Judge, Jury and Exhibition or First Show of the Year

    Last Night Allison and I attended the Juried Student Exhibition's opening reception. The show was great and there was a pretty good turn out for the opening. A few people spoke briefly and very fancy yet fairly bland hor d'oeuvres were served, but that's not what the show was about. It's about art. I recognized a lot of work that I had seen classmates and fellow students working on over the semester, but I also saw a good number of pieces I hadn't.

[Allison and her painting titled, An Apple a Day Bring the Teapots to Play]

    Allison and I each had a piece in the show, her a painting and I a sculpture. Allison's dad came to the show as did my mom and step-dad. Which was very nice, and I always appreciate anyone coming to see my art, but I was surprised to see someone I hadn't in a very long time. My elementary school art teacher and painter Rosemary Palmer[Mrs/ Palmer to me] and her husband came to show. I always had loved her classes and she helped me get into summer classes at Lyme while I was still in elementary school.

[Cody and his sculpture titled, Pair of Pants]

    It was good to see her, my art teachers have always encouraged me to do what I like and keep on arting. So I have, hopefully it'll all pay off someday. I definitely feel like I belong doing art and around other people who share the same passion as I do. 

[Cody and Allison]

    I'm also glad to be here with Allison, she's already fallen asleep for the night she was drawing for a good chunk of the day it must have tired her out. I'm very happy to be able to share my love of art and love for her in the same place. We may have very different goals with our art, hers fine and mine of design, but art comes in many different forms.

    In my painting class we have started another still life, though it's not just a bunch of boxes and shapes this time. It is of a human skull and a few other objects. Influenced by vanitas paintings, which were still lives/studies with a meaning as well. Usually about the mortality of man, represented by an extinguished candle as in ours.

[vanitas still life]

    I most of the afternoon working on the drawing, and starting the under painting. I didn't spend enough time on my last painting focused on looking at the object in front of me. So I'm making sure to do that now.

-Cody

Studying Studies

    We had a full day of drawing today, we're still working with charcoal in a combination of additive/subtractive manners. I've liked working on the toned paper we have all around the school so I'll keep using it for now. We worked on a bust and a pile of human features. 

[charcoal bust study]

    I was kind of struggling with the white on the toned paper. I was using a white charcoal pencil so my marks were very small and precise. I'm going to try and grab some larger sticks of white and play with that as well. It was starting to look okay there's just a little too many evident marks.

[charcoal feature study]

    We had to do an old master copy for homework for today. I feel okay about it, but we always have more time to re-work it and learn/improve.

[old master study]

    Our show is tomorrow night at the school, so if you're in the area and looking to see some art stop by! Annual Juried Student Exhibition from 6:00 - 8:00 P.M.

-Cody

    There is not much to say about these drawings for this entry. I loved working in white charcoal though. I also feel like I'm falling back into old habits of not checking things and measuring proportions.

    The image below is of some hands and feet. I enjoyed working on both these pieces but I felt more relaxed with the hand and used a relaxed gesture while drawing. 

-Allison

"Ka-Wham! Look at that!" -Susan[our drawing instructor]

Finding a Path of My Own

    With all the snow around I didn't have much class the last two days, so I've been taking time to redirect/reevaluate where I want to be with my art when I'm leaving school in a couple years here. So I'm making sure I'm working on my own style and artistic voice outside of my classwork. I always feel as though I'm learning in class, but I want to see it reflected in my concept/design work.

[prop design sketches]

    I want to traditional/fundamental skills I'm learning to inform my designs and hopefully it can make them that much better/more appealing. I was sketching  a lot last night and today while doing so, and talking to my brother who also wants to get into art. My goal is to have a new portfolio-worthy design every week or so now. I'm need to spend more time and thought getting them done.

[vehicle design sketches]

    I'm trying to work on my line work in photoshop, I have trouble achieving the same confident and bold mark making that I have on paper. I'll get there though. That said my goal for next Friday is to have a portfolio worthy vehicle design page done. Now I need to start looking for some freelance work/internship opportunities for the summer.

    Don't forget Friday is the opening reception for the Annual Juried Student Exhibition from 6:00 - 8:00 P.M.

-Cody

Back Into the Swing of Things

    Here we go, another reasonably scheduled update for anyone taking a look/reading. This week has been busy as I've said, yesterday I had drawing, and today I had perspective and painting today.

    In drawing we've been working with charcoal, which I have some experience with, but I don't feel like it's one of my strongest mediums. I'm going to use some charcoal pencils as well as the vine charcoal[light sticks of charcoal] to get into some harder, darker mark making.

[charcoal reflective study]

    We prepared the surface first by covering the page with a neutral tone, so that we could work in both a reductive and additive manner. The plane that the coffee pots are sitting on is a little off, but the pots themselves look reflective enough to me. Working with vine charcoal is very soft and smudgy, I like harder forms of charcoal, but this is very helpful to learn with.

[charcoal glass study]

    Since the vine is so soft, it's very easy to move around and make corrections very quickly simply by wiping it away. This one works a little better compositionally, though it's mostly centered. Our last drawings we did for the day were of drapery, which I find very fun to draw, I love all the angles and harsh shadows they can contain.

[charcoal drapery study]

    This one may not be the best spatially, but i feel that its texture and movement make it a successful study. I was struggling to get the light source more obvious, on colored paper I could have used white charcoal or cante. Good thing we get to start using some white next week.

    I've got plenty to keep me busy tonight/most nights and this weekend, with homework for drawing, painting, illustration and English. 

    Next Friday is the opening reception for the Annual Juried Student Exhibition. The show will feature work by students in all majors, including Allison and myself. The reception is Friday January 30, from 6:00 - 8:00 P.M. The Show will remain open until the 28 of March, normally open from 10:00 A,M. - 4:00 P.M in the Stillman Gallery.

    I invite anyone in the are to come see the show, there should be a lot of good work to see.

-Cody

"The sun is only a god, in perspective we control the sun. That must make us super-gods." -Skyfather Zallinger

    

Busy Working

    Sorry for a lack of updates both Allison and I have a lot of classes getting going right now. So we have a lot of work to get done, which means we also have a bunch to share when we get time to. I'll just post a few here from Painting I, and History of Illustration that I've done this week.

[Cody's Thomas Nast study]

    I'm very much liking the Illustration classes that I have this semester, History of Illustration should be fun. We're moving through a huge time period from the 1800s up until modern day. In the middle of lecturing to keep us from losing focus our instructor Dale has been having us draw some of the pieces in his presentations. This is part of a political piece by Thomas Nast.

    I'm developing a very cool idea in Special Topics in Illustration, we have to redesign a book cover with some form of assemblage and I'm redesigning The Covenant of Primus. Which is a book in/about the history of the Transformers.

   

[Cody's portrait cast painting in progress]

    In painting we're working on painting white figures, and portraits at the same time. I meant to just paint the shadows, and mid tones in a cooler color, but got a little carried away. So right now my whole painting is very blue. When I come back to it on Friday afternoon I'll have to warm up the lighter planes.

    Allison still doesn't have wi-fi in the townhouse at school so she asked me to relay something brief for her.

Allison has a class called Independent Drawing Projects, in which she essentially has free studio time with critiques once a week intended to get students used to working freely on their own ideas. She had her first critique for the class today, and got the impression that her work isn't good enough. Which isn't the right thing to come out of a critique with. We were talking about it after her class and she's not so worried about creating her work for other people to like, for herself, and to take the criticisms that are valid, and not take other comments too seriously.

    I know she'll do just fine in the class, and create great work like I know she can. She just needs a little more confidence and intent behind her work.

-Cody

Keep On Painting On...

    Today was the second day of classes, and the first of my 3 returning classes. I have Painting I in the morning today, and the afternoon Friday. We'll see how it works, today we just worked on a small color still life to get back into the swing of things while people got re-adjusted.

[Cody's color still life]

    I also had History of illustration, and English Literature today. I'm actually pretty excited for both classes, I just want to get into it, I'm already tired of getting handed more syllabi. Yesterday I had Special Topics in Illustration, and Illustration I. I'm excited to get into more classes closer to my alley. I kind of feel like I'm a little outside of the fine art though wanting to do concept/design work though.

    I'm also worried about getting the rest of the funds to pay for the semester by the 1st. So I'm headed to the financial aid office tomorrow. If I were to put some paintings/prints for sale would anyone be interested in buying anything to help out? I'll figure something more specific by the end of the week.

-Cody

    Today I started classes because I don't have class on Tuesdays. I had three , Independent Drawing Projects, which I'm very excited for, Contemporary Art Critique, and Mythology. I am in a classroom from 8:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M. ...Wednesday is going to be a busy, hungry day for me. I worked on a project today in class and I didn't take any pictures so I'll figure something out to show you guys. 

      I'm also moving into the housing on campus. The date is still being set but with good luck I'll be moving in on Sunday. It is frustrating to not know who my roomates are going to be and what items I need to buy if we don't have anything. I kinda hope I move into a new unit with people and not move into a unit with people who already live there because then I don't wanna intrude on how they do things and I can't decorate as much. Oh well... 

    More updates soon!

-Allison

"Wide enough to hug 33 people, shoulder to shoulder." -Evolve Dev Team speaking of Behemouth

Spring Ahead

    I know it's not time to change our clocks yet, but tomorrow is the first day of our spring semester at Lyme. I'm excited to get back to school, and back to work. On painting, drawing, my own stuff, and on our blog here.

    I have some classes that carry over, and some new classes as well. I can't wait to start my Illustration classes this week. I have two tomorrow alone! Special Topics in Illustration, and Illustration I. As a transfer my classes don't fit the plan exactly so I'm skipping Intro to Illustration, and the second half of Sculpture I for now. I'll have to squish them in next year.

[a sketch of an Australian mythical creature for @sketch_dailies on Twitter]

    Hopefully my illustration classes can keep me motivated to push myself/my art even further. It's something I always struggle with. Even when I have projects I can be working on. Like one that Allison, and I are starting together for her Uncle. We were asked to work on designing some logos, and t-shirt designs. So we'll have some of that to share soon.

    Right now though, I'm going to take out the trash and head to bed soon so I can get to class on time tomorrow. I hope everyone had a good holiday/break.

-Cody