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).

...

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!

I hate soup now

The government has taken my freedom away, just when I was getting into Shameless and New Girl. Now I'll actually have to pay to watch tv series or find a website that hasn't been taken down yet. This wasn't supposed to happen, guys. I thought the people of the internet were taking care of it. I am very disappointed.
On the bright side, I might actually get through all the books I didn't get to last year. The only new year's resolution I've ever succeeded in keeping was my reading list for 2010. I didn't quite finish last year's, but I'm catching up. Watch my vocabulary double by the end of the year. Ohoho I can't wait. 

....

I found some violet, so I used it.

And I got my final prints back. 

My opinion of printmaking is that only anal people could possibly enjoy doing this. If done well, prints are amazing, but it's a lot easier to look at them than it is to make them.
 Also, Aaron didn't like my prints very much :(

And here's Timmy the bear. As a disclaimer I want to state that I totally thought Jackson had taken the reference picture himself. I was under the impression that he wrestles bears on the weekends. I had no idea that this is the seventh image google generates when you search for "bear". If my blog is deleted because of this I will hold Jackson Usborne personally responsible and he will never receive any food from me ever again. And I may or may not key his truck too. 

I hope you like it, Jackson. My blog better still exist tomorrow morning, though.

News + filter + Henry the rat + my mom

I got a couple of things done this week, but I mostly stumbled upon cool artists while I avoided filling out job applications. They'll be added to my list, of course.

Conrad Roset
Gabriel Moreno
Ben Tour
Anka Zhuravleva -I admit I don't have much appreciation for photography, but this artist's pictures are amazing. She also draws and paints, but I don't really care for those.

I added a couple of new things to this blog recently! You can now sign up to receive an email every time I add a new post so you don't have to check in compulsively to stay on top of things (or maybe I'm the only one who does that with blogs I follow...) And speaking of blogs I follow, there is a full list of those to the right somewhere. Many of the artists on my fancy list use blogger and you can now find links to their respective blogs right here thanks to me! I'm so thoughtful.  

Like I said this week wasn't very productive, but here's what I've got:

Another coffee filter.

Henry the scratchboard rat. 

And a portrait of my mom I did today. It's a little wonky but I'm happy she liked it. I tried to make it as graceful as my manly touch would allow in case my grandma sees it. 

 

I also made oatmeal cookies with caramel and white chocolate. I'll make some kind of pie soon, too. 

Cool the dog just peed on the carpet. 

I have to go clean it up. 

Have a good night. 

NEXT TIME I'll post Jackson's bear, Timmy.

I don't want to brag or anything but

I'm still patting myself on the back for my ingenious solution to a problem I ran into several weeks ago. The crafty ladies I follow on Pinterest could probably come up with a better, prettier solution, but since I'm not a bored housewife who spends her time pinning pictures of DIY crafts and junk I'll never actually do, I'm rather proud of my own amateur solution. 

Naturally, I've amassed too many brushes to keep in my little folding brush holder thing, so I took myself to target and got a tin bucket from the dollar section, which I covered in gift-wrapping paper to make it look nice. I didn't realize the birds were upside down until I was done, but it was perfectly intentional. 

Anyway, I found that the little brushes were getting swallowed up by the big ones in this giant container, so after thinking about this for I kid you not thirty minutes, I had an epiphany. So I cut up some cardboard strips and taped them to a corner of the bucket and ha! big brushes can't bully little brushes anymore. Thank you, hold the applause.

 

...

And here are some coffee filters. 

 And a creepy horse based on one of David's pictures.

 

And a fish. Karla named him Toño. I took a picture of him at the zoo last weekend. 

And a self portrait since people aren't as willing to let me paint their faces as I thought they would be. If they feared I'd make them look manlier and angrier then they are, I guess that's a valid excuse...or it was until now! Look at that. Androgyny! And I don't even look mad.

And a portrait of Karla, for even if y'all don't believe it, it's NOT like painting myself.

 

And oh boy, I'm sorry Sam. I had such a hard time with this one. I attempted a second one, but it came out ten times worse. I really wanted to capture the expression on your face, but I failed. I owe you three pies.

That's it for artwork, but here is some music...

Here's a sad song.

Here's a happy song.

Here's a funny song.

And here's a cool song.

In the unlikely event that you already know all these songs, know that you have excellent taste.

There's a murderer in my house

Oswald has an enemy. Her name is Mila and she is my mom's dog. Apparently she hates him because I'd rather hang out with him than play with her. Being an old grouch, of course I'd rather paint with Oswald than play with her. All Mila wants to do is chew on my hands and pull on my sleeves. Uh, thanks but no thanks.

This wouldn't be an issue if she would stop wrapping her blasted leash around Oswald's leg to pull on it and make him tumble down on top of me.

Look at her. I see right through that cute face. She's nothing but blood and murder.

...

Moving on, here is what I did this week instead of looking for a new job...

Hooray! hand studies for a change. I used some of the rejected reference pictures I took for that hand painting I did over the summer.

And a second painting based on one of David's pictures.

And a self portrait based on one of the rejected reference pictures I took for my painting final. I was going to add some other color to this, but I like abusing my cad red light. I bought the tube just as I was starting my final and it's almost all gone now. It will be sorely missed until I get a new one.

And this candy that I always expect to taste amazing and it never does. It's the wrapper's fault. It's deceivingly appealing and shiny.

And Zach Michaels! Thank you for volunteering your face. I've discovered I have a natural talent for making everyone look angrier than they really are, so I apologize for that. I owe you a pie.

Next time I'll post a portrait of Sam Torres I'm about to start on. Rest assured, it's going to be masterful.


AND I knew I was missing something. I almost forgot to add these in after all the hard work I put into them! Seriously, it took me about four hours just to paint each one. Now I remember why I don't like acrylic paint and tiny hand-painted details. But I'm really proud of myself for getting them done!


The top two are for Blandine and loooong overdue. The bottom ones I made for Karla and myself.


I was really excited to put Paquita (my laminating machine) to good use after buying her over a year ago. I think she was excited to see daylight again, too.


Okay, that's all.