dill is going to seed

fourth of july. sucks.

random collage of drawings? chair from observation

the boots!

looks a little "wavy"

in the background

from the bike exhibition at moore college of art and design (i know most of these are awful)

ermine/ferret

finally succeeded in drawing a nice picture of sarah :D!

lazy sunday

so i did kind of a lot of drawing today. after i woke up at around 1, i immediately began drawing from a copy of french vogue i found in my mom's studio. the sketchbook page for today is really nothing special. just loosening up my hand. actually since i suck so much at scanning my pages, this one cut out about half of my images..? it's not good enough for the effort, haha.

so i feel like this one is alright. i spent about 40 minutes on it and i am kind of happy with it. i still feel like something's wrong. i don't know if it's the values or the rendering or the colors or what? it looks better in person, i must say.
this was one of my first attempts at an "art nouveau" look..i wanted the hair to kind of look like stained glass and i knew i wanted some pink tones in the blonde hair. that's one of my favorite things ever :D pretty simple, but i like the end result.
this was just something i was playing around with. obviously it's very cartoony, but it was really fun to do. it was probably the most fun thing i did today. it took about 5 minutes but one of the most gratifying pieces. thinking of doing a series of these little thumbnails
there is one more sketch page that i was doing while i was attempting to watch tv...i leave blank paper and a pen/pencil around the house in pretty much every room so that if i get the urge to draw (and i usually do), then it's very simple. that'll be up tomorrow if not sooner. i feel like i need to push myself to be more and more self-directed. i am starting the painting of pam's house tomorrow if it kills me! i'm thinking watercolor now instead of acrylics. here's the pic i think i'm using for reference:

i'm thinking of a potential crop, but i haven't decided where yet. i really want to get in those beautiful hydrangeas! other than that, i really need to make sure that the perspective is in check. i think i am going to cut a few pieces of watercolor paper in varying proportions and sizes to practice :)

cracking down & loosening up

i woke up at 1pm

i woke up at 3:40pm

i woke up at 4pm

diet coke with lime

glaceau smart water

sun-maid golden raisins

nevermind

untitled

i am so depressed by this weather.

catching up

june 16th
june 15th
june 15th (II)

awake again

photo of my twin, lauren.
reproduction in graphite (the scanner left out some softer marks...ugh.)

me and a cat?

live from lo.ue's room

i'm doing an entry now because i have updated pics of my chocolate bowl. the final presentation is pictured as follows: (i ended up scraping off some of the white chocolate on the inside...also added the rice crispies and spoon for an extra element of "food art")
i also wanted to take a picture from my little area of my studio space. i am really going to miss it. since i have to share a room at home, this was sort of something i called my own. i had to clean everything up, take all of my work home, and all of that kind of thing. when i heard about the art assignments for over the summer, though, i got really excited! they wiped away all of my sadness because they sound so awesome.

something i've been working on for one of my last projects, inspired by a poem by ramon lopez velarde called mi prima agueda

awake.

OBVIOUSLY i'm still awake. i finished (and started) my art final today after school. i had so many ideas because the topic was so broad--"food art." my ideas ranged from weaving pull 'n peel twizzlers to edible clay to decorated cakes...but i finally picked an idea i loved. i made a bowl (vessel) entirely out of semi-sweet and white chocolate. the pictures suck so i'm taking them down.

amalgam

i guess i would just say that these are a mixture of different sketchbook pages i've worked on over the last few days. none of them are stellar but here they are anyway
(1) me as a model
(2) wow, bine is veryyyy small
(3) mixtures of textures, etc.
(4) done before syracuse graduation

still undecided

i haven't had much time to update recently, since i've been focusing mostly on doing well on my sats and finishing up school stuff, but i figured i'd just post to keep the momentum going. i am still struggling about the colors of my statuette...nothing seems to look ri

ght. i don't know why, but here are two different colour combinations i've been bouncing between:

draft 1., "milky" color scheme
draft 2., brighter and bolder

i'm thinking of combining the hair from the second one with the skin from the first. i don't know though, i haven't had much time to deliberate. i've got to go to my math tutor now, though so... BYE!

alright, so i've decided to change the skin color yet again. i think i may have got it now--a milky complexion with darker hair...definitely a more dramatic look. here is a photo: (granted not a very good one...my camera has the habit of not being very true-to-color)

i don't know if i like it...i plan to add little daisies of some sort being sprinkled all over the curls. i don't know...or maybe a veil of some sort? i'm looking to add an additional design element, something. i don't know yet. i also want to mount it on some type of platform. i looked in the art room today and found nothing. luckily, we have class tomorrow for a very long time +2 free pds.

undecided

i am so tired right now, ah! i did these contours of animals from my ref book which is pretty good DK eyewitness you can never go wrong...anyway i went on this site during my art class i hope no one finds it that would be terrible. i was really pissed because my scanner was being very temperamental and since the sketches were done with such a hard pencil they barely showed. i have a few more sketches that i did yesterday from my book and i have realized that regular pencils are so much better to draw with than mechanical ones, i have no idea why this wasn't more obvious to me before? but here's the first page of the day.

the beaver is a little hard to see, as is the top of the pig. oh well.

the "undecided" part of the blog today is that i'm still not sure what colors i should paint the sculpture. i had this good idea of a very light aqua-colored skin with turquoise hair, but i don't know. i was thinking that since i just did something "realistic" with the sculpey that i would rather do something more fantastical. i'll think about it...more pics later.

thinking about other things

SO DISCOURAGED I HATE MY DRAWINGS FROM LAST NITE

from 12-1am

i went to sonic with a few people and got right to work again. i was just leafing through some old references/clippings from the file and found an ad i liked. i took it and altered it and simplified it down to a few colors (of my choice: black, sepia, lilac, and violet prismas). not so sure how i feel about this one, but alright. (click to enlarge both images)

another shoe, from life. altered colors.
good night, maybe?

another piece

so basically i stayed up until 3am yesterday working on this little doll bust which i think is really cute. it's somewhat inspired by the curls of j. david mckenney which i so adore. (see previous entry). i am so excited, because i know that my WHOLE summer is going to be exactly like this. here are some photos from the process:

frame (1): the head, complete with eyelids, eyeballs, nose, and opening for mouth.
frame (2): the finished head + shoulders (and clavicles). obvs there was an anatomy book RIGHT by my side.frame (3): addin' some curls up in here, i think there are something like 50 curls.
frame (4): as close to complete as it can be without being baked and painted!

i am so excited for the painting, it's always been one of my favorite parts of the process.

feedback!?!? i think i am improving on my sculpting skills. i also love to add new mediums to my vocabulary, which can never be a bad thing. today i went to the library for a few hours and literally went through books about ceramic techniques because i'm taking that intensive ceramics class over the summer. there is a LOT to learn in that area, but i am really excited for it. i have so many ideas that they're brimming over in my sketchbooks, etc. it's always really fun to sit in the back of the library and sketch/take notes, etc. in the quiet. :)

i've taken over the pink room

the pink room is a room in my house with a television, a vcr, a computer, and also houses all of my art supplies and other related materials, including reference books, etc. so all of my stuff is strewn about on the ground and this room looks very chaotic, due to my creative goings-on. trigonometry test wasn't bad today. just thought i'd note that. anyway i haven't really touched the clay since i finished my self-portrait (II), and i am currently working on another one! i really like the way it's headed and there will be images of my process up pretty soon. anyway i promised sketches from yesterday, so here they are:

(from images from vogue)
(from life)

lauren's shoe that i think ended up looking a little bit like a glass slipper!

lauren went to sleep and i am up left to my own devices lol. the sculpture i am making has soooo many curls. there may even be images up in a few hours. haha i NEVER sleep

instead of studying for my math test

i love coming home after school and not having to do ANYTHING. it's just incredible. i also love when i don't have to do anything during my free periods (especially when i have 2 on a-days). that's when i just get to mess around in the studio and do whatever which is a really freeing experience. i started a new piece today so that i can rotate working on the smaller one (the series about spanish-american poets). i spent the whole afternoon just tinkering around, looking at bina abling stuff, the pictures from my mom's old illustrating fashion and basically whatever else i can get my hands on. i'm working on some prisma/pencil sketches from fashion magazines, which should be up before i go to my math tutor. i am SO fucked for the test tomorrow. wow, i really don't care. teachers don't understand that i'm done with school.

instead of driving lauren to piano

i just realized that pretty much every time i write on this thing i'm supposed to have driven my sister to her lesson, like every wednesday. i think i may take a bike ride in a little bit after i'm through with the computer. i think i am finally becoming able to make a picture. mostly, i start pictures and get through with them and then leave them unfinished for the rest of always. but i am actually starting a series, which is something i've been struggling to do for a while now.

anyway last night i did a lot of surfing on other artists' web sites and there are a lot of great images to look at out there. here are some of my personal favorite finds from then:

(1)
(2)

(3)
jean james (1) j. david mckenney (2) sarah caterisano (3)

i helped lo.ue paint obama's head. (!)

i've also discovered my bike again. and colored pencils!

instead of going to hershey park

i know the art show happened a little while ago, but here is a pretty good picture of the statuette i made as my self-portrait. since it's a little far away, the details have been compromised a little bit, but i'll do my best to get some closer pictures (that are truer to color as well). and yes, i did use gemtac to apply false eyelashes...haha. i am really upset though because someone brought it to my attention that in the movie coraline, she also wears a yellow jacket. i was really upset because i was afraid that it would take away from the originality of my piece. i hope that didn't happen.

i've been working on a few more pieces and have just been in a completely different place artistically than i have been in the past. i'm experimenting with a new idea--illustrating poetry. i got this anthology of spanish-american poets from the library and have been working from that a lot. i started a series (approximately 6"x5" i think) that interpret poems from the book. in them, i use some expressionist and non-representational techniques that i think are really interesting. they really take me away from my usual consumption with rendering. aside from that, i don't know why...but i've been tracing back to my roots in fashion which i'm kind of confused about. nonetheless, a lot of my sketch pages have been fashion/lifestyle related. weird, right?

i also really like this photographer's flickr...it's really inspiring to me. here's the link:

miss aniela

here's another illustrator i reallllllllllllllllllllllly love: (i am lucky enough to have one of the t-shirts he designed for heatherette!)

j. david mckenney