50 Things

We were assigned to draw 50 individual organized items for a poster, and I really enjoy doing little drawings of desert plants. I would have preferred to have the time to hand-make this via printing, but Thanksgiving break cut down on my time before deadline.

However, I did spend a little time turning this into a pattern. Making patterns is actually surprisingly easy to do in photoshop, and I'm definitely going to experiment with this more in the future. Hopefully I'll get into screen-printing next semester and I can start handcrafting instead of relying on digital painting.

Product Placement

Another illustration for my lifestyles class based around integrating products for an ad illustration. I definitely thought about doing jewelry or some other clothing ad, but found I was generally bored with any ideas I had surrounding these objects. I found a DJ magazine full of hip cool stuff, and used a pair of Original Fake heaphones (originalfake.net), and a high-tech sound mixer called the DN-MC6000 (www.DENONDJ.EU). This was meant to be a horizontal spread, but my class generally agreed that it looked way better turned vertically. I could mess around with the colors in this for weeks if I was allowed the time.

I'm Not Sick But I'm Not Well

Cd Booklet design for Junior Illustration. The cd sleeve part is at the top of the drips of the cover. The belly band would protect it from falling out. I mainly wanted to create a design that was as much something you would want to hang on your wall as well as something to document the track list, and I tried to draw in a stream of consciousness style so that you could continue around the whole thing in a fluid way. When I listen to music, especially these songs, I can see so many images, many of them not syncing up perfectly, but somehow working together. I also prefer to draw this way, rather than cutting up images drawn or found separately. The prints are on white arches cover, and the belly band is chartham.

The title of my mix CD is “I’m Not Sick But I’m Not Well.”

Track list is as follows-

All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down - Elliott Smith (covering Hank Williams, Jr.)

Saturnine - Polaris

Harsh Realm - Widowspeak

Broken Horse - Freelance Whales

Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger

Quick Fashion Illustration

45 minutes from idea to final. 

Clothes from Betsy Johnson RTW Fall 2011 and Emanuel Ungaro RTW Fall 2009.

(based on the shape of a heart)

Iceberg in Radioactive Water

Illustration of the cocktail "Iceberg in Radioactive Water" for lifestyle illustration. The dress is Givenchy Couture. 

Moirae

This is an illustration about the three fates or Moirae in Greek mythology. They were made up of three women, one who spun the string of life, another who measured it, and another who cut it at it’s end. In Ancient Greek tradition, a family would wait seven days before deciding to accept an infant into the Gens and to give it a name, cemented with a ritual at the hearth.

etching/drypoint/aquatint on zinc

Midnight in Paris - Final

Underpainting in violet, then glazes of watercolor on top. Then brough into photoshop and generally screwed around with until the colors were more of what I wanted from the study I did.

Baltimore Rowhouse Map

My final map for my Junior Illustration class. It had a title (which was my address) that I've removed because I was unhappy with the style and I don't want my address plastered all over the internet. This is where I'm living right now, I have 4 roommates and we share a 4-story row house. I like to think that this is my way of remembering it, it's probably one of the nicer places I've ever lived in and it's the first time I've ever had my own bathroom. haha

Midnight in Paris sketch/color study

Probably going to finish this by doing a watercolor "underpainting" and then coloring on top in photoshop. If you haven't seen Midnight in Paris, I would encourage you to do so. It's an extremely fun movie, especially if you're into art/literary history.

Homesick

Intaglio print messed around with in photoshop. Unfortunately I'm not very good at actually making a  print yet, and maybe some would consider photoshop cheating, but I guess I really don't care at all.

I miss Texas in very strange ways and for only very specific reasons.

*Edit*

I went back and edited the plate itself, and learned how to print, haha. I added some aquatint, and etched some lines a bit darker, and also decided to print in a red clay brown.

Lady Gaga

The first of several Lady Gaga drawings for my Lifestyle Illustration class. 

Not my final assignment, but I decided to digitally color this sketch I really liked.

Lonely Hearts

First assignment for my Junior Illustration 1 class. Create a dyptich depicting two characters derived from lonely hearts ads (sort of like last ditch efforts by people who are desperate to find somebody). Here are my two ads, first the woman then the man.

"Remember when all of this was open fields and you could go out and leave your door unlocked? Woman, 24. Inherited her mother's unreasonable and utterly unfounded nostalgia (and her father's hirsute* back). WLTM (Woman looking to marry) barber with fondness for sherbet dib-dabs and parma violets. Box no. 8486"

*A person with hirsutism grows hair in abundance in unusual places for their gender.

"Mignonette is the most beautiful word in the world and I'll deck anyone who says it isn't. Edgy yet playful poet (M, 38). Box no. 7975"

Steamboat Spaghetti Creepy Uncle Guy

First linoleum cut of the new year. My right hand was literally numb for a day and a half after finishing this. 

Teaism

Parasitic

I just can't stay away from drawing little detailed flowers.

Submitted to Threadless

Score this design: "Nature Cluster," to help it get printed on Threadless!


Finally I got around to submitting something to this amazing website. And hey, it's something I'm kind of proud of. :]

Illustration 2 final

About 20 bowls full of linoleum shavings, lots of trial and error, and several hand wounds later and I present you with this.

Two-layered 11"x15" linoleum block print based on my observational drawings done in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in D.C. Hopefully I'll have this printed on a t-shirt soon. 

Natural History Museum

Sketch for my illustration 2 final, design for a Natural History Museum t-shirt. Transferring this currently onto linoleum for carving. Hoorayyy finals.

Novel Nomenclature

Completed my Novel Nomenclature book! I was thinking a lot about how my strange compulsion to steal flowers around my neighborhood seemed to be somehow loaded with symbolism. Such as, stealing something or someone for yourself and taking life and power because of greed. I'd had the name "Novel Nomenclature" in my head for a while because of a friend, Corey, who suggested it after I started doing quick line drawings of plants, with my friends and I collaborating on fun names to write beside them instead of the usual scientific labeling. It came together in what appears to me to be a somewhat feminist message, but I feel like it's got more to do with my general impression of life as a female than woman's rights, however. The double edged sword of being a prude/slut, or a goody-two-shoes/out-of-control. I feel like many names are tossed around in a black and white way making life for women this awkward catch-22. Either way you get a label, right?

But if you want it can just be nice drawings of flowers. :]

In order: Clingy Karol, Martha the Deflowered, Fay's Frayed Edges, Solitary Sandra, Goody-Two-Shoes Gladys and Grace, Late Bloomer Lauren, The Ever-Bountiful Beatrice, Torn in Half Teagan, Stand-offish Selma, Used-Up No-Good Aged Dried-Out Daniella, Pamela Who Fell Apart, Two-Faced Tara, Sheltered Shay and Her Sisters.

           

Being a woman, 

means playing the delicate flower

means accepting certain ironies

means living by a double-edged sword

means waiting to be plucked

means representing what someone else wants

means wandering through life on eggshells of their creation

her pursuits are misconstrued as novel

the nomenclature assigned to her is trivial to you

but, her body does not, should not, and will not, dictate her life.

Novel Nomenclature

Cover's done, now to fill the book and make the box for it. Just a teaser. :] Done with oil-based block printing ink from linoleum, gold and red acrylic ink, and watercolor.

Environments

Three environments done for my illustration 2 class, in order representing cluttered, quiet, and vast. Done with a detailed graphite underdrawing, then watercolor over top, then some outlining in walnut ink and white ink in a few small spots (mainly the water in the third).

Feets

Just something of no consequence to relax.

 

Drawing From The Tablet - Color

So we've finally started working in color in my drawing from the tablet class. I would post my first attempts if they weren't mostly embarrassing and very rough. Although, today we did an all day color life drawing, and I was pretty satisfied with the results. You would not believe the amount of time you need to invest in this kind of work to make it look decent at all.

I was somewhat obsessed with the silky robe she was wearing, as it reflected the red and green lights on either side of her pretty nicely.

Finished Curiosity Cabinet Book

Edit! My teacher took this from me to be displayed in the very short lived book arts show at MICA. It's a real shame seeing as it was a great show, but I'm not especially mad seeing as this book was sold to my teacher afterwards. :)

 The gold frames are done with linoleum printing. The inside images are etchings, painted over with a little walnut ink. Sewn together with red linen thread, and glued with archival pva glue. Ties with a little bit of gold ribbon, and the cover is black linen covered, and then hand painted with white ink.

-closeups-

Drawing From The Tablet

So it's been half a semester and I've been taking a more modern life drawing class in contrast to the more traditional class I had last semester. This class requires all drawings to be done in photoshop with a tablet and stylus. I've used the tablet and digital before to color over other works like the maenads, and flight of the conchords pieces, but these assignments are done in a way to sort of emulate a painterly style with a digital medium. It's challenging but interesting.
Today we worked on one pose all day long, focusing as well on the background as well on the figure. I think it sort of resembles some kind of sci-fi art school experience... very weird. I think my teacher said the first time he saw the students set up with computers around the models he thought it was the perfect metaphor for modern culture. I can't disagree.

I might edit this later, the right leg just bothers me a lot.

Etchings

This is sort of a precursor to the carousel book that I'm making. These will go inside, but I thought I'd go ahead and post them separately so they can be seen clearly. My theme is a curiosity cabinet, I decided to do etchings on zinc, not with drypoint, but etched with acid onto the metal. I sort of had to sneak with a friend into the printmaking department to do this. >.> Sacrifices, sacrifices.