Pinup

I wanted to do a plus-size pinup in a confident pose but an outfit no more revealing than a bathing suit and somewhere in the coloring process, it became a self-portrait.
It's challenging for me to post this, especially since I know that members of my family may find this post uncomfortable, but I'm very proud of how this piece came out and I want to explain a bit about it.

 At the risk of getting a little personal here, I want to explain this transition: I've always struggled with my size and my perception of myself, as many girls and women do. It wasn't until summer last year that I realized how much of my personal identity comes from my size and how I am proud of who I am, even if I would like to get to a healthier weight. It has been a struggle for me, coming to terms with that part of myself, but being able to let go of hating part of who I am has made me so much happier overall and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

new id

I finally got around to making a new ID/self portrait. I've been getting ready for some art fairs while I'm waiting to sign up for them (backwards, I know) so this will be displayed on my table.

I love the texture that gouache and achieve and how Mary Blair it is so I've been meaning to work on that. I think I managed on this one but I'm worried it looks a little to (dare I say it) trendy. Thoughts?



edit:
ignore this please ^.^;;

auld lang syne

This will be my last post for the year 2010. Overall, this was a pretty amazing year but I won't bore you with the details ^.^
I wanted to test out the gorgeous new scanner and honor the spirit of "auld lang syne" by posting the portraits I did of my sister and myself.
Each piece on the left is done with color pencil and sharpie on computer paper back in 2005.

Each piece on the right is an india ink and watercolor painting I did this year for my parents as a Christmas present.

The skinny brunette is my sister Caileigh and I'm the other one XD. I tried to incorporate a couple of our interests and our school colors now that we've both graduated.
I'm pretty proud of how these came out and of how much I've grown as an artist in the past 5 years but I still have a long way to go.

Happy New Year's! Next time I post it'll be 2011! :D

Double post, ftw!

So, I had an assignment in painting not too long ago that had to fit into at least one criteria ("beautiful", "insults the viewer", "barely visible", "monster machine", "fearful/fearsome", and a couple of other things that I forget now) and during the critique we had to guess what the painter had in mind when they were working on it. At this point I was already getting pretty frustrated with this course since my style is much more illustrative and literal (*snarl*) than what "real painters" would like (*doublesnarl* elitists). Being the ever-patient person I am, I bitterly decided to do what I wanted to paint for the assignment so if the prof. and class didn't like it, forget them. would at least have a painting I wanted. As it turns out, the prof. LOVED it and raved for 20 minutes about both pieces!! He then continued to reference the larger picture for the rest of the crit session!! :D FTW!! Needless to say, I'm pretty pleased with myself.
For this one, which is about 10" x 17.5", I wanted to do a Mucha-esque advertisement poster for mechanical limbs and organs. I'm really pleased with how it came out and I thought I handled the nudity tastefully. Our next assignment has to be a series and I decided to base my series off of this. I'll explain more about that in tomorrow's post.
For the next one I need to explain something: I only recently started swearing (Sorry, Mom, but I do) because it was really difficult to be taken seriously as an adult when I called people "dumbface" and "butthead" when I was mad. That being said, I chose to use a swear in this piece because of the assignment and because of the verbal punch it could pack. I needed this piece to be as "in your face" as possible.
This piece is HUGE! It is 30" x 42" and her head is about life-size. When you're standing in front of it, I'm proud to say, it does in fact look like the fist is coming at you. I painted this quickly and furiously, which was a nice change from the Prothese painting. The biggest thing about this that the prof said I should change was having the speech bubble recede into the space, like her body is. I almost had my series as this but I didn't think a series of these would pack the same punch as a single one (maybe different paintings like this in different locations, but not all together in the same room).
I think my personality comes across strongly in different ways in these two paintings (which I guess is why "Dumbass" unintentionally looks like a self-portrait). I hope these go over well out there.

Pffft

It's amazing how quickly to feel like a real-life, honest-to-goodness artist when you're covered in gesso and paint all the time and you plan your outfit based on whether you'll be working in clay, paint, or ink that day. It's kinda awesome. Once I actually get it together, I'll have some paintings, another comic, and another animation to post but in the meantime, I have a self-portrait doodle that I just whipped up out of need for nib-pen. Shush, "need for nib-pen" is a real thing. I also posted a quickie drawing on Etsy. If some of what I saw at Burlington's Art Hop can sell for $400, I would like to think my stuff could sell for at least $15. (Also, the Art Hop is quite epic and I'm kinda kicking myself that I didn't know about Burlington's epic art scene earlier.)
Oh, so; self portrait.Kinda mopey-looking but I was kinda strapped for inspiration. Yikes. 2am. I should probably go to bed so I can drag my butt to ARTH tomorrow.