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

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