heart of hearts

This is going to be a slightly more personal post so if you don't want to deal with that, then keep on scrollin'.

I'm the happiest I've been in years. I'm not exactly sure how it happened or when exactly it clicked but I finally got it. I was making my life (and the lives of those around me) so much harder than it needed to be. Life, and by extension: art, is not supposed to be a back-breaking, epically sober ordeal. If the point isn't to have fun and make the best of all of it, then what good is it? I get to spend every day drawing or painting or hanging out with a group of close friends who care about me. (Legit! They even find it entertaining when I'm being a complete pain!) Even physically, I feel good (healthier food and exercise is pretty nifty)! Heck, I'm not even all that scared of 2012 anymore. I'm really happy. This is not to say that I don't still have down days or "no hug" days but when I take a second to stop and analyze why I'm upset, I honestly know that it is just a passing thing and I'll be fine. Life is good.

And on that note, back to pretty pictures:
(it's safe to read again, scrollers)
This is piece number 4 of the Body Modification series. I kinda messed up 3 and stretched out the back but I was kinda bored of it anyway so this might just end up being 3:I left the easel in there to give a sense of the size without having to get out my ruler (it's late, I'm lazy. Shush.) This is based off of a very real bionic heart which is far from miraculous but still pretty amazing. I still have a lot more lineart to do but since this piece is more about the Art Nouveau aspect of the series, I want to put a lot of energy into the frames. I'll have some more work to post later this week since I'm headed downtown tomorrow to get some scans done on the big flatbed and I have a commission from someone on deviantart that I should probably get done.

Cochlear Implant finished

As promised, I'll explain my Body Modification series today. I started with the Prothese painting as a parody advertisement for Art Nouveau mechanical limbs. To push the idea further, I'm working with body modifications that are both real and imagined. I may extend the idea into art deco style posters but I've been having a lot of fun working with Art Nouveau so I think I'm going to continue this series in this way for a while longer. This is the second in the Body Modification series. For this one, I wanted to juxtapose a cochlear implant with other forms of body modification, such as gauges, tattoos, unnatural haircolor, and assorted piercings. Mucha worked a lot with circular motives so I worked on a circular canvas (made from an 18" repurposed embroidery hoop) and threw some steampunky gears in for the background. Her hair is also very indicative of the Art Nouveau aesthetic.
I didn't want to scream it at the viewer but I want to see what people think of having a controversial "bionic ear" (seriously, google "cochlear implant", they're wicked cool and very real) with socially questionable alterations to one's body. Please let me know what you think.

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.

Ariel

I know, I know. It's about time I did another. I was really stumped on which one to do next so I threw caution to the wind, whipped open my costume history books, and picked a time period. I found the first time period with big 1980's-like sleeves and poofy skirts and the 1860s-1880s worked well. I picked a sailory theme because it was very fashionable around that time and it invokes the "Fathoms Below" costumes of the men. That time period also accommodates the men's clothing as well, since their clothes throughout the movie were easier to place. I hope the dAudience likes it, since they seem to have a serious obsession with Ariel. I like to think I did her justice.


Ok, I do feel like I derped her face up pretty badly. Oh well.
watercolor, micron, and watercolor paper
Ariel (c) Disney

Cochlear WIP

Alright, I know, I haven't posted the picture that'll lead up to this one yet but don't worry about it. I'm working on a series for Advanced Painting that'll combine advertisment styles (mainly art nouveau) with mechanically enhanced body parts, real or imaginary. This one falls under real.
It's still a work-in-progress obviously but I'm pretty proud of it so far. For the canvas, I stretched and gessoed over an 18" embroidery hoop. I did the underdrawing in non-photo blue (love it!) cochlear implant with cosmetic body modifications (piercings, gauges, tattoos). I always admired how a lot of the kids I grew up with took pride in their hearing aids and got really cool ones with glitter and neon colors.

In other news, I have another princess drawing in the works, a collab zine project with some other Burlingtonians, I might be working on a Halloween comic for an art swap, and I haven't forgot about the drawing for the contest winner or the tattoo I'm doing for Sheila. ^.^;;

ACEO

This'll be a short post because I officially can't get to my bed, let alone sit on it.
I made a couple of Artist's Trading Cards (or ACEOs) and they're currently for sale (for cheap! buy them!) on Etsy.

Atomic

So, kinda lovin' that there are actually subsets of Steampunk called Atompunk (1945-1965) and Decopunk (1920-1950). Love it.
This picture was for the Design-A-Character challenge "Outerspace"The original is bluer but I didn't want to go back over to the art building to scan. I really like white ink. Ok, too sleepy, need breakfast and shower. <:P

Landing

I get so impatient when I have a lot of pieces at once to upload and I have to pace them out. That said, this was one of the pieces I scanned yesterday. I'm wicked proud of the light and shadow on this painting. I know I exaggerated the light on her face but she's magic so there. I'm starting to get in the mood for Halloween.
Expect another post tomorrow! :D

Oh. And prints of this painting are available for $15 each at my etsy store (link to the right). Please check it out. :D

Scaaaaanner

What a difference an amazing scanner makes. I was having some color balance issues with my scanner so I used one of the Art Department's. The colors are so crisp by comparison!! Definitely worth the hike over (and it helps that it's a gorgeous day out.) That said, I rescanned the Goldfish mermaid painting, a new steampunk painting which I'll post below, a cute witch painting which I'll try to remember to post tomorrow, and some ACEOs. All of which are for sale, either as originals or as prints, in my etsy store. I realized I forgot to post the link before so I'll add it to the site of the blog. Feel free to check that and/or my deviantart page.I call her "Goldie! Goddess of the Skies"; A WWI-era Steampunk character. I had a lot of fun painting a canvas with a similar concept recently so I wanted to keep the idea going. I think this'll become a trend.

o.o two in a row!

So I just whipped up (read: worked on for 2.5 hrs) another picture to sell on Etsy. I'm wicked proud of how this one came out. My scanner has some color balance issues so I have to trick OpenCanvas into letting me fix the color but I think I've pretty much matched the scan to the original.

I used a similar design to my Little Mermaid girl. India Ink and Watercolor on Bristol Board. Yah.

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.