Summer Work

    I finally have some time to work on some art and share what I'm up to. I've been drawing/sketching most days, but until this weekend I hadn't buckled down. So I've got a plan to keep myself working every day.

    I'm still working with a friend of a friend on a game project, it's shifted away from the armadillo character, but that's alright. We're gaining steam and more team members so I'm looking forward to working on it more. I had misunderstood what the art direction for a character and I ended up with something sci-fi and we're actually going with high fantasy...

[unapproved centaur knights]

    Last week I did a spitpaint[30 minute speedpaint] based on the prompt "fish car", I've been watching Design Cinema videos by a great concept artist and teacher Feng Zhu lately. So I essentially did a quick exercise he suggests of re-skinning something with the attributes of another. Hence the fish shuttle.

[fish "car" spitpaint]

    I actually sat down to do some re-skinning sketches and there are what I came up with. I'm trying to pay more attention to perspective, but I know I can do even better. I do like what I ended up with though. It's all good practice. I'll push myself more in the coming weeks. 

[fish inspired spacecraft]

    I still plan to photograph all of my work from the 2 semesters at Lyme, but I'm not too good with my camera, so I'm waiting until Allison gets back from her trip.

    While she's gone though I start my new job at Lyme Academy, I'll be monitoring the digital studio and helping out faculty with summer courses for high school students all summer. I'm pretty excited, it's a little closer to my end job than the meat department is.

-Cody

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.

Back at Bat

    We're back in town from our vacation in Colorado, we had a lot of fun and I got a little bit of work done on my homework so I'm catching up to where I need to be. I'll be back into the swing of things by the end of the week here. hopefully with regular blog posts and more digital work because I now have a new tablet! It's a cintiq 21ux and I love it, being able to see exactly where my hand is takes so much pressure off of my brain I can use for thinking about what I'm drawing rather than how.

[gargoyle concept]

    I'm trying a sketch a day again with gargoyles this time. I'll probably just post up all seven as one post on Sunday, rather than rush to draw and post them every day here. I did this one with the new tablet though. I can't wait to keep working and get back into working digitally more often.

    I've got some illustration stuff I'm working on and even finished, but alas they're in the wrong file type so my photoshop cs2 won't read them. I should have some work to share later this week for my other classes though. I'm trying to get back into doing work for Project Contingency the Halo fan game I was doing concepts for a while back. We'll see what's going on there.

-Cody

Transformation...

     I haven't had the chance to share most of my work in my illustration classes this semester. So I've scanned some of my sketches from yesterday in Illustration I. For this assignment we have to show some form of transformation within the composition. So I've designed a landscape/environment where these large rocks[natural formations] are being pulled down into these receptacles[technological structures].

[transformative sketches]

    At first I was playing with different compositions for the rock formations, that I'm basing off of Asian scholar rocks. The final piece will be done in ink and watercolor, but to figure out what color scheme I wanted I worked on it in photoshop for a bit.

[transformative sketch]

    I don't know if I'll be able to achieve the same effect in watercolors, but we'll see. I have all of break to do studies and finish it up. Along with my tarot card that I shared sketches for before. I won't have my tablet with me because my laptop doesn't work. When I get home from break though I should have a brand new Cintiq coming in to learn on. I can't wait to see where my hand is drawing when I'm working digitally. It looks like there's more transforming here than just in my pieces. Hopefully it can show in my work/production.

    I'll make a point to share my progression these two pieces. Maybe I'll do a sketch a day while I'm there traditionally. Any Suggestions on a theme?

-Cody

Late Night Catch Up

    It's a little late tonight, but I wanted to share something before I head to bed. We've had a busy weekend, with even more snow. Then this coming weekend we'll be flying out to Colorado to visit family and friends for a week!

    Last Thursday in Drawing we had our first figure model in class, we worked on everything up starting with short gesture drawings to a longer 40 minute-ish pose. I don't remember how long each of these are, but I chose 3 for each of us to share tonight.

[figure drawing by Cody]


[figure drawing by Cody]


[figure drawing by Cody]

    It's been a long time since I've done any figure drawing any I had missed it. I need to get in on the extra figures sessions after break.

-Cody

    I'm so excited to draw the figure. I had a lot of fun with the gesture drawings and there was a lot of great poses our model did. As for other classes, I'm doing a self portrait in my pastels class and a reproduction of a masters piece I want to copy. I will have to work on my homework In Colorado over break. I'm going to be missing a lot of work Friday when we leave and Monday when we come back, I'm not really prepared to work on art homework across the country. I'm going to have to figure a way to compromise.

   We are currently working on the figure in sculpture as well. So I have to make a small figure and finish my skeleton/musculature for the next time I have class. Which will be hard to catch up on.

[figure drawing by Allison]

[figure drawing by Allison]

[figure drawing by Allison]

-Allison

Another Week Past

    Once again we've been pretty busy this week and here's a bigger post. Hopefully we can get back into the swing of everything next week again. I have some new Illustration work in progress and finished that I'll try to photograph this weekend. I have trouble in my house getting quality photos of my work.

    First here is my first portrait for Painting class out of the two. They're not as developed as I'd like because I'm splitting my time between two models, but I'm pretty satisfied with this one. I had a lot of trouble getting her strong cheekbone and jawline to resemble hers. It was a defining factor in capturing her likeness and I think I missed it, but that's okay. I've never painted anyone like this before so I'm struggling with the face. It's my weakest point.

[Cody's portrait painting]

    In drawing we were doing more charcoal last week, though with white on a "toned" or colored surface. I had two, but my second one was not good at all. I tried to do a whole value drawing with charcoal pencils and it just didn't work the way I had intended. This one works well though, it looks a lot more like the model than my painting does to that model.

[Cody's charcoal/chalk portrait]

    As I mentioned I finished my second assignment for Illustration I, which was an ink/ink wash piece that I ended up really liking. I'll share more about it when I've got pictures... I feel like I had more work to share from last week, but I guess minus a drawing and a painting in progress and that's it for now.

    Tomorrow after Drawing Allison, my brother Clinton and I are going to see Emily Kinney of The Walking Dead sing/perform at the casino near here. Hopefully we can get into line early enough to meet her and get something signed. I have no idea what to expect, it should be fun either way though.

-Cody

    It's been a while ! It's been non-stop work for me. Between my independent drawings and drawing classes I've been producing a lot of work. I will post a section soon of all of the work. We had a hard time posting this week so we decided to create a huge post. 

       

     The first two are white charcoal pieces of a model. They both look like different models, but like the model... The brown piece was my second one and the blue was the first. I'm trying harder to measure where the features are. So I think the second one was more successful.

[Allison's charcoal/chalk portrait]


[Allison's charcoal/chalk portrait]

    Below is a drawing from my pastels class. Which I've had three times now, out of 7weeks. This image looks too vibrant. It's not so vibrant with the crazy bright colors. It loses its blend of color that way. 

[Allison's chalk pastel still-life]

    I've got great ideas for pieces, but they only seem great until I execute them. My Independent Drawing Projects class has a lot of abstract artists. So the feedback I recieve is more abstract based, which is unfortunate. 

-Allison 

"Any picture that needs a caption is a weak picture." -Harvey Dunn

A Bit of Backup

    I've got some homework for Drawing to finish up so I won't type very much, but I've got some work to share.

    In Special Topics in Illustration we've been assigned to illustrate a Tarot card of our choice. I chose the Wheel of Fortune for something different, and I'm taking it in a science fantasy direction. I did my sketches in photoshop, but the final will be some sort of mixed traditional media piece.

[wheel of fortune tarot card sketches]

    I'll probably mess around with watercolors to get the nice textured space/galaxy that I'll want. I'm leaning towards one of the two on the left... with the one on the right in 3rd.

    For Painting I we're doing portraits from live models, because of my split schedule I'll be doing two paintings with half the time for each. So we'll see how they go. I think I'll be alright.

[portrait painting in progress]

[portrait painting in progress]

    I've got another piece that I've been working on for Illustration I that I'm liking a lot, but I don't have any photos yet. Maybe tomorrow.

-Cody

Something to Share

     I can't think of anything interesting to start off with, but I do have some work to share. Today in drawing we had our first in class model. We worked on charcoal portraits all day, I ended up with one I think came out pretty well and the other started off poorly. I ended up not finishing it up.

    I tried to spend a lot of time looking at the way his face was truly shaped and in the end I actually captured a pretty good likeness. He was looking a bit like Keith David when I was about halfway in, but I pulled it back to the model.

[Cody's charcoal portrait]

    Yesterday was our last day in painting for our most recent still life, I still think parts of it work alright and others don't. The skull is something I may come back to, most of it is painted in an entirely different manner than anything else.

[Cody's vanitas still life]

    Tomorrow I've got Perspective and I guess we're starting a new painting. I better see what size canvas I'm going to need...

-Cody

    This was the first time we've done a figure in drawing class. I've done them before at TRCC, but I'm still rusty with portraits. I believe it came out better than I expected. I ran into a bad spot though and had to re-size the whole head. Which I was relieved to have done so easily. When things are messed up in my drawings I usually have to do so much to make it correct because I forget to measure things properly. This was an easy fix and I'm glad I made the decision to.  My work isn't as smooth as I'd like it to be. But I also am satisfied with how painterly it looks and how my hand applies the marks.

[Allison's charcoal portrait]

-Allison

"Were it so easy" -The Arbiter[Keith David]

For the Longest Time

    We've gotten a lot of work for school done lately, the downside being we haven't had time to share anything.

    Tonight though, we do.

    Last week I had continued working on my still life in painting, I've got a lot of the skull painted in now. I'm happy with parts of it and not satisfied with others, tomorrow hopefully I can finish it strongly. Some of the sharper planes look good, I know the darker planes don't read as well.

[vanitas still life]

    In Special Topics in Illustration we were tasked with redesigning the cover of a book and I chose to do the Covenant of Primus. Essentially it's the Transformers bible in their universe. In ours it was a book released that tells the story of the creation of Cybertron and the original 13 Primes.

    Right when I started my sketches I knew that I wanted the cover to be metal, 3D, blocky and weathered. I decided to use the ancient Autobot logo split in half on the cover Which is still iconic, yet not blaringly Transformersey. 

[the Covenant of Primus]

    Making the whole thing out of metal looks great, but I struggled to weather/beat it up in the manner I had intended. Overall I think it turned out pretty successfully, I am going to work on it a little more on my own.

[the Covenant of Primus]

    The Cybertronian text could be more integrated into the metal and I think the weathering would have helped. I may also play with burning/indenting the text into the cover.

[the Covenant of Primus "print cover"]

    We also had to present a cover that would be printed on the mass retail version of the book as well. I need to retake the photo and add the "real world" title/author once I work on it further. This is how the book was turned in/critiqued today though. I'm fairly proud with how it turned out, but holding in it hand and looking at it all around really makes it feel successful.

    I also completed my self-portrait for Illustration I and got the half tone on it, it looks pretty cool in person.

[halftone self-portrait]

    The digital version just doesn't do it justice. I'm working on sketching/planning out my next assignment for Illustration today I'll share that when I've got more set in stone. Tuesdays are my favorite days right now, spending all day working on assignments and critiquing work much more aligned with what I want to do is very motivating.

-Cody

    Today I worked on my piece Independent Drawing Projects, which is going to be two collages. Mixed with another form of medium. I did a lot of cleaning today, I don't have class on Tuesdays. I'm also thinking about applying to be the RA so I made a resume today with a cover letter. I hope I get the job. But I also know there is a lot of responsibility and you have to be available all the time. I'm working on a lot of homework this week. I'm overloaded and I've been working on stuff for hours today. 

    I'll take photos soon. But here is a poor quality photo for now of my latest project.

[self-portrait collage in progress]

-Allison