Final Days

    We're down to the last full week of the semester and we've got a lot of stuff we're working on. Nearly every class has some sort of final piece/assignment due this week or the beginning of the next.

    I'm finally making headway on my actual watercolor/colored pencil piece for Illustration I. I thought both of my illustration classes assignments were going to be due tomorrow, but we have another week so I have plenty of time to get them to where I want them. Hopefully.

[fruit illustration in progress]

    I've started my final painting which is due sooner than my illustrations... but I'll get it done. Allison and I went down to my grandparents house and I had her lean against a shed/garage for  a while. I don't know why, but for my traditional work I really like long vertical compositions so that's what I went with.

[exterior with figure in progress]

    I've finally got a photo of my ogre sculpture to share, I grabbed a black wig today at the store so I can make his hair tendrils and grease it up a bit. His name is Sticky Hair after all.

[3D illustration in progress]

    He's going to be a very "non-traditional" looking ogre and I think it's going to work. We'll see by next Tuesday.

-Cody

    Busy,busy,busy. I've been working for hours on my pieces. I'm almost done with them though, considering finals are this week and next week. I've been working on my art work so much I forgot about my writing assignments. This week  I have photos of my Sculpture project, Pastel final, and Independent Drawing Projects finals. 

[kaiju sculpture in progress]

   My kaiju(monster) is being developed with the muscles now. I'm excited to work on it because its something really cool. We are doing figures in sculpture right now so this is a nice break from a human figure. I'm gonna work on it and bring out the details once I figure out the musculature. 

[pastel interior in progress]

   This pastel piece is to replicate Film Nior sense of style. I will darken the edges and finish the stairs, the light space will be in the center, and everything else will be in shadow.

[pastel and independent drawing projects work]

   The piece on the right is one of my stencil paintings/drawings. It is a mixed medium piece, and It displays a topic I truly am invested in as a feminist.  Not the " man hating" feminism...
   The background looks better than before, but still empty. I'm at the point where I'm not sure what to do, for a fear of making it worse.

[independent drawing project in progress]

This is another stencil I was working on, it is an abandoned building with employee records as the background. I'm not sure if I like this version. Luckily I have a stencil and can remake it as many times as I please! The joy of stenciling!!! 

-Allison

Circle of Life Brother... Circle of Life...

    Not too much to share tonight, I haven't been grabbing enough photos from Figure Drawing or Drawing I, but I do have some stuff from Illustration. Below is my last digital/color study before I wnet to move on to my final in watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. Which I'm actually liking a lot. I can work fairly quickly with this combination of media. the most time was spent in "pre-production" designing and actually drawing the animal/scene. 

[final color study]

    For my final I fixed my watercolor paper to some Masonite board I picked up, which is super affordable by the way, so that the paper wouldn't buckle as I painted and worked on it. I'm also going to try and use the Masonite for panels in Painting I for my final homework assignment as well as my last in class pieces.

[traditional media study and final in progress]

    For the illustration though I was feeling that the pomegranates weren't clearly symbolic enough within the piece. So I'm going to give them Byzantine style halos with orbit/planetary rings within them. Which I feel makes it more stylish and makes the fruit more evidently important. I'm going to try to actually gold leaf the circles, which should look super spiffy once it's done if I can do it correctly[I don't think I'm going to use real gold for my first try here though].

    It's odd how themes and ideas link between thoughts and actions. The main idea in this piece is very similar to something I'm writing about in my English class, the cycles of themes, thoughts, and ideas.

    Tomorrow in painting we're going to be starting some landscape painting, so I'm going to finish preparing those panels.

-Cody

Something to Show

    In my painting class we've been working on painting the figure, I had started late due to my scheduling, but I think it actually turned out very well. I'll have to take another photo of it, because the picture we got the night of the show was taken in poor lighting.

[figure in interior painting]

    I've taken to laying most of my paint down in top of my sketch and under-painting with my palette knife. I think it's because it feels so much like painting digitally, laying smooth thick colors sharply and accurately. I like this painting a lot, I'll grab a nicer photo this week.

    Friday was the Opening for the Senior Exhibition, we went and had a pretty good time. A lot of people showed up and the work was great. Everyone had a few pieces in the main gallery, which looked very nice. I feel like the real show took place in each artist's individual studio.

    All of the seniors each had decked out their own studios full of more work, their sketches, reference, and other work in progress. Seeing all of the work really gets me excited for next year and going forward where I'll have more freedom to develop my own work.

[Jaroslav's studio]

    My favorite work was Jaroslav Kosmina's, he's working on a lot of stuff that interests me. Creature design, and environment work. He's taking it more in a large fine art direction at the moment, but I feel like he's truly a designer/concept artist at heart.

[Sobura maquette and drawing]

    Jaroslav's work is technically fantastic, his creatures look believable, they definitely look like they could hold their weight and smash your towns with that weight. I've been trying to study animal anatomy some in my sketching time.

[Jaroslav's studio/work]

    Seeing work of this quality inspires me to push my drawing and designing skills even more. I want my senior show to be as good as it can be. I want my work to be good enough to get me a job/work after I graduate. So I want to spend as much time as I can outside of working learning even more.

    If you want to check out Jaroslav's work head over to his Facebook Page. 

-Cody

    There are many things wrong with my figure in the image down below. I fully understand that. We just started working on them on Friday with a live model. I'm filling in her arms still and her breasts are still too small. I keep focusing on local sizing comparisons not overall sizing comparisons. Her neck is too thin and I've been working my way right to left, I tend to do that with almost all of my sculpture pieces.

    I'm in the middle of a "What am I going to do with my life" crisis, so I'm trying to straighten my self out by working harder. A few people talked to me yesterday about getting my butt in gear. I'm feeling down about how far I've gotten, and what I was suppose to do to become successful. I'll keep you updated on what I figure out. 

[Allison's figure sculpture in progress]

-Allison

Interior Drawings

    Not much to share today, Allison and I each did one "finished" interior in charcoal for Drawing I. I'm trying to push away the lines in these to gain more space in the drawing, I still need to push more. Working on my final homework assignment and more interiors in ink next week should help. I do love working with lines though.

[Cody's charcoal interior]

    I've got some Perspective homework and hopefully some drawing for myself to do tonight so I'm gonna' get to it.

-Cody

    I found this one room in the Sill House and its so lovely, I'm so drawn to it. It has green walls and these gorgeous windows with shutters. There are two sculptures on the filing cabinets and I've drawn it twice now. This charcoal drawing is the second time I've drawn it. I'm cropping it though, I made the window too big. Although the left window was bigger than the right, It's just TOO big.

    I will post a photo of my pastel version for another day. I have pieces to upload and I'm going to start some scheduled posts so I don't forget to write on the blog. 

[Allison's charcoal interior]

-Allison

Catching Up

    It's been a while since I've been able to get a post in, I've even been claiming there'd be new ones and not being able to find time. We're in the last month of this semester now and I can't believe it. With all of the work for classes and the holiday we've been pretty busy. I've got a few things to show, but not too much. I may do a semester re-cap/best of each media or subject at the end of the year.

    In both of my Illustration courses we've started on our last project, in Illustration I I'll be doing another watercolor, this time with colored pencils as well. We were assigned to do something interesting with a fruit. I chose a pomegranate and there's a theme of rebirth/reintegration I'm playing with.

[fruit illustration color study]

    Before I started on my final version I took my sketch into photoshop and did a quick color study to try and get the mood and lighting I was going for. I like how this looks, to be honest I think I'll have a hard time re-creating the same feeling traditionally.

[3D illustration concepts]

    In Special Topics in Illustration we have to create a 3D piece of work[sculpture] and then photograph it as the final illustration, choosing a scene/story from a book. I've recently been reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and in it there is a story about Prince Five-Weapons and how he defeats and ogre named Sticky Hair. In the story any attack or weapon used to try and harm the ogre traditionally sticks to him[hence his name]. I thought it would be interesting to have the hair as active part of the fight flowing as if it were underwater at all times. So the hero and his 5 weapons will be suspended in mid[h]air.

    I'll be starting the actual sculpture this week so we'll see how it goes, we're supposed to use Sculpey because it's fast and bakes in the oven to harden. I'm not sure how I'll like it compared to oil based clay.

[plaster figure painting in progress]

    In painting I did this small piece working from a cast, with my painting class split up I don't have as much time as I'd like, but I'm still learning. Hopefully my schedule for next year will be smoother and I'll be able to sharpen/polish up my paintings.

[pencil figure drawing]

    This was the last figure drawing we did in Drawing I, I decided to do it in pencil for something different. There are things I like and dislike, but I love drawing in pencil. If I can't choose digital, I would probably choose my mechanical pencil. 

    I've finally started getting in the extra figure drawing sessions at school, hopefully it can start to help and I can get motivated/back into the swing of working on my own stuff soon. It may not happen often until classes end.

-Cody

      These are some figure drawings from class, the one on the left is meant to be over exaggerated. and the one on the right is in watercolor. I'm terrible at small details and watercolor layering. It's a difficult medium and I've come to accept that I don't like using it, and it doesn't like me. 

[Allison's figure drawings]

    This Friday is the opening reception of the Senior Studio Exhibition from 6:00-8:00 P.M. If you live nearby and can make it I'm sure it's going to be a great show.