For Science!

Drawing drawing drawing drawing...

Lots of drawing happening recently. My method of finger-taping is thus far keeping things fully functional and therefore inspiring a lot of work. Multiple plates taking shape, multiple drawings, sketches for paintings, and projects ongoing. I'm in over my head, but for the first time in a long time--it feels really good.

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This is the idea I'm building for my 'Science' plate, minus the color I added in Photoshop. It might be too daunting to make it an etching, but I would like to try. I still want a DNA double-helix in there, so there will be some erasing and re-drawing before I move to metal. It would likely need a line etch first for the linear stuff, soft-ground drawing for everything else, and an aquatint with super careful stopping out to get what I want. Eek.

The Shamisen drypoint is going well. She has some simple background architecture behind her now and a few alterations. We started doing a pale yellow-ish transparent roll on the plates to give a slightly Chine-collé effect. The prints look great. Our Prof was feeling restless about the double-drop with aquatint color and decided to forfeit that part of the project. I'm alright with that. Ha. I'll scan one of my Shamisen editions next week.

Lots to do this weekend. Drawingdrawingdrawing and the first quarter of my HTML/CSS class is wrapping up, which means coding my site for the final. The recent rain has also uplifted my mood, but the forecast-ed sun for the week will also be helpful as I walk to and from class with plates and art stuff.

The King Ridge GranFondo was lovely. Volunteering at packet pick-up late Friday night and Saturday morning (4am) was hard. Half an hour of sleep between those shifts and the overall fast-paced social blitz were brutal on me. Haven't come down with a cold from it yet, but it really wouldn't surprise me. It was fun watching thousands of cyclists take off at the start though! As long as I'm able I'll keep volunteering for the Fondo. Great event.

Oh yeah... my 23" monitor is so glorious I can't even describe it. I have essentially doubled my workable screen area. It's incredible. *weeps with joy*

Peace.
じゃね！

Lightning-struck Summer...

Above: Old piece. Black construction paper strips, vaguely a la Mondrian.

Nothing special to add. I've been painting and drawing some things for myself and for projects. Once the semester starts I'll post the bits and bobs that I can. The Summer has been mostly me being stressed about all the artsy things I'm trying to get done and not doing them because I'm stressed. That happens a lot. I don't feel like I accomplished much, but part of the slowness is related to concern for my hand and its bouts of swelling. There hasn't been another incident since I starting using vinyl gloves religiously... for everything. But I still think it's at least partly a mechanical thing--not just an allergy thing. It could just be scar tissue. Whatever the case... I'm being careful. I'll draw for a few hours and feel that sensitivity. The skin a little raw. The sense of something foreign in there with my bones. So I rest and wait. Take a day off. Seems okay so I work again. But it's always the same feeling and it worries me. Makes me cautious.

With that caution, I head into my gazillionth semester at the JC. Taking a website building class and Advanced Etching. I should really take silkscreen, but I'm so attached to etching right now that I want one more semester of it. See if I can manage anything I really like.

Big changes in family and their jobs. Speeding right ahead.
Not me. I'm still putting along. Aiming to get my driver's license finally. Practicing with my permit. Trying... no... I will close the deal this time. I will get my license before 2012. Chyeah!


As for the lightning... POTTER!!! Deathly Hallows pt.2 was great. Were there silly additions? Of course. Was time wasted on unnecessary non-canon stuff? Of course. But I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. Here's the thing. The books are about Harry discovering his history and his role in it. They are about mothers and their sons. They are about sacrifice and love. They are about Snape. Far more time is spent on these things than on Voldy and his cronies.
The movies, on the other hand, focus disproportionately on Voldy and his cronies... arguably the least important aspects of the books.

IMO: The overarching plot of the series climaxes at The Prince's Tale and Harry marching to his own death.
However, the climax the movies always built towards was the Harry vs. Voldy showdown. Because of this, it's a letdown by default.

In the books, Voldy's death is epic, but it's not the most epic thing that happens at the end. When they translated that to the screen, the death was not epic enough for all that build-up. The movie-viewer is left feeling like, 'that's it?', because the epic book stuff is downplayed or not included at all.

...This is getting long and I didn't think I was going to write about this. ANYway, the stuff that came from canon was really well-done. Alan Rickman is a BAMF. I was pleased with The Prince's Tale. Overall, the young actors did wonderfully. *applause*
For the record, I saw it in 3D and 2D and preferred it in 2D. But the 3D Potter glasses are nice souvenirs!

For giggles.
I started reading Potter in the Summer of 1999. Books 1 and 2 (3 wasn't out yet). That December, I picked up Book 3. Loved everything about them. PoA was such a joy to read! I drew fanart and made my own Potter memorabilia for fun.
Clay figurines included! They're totally crappy, but I love the associated memories and that I cared enough to do it. They are pre-movie, so their look is purely inspired by the American edition illustrator Mary Grandpre and my brain. I'm grateful that I was invested into the books long enough before the movies that the characters are still my own.

When I pick up any of the books to re-read, the Harry in my head looks like he did in 1999. He isn't Dan Radcliffe. Alan Rickman, though I adore him, looks very little like my Snape. I'm glad for that.

Blah blah blah.
Pottermore is amazing. Got registered within the very first minutes of the Magical Quill Challenge and then got my beta welcome e-mail last night... at the end of the first day of the site being opened. The extra stories/information from Jo is priceless, entertaining, and amusing in a way that she has such a knack for.
The Sorting Test is a little questionable seeing as I was sorted into Gryffindor. I am totally not a Gryffindor. Doubtless, the Sorting Hat would shriek, "RAVENCLAW!" before it even touched my head. Ha. That's okay. Ollivander's wand test is completely fantastic and there is a MASSIVE amount of background information about wandlore.

Pottermore:
I am AurorSeer155. Gryffindor. My wand is Cherry with a Phoenix feather core, 10 and 3/4 inches. Slightly yielding. I'm 81% into brewing an Antidote to Common Poisons and have so far earned 28 house points. w00t!

For all of the Potter lovin'... Thank you Jo! <3

Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Yay, Summer!!!
My goal is to get five paintings done before Fall semester. That, and getting a driver's license and a job if possible. Plus, I'm doing some other art projects for friends. Yeeeee.


I don't know what this is or where it's going, but I've been painting it for the last couple days. Acrylic on Bristol. I actually drew it during Winter Break last year, but didn't get a chance to paint it. The process was lifted from one of Mzzz. Larsen's classes. During the gallery's sculpture show, we went down and sketched some of the maquettes. Then we cut the sketches into interesting pieces and moved them around on paper, tracing the contours. We finished them by 'irradiating' with simple black gradients. I rather liked my piece, but I think the Larsen kept them all.

But... I still had the sketch cut-outs!!! So I figured I would make my own little project. I think I'll be painting in some big areas of yellow-orange next. Maybe some bright green. Something bold. We'll see.

Some assembly...

Let's see...
Fall of '08. I took Principles of Color with the exquisitely terrifying Donna Larsen. Ms. Larsen. You have to say it with a 'z'. Mzzzzzz Larsen. This is crucial. In all of her eccentric glory, she provided me an education in color that blew my mind. While this made me incredibly excited for future work, I looked around at my old art and works in progress and... deflated. Everything came to a screeching halt with the BRAND NEW INFORMATION that no other art teacher had offered me before. I loved that class. Loved it. Wuvved ittttt. Tons of interesting assignments.

This collage is made with a complimentary admixture of red-orange to blue-green. Mzz Larsen calls it 'esoteric toning'... because she can. Flat colors painted out on bristol paper to make swatches. Swatches are exacto'd into any desired shape. Then you just start stacking. Glorious fun.

Trebuchet
7x7 in. Bristol

Of course, I had to take her other class, Intro to Art & Design, in Spring '09. An equally challenging and awesome experience. Our final project was a Cubist collage. We had to show our 'workspace' in a Cubist mode, include three personal items, and use a number of specific visual cues, like reversals. We also chose a 'slim volume of verse' and had to photocopy the cover and a page from the text to include. I used 'Pieces of You' by Tablo, a South-Korean hip hop artist. Acrylic paint, photocopies, prismacolor pencils.
All of it came together so joyfully for me. Very satisfying.

Walls of My World
14x17 in. Bristol

I'm itching to do a series like this.

Print-happy...

The blotters hadn't been changed, so I didn't bring home the grapes yet. I took one more print of it though. I'll have plenty to work with on next class.

But for now, I'll post some work from the spring semester of Printmaking.
We started with simple collages of found stuff, like cardboard, stickers, fabric, etc. I did a few, but it was so hard to get a feel for what was happening before printing.

I fished out a Mayan tablet from the internets. Interesting character glyphs. This one reminded me of the Simpsons. Ha. Blew it up, drew it on Bristol, exacto-knifed out a stencil and used it on this one. It's the only collage I did that looked semi-decent.

The first etching was a four and a half by six inch zinc plate. I took a cell-phone picture on the bus and used it for reference. I had been thinking of doing that big bus painting, but did this little etching first. Figuring this out was a mind-eff for me. I rely on what my eyes can see right in front of me when I'm drawing. The etching process kills that opportunity. The image will print reverse of what you're doing. The lights and darks are inverted. Wiping ink into and off the plate is a totally finesse/experience-based thing. And the acid is just... scary.

All things considered... I did okay. XD



Straight onto an 8x10 zinc. The assignment was to show texture, which I didn't really do.
Fail.
Took some pictures near Spring Lake. Went with this one. The whole plate was a learning process. A lot of, "okay, that didn't work"... and moving on. So, it has problems, but that's the way it goes.

Peace!

LP/FM

Diving headlong into another fandom. Linkin Park.

The first is ooold. I stole images from Hybrid Theory, Meteora, etc. This is all acrylic on canvas.


I made this for the Fort Minor show I went to in 2006. Same process as the one above. Most of the designs are Mike Shinoda's from the album artwork. I was lucky enough to attend the meet & greet. Mike signed in the middle. Holly Brook is nearby. Takbir and Cheapshot are top left. Bobo from Cypress Hill is bottom right. Great show. One of the best nights of my life.


In 2005 the Linkin Park Underground had a collage contest. This was my entry. Mike chose it as the winner. I got to thank him at the show I mentioned above... hence the 'great work' with his siggy. Sweet dude. Mike is good people. I couldn't even list the materials that are in this one. I'll just say mixed media.