1st Semester Works

Half of my senior year is about to come to a close, ya'll. The goal for AP Studio is to have 12 breadth pieces done by this coming Wednesday. I think I'm going to use a couple of these for my concentration since my concentration deals with the intimate relationship with people and their personal environments, which is perfect for me. One, I'm still painting portraits of people which I'm most comfortable with, and two, I'm satisfying Sweeney by incorporating landscapes and perspectives and all that art crap.

As our midterm grade, we're critiquing each others' works on the last day before break. Here's what I got so far. Names are not official:

1. Merritt Portrait

2. Swine

3. Sad Onion

4. Girl by Pond

5. Truth

6. Concept Art - 3 characters

7. Fishing

8. Carrot Lady

9. Friendship

10. Ugly-ass shit. AKA weekend piece

* 11. Grant Wood

* 12. Summer's Wake

* = denotes work in progress

I think I'll make it.

P.S. Hayyy Park Hill South folks! Happy creepin'. Hahahahaha. Stay classy, PHS, stay classy.

A L I S O N -- My phone got stolen. Get at me on FB, yo.

Update

Today, I went to Snobby Lobby and bought these really neat Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens that I saw Kyna and Shelby working with in the past. Shelby let me borrow hers and I used it on my last piece that looks like concept art and I really liked how it turned out, so lo and behold, I got them.

Since I liked them so much, I started touching up my other art crap, which means Sweney will have to retake the pictures for the 3rd time... I'm always going to be retouching things that I find, so we might have to retake everything just before portfolios are due or something. Oh yeah, for my concept art piece, I found this totally rad olive greenish frame in the scraps. I'm going to make it a little darker though. I don't know how I'll mount it though. I digress.

I'm developing ideas for my artist tribute piece. My artist is Grant Wood. I'm most definitely going to add a lot more scenery to this one... It's going to be different from my other stuff... We'll see how it turns out.

Weekend piece... I might fool around with these pens and create something. Get a little more acquainted with them...

New piece: Just... just get out of my life and come back when I have time for you.

Concept art piece. I probably wont put it up here because I can't get a good enough picture to where the details don't smudge together and create a hunk o' lard.

PHAPSA #3 and other art related crap

So, we went on a field trip to the Spencer Art Museum at Lawrence on the KU campus. I kind of forgot that we were taking pictures or that we were supposed to find an artist to create a tribute for. I kind of forgot I was even at this field trip. But I dug up a couple of pictures that I happened to take. The one above is where they take photo shoots, I guess. (My shoddy phone camera hates taking dark pictures)

Who is this beautiful man, you ask? Why, it's Denis Hotaj; rocking it out to some Beyonce.
Okay, so I originally chose Pieter Cornelisz, van Rijck from the Netherlands who painted Salome with Head of John the Baptist. I loved the expressions on the three subject's faces. And I really liked the story behind it after researching more about it.
I started a sketch of the tribute piece, but... I want to paint something a little more modern. So, I looked through the Spencer Art Museum website and found an artist that I really like: Grant Wood. His piece, Near Sundown, 1933, is really great. Sweney's been on my ass about adding backgrounds to my pieces (I get it, aite?) so I think Grant Wood's landscapes would be a good thing to study.
More on his work: http://www.museumsyndicate.com/artist.php?artist=62
So yeah, that's what I'll be working on. Well, that and the weekend piece.
Also, after not seeing my work for a couple of weeks, I'm finding things I want to change, so I'm going back and touching things up on my old paintings. There ya go.

Okay, so Alison and I went to the premiere of Whip It. I went in not knowing anything about this movie. I just went for the free t-shirt! After we got it, we were pretty disappointed. The shirts were white and had a basic graphic on the front. So over the weekend, we dyed our shirts and screenprinted names on the back. SO ARTSY, YA? Come to find out, a KCAI graduate designed the costumes for Whip It. Neato.

Blogtivity #2

Autumn in Bavaria
1908; Oil on cardboard, 33x45cm; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Personally, I don't find very many of Kandinsky's works riveting or eye-catching. Actually, I find nearly all of them hard to look at. I feel like the color schemes hardly go together, the compositions are too busy, the subject matter is confusing to understand(it's abstract, I get it), and I also feel like his style is bland. The only one which "makes sense" is the one I posted, although, it still makes me go, "Eh..."
No offense to those who like his art. Maybe I'm naive and I'm just some 17-year-old with no artistic taste whatsoever, and I should slap myself with a foot-long mop paintbrush. But, Kandinsky... sorry bro, but I just don't dig your work...
So, my question to you is: What is so intriguing about his work? What art element does he master so well that makes his art... Art? Try to persuade this non-believer.
:-)

"Merritt's Composure" Progress

I've been struggling with the idea for this one, but I finally buckled down and got it done. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces yet. I really love how the colors turned out and the details I put into it. I'm usually hesitant about my work, and always picking at it, but I'm proud to say that I painted this one :-)!
This is another friend of mine. She's been my friend since elementary school, and she's in my Graphics Design class. Picture taken in my room. She's usually really silly, care-free, and hilarious, so I told her to look depressed. Hm... one of my red patches fell off...

I honestly don't know what the hell is wrong with me. I told myself to make it asymmetrical. That was my MAIN focus, and I didn't do it! But the sketch was so good that I couldn't erase it. Sorry, Sweney. Can't waste good art. At least... I can't afford to right now. By the way, I fixed the drooping mouth after I took this picture.
*Edit: So, apparently, I was clueless on what asymmetrical meant. I had one of those moments when someone tells you what it means and then you go "Ohhh! I knew that," when you didn't exactly know before they told you. I just wanted to keep it from the center of the page to make it asymmetrical, but the tilt of the face works as well according to the mirror-rule. So, it IS asymmetrical. :-)

Ha, NyQuil. I hated this background. I was going to do horizontal dips for texture throughout the whole piece kind of like an oil painting, but it would just take TOO long. I also hated the color I chose.

So, I thought to myself... What could I cover this horrible blue with that'll blend well with it. YELLOW! Which blended with the blue and made a very beautiful earthy green/yellow blend. It also matched her eye colors beautifully. Initially, I thought her eyes were blue so I painted them blue, but then I realized they were actually green. So I fixed that. The eyes were the most enjoyable part to paint, I think.

Better background. Still not done with her hair/skin/background. Oh yeah, I duct-taped this down because I didn't want the paper to warp, even though it's watercolor paper. It still warps, believe me! Haha, I like how in every picture, something different changes on my workspace. Spot the difference! Pahahaha... hahaha... ha. Whut?
This is a close-up of the finished product. I started and finished this in a span of 48 hours. I still might go in to touch it up. After I mount it, I'll post a picture up. Oh yeah, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MERRITT! Luckily I finished this in time to show her on her birthday. :-) I title this... "Merritt's Composure".

Update

So, I've been sick for a little more than a week. I think it's swine flu. I have most of the symptoms for it, anyway. I still feel like complete s*** even if it's not. It's been really tempting to destroy the swine flu painting I did to feel some kind of satisfaction... But then, it'd put me even further behind... This is more of an update for Sweney to show my progress in my art, which... has yet to budge. Back to my deathbed.

Blogtivity #1

By: Jose Manuel Hortelano, watercolors, November 19, 2007

This piece is just amazing. From the vivid colors; to the subtle expression on his face; the visible, appropriate brushstrokes; and the variety of textures in the skin, the bubbles, and the negative space... this piece, to me, is perfect. It caught my attention because of the composition, initially. After getting acquainted with the composition, I'm always attracted to a finer detail every time I look at it. For example, look at the grey-blue and the pink blotches on his left shoulder and the messy white highlights he creates on the skin.
In this image is a man underwater. The main focus is kept on this man's face because of the details in color and texture in contrast to the abstract brim in the water and shoulders. The composition flows well from the bubbles coming from his nose connecting the abstract water to the rest of the image. He takes full use of both the top and bottom half of the piece, keeping the piece as a whole, visually intriguing. He seems to be floating in the water because of the slight angle, which adds to the asymmetrical composition. The warm reds, browns, and other skin tones contrast nicely with the cool colors in the background.
To see more of Jose Manuel Hortelano's work, visit: http://picasio.deviantart.com/

Just a Thought

It's the most amazing feeling after you've finished mounting your piece and have taken the first look at your finished work.

Detail Shots

I'm always having trouble with getting a clear picture of the "Watch yo Hand" piece (I really need to rename it). Anyway, here are some detail shots. Click on them for a larger view.

Summer Projects

I can't take a straight picture worth crap. Again, taken with my crystal-clear 3.2 megapixel cameraphone. Some (most) of them are blurry, pixelated, and have many other problems with them. If you want to see the detail and actuality in person, then I'll make sure that happens. Most of them are 14x10.5" except Carrot Lady, which is 11.5x9.5". Again,these are working titles.

OH YEAH. I about dropped these in a puddle when I tripped walking through the parking lot. And my dog jumped on them the second I put them down. But that's OK because he's only like five pounds. I don't think I'm ever going to move these without holding to them for dear life... The things I do for art...

"Trial & Error"
"Sad Onion"
"Jane Wagner Quote"
"Carrot Lady"
"Watch yo Hand"

Graphics Design Sketches

Two ideas that I had for the Graphics Design "Word Design" project. Done in pen, levels messed with on PSPX2. The right leg doesn't exactly fit with the foot...

"Sad Onion" Progress

1. Idea

While messing around on the computer two years ago in Language Arts, I was doodling an onion on paint with my friend. We made a series of vegetables and expressions. For example, Sad Onion, Angry Asparagus, etc... Lame, I know. This year, I decided really needed to work on anatomy and making things more realistic. I love drawing and coloring flesh because there are so many different tones that I can play around with so I wanted a pose that showed a lot of it... Weird, I know. I just took the idea of Sad Onion and asked that friend to pose for me. I tried this idea earlier in a smaller project in my sketchbook.Left to Right: First Sad Onion in Paint (two years ago) and Revised in Photoshop (two years ago).

My smaller project with same idea of Sad Onion. This image is cropped to show only the Sad Onion idea.

2. Reference Pictures

Picture of "that friend." (Permission to publish picture granted.)Picture of my wall and floor.

3. Sketches
I didn't intend to copy his every feature. I just needed the anatomy, silhouette, colors, and shadows. These are my initial sketches.
4. Painting Progress

The angle is weird. I think the camera was angled towards the top.

5. Final Product

I cropped this from a bigger picture in the previous post. I'll get a better picture when I get the chance.

Me Paintings

These are working titles... Top Left: Carrot Lady with Tree Branch Man Disease. Top Right: Watch Yo Hand. Bottom Left: Jane Wagner Quote. Middle: Trial & Error. Bottom Right: Sad Onion.

I didn't get to snap individual pictures of my paintings, but here's something I took a while ago with my crappy 3.2 megapixel cameraphone. Do I have a style? I don't feel like I have one at this point... Ah well. Anyway, I noticed that "fear" is a theme going on in these pictures. The incurable tree-branch-man disease, whatever it's called; the serpent thing lurking in the water about to detach that poor woman's hand; that dude's head about to explode with... truth; the H1N1 flu virus; and the aftershock of killing an onion, I guess... My explanations don't help at all, do they?