V-owl-intine (A sticky situation)

In planning for a 'sticky situation', I thought of how love or having a crush on someone can be a sticky situation. Sometimes people don't know how to show how they feel - and that is the semi-humorous meaning behind my painting.

The owl is flying towards the viewer, holding a human heart - poor, misunderstood fellow. He just can't figure out how to say how he feels.

My repetition, as required for the project, is in the feathers, layered one right after the other.

In thinking outside the box, I decided to attach real feathers to the canvas with hot glue, canvas scraps, and Guesso. 

Adding feathers provided the extra challenge of blending the painted feathers in with the real ones - something I hadn't tried to do before. 

When I finally finished Mr. Owl,  I learned that mixed media is a challenging, yet rewarding concept for me - I will be doing more mixed media in the future!

Up Close and Personal

 It has been said that the eyes are the window to the soul. For my 'Up Close and Personal' project, I drew up many ideas - a floating couple in space, personal things to me in macro, and mug shots of wolves were amongst the lot. I settled on a large, up close eye with my home reflected in it. The iris is glancing away, rather than staring at the observer, giving a wistful expression - a longing, distant sort of stare.

 By using dark shadows and bright highlights, I emphasized the reflection in the pupil. I chose acrylic paint as my medium, because I wanted to work with rich color on a larger scale piece.

 The risk i took with this project was painting a reflection in the eye - I was tempted to leave it alone once I finished the original eye. Of the 5 characteristics of good art, (technique, concept, emotion, new, medium) I believe that I had a unique emotion to my piece, as well as a difficult concept to pull off. 

In the end, my piece was not exactly as I envisioned it, but I think it communicates my meaning - The place we grow up, our homes, they holds a meaning to us. Your hometown and home-place is piece of your soul, one that shapes the person you become. Some homes are broken, some are less than what we want, but the place you grow up will always hold significance for you. For me, this wistful stare into the past, with a hidden twist about what I plan for my future, is what I wanted to show in my piece.

This project, dubbed 'What's The Point', was an opportunity to take a few risks and branch out - I do love to work with graphite pencil. However, the idea of seamlessly blending something organic, such as the human hand, into cold hard machinery, was a challenge.  I chose graphite pencil because the level of detail I was working with was too great for charcoal (my initial choice) and the blending needed to morph from organic to mechanic would have been nearly impossible with pen.

I noticed that the graphite that I was working with was marked 'water soluble'. To get the dark, smooth background, I used a paintbrush and water to blend the graphite across the empty space.

My first ideas with this project were along the lines of tattoo work - because tattoo needles are sharp, and because a tattoo is often used to make a point, or to convey symbolism to the rest of the world. After thinking about it, I settled on this idea - a hand whose pointer finger morphs into a gun. I felt that it would make a stronger point (pun intended). The meaning behind this piece, to me, is that we (as humans) often judge others based on religion, creed, orientation, or even something as archaic as skin color. What we often fail to realize is that when we point our finger in judgement, it can be just as threatening, or even as deadly, as a loaded gun... And what is the point of harassing or judging someone for their own lifestyle/choices?

Charcoal Self-Portrait

For this piece, I first drew an oval (as the base for a head) and used anatomical drawing techniques to add rough features. I spent a great deal of time then refining those features and adding shading, then a neck and shoulders. After all of this was completed, I shaded in the background to provide a sense of where the light source is located in the piece. My very last step was to draw in my glasses.

MC Escher Inspired Drawing

This piece is based upon MC Escher's style and contains a building drawn in 3-point perspective - used to show great height. In making this, I first drew a horizon line, from which drew outwards to create my building. After I used a straight edge to create the lines and windows of the building, I drew in a serpent/squid animal, and the blades of grass at the top edge of the drawing. Then, the sky was sketched in, and all of my final shading was completed.

Landscape Project

This project was my personal favorite.

First, I selected a photo from which to work; I chose a picture which I took on my trip to Jamaica. In planning for this project, I did a marker sketch of my composition using sharpies. I painted from background to foreground, painting in objects after the landscape was finished. Atmospheric perspective is used to make objects/structures appear to be farther away - usually achieved by using shades and tints. By placing shadows beneath my objects, and creating a lighter surface in one portion of my painting, I indicated the light source. I used an analogous color scheme in my landscape (yellow, green, blue, blue green) and value (shadows) were used to show depth in my ocean, as well as the direction of the light source (sun).

Ceramics Project

This piece was created with clay, is approximately 8" x 8" in dimension, and is 3/4" thick. Radial design was used on this roll-out clay piece; it included the use of Navajo Indian themed patterns. I personally use my piece as a loose change holder, and key-catcher. To create the design for this piece, I first drew out a radial design in my sketchbook, then transferred the design to thin, translucent paper. Then, I laid the paper over the clay and, using a toothpick to punch through, I transferred  that design onto my piece. Ceramics was not my strongest point, but I believe it gave me a firmer grasp on the art-style; If I were to repeat the project, I would roll my base out thinner, and would layer more red-clay paint onto my designs.

Pastel Still Life Project

The composition for this piece was planned by using a series of thumbnail sketches - small, quick sketches of the objects in various arrangements used to visually find the best positioning. A viewfinder was used to isolate areas of similar arrangements, further aiding the composition process. Items were made to appear 3-dimensional by the use of highlights and shadows, and the use of contor line shading. A light source was created by using tints (lighter shades of the same color) and white pastels.