Digital Love

                Before taking Art101, aside from using paint, I’d never even attempted digital art in my life. I didn’t even know Photoshop or Illustrator existed, yet alone, how they worked. Now that I was exposed to it, it’s actually really cool. There are so many steps and processes to it, just like regular painting or drawing, they’re just slightly different. I also learned that you have to be EXTREMELY organized when doing a website or video because if your images or videos are moved from folder to folder, you might have to start over completely. So this class has really helped with my organizational skills and improved them greatly.

                Since my major is Graphic Design, I do have to continue to make digital art, but the thought of it definitely isn’t as scary as it was at the beginning of the semester. I’ve learned so much in the past few months and I’m grateful for the giant pile of notes I took. So far, my favorite program is Illustrator. I’ve used it several times this semester and I’ve memorized the key commands and different tools and I feel like it so much better than Photoshop. I absolutely LOVED making the digital watercolor and I’m probably going to experiment with that more over winter break. Whether it’s playing with landscapes or objects, the watercolor project has opened the door to endless possibilities.

                I really enjoyed this class, even if the deadlines were confusing and stressful. It’s a nice way to ease into the nitty gritty stuff without going overboard. I’ve learned that art isn’t just drawing or painting, but that it can be a digital drawing or even video that isn’t a feature film. I’ve actually taken an interest in web design now, even though the whole process made me want to pull my hair out, and I'm actually pretty happy with how my website turned out. This class has really broadened my horizons when it comes to art and has opened the door to so many opportunities for the future. It’s really quite excited!

Biology, Birds, and Art

                Being an art student can get pretty crazy so it’s nice to have a few friends in the field to help alleviate the craziness. Hilary Elizabeth Musket has been a friend of mine for a while now, but she’s also a fellow artist, currently majoring in illustration. However, she wasn’t always an art major. She started out her college career as a biology major and realized it just wasn’t for her and changed her major to art after 3 semesters. Ever since, she’s been an art making machine!

She’s known for her illustrations, varying from pin-up girls to big-eyed, chuck wearing owls. She also does skateboard deck designs and tattoo designs for family and friends. Hilary and I were talking about the “art making process” and she gets her inspiration from a variety of things. “I like to make my animals that I draw have personality and I tend to be very meticulous with all of my drawings.” Looking at her sketchbook, anyone can see how meticulous she is with her tiny hand writing and research images.

A few of her strengths are pen and ink and graphite, and occasionally she’ll use paint to push herself out of her comfort zone. When I asked her what her inspirations are, she said, “Inspirations usually just come from the world around me. Or books. Definitely books. I tend to make up stories in my head frequently and I feel like this sort of imaginary world is what makes me want to turn the people and animals in my drawings into more than just studies.” Her drawings do have a certain character about them, even if they’re just studies. Lately she’s been experimenting with ink on water color paper with ink pen drawings or squids. She’s has certainly come a long way since her bio major days.

A Day in the Life

Here's a documentation of Wednesday, November 7th and some of the weirdness that ensued.

Themes

Most of the time, my artwork reflects my mood or my interests at the time.  When I was going through a bad break-up I was drawing a lot of skulls and body parts; most of it was morbid things. I went through a phase after a break-up where I was drawing human hearts in the weirdest ways possible. I drew this one heart to look like a tree frog pattern with a tree frog coming out of it. I went through another phase where I wanted to draw was flowers and plants. They weren’t the typical roses and tulips though. I was drawing orchids and Venus flytraps with insects in them.

My school projects even reflect my moods and interests. My grandmother had died over winter break, so when we returned for the spring semester, my teacher set up a still life with a bunch of different objects, one of which was a cow skull. I was obsessed with this skull to the point I made my 6 drawing series about this skull. I think it was the line between life and death that I liked about it, especially because in some weird way, it gave me some reassurance that my grandmother was still with me. It was just a comforting idea that even when someone or something dies, pieces of them are still left behind.

I really can’t just draw a pretty thing and leave it at that. There always has to be some strange, misplaced object in what I’m doing to make it part of me. My self-portrait for my Digital Concepts class had all of these pretty objects displayed in my hands except for this eyeball with the muscles attached to it. In this other self-portrait I had to do in Illustrator, I drew myself as a rag doll instead of taking a picture of myself and just making it realistic. My artwork needs to have that one piece that really makes it mine, and usually that’s something gross or creepy even.  It always needs something strange and unusual because to quote Lydia from Beetlejuice, “I myself am strange and unusual.”

Stumbled Upon

Alexa Meade is another artist from Tumblr and I accidently came across her art while I was slacking off at work and looking at my dashboard on Tumblr. I know a lot of the artist I post about are from Tumblr, but I feel like that’s where the most interesting and creative people are that no one knows about yet.

This piece is titled Transit, by Alexa Meade. Looking at it, the viewer would think it’s a painted portrait photoshopped into a picture of people on a bus. Well that would be incorrect. Alexa Meade actually paints her models and puts them in a setting. This man was actually painted and then she photographed him on the bus.

     I love the different layers of color she used to actually paint the model. It does have a painting look to it. She had to highlight and darken every plane-change and wrinkle on the model. I like that her canvas is an actual 3D surface instead of a typical 2D canvas or paper. The only thing I don’t like about it is how you can tell the man isn’t an old man. He just looks like a younger person made to look old and it doesn’t look very convincing.

 

This one is titled Portrait of a Self-Portrait which means that Alexa actually painted herself for this one. I usually love the layers of color and how they look like they’re just slashed on, but in this one, I really don’t. I feel like she does a better job painting other people. The shadows and highlights are a little off and you can tell she’s a painted person. The yellow she used looks really out of place.

       Overall, I like the idea of this one and I like the rug or blanket in the background. I think it adds more color to the picture. Even her hair’s okay, but the highlights and shadows on the face don’t match the highlights in her hair. I think it was just a little more difficult for her to paint herself than it is for her to paint other people.  I give her kudos for her attempting it though.

 

This last image is titled Concealed and the woman in the picture looks like she’s concealed with a tarp or blanket. The colors are a lot better in this image than they were in the previous one. The shadows and highlights make more sense and the clothing enhances that. You can tell the background was painted on, but the tarp or concealer is harder to tell. I can’t tell if it’s painted on or a real object.

  I love how the tarp or whatever it is frames the portrait in a creative way. It makes the picture more interesting. The only flaw in this one is that she didn’t really paint the hand in the bottom right corner. The hand looks like it wasn’t painted like the rest of the woman’s body. For some reason, it bothers me a little bit.

 

Mid-Autumn Festival

Friday night I went to the Mid-Autumn Festival at Towson. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a harvest festival celebrated by the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures.  Mooncakes are eaten, tea is made, lanterns are floated, and usually there is a fire dragon dance. Since there aren’t any dragon dancing clubs at Towson, the closest thing was the Lion Dancing group at Johns Hopkins. The Lion Dance is a completely different dance than the Dragon Dance. Two people are in each lion costume, as opposed to the many people in the dragon costume.

When the lions came out, it was pretty loud. Drums and symbols were played as the two lions walked around the room. The audience “feeds” the lions red envelopes which are supposed to bring good luck and fortune. Towards the end of the dance, the lions spit out lettuce or cabbage (I couldn’t really tell what it was) to spread the good luck and wealth to the people. At the very end of the dance, a scroll of good luck unfolds from the lion’s mouth. It was a pretty crazy experience, especially since the lions get right in your face and their ears, mouths, eyes, and tails actually move! I think it’s definitely something to go to next year, even if you only go once.

My Own

 

 The first painting is of Audrey Hepburn and I made it for my Design for Non-art majors class two years ago. The assignment was to do a portrait in complementary colors and the portrait could be of anyone. I chose Audrey Hepburn since she's such an icon, but I didn't want to do a Breakfast at Tiffany's picture like everyone else was choosing. I wanted a picture that showed her class and elegance, not a movie she was in. I decided to use yellow and purple pastels for the complementary colors since they're lighter and more elegant.

 

The second painting is a collage and paint mixture I made the summer after I graduated high school. I wanted to experiment with paint and this putty-like stuff to add texture so I thought a painting for my room would be a great way to test it out. In this painting I also used complementary colors like in the painting before just to make the colors "pop". The blue makes the yellow, orange, and red really stand out. I used magazine clippings to make the flowers and found the word "Hope" in an article in another magazine.

 

 

The third piece is a drawing I made in charcoal and conte crayon. It was part of a series I had to draw for my 2D process class last semester. It's very abstract, like the whole series and it's actually the eye socket to a cow skull. Skulls represent this line between life and death to me. It's like a piece of the dead is still mixed in with the living. It's probably my favorite drawing I did last semester.

Purpose

                Getting your art out in the world can sometimes be a problem. People don’t say “starving artist” for no reason. We’re told from an early age that the art world is an extremely difficult way to make a living, especially today. Like outer space, the internet is very vast. It’s a great resource to get my artwork and post about other artists.

                When most people hear the word “art”, they usually automatically think of paintings or drawings done by a guy with a beret and a handlebar moustache. I’m not going to limit my blog to just paintings or drawings, since that would be pretty uninspiring. Instead, I’m going to use my blog to post not just drawings or paintings, but also jewelry, photography, sculpture, and even links to videos. There are many different forms or types of art out there, so why just restrict myself and others to just one? This blog will be fun, inspiring, and maybe a little odd.