summer updates
Sadly I haven’t been doing much art this summer but just as an update I’ve been learning a termendous amount of information about art since the summer has started. The last few weeks I’ve been an unpaid intern at the Indianapolis museum of Art and so far it’s been one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done. I wish it could be my job to be a conservationalist at the museum, I think every day would be interesting and new. I’ve been working under the jurisdiction of the IMA’s head textile conservationalist lately and it’s been amazing. I’ve been practicing lottts of sewing- learning about what threads are best for what purposes and how you shouldn’t stitch perfectly, but purposefully, and how you should never never use knots in sewing and never never use pens in the museum! pencils only! Everyday I learn so much and realize more and more how perfect conservation is for me. I don’t care about the pay, I could live my life with this sort of job and never regret it becuase there’s nothing I’d ever be more suited to do.
I hope everyone who reads this has been having a summer as amazing as mine! Don’t ever loose passion for the things that you love!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Le Tombeau De Couperin
Dreams vs. Reality
The category I chose for my second to last project was dreams vs. reality. I loved it, because it gave me a chance to explore a concept that I’ve been working on for a few years, but with more emphasis in the past semester. On the outset, my piece is of a whale swimming/floating in a school gym (representative of my high school gym in Indianapolis) with a boarder around the image of piano music. Every element of the piece was carefully thought through though. To get to the basis of my concept you have to know a bit about me and my intense dislike for crowds- my friends know me as the girl who passes out at concerts and panics when surrounded by too many people; I can easily become overheated and overwhelmed in crowds. So in high school, school functions like assemblies or basketball games etc. were not terribly bad but they were not always my favorite either. When I would sit in the stands bored and slightly assaulted by all the noise and action around me I would just let my mind wander and try to find calm places…and one day I suppose I was thinking of the beach and had a brilliant vision in my mind of a sea creature floating through my gym. I do not think I ever explored the concept further and it lay dormant until this past year when it reemerged. I finally felt like I had the skill to make that dream into a reality in my art- I wanted to make something beautiful and calming and majestic. I really still want to paint it, big and with people, but for now I like how I’ve explored the concept.
I did a lot of research for this project- a lot of printing out pictures of gyms and getting books with photography on whales and lots and lots of sketches. I even had to start one draft of my “final” piece over, luckily that was earlier on. In the end my major decisions were to use pen to really get the piece organized and add depth, and use watercolour over it- even with all my research I just do not have the resources yet to make the piece how I want entirely in colour. I made the whale transparent by allowing the lines of the gym behind it to show through- thus giving it a dream-like quality. I enhanced the space the whale was in by watercolouring the floor with light reflections like one would find on an underwater surface and giving the whole piece a blue-toned aquatic feel.
Around the main image I explored the concept further by adding a new element- music. I transferred pieces of piano composed by Ravel and Chopin that I particularly like; piano music is often very relaxing to me- perfect for a calm, underwater scene. The music is not easily legible and its composition adds visual interest around the boarder of the piece. It could be compared to whale song- beautiful but as far as I am aware, we still cannot decipher it. The boarder was toned a light blue to tie it in with the gym/whale images, and an additional white boarder was reveled after tape was removed to finish the entire piece.
Enjoy! And sorry for the stuffy language, I had to do a report on it too.
A disclaimer though, my camera really didn’t capture the true colours of the piece- the picture I have up will be changed once I have a better version- there are more nuances to the colours than in the picture- more shades and much much more vibrant. And I’m sorry it’s a bit blurry! Better picture soon!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: cathedral, gym, le tombeau de couperin, underwater, whale
Maya
Recently I went to a reception at Westwood Gallery at Purdue University- the gallery is situated in the conference room at Purdue’s President Cordova’s house. It’s always amazing to see my work on display and I feel particularily proud of this piece- it was the only piece that I made second semester freshman year that I really liked. So here, homage to my beautiful friend Maya, and here’s an overview of my process in creating the piece.
Inspiration:
taken during spring break my seniour year in highschool (2007) in Chicago.
First sketch:
Process:
Gallery!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Current project…whales
:)
this is one I’m very excited about… I have a lot of work to be done on it (I should be working now! I have one more project to get done also..with one week to do both) buttt I’ve gotten really distracted just having fun drawing whales..
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Axolotyls and Bicycles
My latest completed project was one many artists in school have to do- the transformation. Basically you choose one object (we had to have something organic and something mechanical) to slowly transform in a sequence of images from one to the other- we had to have 7 or 8 frames. To be honest, I wasn’t very excited about the project at all but once I chose my objects and did some sketches, it got a lot better. I chose things that I had a personal connection to (for motivation duh…no one ever wants to draw something meaningless to them, at the very least you gotta be intrested/intregued)- an axolotyl and an old fashioned bike:
I chose the axolotyl because my friend worked in a lab with them during the summer and they’re basically the oddest creatures ever, like strait out of someone’s imagination. The only mechanical thing that I felt interested enough in doing was a bike and when I came across an image of an old fashioned one I thought it would be wierd enough to pair well with the axolotyl.
Here are some preliminary sketches:
and the final!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: axolotyl, old bicycle, transformation, watercolour
I’ve finished the pineapple!
first background:
Not so good.
Soooo I chose a simpler rout and couldn’t be happier:
Filed under: art, painting, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: pineapple
Non-encaustic Transfer
So, parallel to doing all of my encaustic-based transfers in Painting, I learned more about simple acetone based transfers in Illustration. Premise of this is quite similar- the shittier your printer ink, the better the resultJ. I didn’t take any pictures of the process unfortunately, but the basic steps are as follows:
1) Figure out what you want to do with your images, and keep in mind that they’ll be mirrored when you actually transfer them- composition needs to be thought out a bit.
2) Lay down the image where you want it (terribly difficult, I know.)
3) Pour some acetone based nail polish (or even just pure acetone for even better results) on a cotton ball and dab it on to a small part of your image- btw it may be better to tape down the image for this process.
4) Get a spoon or any hard surface and, with pressure, rub downward on the paper- this causes the acetone to bring forth the ink and bond it to the paper, just be careful not to decimate the original paper in the process.
5) Once you’ve covered the whole area take off the image and voila! Transferred J
I wish I had pictures! Take a moment and try it for yourself though, transfers can be made to look super neat and can help you make quick cards or gifts that your friends and family would appreciate.
My specific project doesn’t show too much of the transfers that I originally used- ruins of a French cathedral, bombed during one of the World Wars. My parents took photos of the place and it just had such an ethereal feel, I had to use them somehow. I ended up using watercolors over the images to enhance what was transferred, and, as it was an inking project, I also inked bricks and bits into the wall to make the piece more mine.
Side note, I know I ramble about art sometimes- if you get bored with my words just check out the images; they and your reaction to them is what truly counts.
After the walls were transferred, I had planned to transfer more images from a stock I have left over from my last encaustic pieces- photos of me and a girlfriend with a mirror. Unfortunately, the ink from the Xerox didn’t transfer well (or at all) and I had to find other means to make it work. I ended up doing some general tracing of the images on tracing paper, flipping it over (my composition required for them to be reversed) and using special graphite transfer paper to get some general ideas of the images down. After that I used a few fun inking techniques and filled the sketches out. Voila- my latest illustration:
And last but not least, except for a few touch ups and perhaps another leaf on the left side for visual balance- I’ve completed the pineapple! I’ll do the background on Tuesdy :)
Filed under: art, painting | 2 Comments
Tags: acetone, ink, mirror, nail polish, ruins, transfer, watercolour
Illustration Updates
In my illustration class we were approached by a local gallery guy who wanted Purdue’s artists to make some pieces for an upcoming exhibit “Tippecanus Rex.” http://www.purdue.edu/galleries/tippecanusrex/ there’s the website if anyone wants to check it out farther. The basic premise is about making urban myths and legends for Tippecanoe county (Purdue’s located within this). Kind of like Paul Bunion, Indiana version. Should be kid friendly and fun, and my entire class had a lot of unique and great ideas. I struggled a bit because I didn’t know how to come up with a crazy story and illustrate it and yet somehow let the viewer in on what’s happening. I’m not sure where I made the jump that I did to find my project… I kept thinking I’d do a newspaper theme but then I realized a tabloid would be soo much better. Our modern day tabloids really do the job circulating current urban legends and stories. I bought one, it was…interesting. It is funny, the general population knows to disbelieve anything put in a tabloid but they keep selling, who would read them? Turns out, at least for the tabloid I bought, very interesting religious people do. Gives them a bad rep I think. Most of the stories were very Christianity based or very very weird. Draw your own conclusions about that.
Oh yes, the piece is framed because it’s an entry for the gallery- it had to be exhibition ready. Thank you Costco for having frames in my hour of need!
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Pineapple leaves for real
Art!
I’ve finally started on the pineapple’s leaves, for real this time, no more cartoon leaves sprouting from a real pineapple (you can tell the difference I hope from the top and bottom leaves- I haven’t done two of them):
I love how I thought this would be maybe like a two week project and here I am, almost at the end of the semester and I still have at least 20+ hours to go on this thing! So much respect for realistic painters, especially since most of them paint wayyy bigger pieces then this, it’s amazing really.
Filed under: art, painting | Leave a Comment
Tags: leaves, pineapple
Little updates
Little update 1:
I fixed the kite string on this painting- it’s no longer huge and unstringlike. I’ve been approached by an old friend who’s in th Kappa Alpha Theta sorority at Butler University in Indianapolis about buying it- her house symbol is a kite.
Little update 2:
Here’s a picture of me besides my painting Paradise at Purdue’s Undergrad Exhibit! I was also approached by the judges about getting a purchase award for $750 for this piece but I’m already selling it to someone else so no dice there but maybe next year :)
Little update 3:
I’ve started another painting, just going with the flow, but it matches my other trippy one colour-wise. Behind the coloured flowers I’m going to paint realistic flowers in blue-gray tones (else the colours would be wayyyy too overwhelming).
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Search
-
Blogroll
