Christmas!

    MERRY CHRISTMAS!


     Tis' the season for giving! I did a large painting for my aunt. She requested it a while back so I decided to finish it for Christmas. Photos soon to come, because of the winter break we won't have much to write about every day. So we will be writing at least once or twice over the break.
   
    I think the semester went well. I haven't checked my grades yet. I'm a little nervous to be honest. Cody has been doing some concept characters and they are very interesting. He will probably add a photo here: "I did" -Cody

[armadillo character designs]

    But who knows when that will be. "Today" -Cody

   Today we are spending the day at my aunt's house. Celebrating Christmas is so fun for me because I get to spend time with my family. We are a very close family and we spend every Sunday together but there is something about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Italian traditions that I just love.
 
    On the Eve we have a dinner that consists of seven sea food dishes. Anything seafood related. The Crab cakes are my favorite. This will be the first Christmas with out my Nonna[grandmother]. As well as Thanksgiving, which was hard for me because she is so important to our gatherings. On Easter she bakes Italian cookies with hard boiled eggs wrapped inside of them. They are a tradition to our heritage and to our family as well. I will miss our traditions that can't go on with out her presence.  For those of you who are unaware, she passed away May 15th of this year, the day after my birthday.

    On a happier note. We wish you a very Happy Holiday! Christmas, Hanukkah (which just ended yesterday) and all seasons greetings!

-Allison and Cody

Time To Get To more Work

    So Friday was my last day of the semester, I had my final in Perspective, and I should have done just fine. I understand the material well, I just rush and don't think clearly sometimes. So I'm not worried, I didn't really have a final in anything else. For our drawing, and painting classes we had home work as well as finishing our in class assignments to do.

    Tomorrow I'll be going in with Allison to get finished shots of some more of our work, especially or sculpture work. Since some of the smaller work may not be kept, and I'm going to try and cast my portrait I did around the time that we go back to school in January to submit to the juried show.

    I also plan on cleaning up one of my pieces from digital imaging for entry to the show as well. Either the crustaceous environment, with the lake in the cave. Or the last one I did here.

[Cody's bot hangar concept]

    There are a few things I definitely like about what I've got so far, and a few that I don't. I'm trying to pay more attention to the perspective, and the "camera"/viewers eye together so that the painting reads correctly. This one is almost there. I enjoy the energy that the designs of the robots have, I'm a fan of the prosthetic foot design on the mechs[giant robots]. The light sources don't entirely make sense though. So I'll push the lighting situation into something more "cinematic". 

[Cody's deep space painting]

    We actually lost power on the second to last day we were working on these paintings, so I ended up "finishing" it up at Allison's house over the weekend last week. I think it was a successful learning experience at least.

    the last few days in drawing we were working on cross-contour drawings like the cow skulls we had done, but with pen & ink. We mixed in a little cross-hatching[laying lines over each other in repetition at different angles] as well. These are a few of the studies we produced.

[Allison, and Cody's cross-contour/hatching drawings]

    Now that I've got some time to work on art for myself a little more frequently over the break, I'm getting to work right away. Starting tonight! I'll share some images and thoughts if they're worth sharing. I hope everyone is preparing for a good holiday no matter what/if you celebrate.

-Cody

    

Last Week of the First Semester

    It's been kind of crazy the last week or so around here, painting, drawing, and sculpting to try and get caught up for the last week. We also lost power halfway through our painting class last Wednesday so we didn't get to finish the paintings as planned so after I finish writing here I'm going to get some work done on that and the homework for that class. both are interior still life style paintings. I'll grab some finished shots of everything from all of our classes throughout the week.

    Today though, we had the last day of the first semester of Sculpture I, and my last day of sculpture for the school year. They way my schedule had to be built due to transferring made me push the other half to later, if ever.

[Cody's finished portrait sculpture]

    I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out, we were really nitpicking while talking about what I could improve upon, which is good. I feel like there weren't any "glaringly funky things", as I had put it in class, that I needed to fix right away.

[Cody's finished portrait sculpture]

    Once I found Kim[my instructor]'s palette knife like tool I definitely had the confidence in the mark making I was looking for. I was able to get the contrast through the darks created by the deep crevasses and crease I made with the tool. 

    Now I'm going to drink too much Mtn. Dew and try and finish off a couple of paintings, but I'll have more to share as the last week here goes on. then to break and more time for "personal" work!

-Cody

 [Allison's portrait sculpture]

[Allison's portrait sculpture]

[Allison's portrait sculpture]

    If I get a chance tonight I'll post a little about these. 

-Allison

 "There's a thin line between being a hero, and being a memory." -Optimus Prime

Almost There...

    It's almost the end of the semester here, this was our last full class working with our models, and the second to last class of sculpture at all this semester. I've discovered a great new tool that I was working with today that I love, it allows me to push, and fold, and turn around all the forms in the face. I was getting really into working on getting the likeness by getting way into the shapes of the bags under his eyes, and the way his cheeks fold by his nose and mouth. 

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress]

    I spent a lot of time going back and forth trying to get the silhouette of his beard correct, while making it transition from his face to hair in as natural a way as clay can. I built up his neck a lot, then had to cut it back down as I adjusted his jaw/beard everything had to get shifted around. Such is the nature of sculpting from life.

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress]

    I'm happy with where I've gotten the sculpture to today, and after critique, and another afternoon it can only look better. I've got some painting and drawing homework I'll be working on, and tweaking all of my previous sculptures up until next week. So I'll be able to keep busy, I'm also trying to find time to work on my own projects/work as well to get me going into break where that's all I'll be doing for art essentially.

    I'm thinking about maybe a weekly themed series of drawings/digital paintings or something, we'll see.

-Cody

    So I'm pretty much done with my sculpture. I need to fix the eye gaze, he looks cross eyed in these photos. The model is on this next picture. I wish I noticed the weird eye sight before I finished and took a picture. Its really hard to make eyes look like they are facing one direction and not two different locations.  I struggled with this piece for a long time. I still see things wrong with it, but my armature kept me from fixing the width of some objects because I started to hit the frame inside of the clay. I'm pleased with how it turned out though. I felt pretty good about my sculpting abilities these past few weeks.

[Allison's portrait sculpture in progress with]

   I gave him a septum piercing for fun and some earrings. Our model was really fun to talk with and he laughed at some conversations we had and he had to put up with my clumsiness because I would almost hit him a few times with my caliper. This photo seems to be a little warped. Unless I was actually that far off. My model had some interesting features so some things are not "average" , but I will be double checking my angles next class and really fine tuning the small details now that I have finished the eyeballs ( not the gaze still...) The mouth looks like it comes out a little too far.. or it might just be the photo taking it at a weird angle. It didn't look weird when I saw it, who knows...

[Allison's sculpture portrait in progress]

-Allison

"If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?"
-Laurence J. Peter

Sculpture Class Update

    In our sculpture class we've been working on 3 small portraits for homework. The first was just a facial action[mouth/eyes closed], the second one was a recognizable expression[fear/anger], and the third one we could do whatever we want. We've been critiquing them throughout the second half of the semester, and we have until the last day of class to refine them even further. So I don't have pictures of the first few yet, because I wasn't as happy with them. Once we've gotten them up to snuff by the end here, I'll get nice photos of all of them.

[Cody's homework portrait]

    We also had another whole class yesterday to work on our portrait from life. So now my portrait is starting to get some facial hair, and look a little bit more like the model.

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress]

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress]

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress]

    I'm definitely satisfied with how my sculpture is looking now. I've still got to bring the ears up to the same level as the nose, and eyes. I hope it ends on as strong a note as I've started. 

-Cody

[Allison's homework portrait in progress]

    For my small homework portrait, I chose to sculpt a forest elf. I made chunks of bark come out of the top of his head and sculpted leaves to place in there. This is an in progress image so It looks better now because I worked on it for a while after the photo was taken and the next day. I'm working pretty steadily in sculpture class on our figure models. I have a lot done but I'm refining details. 

   

   I've been assigned many projects to complete before the semester ends. I was freaking out about them previously, but I'm not as worried because I'm working efficiently. 

Happy [almost] Thanksgiving!

-Allison 

Speeding On By

    As we near the end of the semester I'm realizing just how fast my first semester at Lyme has been. We have about three weeks of classes left, and I have a lot more to do before it's up. I have a drawing to refine for homework, an interior painting similar to the one I'm working on in class, another project for intro to digital, and I'd like to round up some work to put into the Holiday Art Show to try to sell. 

    This is a concept that I got together for my last assignment for intro to digital. I like the idea, but I have a hard time working with the computers at school. I'd much rather use my set up here, my computer is much better at running photoshop, and my tablet is more familiar to me. 

[racing bike concept]

    I figured I'd share it anyways, I may come back to it myself once I have some more time to work for myself over the month that is break. I have a lot of stuff to get done then as well.

-Cody

Stilled Life

    So I've got a few days of work to share tonight. We are still working on our latest still life in painting from Wednesday, and we did a new drawing on Thursday.

    I felt like I didn't accomplish too much on Wednesday, I was working the entire time. My still life did progress, but I wasn't having as easy a time mixing the colors I was looking to use, or apply them in the manner I wanted to. It's getting there, and I'll have something done after our next class. How much I'm satisfied with it will be something else though.

[Cody's deep space painting in progress]

    Then in drawing we began working on cross contour drawings. Where we attempted to show the shape of forms by covering the objects in the drawing with a series of lines to give the illusion of turning, and changing planes.

[Cody's cross-contour skull in progress]

    So we started with a "regular" contour line drawing to get everything going, and block out the forms and shapes in the correct places, before we then gave the skull volume with the other lines.

[Cody's cross-contour skull]

    At first I was worried I'd "ruin" my original line drawing by adding the contour lines, but as my instructor pointed out I/my learning is supposed to be the product of these drawings in class. Not the piece itself, I am actually happy with how it turned out, and I'm glad we did this assignment.

-Cody

    My painting looks modified from the real still life. I had a hard time fixing the colors to match. I look at a space and i feel my eyes adjusting to see the colors, I would see blues, greens, and reds. But I couldn't figure out how to match the color on my painting. I know how to mix colors. I have a hard time seeing the color for what I need to mix. The white wall which was darker than some spots on the still like was a grey blue. I mixed a lot of vibrant colors first. I'm still getting used to oils. I prefer to use oils now though because I can blend things and create soft edges. I really enjoy Cody's painting. It fits into an impressionism genre, which he likes. Mine feels too boring or plain. I haven't finished yet obviously. 

[Allison's deep space painting in progress]

[Allison's cross-contour skull in progress]

[Allison's cross-contour skull]

  I've done some of these cross contour lines before in high school. I enjoy doing them as well. I was eager to start this project and we have to do a separate drawing of our interior assignment for homework with cross contour lines, That I'm not so excited for because there are no organic  shapes in the still lifes we are doing.

-Allison

"I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all." Neil Gaiman

A Day Behind, But Streets Ahead

    Sorry for being AFK[away from keyboard] for the last few days, I had forgotten my battery in the charger at home one day, and had missed sculpture last week, but I had my camera, with the battery in it today! So we've got shots of what we're doing in sculpture now.

    Starting with last week they had 3 different models in class: a younger guy with a particularly large head, an older gentlemen, and a rather normal lady. Allison had chosen the guy with HUGE features, and scared me into thinking I'd need twice as much clay as I had. The lady wasn't in for the first half of class and I needed my time I had with the model to get caught up, so picked the older gentlemen.

    I actually had planned on doing the lady, because I haven't sculpted a woman yet, I'm quite happy with the gentlemen I ended up with.

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress] 

    For just having started today I'm quite proud of where I'm at, I just put in my headphones and hit the road on this thing. He has so many folds, and lines it makes his face very complex, but distinct at the same time. It's easier to get a likeness on an older person where there are clearly defined features. As opposed to someone who's young and the likeness is in more nuanced details.

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress] 

    By lunchtime I had caught up to most of the other people in my class, I definitely made good time building up his head and approximating facial features. I have to bring out the back of his head some to fit the size of his face, especially since he'll have a beard when I get all finished up.

[Cody's portrait sculpture in progress] 

    It's got a pretty solid likeness of him as of now I need to refine the ball on the end of his nose, and work on his mouth at the beginning of next class. After that maybe I'll get to his facial hair[eyebrows, beard]. He has a very particular head shape, and being bald means you'll see the whole thing, so I'm trying to get that spot on as well.

    My instructor was impressed with the time I was making while still doing quality work. I'm glad that I can see and work so efficiently, it's something I like to think I'm pretty good at. When we have drawing again on Thursday I'll get photos of what we did last week as well to share. Be prepared.

    Now I have to glaze/scumble on a painting for a little bit tonight.

-Cody

     I'm still working on some facial features. I work right to left on my sculptures. So every time you see my sculpture they are more finished or polished on the right sides. My model has a lot of distinct features, which is great to work with because you can catch resemblances really quickly. Although  they are so prominent, it's easier to see the mistakes. 

[Allison's portrait sculpture in progress]

 
     He also has LOTS of hair. So I wasn't even done with the hair in this point of the piece. I still have a long time before we critique them. I believe I worked pretty well, I could probably work slower though. I have three more weeks to work on this.

[Allison's portrait sculpture in progress]

-Allison

"I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do. " -Andy Warhol

Figure Thisss

    Allison got a chance to take some pictures of her portrait she's working on of the model from yesterday. We also have been working on some small portraits for homework and her second one is somewhat based off of our friend Ryan.

[Allison's homework portrait #2]

    I love how my self-portrait's head is snooping in the background of this shot.

[Allison's life portrait in progress]

    I'll be building up a basic head in the same manner as we did for our self-portraits that way when I get to class and go to catch up I won't have to start from scratch. I'll grab some shots of our other homework portraits as well.

    Today we started our next painting which is a "deep space" assignment, and we're working on a large still-life that simulates an interior of a room in say someone's house. The goal is to work with the ideas we've been working on to create a larger more convincing space within the painting. So by using things like overlapping forms, atmospheric, and linear perspective all in tandem the space being conveyed in the painting should feel believable. 

[Cody's deep space painting in progress]

[Allison's deep space painting in progress]

    

    I also gave a small presentation on H.R. Giger today for an assignment in the class, I think it's very funny to see people's reactions to artwork that isn't traditionally beautiful. I find his work very interesting actually, and his work has inspired some of the things that now inspire me directly. Like the Alien franchise[of which he worked on], and Halo.

-Cody

"She said that to me once. About being a machine." -Master Chief 117

To Put Things Into Perspective

    I've got some stuff from yesterday, and some stuff from today. Yesterday we had our painting class
and we completed our split-complementary paintings.

[Cody's split-complimentary painting]

    

    I had made sure to have covered the canvas by the end of the first class and get to working on the accurate colors, and fleshing out the forms. The only thing I wish I had more time to get more colors into the values within the drapery in the background.

[Cody's raised two-point perspective drawing]

[Cody's raised two-point perspective drawing]

    In drawing today we continued to work on two-point perspective drawings, which I'm finding very helpful. This time though we had to imagine ourselves significantly higher up in the air, so our vantage point was elevated. Raising our vanishing points, the point was to see as if we were looking down on the rooms we were drawing.

[Allison's split-complimentary painting]

[Allison's two-point perspective drawing]

    

    Allison can add any of her thoughts tomorrow. I may add more as well.

     I really enjoyed my painting this week, I moved to a different area and the lighing was much stronger. I sat down so everything was above eye level. It gave it an interesting view point, and I felt like it made it more dynamic. I wish I had more time to work on it. I will probably adjust some areas that seem flat when I was running out of time in class. Class feels less frustrating as well. I do reach points where I don't know where to begin. But once I get the ball rolling things turn out pretty good (well?)

-Cody and Allison 

"Oh, I know what the ladies like." -Sgt. Avery Johnson

It's Like a Mirror, Kind Of

    Today was the last day in class to work on our self-portraits for sculpture, we have until the beginning of next class to refine it if we so choose. I'm most likely going to work on the forms that make up the hair on top/in front of my face they're too regular at the moment, but there are parts that I like.

[Cody's self-portrait in progress]

    

    I worked on further fine tuning my features, and giving myself some more squishy parts on my face. It definitely bares some resemblance to me now.

    Allison's has come a long way in the last couple weeks, I'm sure she'll have a great looking sculpture by next Tuesday. I'm proud of her.

-Cody

     My piece is frustrating me, it doesn't look like me and it's got weird features. I'm always my biggest critic but this is really making me feel like I can't see what I'm doing. I need to focus more on the pictures. I'm just carving from what I think my face looks like, in certain areas. I need better photos. I have bad photos to work off of. I want to start over... But it's due next week and I have zero time to work on it. Eyes are weird too...

    

      I never have anything good to say, why is that ? 

[Allison's self-portrait in progress]

-Allison

"Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it." -Cortana

Yesterday's Tomorrow

    We've been focusing on perspective in out drawing class for the last couple weeks now and this time we were working on two-point perspective. So we weren't staring straight at everything this time, the objects we drew mostly receded into two different vanishing points.

    I was having trouble trying to figure our where the longer orthogonal lines should recede to as they were off of our page/outside of our picture plane, but I'll just keep an eye on it. I had started one in the student commons and realized I had spent too much time on something that ended up creating a problem. So the one I've got here is a little less developed than I'd have liked since it was a bit rushed.

[Cody's two-point perspective drawing]

    I also had Digital Imaging today, and I got some work done on my crustaceous themed environment concepts, but I forgot to save them as a file type that's compatible with my software at home, so I'll have to fix that tomorrow.

    I've got half of my costume done/repaired. So tomorrow I'll be half of the Master Chief. I'll get some good pictures finally if I can. Then I've got to finish him up for the 11th, when Halo: the Master Chief Collection comes out.

-Cody

[Allison's two-point perspective drawing]

    I've done this before, and it comes pretty easy to me, so I was happy with the results of my drawing. I feel better about this drawing class now because, I re-worked my homework assignment, and brought my grade up to a B+[on the homework].

    I am a terrible sewer... seamstress... Tomorrow is Halloween, and I'm trying to sew my own costume.

-Allison

"So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view." -ObiWan Kenobi

Tomorrow's Yesterday

    Today we started another 2 week painting, this time based on a still life that was set up generally using split-complimentary color schemes. Which means that instead of the color that is directly opposite it on the color wheel[a color's compliment] it uses the two on either side of that color. Creating a more varied yet still appealing color palette.

[Cody's split-complimentary still life in progress]

    My main goal for today was to get the entire canvas covered with colors/values that were at least some approximation of what they will look like in the finished painting. I was having trouble getting stuff up to the same level of polish as I had mentioned in the past, without working it all up at closer to the same time.

    I'm going to try and get some work done on my Halloween costume here tonight, I may not get much sleep the next couple days, but I'd like to get this thing done this year. I started it two years ago around this time... I'll have more to share on Friday.

-Cody

[Allison's split-complimentary still life in progress]

Today's Yesterday

    By the time I had gotten home, and completed the few tasks I needed to for school and whatnot last night it was a little late to write up a post. I do have photos from our sculpture class yesterday. so check 'em out.

 
[Cody's self-portrait in progress]

    This was the second to last week on these, and I've moved my eyes out a bit and I'm trying to keep nudging all of my features to be even more specifically like mine. The ears still need to be finished, and I have to decide what visual language I'm going to use for my hair, but at the end I think I'll be pretty satisfied with it. Once we're completely done, and we grab some classy photos I'll try and get some in progress compared to the finished ones to share.

[Allison's self-portrait in progress]

    We [Allison, my brother Clinton, and my Mom, and Clive] also carved our pumpkins last night after school for Halloween this year. I never plan in advance, so by default all of my pumpkins look very jack-o-lanterney. As opposed to something an art student would be doing, but that's okay. It's all for fun anyways.

[Cody's pumpkin]

[Clinton's pumpkin]

[Cody, Allison, and Clinton's pumpkins]

   
    I apparently forgot to get a shot of just Allison's, but that's hers is in the shot of all three. I chose to carve Kopaka, Toa of Ice from the original Bionicle toys. Allison made a simplified Super Mario hopping into a brick, I like it, it ended up looking like an Aztec wall carving of Mario. Clinton then carved a pumpkin head fro the game Destiny.

-Cody

"There is much talk, and I have listened, through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen." -The Gravemind