Rococo dance

Finally! I finished this thing! It's not as long as I had intended and the music version is pretty cropped but now I have working puppets in Rococo fashion.

production shot

Here's a working image from the Rococo animation I'm working on. I didn't want to rush the animation but the characters in parts were well received on deviantArt so I wanted to show what progress I could.

Rococo paper dolls

I made these to put together as a puppet animation and they are, pretty much, paper dolls. I'm going to edit them further in Photoshop before bringing them into After Effects. I really wanted to combine costume design and animation for this assignment.

 

I sketched, inked, and painted these entirely by hand. As much as I love digital painting and it's capabilities, I have been neglecting traditional artwork way too much for my tastes lately. My art has been kinda stale for the past few years and I'm going to make more of a point of challenging myself.

In other news, I've started hearing back from internships but no real progress yet. I also sold a painting at Spiritual Haze! :D

Masquerade

This took me a lot longer than I expected and I keep changing my mind on how I feel about it but overall, I'm please enough with it to show it here.

This one isn't signed because I'm selling 25 prints, each individually signed and numbered, on Etsy. Once I find the right frame, I'll sell the currently signed original too. As stated in the previous post, this is a costume design based on Georgian fashion (think Moliere to Marie Antoinette, also referred to as Rococo. It's what Europe was doing when the U.S. was in it's Colonial period). I took some artistic license and simplified the style some. This is 5" x 7" on watercolor paper.

Masque WIP

I'm running late for class so I'll actually describe this piece when it's done. I was having a "wow, my hands and my artsy brain are totally in sync" moment while working on this.

This is going to be absolutely adorable when it's done and I'm going to sell prints of it online.
To my fellow costume buffs out there, yes that is a French gown. It needed to happen.

Timeline

It's about time I put this up. While being able to use the scanner was awesome, some compression or something happened during the saving process and all the colors got messed up. This was the best I could do to get it looking like the original. Looks like I might end up having to go to Kinko's after all. -.-
This was for a creative project in my History of Costume course about a year ago. I absolutely adored this class and this project. We had to combine costume history and our other academic interests so I set up my timeline as a sort of animation on a reflection of women's rights through history. Ancient Egypt through Greeks are both very submissive since women were given little to no rights then. In the Medieval times, women were slightly more elevated through religion because of a pious woman's relationship to the Virgin Mary, women saints, etc. Elizabeth I during the English Renaissance is the first to open her eyes and look forward to a more powerful role for women in society. The Georgian woman is turned away from progress but is looking ahead (since Humanism was gaining popularity but wasn't applied to women). The Crinoline period is what Americans consider the Frontier period as well which was a powerful time for pioneering women. In the Late Victorian era, women began to dress in styles inspired by men's clothing and it was becoming more acceptable for a woman to work. As much as I love the 50s, women definitely looked back at "the good ol' days" a little too fondly. Modern women are becoming so empowered that I had the final figure walk right off the page.
The figures are pencil, watercolor, and colored pencil and the background is metallic gold acrylic paint (stupid paige).

oh man

Lots of changes in Halseyland (that sounds better than Paigeland I think). I'm back from Italy, which is sad but also nice because I was actually getting kinda homesick. Italy was absolutely AMAZING. Not a whole lot of artwork got done while there but I got some great pictures and some reference material for future pieces so yay!
After a few days in Massachusetts, I drove up to the new apartment in Vermont. I'm still not fully moved in and my place doesn't have internet as of yet but at least I have a bed now (believe me, this is a big accomplishment). I can't promise how frequently I'll be posting but I'll do my best.
As for the princess series, I'm currently working on Belle (although I'm not sure about her time period and I may redo her someday) and researching Pocahontas. I'm really liking Pocahontas and Tiana best since it's really obvious WHEN they take place. For Belle, it could have been anywhere from 1770s-1790s or 1820s-1830s, which is frustrating. I went with the 1820s since I did Cinderella as Late Georgian. (Plus, that yellow dress is SO Crinoline period!)
Sadly, no new artwork today since I'm on the computer at work. I'll try and get Belle up soon, she's currently being inked.

cinderelly cinderelly

I can't wait to do more of these. When I was little I loved Cinderella so much, I used to pretend my name was 'Cinderella' (much to my sister's embarrassment). It was tough pinpointing a time period for Disney's Cinderella because of it's strong 1950s aesthetic. The solitaire ribbon she wears in her princess gown and the different silhouettes in the court scene look like it would be roughly Late Georgian (think Marie Antoinette). With a combination of 1950s and Late Georgian (my two favorite costume eras), how could I not adore "Cinderella"?