real-life pinboard

as i mentioned in the last post, it's been a little slow starting my project. the other day i was having a hard time visualizing what i wanted some of my pieces to look or feel like. so i perused my art pinboard, and decided to make a physical one, which really helped. i also took screen shots of music videos, paintings i've already done, and other random stuff that helped my ideas grow into something substantial, and printed those off too. there's something about stuff coming off the screen and being tangible that is somehow empowering.

i put some of them next to thumbs for pieces that i'm creating, as some inspiration. inspiration is great, not just for subject matter but for techniques, color schemes, and compositional ideas. as long as we remember the difference between inspiration and imitation.

most of these images are from my online pinboard, plus the hundley and mucha books.

now i just have to find my paintbrushes and acrylic paints, both crucial elements which i seem to have legitimately lost. nope, i'm not freaking out about it....... #lies

it's time to begin

it is high time that i tell you i'm working on my illustration bfa final show.

i'm partially terrified because i've taken a sort of art-hiatus since...january...because i needed to put more emphasis on other important parts of my life that i'd been neglecting. i learned lots of valuable things that aren't necessarily art-related, but life-related, so i think it counts. and so the bfa project has been going super slow.

but --

i made swanky little calendars today to strike [motivational] fear into my heart.

i fake-graduated college two weeks ago (as in, i walked).
i quit my graphic design job that i've had for 4.5 years.
i'm putting my photography jobs on hold.

i'm going to treat this project like a full-time job.
it's going up november 1, so be excited....

a study i did on monday. i'm rusty, but that feeling of creating is coming back, which provides great fuel. 

confession

so...i kind of haven't really done art in like...um...six months. i got really burned out and needed a break. then life just got crazy with health and home problems. sooo now i'm trying to graduate! yesterday i went to two figure drawing classes just to get back into it. it was super helpful but also really hard because i've digressed so much. below is one drawing i did. it has a ton of proportion issues as well as other stuff. but i need to just post it so that i'm obligated and accountable to get better. i just need to start drawing again; i'm hoping the skills will eventually come back.

my first full-length figure drawing in...a year? 

exhausted after attending those classes and two meetings regarding my final bfa show, i ran into my wonderful friend and fellow illustrator melissa, who asked me if i'd like to "play art". the tired, puzzled look on my face told her she needed to expound on that idea, and she explained that it's her term for doing art just for fun. i had kind of forgotten about that novel idea. below is what i drew in the few minutes i had. it was fun and low-pressure exploratory and very imperfect. a good re-start. (while i did that, she was busy with THIS. clearly, she's been keeping busy with her art and it certainly pays off!) 

s o l o // s h o w ::

so i probably should have announced this awhile ago, but i have a solo show up in downtown provo! it went up on may 4 as part of what was formerly called the first friday downtown gallery stroll, and is now the art chase.

the opening on the 4th was great; a lot of people showed up as it got going, and there were some live performers, which i loved. humus, veggies and crackers made it a party. and i really couldn't have pulled it all together without the help of my friends and support of my family.

so, even if you missed the opening, it's still up for two more weeks! probably til may 29. i hope you can make it! if you come, please sign the little book there by my business cards, so that i know you came. :)

information is here and directions are here, compliments of jake parker's iphone.

{before the art was on the wall.
go check out the after at The IN: 44 W Center Street, Suite 301} 

family portraits video

just thought i'd check in and show you one of the freelance projects i completed mid-november 2011. clearly, i'm pretty behind in posting!

the client had already created his website, but wanted an illustrative logo for his company as well as an illustration based off of the logo. the company is a "small video production company" that creates "journalistic-style story telling, on-site videography, artful editing, and musical underscoring to [their] clients". pretty cool concept.

he was very specific and knew exactly what he wanted: a generic-looking tree. it needed to have a family-tree feeling.

sooo i created those. and then came the illustration (which had to be delivered in layers; he wanted to animate it so that the trunk came first, then the branches, fruit, etc). because the animation was going from logo morphing into full illustration (or something like that...i don't quite remember now), i had to place the illustration and logo in the exact same place in their frames. it took a bit of doing. here are the final images:

i also offered some branding consultation regarding typography, colors schemes, and layout. i'm excited to see how the company will turn out.

maybe sometime i'll post my experiments from this project (some of which are kinda cool). maybe. sometime. :)

a different painting process

i just came across my phone pictures, and found a few process photos that i took. they're not great quality, but it's interesting to see how a piece comes about. sometimes.

this was from bob barrett's head painting class last year. i love taking classes from multiple artists, because the techniques are always different. i try to emulate each professor and eventually i find what works for me and what doesn't. for example, in justin taylor's class, we often started with tight drawings underneath. in bob's class, we painted directly onto the canvas as shown below. 

similar to figure drawing, i found that i painted these best when i blocked in whatever was most obvious to me in the particular composition. in this 3-hour study, there was a strong light/shadow contrast. so i blocked in the darks and background first, because they were most prominent. the background created a cradle for the shape of her face. then i was able to work my way into refining the edges and shapes.

the end result may look familiar, because it was shown in this post.

that family class

remember this post? it was from justin taylor's head painting class. first off, justin taylor is an excellent artist (i want to paint like him!) and just an all-around stud. secondly, my classmates and our models were great. in fact, my tiny class was like a little family. or a therapy group. probably both.

after we practiced drawing for a good chunk of the semester, we started to paint. (dangit, i was supposed to post the drawings first but they're too light to photograph; i'll have to scan them. so you'll see this process backwards)

i really jive with justin's painting style: it's very drawing-oriented. when we eventually began painting, we did a drawing of our models first, transferred it to our substrate, then painted monochromatic over it, like you see in the first painting here. justin demoed on my drawing, so i finished fairly quickly and did another painting straight onto the board after (which is on the right):

then we did some studies without drawing first.
meet david. he has an awesome neck. 

then we did a series of short 20-minute paintings (left). eventually, we delved into color (right). 

(our model amanda is great, so though i'm really not a fan of this particular piece on the right, i put it up for her sake)....

...after we added white to our monochromatic paintings.

(i had to end with my favorites of this batch)

of course, we had a final project in full color, which was more conceptual in nature, and i finished it...two and a half months later. well, finished-ish. you'll see soon enough.