Electric Chair

     Finally, a new image to post... sorry about the wait. 
This was an interesting project, because we basically got a very rough drawing that someone else did and had to redo it in our own style, and finalize it. All mine was a business man in an electric chair.  I'm partial to this painting because it took a lot of setting up and planing to get it right.  And in the end, I'm not sure how to feel about it.  there are things I wish I could fix, but I guess its at it's point in the "pyramid of doneness".  This was done in watercolor, goauche, and concentrated watercolor, which I love and hate.

Heart Chicago Motel

My most recent watercolor project was to paint a sign, and I chose the Heart Chicago Motel sign which I thought was near my house, but I was wrong. It's a nice sign, but the motel looks sleazy.  Anyways.. can't write much because I barely get any time to do anything online.  I have no internet at home (insanely slow dial-up isn't real internet) and that severely what I can do online... not to mention networking.  Anyways... I want to start commissions soon to get some money for school.  More information later....

Guitar Center Catalog

 

     This was for a project in Illustration where we had to redesign a catalog.  I really wanted to do a loose style and I thougt a guitar catalog would be perfect for that.  But it seems like the more you redraw something, the more strict and dull it becomes.  My first drawing was really expressive, and I liked it.  I wish I started straight from that and not deal with all of the comps and sketches.  But tha's not the Illustration process, is it?  That's why stuff outside of school is sometimes easier to work on.. and I end up liking it more.

Anyways, about the piece itself,  it was done in watercolor and touched up digitally (the colored swirls mainly).

More Digital Paintings... "PB and Jelly" and "Creepers"

I'm still getting used to the tablet, I can imagine something amazing in my mind, the only problem is recreating it.   But the tablet is a lot of fun to use.. I just need to practice, and this is what I have been doing the past couple of days.  "PB and Jelly" was originally going to be multicolored.. but then it looked too chaotic, so I chose a limited color palette.  The swirls were unintentional... I messed with the smudge button and decided to go along with it.  I really want to try this one again.. Maybe give it more detail.  The only problem is that my photoshop program can only handle so much.. it's very sensitive.

     "Creepers" is based off a shirt I bought from Threadless.  It's one of my favorite shirts and it has these adorable monsters creeping out from behind buildings.  Mine is nowhere near as good as that.  But it was something quick to do, along with the Jellyfish piece.  Hopefully I'll do some things that take a lot of time.  I just need a lot of practice.. and I'm sorry I'm subjecting you to my test pieces.

Campaign Logo

This was a logo I had done for my boyfriend's friend's dad who is running for Commissioner in his area. He asked me to make a logo for his brochures and his website. I've only done a logo once before for my astronomy club in high school which was supposed to be used on the sweatshirt, but unfortunately never got made due to the lack of funds and participation from others. It's very simple, but I think that's what I was supposed to do. I'm not a graphics major, but some experience would be good, especially for a resume. If you want to know why I used a tree, his idea is to for his district to go "green", so therefore; a tree. I really wish I knew how to use Illustrator, I'm sure it would have looked a lot better and would have been done faster.

By the way, I would love comments lol.. I haven't gotten a single one yet -_-

Sunny Side Up

Image I forgot to scan until this weekend... In my Illustration class we needed a black and white portrait including our hands that had a breakfast theme. So here I am wearing my egg sunglasses. Oh the grease......

First Digital Painting

This was my first digital painting with the Wacom Bamboo tablet my boyfriend got me for my birthday. Up until now.. I've been doing mostly doodles, but I decided to try a portrait. I definitely want to do a lot more, but maybe less generic poses and more "illustration-like" images. But I still have a lot of work to do...

Wacom Bamboo tablet
Corel Photoshop X

Estimated Time: 5 hours

In Watercolor class we had to choose a city from the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. I chose the City Bauci; the city on stilts. I'm not incredibly happy with this, I wish I could have done alot more with color or a completely different style. The book, Invisible Cities, is actually like nothing I've read before. I said that to the teacher and he got all excited and repeated it to the class; "This is like no other book she has read before.." That statement was true but that didn't mean that I thought it was the most amazing book I've ever read. It's certainly interesting, not much of a plot, but has beautiful visual landscape imagery. I'd only suggest reading it if you were an artist or like to read literature with alot of visuals.

Monet Copy

In my watercolor class... we needed to choose a masterpiece that was not originally done in watercolor and recreate it in watercolor. I thought this was a fun project, my teacher was worried I would mess it up in the beginning (using white watercolor paint can be fatal), but it turned out pretty accurate. I chose Monet's Woman with a Parasol which was done with oil. I loved this application of paint, and I think using stretched cold press paper was a new (but amazingly good) experience. From now on I think I'm going to work with more cold press. But the next out-of-school projects I want to work on are going to be digital, unless I get frustrated with them (I need to get used to the tablet).

This piece I titled "Underwater Chaos". And it definitely was chaos trying to make it look good. If I could go back, I'd fix her hair and make it look more like it was underwater. This was just a practice portrait with watercolors but I have no experince doing hair with watercolor. Mayeb that should be my next step.

Indiana Jones Poster

The great thing about being an artist is that you don't always have to spend a lot of money to buy presents. Instead of buying the insanely expensive original Indiana Jones poster for my boyfriend, I made him this one using pastels and charcoal marker. It took me about 3 or 4 hours a day for a week but it was a lot of fun to work on. if I would change anything, I would make more of a realistic background and maybe add in more characters.

2010!

First Post of the year.. and while looking at other blogs.. I learned that i really need to customize this blog. It looks like a million other amateur blogs so how would anyone remember mine? The only problem is access to internet.. so that's going to have to wait until my household gets real internet. Meanwhile.. here's a piece I did last year. It's a graphite drawing of a photo [link: http://paranoidalna.deviantart.com/art/water-much-too-shalow-108232545 ] by Bianka Keilbasa. The photo is much better... but I wanted to try a graphite portrait again... because I hadn't done one since high school.

Butterfly Crossing

This acrylic painting was a piece I did last year in my formations class. The goal was to show a relationship between warm and cool colors. I guess the story behind this was that there's a certain place in a dark forest where the butterflies always travel in packs (or whatever you call a group of butterflies). Alot of my paintings/drawings are fantasy oriented, maybe its time to make some realistic paintings.

Youth is Wasted on the Young

For my illustration class we had to illustrate an idiom/proverb/figure of speech. I chose "Youth is wasted on the young" for mine and i chose to depict some old pathetic men skateboarding. After this I realize that my subjects and ideas are ok, but I really need to work on technique. I used watercolor and a black watercolor pencil, but I need to be less messy with the pencil. I also shouldn't try to attempt something I know that I can't do; I should leave graffiti to the experts. If I'm going to try it, it should be on my own time and not on a final project.
Over the Christmas break I'm going to do simple watercolor pieces so I can practice technique. I really need to work on things looking more professional.
Hopefully in the future I'll have more good things to say about my artwork and stop ripping on it so much. In the meantime I will continue to practice and create things that will enhance my learning but not bring in any income.

The Balloonman

One of my major concentrations has been revolved around a character I created in 2006 called "The Balloonman." He's a mime who sells balloons in the park, he has a kind nature, and is a little slow. I still have to come up with more of a background for him, but in the meantime, I spend a lot of time doing watercolor paintings of him. I'm taking a watercolor class this semester and next semester, and I actually haven't tried painting him in watercolor since I began the class. Hopefully over Christmas break I'll have time to try and see how much improvement I've made. (Hopefully I've made some improvement.)

My inspiration for this character first came from the E. E. Cummings Poem In Just. The poem speaks of a balloonman and it's a pretty whimsical poem - which is what I wanted to achieve in the mood of my paintings. So I started off with my painting, To Catch a Ride On A Red Balloon. I was really happy with it and it was the first time I ever used the Parisian style of art. From then I created a painting of a single figure which later I named "The Balloonman." Since then I've done numerous paintings of him, and whenever I doodle, it's mainly of him. The one painting above with him reaching for the stars is my latest one of him. His appearance has changed over time, especially with the size of his hat. My old paintings of him used to be a lot more mellow and sad; he's usually a lot happier nowadays.

P.S. If you've noticed, one of his eyes is stitched up. I wanted him to be physically handicapped in some way, btu I still have no story as to why he only has one eye.