29th ding...

29 is a proper adult age.
I am not a proper adult.
:/

I had recently found this old drip/spray watercolor thing I made 20 YEARS AGO. One of those grade school art projects that I always kept packed safely somewhere because I liked it so much. Since I was about 8 or 9 when I did the drippies, it felt appropriate to make a little self-portrait for my 29th and fuse the two.

My real hair was nearing ass-length. Overdue for a cut. Had my mom hack off about 7 inches today.
Felt like a good birthday thing to do.

Huzzah.

Bumb ditch...

I stood on the curb beside the open bus door, waiting for a few riders to disembark. Standard practice I'm familiar with after taking the same bus for more than five years. The first out the door, a rough-looking older guy, stopped and turned directly toward me.
"Could you let me by?" Suddenly all gritted teeth and angry.
The only possible way I could have gotten more out of his way would be to put one ankle in the gutter and flatten against the side of the bus. To my left, the sidewalk was empty. The two kind elderly gentlemen who had ushered me forward to board first were waiting patiently by the bus shelter. There had to be at least five feet of open space in each direction from this guy's perspective. I stayed put, considering I had nowhere to move to, and gave him the double eyebrow raise of utter confusion.
After he got done glaring at me, he passed by--along the natural way anyone would exit a bus--and muttered pretty audibly...
"Dumb bitch."

Aaaaaalrighty then.
I was tempted to call him out on it, but the bus was late and it wasn't worth making myself, and everyone else, more late. Plus, there's a strong chance the guy wasn't all there--mentally. Lots of psychologically unstable people take the bus. He also had some odd scabby sores all over his face... so yeah. I wasn't about to provoke him further.
Oh, public transportation... how I love thee.

Yeehaw.
Silkscreen class more than made up for it though! It was a such a great day in the lab. Everyone had positive energy. Everyone was encouraging and having fun. Since our prof is up for review this semester, one of the other art teachers sat in to observe. It happened to be my first art teacher at the JC. Two semesters of art history... five or six years ago. I loved those classes and took the opportunity to tell her so. She's awesome.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I turned in my self-portrait. Six runs completed. Didn't have time for the last run, which would have been a dark outline in some places and would have made the pen in my hand show up better. I also rushed mixing my ink colors so they aren't exactly what I wanted. It's alright. I think it still works.

'In collaboration with the night'

The registration is a bit off for all the prints because I didn't realize my screen was shifting slightly in the clamps until I was halfway through the runs. Darn. Live and learn, eh?
I am content. ^^

I'll be including this in my scholarship portfolio submission, which I'll be working on all weekend. Exciting!

Winter throwback II

 

I worked on this one during the 'beginning painting' class also. The antique picture to the left is the obvious reference. I stumbled across it somewhere on the net... possibly the Pink Tentacle blog. It hasn't been updated much since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, but they had a lot of incredible old artwork/posters/photographs on a regular basis. Anyway, this lovely lady was rather striking. The fabric of the kimono looked like a fun challenge. Unfortunately, I never finished her face and neck, so she's a little lacking. I was really pleased with the kimono and obi's color and pattern. As far as I recall, the rounded hairstyle indicates she was a married woman... 'marumage'. There is a Japanese language lesson in there. Weee!

For the trees...

Here we go!
The transition from the portrait being scraped out and slowly turned into trees. I thought it would be fun to maintain some of the face, rather than scrape it out entirely.


This is probably the last print I got of it that was decent before the burr smoothed out. It's incomplete and not particularly strong, but the process was educational and I don't hate it.

A little steamy...

I editioned my grapes and brought a print home. I'll scan it tomorrow or Friday.

This was the last thing we did last semester. A woodblock print!
We each got a huge slab of pine shelving, drew up our sketches, and then got to carving.
It was so hard.
Oh, geez.
It takes some serious elbow grease to get through one of these things.
Brutal.
Our prompts for subject matter:
-cropped, no complete figures or objects
-evoke a sense (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell)
OR
-something related to the arts (theatrical, culinary, fine, etc.)
I chose the former.
My result...


I'm pretty adamant about using only my own sketches/photos for reference with school work, or anything that would potentially be sold. I didn't for this piece. Yep, I'm a thief. Since it was my first woodblock, experimental, and I knew I wouldn't be printing it much... I decided to do what I wanted. Definitely no profit for this one.


Hahaha.
Very glamorous shot of Yoochun, neh? Poor boy.
So, I blatantly stole Junsu's image.
I think this is an offshot from A-Nation 2008. The original is a video, so it's my own screencap.
Still a thief.
Heavily stylized and added to.
Still a thief.
But it's Jun-chaaaaaannnnnn! I can't resist! The quickest food-vacuum in Kpop! I must pay homage!

Practically broke my hands making the darn thing. I figured I should have an emotional investment if I was going to endure the physical strain. Haha!

When it was nearing completion my Prof made an aside comment that the figure's face was so boy-ish, while the hands looked like they belonged to a construction worker, pouring cement.
I laughed and agreed.
Internally, I was snorting/giggling/heehawing. I was thinking, 'good, an accurate portrait then!'
rofl.
Puppies, cuteness, and veiny hands.
Lovely bundle of contradictions.
/fangirl
*ahem*

Head-first...

A little late, but as promised. First etching of the semester. First on copper. First drypoint. Weeeeeee!
Our teacher had us try to 'trace' our own reflection in the copper, which is a totally disorienting experience if you've never tried it.

2nd state proof...
I swear, the first state looked like my mom. I started laughing as soon as I pulled it from the plate. Tweaked it a bit, hoping for something closer to me. It still looks too cartoony. *shrug*


Moving right along. I did about 12 total prints, from proof to edition. It took me forever to get a knack for the hand-wiping. This one is maybe a little under-wiped still, but I got the hang of it eventually.
The next is already in the works. He had us scrape out our portraits and go outside to get a plein-air drypoint of a tree on campus. I happened to be at this point in the process when it was about 96° last week. That was... rough. Ha!

I'm working on the 3rd state of that one. I invested in a diamond-tipped needle via Blick. I'm hoping it'll arrive before next class.

がんばります！

let's get digital

For years, I used a mouse to work in Photoshop. It was painstaking, but I was accustomed to it. Then I got a Wacom Tablet and my world changed. There is no way I could go back to a mouse now.


Above is my first whack at the Tablet. Got a feel for it with a little self-portrait.


Summer heat-induced boredom.


A quirky work in progress during a time when I got rather excited about obnoxious colors.


And finally, taking MarbleBlast Ultra far too seriously on my Xbox360. Once a nerd, always a nerd. Geek4life, yo!