Senior Exhibiton

Woo~ Being a senior is a lot of work!

Currently I am working with a group of my fellow peers on our senior exhibition, Momentum!

Which opens early in March, very exciting!

Here is a little sneak peek of another project I am working on, it’s a book about all of the strange daydreams I’ve had, while I was supposed to be paying attention in school.

My book will be made entirely out of cut paper, with maybe a smidgen of ink! I am excited to use all of my fancy patterned origami paper!

I really enjoy making collages, have any of you worked this way?

Doing the Senior Thing

I am down to my last semester at University, and even though school has only been in session a few weeks, I have been running like crazy!

The prospect of graduating from college and joining the work force is rather terrifying, especially since I am not entirely sure what I am going to do with myself XDDD

But the biggest thing I have on my plate right now is my senior exhibition. It’s scary because my exhibition is what all of my schooling has been leading up to, but I feel like I am already cramped for time. Hopefully I can keep it together until the opening day!!

On another note, I was able to take another life drawing class this semester, and I have really been enjoying it!

Here is some of the work I’ve done so far 🙂

Karen Katz’s Beautiful Baby Books

Back in the day, I used to chill with babies a lot. I worked as a daycare teacher for five years, it was a both traumatizing and gratifying experience XD

One of the things I hated about the daycare was all of the stupid, pointless, plot-less  ugly, cardboard backed, dollar bin books I had to read to my class. Granted there are a ton of beautiful, intricate children’s books out there, that can entertain, not only children but the adults reading them, as well (like Jan Brett or Jon J Muth)….unfortunately most of them are not terror-toddler-army proof and are eaten or ripped to pieces in a matter of minutes.

But I did love one series in particular, Karen Katz’s books like these:

 

The stories are sweet and simple. The text is short enough to keep the attention span of a toddler and the poor teacher who is reading it for the fifty-thousandth time. But it’s the art I love. Karen’s love of fabrics, folk art and Matisse come together as a winning combination in her beautiful illustrations. Her work is full of vibrant colors and patterns, and Katz’s way of depicting the figures is charming, inviting and drop dead adorable.

 

So, if you have young children…or just happen to be browsing the kid’s section at Barnes & Noble, you should take a look at these adorable little books!

Christmas Cards~

I absolutely love getting mail, greeting cards, letters, postcards..especially packages!

I also love writing letters and making cards, unfortunately I am horrible at getting it sent out. Right now I am actually staring at a sealed, addressed letter to my friend who is on exchange in Romania right now. I wrote the letter weeks ago, I am so bad!

I did get a chance to make and send out a few Christmas cards this year!

I really like to make my own cards when, at all, possible. These are a lot simpler than the ones I usually make, but they get the job done :3 (the oddball one with the cat and airplane is for my uncle, who is a orange cat loving pilot!)

Usually my cards look more like this: 

They are a lot of fun to make, I try to craft the card into the likeness of the person it is for and I use any paper I can find! Kids construction paper, shiny candy wrappers, magazines, origami paper even bits of my homework >_> ~ (I do sell them and take commissions here, if you are interested! :D)

Do any of you make your own greeting cards? What sort of materials do you use? Is anyone else as bad at mailing them as I am? haha!

Plein air painting and Evgeni Gordiets

I recently stumbled across an artist that has really inspired me Evgeni Gordiets.

His work is beautiful, isn’t it?

I really like this quote from him, that I found on his website; “Today, for me, life and painting are one. I have no desire to follow fashion; it has no value to me. In my art, the sea, the sky, woman and child are subjects of importance, eternity. I have no passion for politics. I often use in my work, stone carved forms and water– these are symbols of eternity. I love sculpture, and I try to unite it with painting. Women, the symbol of love, mother-hood and eternity, have great importance in my art. In life, there are some things that last forever; in my work, I communicate this with the sky, water and stones.”

His paintings feel relevant to where I stand right now. I normally stick to drawing and painting cute things, portraits and more cute things but lately I have been experiencing one of those oh-so-wonderful artist’s blocks. In other words, all my cute drawings look like poo. >_>

However, one of my class assignments has been to go out to the local lake…thing (it is a fake “lake” because this IS the desert) and paint plein air (or outdoors onsite.) I’ve never really bothered with buildings or landscapes before so this was a new challenge….and it turned out surprisingly well! In fact, I am thrilled with it…..which doesn’t happen to often, ahah!

Here is the first day:

 and a few days later:

And finished!

I think this is one of my best pieces of late, and after discovering Evgeni Gordiets work and seeing how landscapes and cityscapes can have just as much  magic to them as fairies, I started wondering if I shouldn’t try painting something besides cute people.

So, I guess, stay tuned for more paintings of buildings?

I’M EXPANDING MY HORIZONS.

and until then……here is a picture of my newest USB drive (I collect cute ones XD) His name is Ozzie

Gatherings of Creative People

Who doesn’t love faires and conventions? I’ve been to a few fabulous ones myself. A few years ago I had the pleasure of working in a face painting booth at the Phoenix Fairy Festival, which is a small intimate. but wonderfully magical little faire and I really enjoyed working it!

I’ve also had the opportunity to model for a few fashion shows in comic-related conventions around the Phoenix valley, as well as attend the BIG comic convention in L.A. this last summer (it was very very big O_O).

And of course I love the Renaissance Festival and attend it every year! But the convention I REAAAAALLLLY want to attend is the Faerie Con.

It looks like so much fun! It takes place every November (next week, in fact.) in beautiful Maryland. And get this, one of the artist guests is Kinuko Y. Craft *squee* (if I you have not yet had to listen to me rave about her check out my Favorite Modern Artists post ;D )

In the program this year they are offering everything from live bands to panels about fairy tales in the media to lectures on mythical characters like Morgana Le Fey.

Now that I know about this, perhaps I will be able to make plans to attend it in 2013 *3*

Do any of those conventions/faires catch your eye? Have you attended any of them, are there any other related events you would like to attend? I am curious to know! 😀

Workspace

I believe that one’s environment plays a huge role in productivity and imagination, as well as over all mood (which is why I am always urging home and business owners to PAINT YOUR WALLS. Come on people, white walls in a day care are just depressing.). I try to keep my workspace interesting and inspiring, with lots of colors and things I like, for example floor space with lots of soft rugs and pillows (I have this weird habit of wanting to do everything while sitting/laying on my floor XD) but for some reason my studio always ends up looking like this:

…and then I have to play hopscotch to get out of the room. (This is a glimpse as to why my childhood nickname was Chaos Child.)

What I really want my studio to look like is this:

(I know you want to know more about this glorious place, visit the owner’s blog, go here)

I actually realized that this dream studio was not so far away as I might think, my family owns forty or so acres up in Conifer, Co and we already have one cute yellow farm house (as well as several half falling down log cabins)…so adding a tiny white one might not be too much of a stretch!

I could put it here:

Although, even if I did build my dream studio it would most likely still be a mess…and I would probably still have to play hopscotch to get to the door.

Spooky Fairy Tales, Anyone? Also, Cats Cats Caaats

Hi Ya’ll! I thought I would take a moment to share my most recent, finished piece of work with everyone!

This piece is watercolor and ink on cold press paper and is based off of one of my favorite Japanese fairy tales, The Boy Who Drew Cats.

For those of you who have never heard of this fairy tale, you can read a pretty good translation here, if you can’t guess…it is a story about a boy who only ever draws cats. Cats. Cats. Cats.

I also like Wikipedia’s synopsis, and the addition of all the cats having bloody mouths, creeeeppy.

Anyways, I really wanted to bring out some of the spookier elements of the story (I’ve always felt that the Japanese have a wonderful grasp on horror). This was an assignment for school and I was limited to black, white and grey, which lent itself fairly well to this scene of the story, where our cat loving little protagonist has fallen asleep in the temple after drawing,……catscatscats. I have also been working hard to create a sense of space in my paintings (usually they are terribly flat). I think I was successful in here!

I really would like to paint some more creepy fairy tale scenes! Do you have any suggestions? What do you think of The Boy Who Drew Cats and my adaptation of it?

Some of My Favorite Modern Artists..

After reading a post by everembelished, I was inspired to write a post featuring all of my favorite modern artists!

Kinuko Y. Craft:

I first encountered Craft’s work on the cover of the novel Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier. I absolutely love the elegance, detail and over all magic of her pieces. One of the things I was most impressed with was that if you look closely at her cover illustrations you can see the entire story being told in the details of the painting. She works in an interesting combanation of watercolor and oil. Read about her working process here.

69 Geist:

This artist is actually a good friend of mine and maybe I am a liiiiiittle biased but I think his work is pretty awesome. He has a wonderful eye for composition and draws expertly from some of the most mind boggling angles.

Jason Chan:

I first saw Jason Chan’s work on the cover of a book called Eyes Like Stars, which I haven’t read (I usually avoid things found in the “Paranormal Romance” section, because that sounds terrifying XD). Anyways, Jason Chan’s way of painting doll-like figures in a highly realistic way is something I really inspire to.

JD Parrish:

Is a painting instructor at Chandler Gilbert Community college and one of the most amazing figure painters I have ever met. He is also the closest thing I have had to mentor (so again, I could be biased, I will let you decide ahah). JD paints very much a traditional artist, painting in the style of the old masters.

Audrey Kawasaki:

I have been watching this artist for a long time, I was first attracted to her work because of how she treated the wood in her paintings. I also love her line work, it is reminiscent of Alphonse Mucha.

Lastly, David Scheirer:

I recently stumbled across David’s work on Etsy (here is his shop) and I loved the perfect line work and charming details of his work. His water color pieces have both and accuracy and simplicity to them that I found gorgeous.

A New Step!

When it rains, It pours…but sometimes that can be a good thing! Last week was a difficult one, my Uncle was hospitalized and died rather unexpectedly, which left my family scrambling. Having a big family, and having them all come into your neck of the woods at once is a great distraction during times of sadness, as well as being something of a joy, if not a rather frazzled one, in itself.

Now down to the big exciting happy news: during the time that I was running around, toting various people’s babies, trying to help plan a funeral and still keep up with school, I managed to sell my first painting ever to a stranger via Etsy! For those of you that are artists, you know that your first 100 pieces or so are usually bought (or claimed) by your family and friends, so making a sale to someone unknown to you, completely removed from your circle is quite an accomplishment, and feels pretty damn good 🙂

Of course, one painting isn’t much, but it’s a step and being able to send that package off, especially during such a rough week, was the best feeling in the world!