!

At first, my paintings weren't really washes, but got more and more wattery as I continued. Obviously, my first, the lamp, is the most controlled. My favorites are the ones I did last - the brushes, trash can, and my roommate Gabi, with the pink shirt. I mostly did things from reference from one point in the common area of my suite. The objects and people were either around me or on television. So naturally there are a lot of mundane objects. I also did 11 instead of 10 by accident, but hey, more practice!

9.12 Architecture Watercolors

2011-09-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, as you can even tell from my previous architecture drawings, buildings aren't my best subject. So instead of stressing myself out over the details, I focused on simplifying shapes and TRYING to get some interesting color out of my cheapo paints. I worked from photo references in a large, lovely digital photo reference book that I possess. I actually got it from a design firm I visited in St. Louis back in high school. They had a ton of books they were trying to get rid of and offered to our group, even when they seemed so nice. Lugging its heaviness around for the rest of the day was worth it though! Hopefully I will be able to use the book for more references in the future!

Watercolor "Sketches" for 9.9

2011-09-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

Watercolor.......I'm not patient enough for it yet.

Also....I only have 9 sketches...because I'm...out of watercolor paper. I can't buy any more until my last scholarship comes in. Maybe some nice soul in my class may let me borrow some...but the paper's going to get pretty precious considering we have to do watercolors at the same frequency that we did the ink sketches.

Speaking of money, I need better watercolors as well. My cheap ones are good for very transparent things or for just getting by for now. However, it is SO hard to get good pigment out of them. I can see what Rusty was talking about now by investing in better watercolors. Gee, I'm going to be so happy when I can finally buy my remaining supplies from Dick Blick.

Some parts of these please me, and others just feel ugly. For these, I ACTUALLY for once sat outside and did watercolors from observation. Yay me! We also had to throw in a color wheel. I don't understand why all of my dry watercolors feel so chalky now though. Maybe it has to do with the paint quality? IDK...we'll see how this goes....

Stalker Sketches for 9.7

2011-09-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to get around to scanning my recent stuff for illustration largely due to the fact that I have to go so far out of my way to use one long enough to get everything scanned and resized and RGB'd.

These were our final b&w, ink sketches that we were asked to complete.....for now...I can imagine being given more of these to do soon enough. Not that I don't like sketching, but I feel like I never have time for it any more. At least no time for things that aren't gestural. Hopefully I can find time to squeeze more in if I have to. Obviously, the best-looking one of the bunch - the SAB flyer guy - took me the longest...since I did it during breakfast before class. I actually had a good 10 minutes to spend on it. Rather than the usual 3. I'd rather we be asked to do 3 or 5 really GOOD sketches than try to fit in 10 hastily done ones.

Ughhhhhh

2011-09-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

So....tired. I have way too much hw.
Nature sketches for 9.5. I only like a few of these. Had to prioritize other homework and didn't get to spend as much time on these as I'd like. I really want my people sketches for Wednesday to be great but I have a crapload of other stuff due on Wed. too. *Headdesk*

9.2 Architecture Line Drawings!

2011-09-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

For this set of work, I chose not to spend too much time on the pieces.
One, I really like working quickly and with a lot of free, loose lines. I always liked how my gesture or contour lines turned out in my drawing classes. Two, I needed to sleep. Three, way too hot outside.

I drew my first few from real life observation, and the rest ended up being from photographs from around the Truman website. I think Rusty said drawing from photos was acceptable, but it still feels like cheating... Just a little.

Working quickly has its benefits though. I got TONS of sleep last night.

Uh....right now I'm in class....with Terry talking in the background. Everyone else is working on their blogs. Somehow I'm able to hear what's going on in the video while still focusing on this.

Even though I really really love loose lines, I really enjoyed others' pieces that were more controlled and detailed. Maybe for my next set of nature drawings I should try to have a bit more control...not that I didn't have intent and control before, but I guess I should try being more precise.

Terry - "ChaHOO! ChaHOO! ChaHOO! Cool..."

Finally got these all cropped, shrunk, and RGB'd in photoshop. Hooray!

First Advanced Digital Graphics Photos

2011-08-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

I always talk a lot of crap about my camera.

It's a good little camera, a Canon Power Shot - simple point and shoot- but I always seem to feel that it can never live up to my expectations when it comes to photo quality. At least that's what I usually believe.

The lens always seems smudged and the digital display is full of fingerprints, scratches, and filled with specks of....stuff... My photos never look decent while on my camera. Thankfully, however, as soon as I get them on a computer, they seem like totally different photos. I'm still a beginner when it comes to photography, but at least I feel better when the quality of my images seem a gazillion times better when uploaded for some reason.

Anyway, we had to take 20 indoor and 20 outdoor shots and use adobe Bridge to compile them into our first contact sheet....so here is mine. :]

illustrations for 8.31

2011-08-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

These were the illustrations that were due today. :D

Pretty simple - repeat a black ink line drawing from observation - in 10 different styles. Honestly, I had so much work yesterday before I got to the illustrations that I looked around my room for the simplest thing to draw. I swear I was dosing off while sketching. I like how some of them turned out, but my favorite is the really sketchy, squiggly one! Most of these were done on tracing paper.

illustrations for 8.29

2011-08-31T22:34:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to uploading these! Had to edit the files to suit the computer first.

For our first official illustration assignment, we were instructed to create ten 8.5"x5.5" black ink line drawings from observation. Simple enough. I enjoyed this assignment because of the freedom to draw just about anything I wanted to or was at least convenient. I had plenty of time to do these and therefore invested a lot in them. My favs have got to be the earring, giraffe, shoes, my lounging suitemate, and the tv set. I don't care too much about the others though. Nonetheless, I think they ended up looking nice.

I'm still trying to work my way around blogger. Eventually I'll get a good feel for it....hope so!

holy crap...

2011-08-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ha. I guess I have a blog now.

On one hand, I am extremely excited to showcase my artwork and to get creative with my page design. However, I am also terribly intimidated by the thought of having to remember to update this for all of my art classes as well as having to find out a way to scan / photograph many of my artwork and images. I suppose digital work may be easier to upload. As long as I find a large scanner somewhere on campus, I'm SET!

Unfortunately, today I was way too busy running from club to club to proficiency class to meeting to club; I wasn't able to get my first ten observational line drawings from Illustration scanned like I had intended.

In the true spirit of procrastination....I shall do it tomorrow.