Good news and random things

I've recently acquired larger (but not large, mind you) living quarters, which means I finally have my own studio of sorts. And although I don't have a lot of extra time to make art, I am a lot more comfortable when I do. Now I can close the door and let myself get high on turp fumes in peace. 

Also, to finish up the Addy Awards/Ihop Painting saga, my painting won a silver national student Addy award (and so did Carissa Creveling's fantastic bat painting!). 

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So, it's been a while since my last post. That's because I was waiting to have substantial artwork to show and I realize I probably waited a little too long. Nevertheless, here is what I've done in the last month or so...

 Here is the watercolor assignment I ended up doing for my Illustration Media class last semester.

Figure studies done for the Figure Sculpture class I'm currently taking.

Here is the first exercise we did for Figure Sculpting class. I'm not that great at sculpting and don't care to be, so I'm usually pretty content with whatever I manage to produce.

This is the first finished painting of a series I'm working on for my Personal Vision class. 

The set of 4-5 self-portraits is meant to portray a spectrum of emotions or emotional reactions fueled by either love or fear. The idea comes from a quote that says "All that is not love is only fear". I want to go beyond rendering pretty things and onto embodying a metaphysical thing, like an emotional state, through physical means, which is not an easy task. I find it very difficult to verbalize what the series is about beyond what I've written so far. I hope that the paintings will be strong enough to speak for themselves once they're all finished.

Also, I've had the pleasure of being invited to join a group of extremely talented fellow students in putting up a student gallery show next month. I'm very excited to be a part of this project.

Here is the sketch of the piece I'll be doing for the show. I decided I wanted to have as much fun with it as I could, so I went back to the type of things I used to draw for fun, long before I ever took a painting class. The theme for the show is portraiture, but also the painting has to extend off the canvas and onto the wall somehow. I think this leaves a ton of room for creativity and I'm very interested to see how all of our different styles and interests will come together for the show. I have a feeling it's going to be awesome.

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And, finally, I want to show off the lovely 3x3" paintings of my dog that Juju was so sweet to paint for me. I think she did a fantastic job.

They're just so cute and tiny! My family loved them.

You'd think I've been busy or something

Painting stopped being fun after my last post, so I stopped doing it. I've been reading instead and it's been great. I made some more bookmarks for myself and although Paquita (my laminator) started out being grumpy and uncooperative, she eventually came around and we've rekindled our friendship. 

Oswald (my easel), on the other hand, has been sulking in a corner for the past five weeks. I'll have to give him a  pep talk soon.

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These are the last three self portraits I finished before going on a painting break. After the first two I got frustrated and gave up trying to get accurate temperatures and just did a happy safe monochromatic study woohoo.

I also did these two still life studies before my hiatus.

Since then I've only done work for my beloved Illustration Media class.

Here is my Prisma colored pencil portrait of Terrence Howard.

And this was supposed to be a watercolor piece, which I tried to get away with doing in oil washes and failed. Luckily it'll count as my final assignment instead, in which we're allowed to use any medium.

On a side note, Mathilda (the bunny) is one popular lady at school. If anyone wants to buy this paining, please let me know.

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Well, the list just keeps getting bigger and bigger! There are just too many awesome artists out there. 

Here is a new batch of supercoolartists:

 Kurt Huggins & Zelda Devon - digital illustrations.

Alvaro Tapia Hidalgo -  digital vector illustrations.

Martin Eichinger - figure sculptures.

Brian Blood - oil landscapes.

Evgeny & Lydia Baranov - oil paintings. 

John Paul Braman - acrylic landscapes.

Laurie Kersey -  oil paintings.

It's been a pretty weird and frustrating semester for me...but two more weeks and it'll be done-bun-can't-be-undone. So here's to a busy/fun/productive summer, y'all.

 

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I spent all day in the cold

I walked in the snow and jumped into a creek and took pictures and made s'mores and painted a quick landscape and stuff.

This undecipherable cluster of marks is the best I could do. At least I tried. It's supposed to be a little stream or something.

 

 And some pictures.

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I haven't been able to paint a portrait a day, but I do have a few more to add.

 That's 10 portraits total so far. I'll try to do 10 more over spring break.

I also finished the first painting of the series I'm working on!

And started on the next two, which are a diptych.

I think the series will be called La Cara y el Alma / The Face and the Soul. 

And some new additions to my list of cool artists everyone should know about. (Thanks to Karla for sharing these) Now follow their links! They're all worth looking at.

Qiang-Huang- oil painter

Kelvin Lei- oil painter

Michael Naples- oil painter

M Collier- hyperrealistic oil painter

Karin Jurick- oil painter

Fongwei Liu- oil painter

Happy spring break, everyone!

I spent all day outside

Here are some pictures I managed to take despite all the dangers of the wilderness and my inability to walk and/or balance myself on solid ground.

I got enough sunlight and exercise for the rest of the year. I will retreat back into the shadows now.

 

 

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I need to catch up to everyone in the Intro. to Painting class with these self portraits. I'll try to do at least 20, if not one every day.

 

 

 

 

Today I learned that I look like Frida Kahlo in ALL my self portraits. Can I just say that she is my hero? I mean, her hair always looked nice, she didn't take shit from anyone, and had impeccable taste in men. I can only hope that one day my mustache grows to be as furry as hers.

Yet another coffee filter. I didn't realize I'd already painted this one until I was halfway done with it. 

And two out of four peppers I have to render for my Illustration Media class.

And the first painting of the series I'm working on. It still needs more work, but not a whole lot.
Yubi, you were such a great model. I'm sorry everyone keeps mentioning Black Swan. You can cover me in glue, roll me in feathers, and set me on fire for your next painting if you want. I will do it just for you.

That is all. Have a good night, friends.

Ihop adventures revisited + new artists + actual artwork

 

My narrative (Ihop) painting won a gold ADDY award last night. Here is what the award looks like and here is a better picture of the painting than the one in the original post.

I was really excited to see so many fellow SUVA students there, not just as award recipients but also as guests and volunteers. Karla and I were proud to be part of the SUVA crowd (and in my biased opinion, I think us SUVA kids cheered the loudest).

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Now for more interesting news:

My ever-growing list of cool artists can now be found somewhere to the left of this blog. This way the list will be a lot easier to access and I won't have to update the original post every time I find an artists to add to it.

Having said that, I've added new artists to both my artist list and my blog-following list that I'm very excited about!

Artist List (links to the left)

Carol Marine- oil painter. She does chunky awe-inspiring still life paintings. Here is a demo Karla found of hers.

Francine Van Hove- paints lovely topless ladies. 

Joseph Lorusso- oil painter; similar to Liepke and Kobayashi.

Mark Tennant- oil painter; beautiful wispy paintings.

Michael Carson- oil painter; also similar to Liepke and Kobayashi with a greater focus on fashion.

Milt Kobayashi- amazing oil painter. (I was waiting to find his official website to put him on the list, but I can't find one, so I give up). Here is an article or something that talks a little about his process.

Blog List (links to the right)

4 Itchy Tasty- My friend Zach Michaels' new art blog! He is an animation major/illustration minor and is currently taking an Intro. to Painting class. I'm very excited to see his progress throughout the semester!

Carol Marine's Painting a Day- she paints a chunky still life painting every day!

Ann Feldman- oil painter

Art by Anita Tresslar- oil painter

James M Coulter- oil painter

Okay, here is some actual artwork.

 

I like violet. It's a nice color. Now that I have it I want to keep using it. 

And this green! It's called verde hoja in Spanish; I assume leaf green in English. 

This was an exercise I did for my Illustration Media class. I'm not a huge fan of chalk pastels but I definitely find them more tolerable than scratchboard. 

 

And this is the actual pastel assignment. It took a lot longer to finish than I anticipated, but I feel a lot better about it than I did about my last assignment. This one should get a higher grade or I will quit art school and never come back.  

Also, I started working on a series of paintings this week that I'm really excited and nervous about. They're completely unrelated to school and they have a lot of personal meaning. I've never thought of myself as a painter and I still have a hard time putting myself under that category. I don't know what I'm doing, so please don't be too harsh if you don't understand or like the paintings. They're not for you, so keep that in mind when you look at them.

I'll explain the concept behind the series later on once I have a couple of them done. 

And now I'm going to bake cookies. Happy Sunday!