starting a four week painting

today in painting we began a four week pose. i am pretty excited to have a long time for work on it. i really like the sketch i did before i put any paint down so i took a picture. i will take another picture when it's complete. so this is the before! lets hope i don't wreck it : )

november

This month is totally flying by way too fast! I just turned 25 yesterday. Kind of crazy since I still feel no older than 19. We have had some interesting projects at school. I keep forgetting to take photos or scans when I do them. I managed to get some photos of a couple new pieces.

The first piece is an information illustration. We received a sheet of statistics and had to choose one to illustrate. I chose "Average number of credit cards per US household: 12.7". I did did my final piece in watercolour and ink. It was interesting to see how some of my classmates interpreted the same statistic and how differently they all came out. Mine was a much darker look at the debt and poverty caused by using money you don't even have. I am definitely happy with the way the piece came out.

This second piece was based on a fortune cookie. We each received fortune cookies and had to create a visual metaphor based on that fortune. My fortune was " You are sensitive to all that is going on around you."

so nice to relax

official being a bum day. so so nice. i played guitar for two hours today. then played keyboards. got a bunch of little things done that i never seem to do because of school work. such a good feeling. homework starts tomorrow.
i was reading a book of jack kerouac's letters. it makes me want to read the dharma bums all over again. i love his writing so much...

painting exercise

this was just a still life exercise in painting class at the beginning of the semester. more acrylics.

being able to edit

i just realized that i can go back and edit old posts! i am updating some with scans instead of photos. my scratchboards look way better as scans.

Reading week~

Today I slept in for the first time since school started. I mean really slept in. The kind of sleep where you aren't stressed out over projects. I think my body decided to catch up on seven weeks worth of lack of sleep in one go. I never sleep in past 10 or 11, and today it was until 1:30. Woke up with feelings of guilt over a day off half gone! An entire week of days off is ahead so I think it's ok.

Thinking of writing myself out a schedule so I actually plan my time well this week. I know with all the time off I might procrastinate my homework.

I finally got my printer/scanner up and running with this new computers. Windows Vista was giving me a hard time. So now I will be able to upload scans of art instead of photos of them since the photos really don't do them justice. This first scan still doesn't do it justice since the painting was way bigger than the scanner and I tried to piece it together in photoshop and it looks really patchy. hehehe. ah well. this was a three week painting for painting class. I am still getting used to acrylics. Its like this ongoing battle of trying to get the paint to work for me. It just doesn't flow the same way watercolour does.

We have a big still life painting to do at home and the option of doing it in oils! I cannot wait to start it this week!

some art from last year

I just took some photos of some art I got back from last year. These were all from painting class. That turned out to be one of my favourite classes last year.

Scratchboards

Recent class assignment. I love using scratchboard so much. You force your brain to think in reverse and lay down the light instead of the shadows. Every mark you make counts. Its exciting : )

I finished these off last night for computer class. My first attempts at digital painting!

More homework

For computer class we had to illustrate an opening scene if one our favourite books. I chose Gardens of the Moon. This is the beginning of chapter one. We had to do sketches and then clean them up on photoshop and then render the line with filters. That was just part one. The next part we will be adding colours. I will post those when they are done!

Finished up the war and peace project

We had a three week project for interpretive class where the theme was war and peace. It also needed to be a decorative peace using pattern or other means. It was a really fun assignment and a whole lot of work.

I really liked the idea of trying to portray this peaceful scene, almost ignorant of the many layers of blood and war and murder buried beneath it. Life always finds a way to survive. There are a lot of contrasts in the piece. It came out a lot like I had hoped.

And so it begins...

Second year of illustration is off to a start. Its amazing how this time 'round at school I am getting so much more from it. I love my classes. The projects are all really interesting.

This was the first project for Media studies. We had to take up to three to five existing animals and create a new one. This little guy turned out to be really cool.

It seems for years I kept trying to draw from my head over and over, after realizing that I had no skill at drawing from my imagination. I took it so far to an extreme that I rarely drew from life anymore; forgetting that the only way to really learn and grow is to practice from life first. Being back at school has reminded me about that.

I still lack the discipline I want. The procrastinor lives on to some extent. I have so many hopes for this year....