Thursday, May 27, 2010

they make me feel so alive


It's a dismal, rainy sort of day today. It's a good kind of day to sit inside and make art, preferably with a pot of vegan chili bubbling in the background.


I just finished adding the final touches to a painting I started on Sunday. I wanted to start painting earlier, but I kept getting distracted by lost painting equipment (my drop cloth, to protect the kitchen table from flung water), or doing my taxes. It was kind of a good thing though: I was forced to spend more time doing thumbnail sketches and solidifying my composition. I work very intuitively a lot of the time, so forcing myself to slow down and think about what I wanted it to look like when I was done.


This was the first painting that I used an under-painting for, and I think that it turned out awesomely. It's definitely a technique I'll have to continue to use for future paintings.

The image is based on a rainbow I saw last year whilst driving through the Rocky Mountains with a couple of friends. It was one of the most perfect rainbows we had ever seen, and a fitting ending for a most awesome road trip.


Thursday, May 13, 2010

Summer Projects

Summer is here! Hurrah! Well, summer vacation at least. And to make things better the weather is finally warming up a bit. I've caught up on all of the sleep I lost during the semester, so now I can start thinking about what I want to do with all of my free time over the next three and a half months.

I actually made a list, because I love lists. There are things that I want to create, and processes or ideas that I want to research now that I've time to do more in-depth reading than is possible in the middle of the semester.

1. Paint. I've been itching to paint for a while now. It's something that I love to do, although not something I want to focus my career around. (Painting as a major seems to focus a lot on conceptual work, and although I dig conceptual pieces, sometimes I just want to make pretty pictures and fling paint around, you know?)
I was all set and ready to start painting when I realised that I can't find the canvas drop-cloth that I use to protect the table from flung paint. I get the feeling that either Mom or I put it someplace 'safe,' and that it will have to stay there indefinitely until someone finds it whilst looking for something else. And perhaps I'll just have to use a garbage bag in the interim.
I also want to improve my digital painting/colouring skills. It's something else I like to do in my free time, and a valuable skill to have considering all of my volunteer graphic work I find myself doing periodically.

2. Learn more about stop motion animation. Because I love it. Oh so very much. I want to spend my summer buried in books about animation. There's an example of one of my experiments here.

3. Digital photography. Because taking good pictures of my work is kind of an essential skill to have.

4. Create pieces to sell at the Show and Sale. The Show and Sale is a once a semester sale of student artworks. I've wanted to put work in it pretty much since I started going to the school, but found it impossible to create anything other than assigned projects during the summer. I'll probably make a lot of ear hats. Like this, only better:



I also want to exercise more, work more, garden, and start baking my own bread again. Because home-made bread is lovely.

Monday, May 3, 2010

all i want to be when i grow up is a man in a dress

It's over. School, that is. For the summer, anyway.

I managed to finish the 'man-dress' project, find a model, and get some pictures. It was a pretty hilarious photo-shoot, done entirely in public. I'm sure we terrified a lot of people. I wanted to get pictures of the frightened populace, but I'm still unsure about the ethical questions around that.

Here are the pictures. I'm too lazy to find my artist's statement about them.