Maxian Art

Changing of the Guard!

2011-09-27T06:15:00.000-07:00

Always gotta love puns. This is probably one of my favorite designs to work on, I loved drawing everything from the crown boxers to their furry hats. I wanted to keep them both respectful looking so I settled for an undershirt vs. shirtless and boxers vs briefs. It's surprising to see that my Little Thief design finished with a higher score than this has right now. I spent tons of time working on this while Little Thief took a few hours to draw, finalize and submit. Changing of the Guard has 2 days left to vote and I think you should....

Go VOTE!

For puns & sexy british men of course.

As always, much appreciated. Love you all.

2nd Threadless Totes entry!

2011-09-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

It had a two color limit. This is pretty different than my usual illustrative style. It was frustrating in it's own way at times. It was "inspired" (though I hate the word) from These two things below:

The 'bigfoot' photo everyone's seen

Odilon Redon' s "Cyclops"

If you haven't discovered the dreamlike painting wonder that is Odilon Redon go look him up or check out a book on him.

Below is the process of the design start to finish!

1. Getting all of the angles established.

2. Rough, rough background sketch.

3. Making the 2nd rough background sketch to draw it
out repeating the same angles as the cyclops.

4. All rough work is done!

5. Filling in the background took much longer than first
anticipated despite it being simple angles and straight lines.

6. He was originally blue but I though it made him look too
much like an Avatar so I changed him to red once done.

Thanks! : ) VOTE here if you like

First Published Saint Comic of the Semester

2011-09-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

Created for Aquinas' Saint Newspaper, 2011.

First published comic of the new school year. The paper comes out tomorrow but I received the go ahead to show it ahead of time. I wanted to show the lack of appreciation that many of us had back in Freshman year for pre-made decent food. After living on your own, you understand why cafeterias rock.

On another creepy note, when I uploaded my work to my Facebook art album, it recognized the faces in the comic. It's happened before but I never thought to show people. Weird huh?

MOAR Threadless!

2011-09-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Ya'll, long time no see right?

Threadless had another challenge, this time for Totes which I'm totes loving. Entries are limited to two colors but it's nice to work with a restricted palette after other things.

GO VOTE! <3

I plan to get this blog back on track. This time it's not a shortage of material that I have but a major shortage of time. School has started up again as well as work and a unexpected yet completely welcome invitation to be a part of a sweet art exhibition downtown. It's all really exciting, I'm pretty thrilled for whatever comes my way next.

Custom Signage

2011-07-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

My city has a ridiculous regulation that says that if there are more than 4 unrelated women in one house it's a "Brothel". Being a poor college student there are 7 girls and 1 guy in our lovely abode and so "Brothel House" quickly became our home nickname. No one takes the rule too seriously but technically it's still in effect. I had really wanted to make a sign for awhile and now it's finally done! Made with spray adhesive, gold leaf, acrylic, and spray paints. The sign itself is wood.

Tutorial for how I made the letters in gold leaf here!

Faux Dark Mark Tattoo!

2011-07-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

Drawn with Copic multiliners and shaded with a

Faber-Castell marker.

Some friends are having a Harry Potter party tonight and it is required that people dress up! I'm going as a female version of Draco Malfoy! I know the books never mention him receiving the dark mark but the movies show him with one so I'm running with it. I would totally be Snape if I only had a lovely black wig or wasn't allergic to hair dyes. God knows I'm pale enough.

The tattoo is a little different in the movies, I stuck with the basic design and just made it a little less stylized.

On a side note. Seeing what Rowling does next will be amazing. I'll miss Harry Potter but at the same time excited for anything new that she does. Rowling we all love you. You are great.

Snape, Snape, Severus Snape.

2011-07-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Snape in the grass!!! AHHH

Unrelated but I had another little cafe sketch. This woman was not happy that I was drawing her. I would have thrown it out or given it to her if she only asked me but she just kept giving me the stare down. It was a bit surprising that she was so unnerved. If any of you are ever being watched and it legitimately bothers you, just politely say something. Most of us will be polite right back. Say nothing and we'll keep on drawing.

Coffee Shop Odd Couple

2011-07-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Guy with a office job and hipster girl meet in cafe. They end up best friends, quit their respective jobs open their own coffee shop. The End! Had this little sketch bouncing around in my head for awhile.

Girl somewhat inspired by the chick below:

In other news, I just moved and won't have internet until the 20th unless I go venture to my favorite coffee shop. Boo!

I kinda love my Summer job.

2011-06-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Comic 1

Click for full view!!!

Comic 2

Click for full view!!!

I work housekeeping along with a great crew of fellow students. These comics make it look terrible. While they are true, or at least almost like Comic 1, it's not all that bad. We get regular full time hours and because we're all similar in age we get along nicely. I have a job, I'm happy.

These will most likely continue, they aren't anything serious but they are fun and really quick to make and my co-workers absolutely love them. I might even make some on past jobs I've had. God knows I have plenty of stories to tell.

Enjoy and Goodnight!

Around The World, Any Way You Like It.

2011-06-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

My design just went up for Threadless' Travel Challenge! Please go vote for me, I'd really appreciate it! I had a lot of fun with this one and tried focusing more on design. Typically all of my entries are more illustration based and full of nit-picky detail but I wanted to go for a simpler but refined look here. I feel like I'm getting better little by little, and discovering new ways of working with each design I do. I just need to make more!

Yes I want vote!

No I don't want to vote!

I observe stuff.

2011-06-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

The local group of chess guys.

WIP, prismacolor color pencils.

Went to one of the local cafes where I like to draw and the chess guys were there! They are so intent on their games and strategy, it's pretty great. It took me quite awhile to draw as people kept moving around so much. One guy kept sitting in my direct line of vision too, but, it's just something to deal with when working from life.

The other two pieces are works in progress. The weather has been beautiful so I was taking a walk yesterday after work, picked a flower brought it back to my apartment to draw. Since my teacher is limiting my color I need to use it somewhere! It's nice getting back into my color pencils. I seriously have a love affair with them. The Second flower drawing is, and will continue to be a pain in the butt to finish as the flower wilted really quick under the hot studio light, with no water. I had lightly sketched out the shape of all the petals and it had already begun to wilt. The shading is all kinds of made up and bits of what I remembered it looking like. I didn't feel like continuing but I also didn't want to waste paper. The continuation was definitely a good choice to make.

Goodnight for now and can you believe it, this is the 105th post!

Nikki Portrait

2011-06-12T15:22:00.000-07:00

Starting another portrait so WIP. Begin light and work to dark! 24 x 38 inches

More ink works up later.

Still life's in ink

2011-06-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

9 x 10 inch

10 x 9 inch

Graduation Card

2011-06-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

With work, a little travel and being sick I didn't have time to make an entire card but I illustrated the inside of this graduation card. The character is Luke from the Professor Layton games. A series of puzzle solving games that should be challenging to most, at least mid-way to later on. The drawing is referencing a parody of the games called Professor Layton and the Malignant Growth. Go watch it! It's impossible not to laugh if you have played the series or just heard a little of the games.

The drawing started out quite slow at first and I wasn't happy with it at all because I had envisioned a different style when I started. It then just went and turned itself into something I could live with. Thanks to my boyfriend who recommended a few changes! The style reminds me of a little of Ren and Stimpy, maybe because of the eyes and mouth? kudos to anyone who watched that great show while growing up too! Goodnight for now!

Independent Study work & Thoughts on "Good" art

2011-06-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

"21 in 1". Acrylic, 4 x 4 ft. 1 hour.

"C.B.A. Deconstruction" Acrylic, 4 x 4 ft boards.

Piece 1. Acrylic, 4 x 4 ft board. 2 hours.

Piece 2. Acrylic, 4 x 4 ft board. 30 minutes

Piece 3. Acrylic, 4 x 4 ft board. 15 minutes

In my independent study this summer I have to work a lot quicker. It's hard to say if I like it or not. For life drawing classes we usually have a model for a total of about 12 hours for each pose and gives us plenty of time to figure things out. Typically my work is really technical, like the last post with the portrait. Details in real life are an obsession in art to me. I love working out how to get a 2-D plane to look real or almost real and thus came about my independent study, to flip how I work upside down.

Though I may not thoroughly enjoy it, my work this summer will be quick. Each piece will be a triptych, or a 3 part panel painting. Each triptych section will essentially be the same exact image except different in the time taken to paint each one. In the beginning I knew that I was going to work from a longer time to increasingly shorter times with each piece but wasn't exactly sure what the increments of time would be. After finishing one triptych I think I'll stick with 2 hours for the first piece, 30 minutes for the second, and 15 minutes for the last. I can adjust if needed. Each image is essentially deconstructed in 3 steps.

Some moments I utterly hate this study and in others like the spontaneity and freedom it allows me. Personally I think that many people today prefer more realistic looking work like my old self portrait to the left, also seen here in my first post for this blog. I was so proud of the piece because I hadn't used a photo, but achieved a photo realistic look. I adored that in artwork and still do to a large degree. This isn't to say I only like realistic work. I have a broad affection for all art from stylized Byzantine work, to Japanese woodblock prints, to contemporary artists like DeKooning and Alexander Calder. I used to feel that I had to work realistically because it was the only way to show I was or could be a "good" artist. But just like beauty and aesthetic, how "good" a work is, is opinion and mine has been constantly changing. It's hard to make up your mind on what work to create and how to create work when there are no limits.

At the art institute of Chicago one of my favorite paintings has turned out to be Paul Cézanne's The Basket of Apples. The piece struck me from across the gallery for it's realism. The lighting and color is soft but very real looking. It looks like the gallery has a framed nook in the wall with a still life set up. Upon closing the gap between me and the painting I discovered it's rough. Everything isn't perfectly blended. The cloth looks geometric and individual brushstrokes are discernible. The piece is great, it has a raw quality to it and yet when you see it from afar it's one of the best still life's someone can see at the museum.

Going out of my comfort zone of blended shading and detail won't be easy for me. Creating work that I don't see as pretty will be hard too. It's easier to appreciate a wide breadth of work as a viewer. The viewer almost always sees work finished. The viewer is free to judge and that is where my apprehensiveness stems from. People who know me and myself all know I can create a wide range of work but new viewer's won't know that. It's pretty accurate to say that I'm afraid people will judge work like the new works in my study as I do, as "ok" work. That by seeing the paintings above will assume I can only paint or draw so-so and that I'm an amateur hobby artist. My mind jumps to conclusions and thinks that if they, as in the viewers, think I'm an amateur, I can't further pursue art which would be a sad day indeed. An artist I ran into yesterday saw the new self portrait piece and just says "oh it's pretty good". Does he just think that's all I can do? I have NO clue and not knowing scares me. What I can I say though, assuming what viewers and what other artists think won't get my anywhere. Assuming makes an ass out of you and me both.

Not knowing is a hard part of life but I'm comforted by the fact that even if working in this new way doesn't get me anywhere, I can always make more work.

I would love to hear what anyone else thinks on what makes "good" art or anything from this post, comment away!!!

Preview:

"S.K. Deconstruction" Piece 1.

Quick B-Day Card!

2011-05-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Quick digital drawn card for a good friend of mine back home. Hoping his Birthday was great!

Portrait for Funsies

2011-05-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

Detail

A charcoal portrait I did for fun and practice of a friend. I did take some photo references for the smoke and face. It was too late before I realized it was the rough side of the paper. I might try to blend some of the areas a bit more so you can't see the grain as much. It's 18 x 24 inches, made with compressed charcoal and white conte!

Art Rant: Lying, Attention Seeking Artists Part 2!

2011-05-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

How to "paint" with Liz!

From the previous post, here's a "painting" of Kid Cudi.

Below is the image you can easily find on Google image search by typing in the query "Cudi erase me".

Here is where I show you how to "paint" on photoshop while at the same time showing exactly how their "painting" was made:

1. Open up the jpg file of the image in Photoshop.

2. Crop the image a little

3. Go to Filter > Blur > Blur more

4. Go to Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife

5. Play around with the settings until you get the same effect. I kept the "painting" underneath for reference.

These settings give you an identical look to the "painting".

5. Go to Texture > Texturizer to give it that lovely canvas look.

6. Use the Canvas texture, scale it to about 125% and a relief of 6 and top right lighting and I was done.

7. Voila!

I obviously don't know the exact settings used in each filter so my outcome is a tiny bit different but with a few easy steps you can make "paintings" too.

btw, LOOK HOW MUCH I PAINT!

Art Tip: Don't lie about your work. Thanks!

Art Rant: Lying, Attention Seeking Artists Part 1!

2011-05-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

I will keep this as to the point as I can, but, this is probably my BIGGEST pet peeve ever, ever, ever. All artists can be considered narcissistic to a point but people who art thieve and lie about their work are beyond me. It can only be assumed that they love or are addicted to the attention from work they didn't put in. I can already hear some of the people reading this, "but Liz..." you say "Life isn't fair, and people lie. It happens." Yes, it does and yes, life isn't fair and people do lie but they shouldn't dangit, at least not so terribly.
If you wanna play artist at least learn to lie better otherwise you look like a huge jerk. It's common sense that people don't go from drawing "so-so" or "ok" to "oh hey that's pretty spiffy" in a week!

For all the Specific Susie's out there I'm specifically adressing

1) Art theft! They were too dang lazy to sit down and try, really try their best at drawing or painting so they type in something they like into google followed by "sketch" or perhaps "painting" and find something that they could do. They take it and pass it off as theirs.

2)"Artwork" The quotation marks are there for a reason! This is the same as number 1 but with a twist. They don't enter "sketch" or "painting" in after they google something they like. They just find a photograph that's not theirs and photoshop filter the heck out of it. Then they go "look what I painted/drew." Someone goes "really that's cool, what did you do it with?" and they answer "acrylic/ oil/ pastel/pencil/pen!" There are people who do this, trust me. Wait, screw trust, I'm going to show you. I don't know how it isn't obvious to some people but if you have an ounce of knowledge in Photoshop, you'll be the one confused about how anyone is fooled.

Maybe they didn't google it, they could have been tricky and gone on Flickr, Deviantart, or anywhere else. It doesn't matter if they went to Timbuktu, the art or photo is not theirs. They did not create it.

For the cases of faux paintings, I have great examples and then later I'll show you how easy it is to "paint" yourself in part 2 of this Art Rant. Not so that you can piss me off too but so you or any doubters can see how easy it is to make a "painting".

Art Theft, example 1:

As you can see from the screen capture, this person is not in art, they are studying music education. This isn't to say that if you aren't studying art you can't make art, quite the contrary. Anyone can create art but this is someone I'm facebook friends with. I was skeptical they had made this as I had never seen them try to seriously draw, ever, and the image doesn't show up very big so what looks like a signature can't be read....

I headed on over to to my good friend Google, clicked their image search and began searching for "goddess", and "Athena" as the woman has a ethereal quality and modern greek style outfit, no luck. Try "goddess sketch" and you get closer, then the winning searches, "greek goddess" where it's the 17th image or "Aphrodite" where it's the 8th image.

The image as far as I can tell is originally from a web site called Elfwood, a fantasy, sci-fi drawing website and drawn by a girl named Erin C. Perry, see her page of it here. You can even see the signature in this one! I'm assuming "Rinna" is a nickname for Erin.

Case closed, the person on Facebook didn't draw it.

"Paintings!", example 1:

Did I miss something? Type "Bob Marley" into google image search.... Just do it..... Okay? It's image number 3. It is the third image on google just cropped with adjusted color and a canvas filter on photoshop. Case closed.

"Paintings!", example 2

   Oh a painting how cool..... Typing just "Cudi" into google image search won't do it so look at their comments, it's from his music video for "Erase me". Try, "Cudi erase me" in google image search. Look ma! Image number 5!
   Some might be thinking "hey, it's not just like the photo in Google and you can see the canvas texture! It must be a painting!" No. It's not. Wait til Part deux! I'll be putting it up within a few hours so any people who have never used photoshop can see step by step how to fake it.

   ****All names and any means of identifying these people are hidden and will not be shown no matter how many times you ask pretty please. My point here is to not shame people but to show other artists what not to do, ever.
   In the one case with the faux paintings I'm frustrated as a artist because the person does real work too. They shouldn't need to rely on photoshopped photos for attention. They could be very good if they only cut the act and worked on creating more real artwork. There are a lot more than just 2 examples but I don't need to beat the subject to death.

Productivity happens when I'm sick.

2011-05-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

A long, long time ago. When I can still remember.... I offered to draw this for a best friend of mine. She loves the Commodore (Jack Davenport) from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Basically his velvety soft voice makes any reading material, including dictionary entries worth listening to. I'd prefer Alan Rickman's voice. Morgan Freeman too. Either of them could narrate my life and I'd love it.

Parts of his costume are wrong but I'll let you viewers find the mistakes. I did use a photo reference, I had no idea who she was even talking about at first much less the face and wardrobe. I'm a bad movie watcher. I've seen two of the Pirates movies but am terrible remembering characters and actor's names.

Wrong AGAIN Harold

2011-05-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

Full View will rock your socks!

This was originally going to be a comic but I thought that the words would kinda ruin it and that illustration just worked better. I just found a way to show how the morning of the 22nd will probably be for any Harold Camping's followers without any direct text. The narration would have gone something like "It's really happening!" for where she's being raptured and then "SHIT!/F*&@!/ Great!!! Now I have NO money/ or some other fml phrase" for where she's waking up. There was also going to be a whole extra scene under everything that would've looked like this:

Except just imagine painted in like the rest of the illustration. Gotta love the nuts in our lives.

I was so enraptured by Rapture that I thought I'd draw a comic on it

2011-05-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist, making a comic about "Rapture" is too much fun. Here's a preview. The preview image is zoomed out on photoshop, you'll be able to see a lot more in the finished comic.

Finals are over and Summer has Begun.

2011-05-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

FULL VIEW by clicking. You can see my excuses!!!!

Sketch drawn with Odosketch a cool on-line "sketchbook" that simulates real material. Go play around with it! It's fun.

Flat Sally!

2011-04-28T14:57:00.000-07:00

The Da Vinci horse at Frederick Meijer Gardens.

Chatting with my co-worker and taking a coffee break.

Easter Dinner! Yum!

She was the St. Patty's Day Princess.

Girl's night out!

May I introduce Flat Sally! The little sister of a friend of mine had a project to mail a "person" they made after reading Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the book a bulletin board falls on the main character, leaving him unharmed except for the fact that he is flattened. He family then sends him around as he is then 2-D. The 2nd grade class did the same thing with their own colorful characters and my friends little sister decided to send her Flat Sally to me! It was quite the honor and truth be told, Sally will be missed as I just sent her back home to Illinois. It has been one of the funniest and more interesting projects I've participated in. Only some of the better photos are up.

Threadless Design Up!

2011-04-19T04:48:00.000-07:00

Go Vote!

If you love tees, Threadless or word play go vote for my design HERE at Threadless for the Threadless Loves Characters competition! You'll have the unending gratitude and appreciation of both Mr. Pepper here and me. Also, if I score well enough they'll print me!

Oh, how my ears bled.

2011-04-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

First published in The Saint, Aquinas College's student newspaper.

If you do not yet know of the auto tune horror that is Friday, for your own mental sake, don't go listen now. To attempt to get it put of ones head, perhaps listen to Peter Gabriel, Fleet Foxes, Phoenix, Smashing Pumpkins, or classical. Honestly play anything you fancy because it will be better than her song.

If you view comments on her video people have been incredibly harsh but almost rightfully so. I don't condone the idiots who just say "like omg you should just die!!! :P " or "just cut your wrists so no one ever hears your voice again" because she shouldn't do any of those things. On the other hand, well oh my. On the other hand her parents should have used that money they wasted to get her some voice lessons. Rebecca Black might be a slightly tone deaf prima donna with bad pronunciation but with training and waiting until that voice develops, she could improve. The thing that still gets me is how apparently the mom saw the lyrics beforehand and thought that they weren't the best, but, still went ahead with the gift to her daughter. How could you see those and still pay them?

I could go on and on but honestly I don't have the time. The song, girl and music video have already been beat to death by hate from listeners and you won't be hearing anything new. Don't feel bad for her though, her song rose up on the itunes top 100 and she's laughing all the way to bank.

**Click the comic for full view, it's much better!**

"Busy, Busy, it's Not My Week" Week.

2011-04-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

Not related to either Avatar series or any religious stuff!!!

The class is finally getting around to putting a "patina", or layer of paint to give the sculptures an older feel. I actually royally messed mine up so I took paint thinner to it and it's in the process of being redone. We're starting with a layer of latex and once that's dry, layers of somewhat transparent oil color are added on and wiped off to show details. I had started with a light base coat and immediately went dark and so, it looked very bad. Redo time! In case you don't have the courage to ask, yes it will have lights inside in the end. I'm a very serious artist and I'll only use the highest grade of christmas lights to put inside it. My mom will be proud and shall display it in her front window like only a shameless mother can.

Moving on to the less than stellar self portrait.

Coffee is essential for this kind of
all day drawing marathon

We had an assignment for life drawing to draw a self portrait and here is my work so far. I'm really not a fan, my eyes and head are slightly bigger than they should be. Also, once you get lower than the hand on my hip the perspective changes from looking slightly down to straight on. I have done much better work so I'm a little disappointed with myself. The piece is now nowhere near done with all the problems but I intend to work on it more. Besides, this is after one day in the studio, only around 8 hours of work.

Please don't critique this as of now. I really dislike it and know the plethora of things wrong, I'm just going to have to work through the messed up perspective to fix it. I wanted to try and include as much of myself on the sheet and so I stupidly placed myself really, ridiculously close to the mirror so I could see my feet when looking down. That resulted in me not being able to measure properly because my arm can't stretch out all the way to measure with a sight stick because I'll hit the glass. To top it off I look a little promiscuous, great. I was really going for the feisty school girl look... not.

But wait there's more!

Ugh, I don't even want to start with this one. After this series I'm going back to just focusing on the model instead of trying to draw the model and everything else. Despite positive feedback I know I can do better, more impressive work. My teacher tries to steer us away from attempting that "perfect" look to things because there really isn't a defined perfect. While he is highly credible and has a ton of experience and various honors in art, I know that if I saw some of my own pieces I'd go "oh hey, that's kinda cool" and then I'd move on to something else.

I hear the old art masters snickering...

Finally! A successful piece! I've been working on and off of this little lino-cut. I might change a few details but I really like how it turned out. It was tricky trying to see how to carve out the storm door behind the girl to make it look reflective and yet transparent at the same time.

Everything was good until I tried to cut her face ad messed up. It wasn't the end of the world but she looked too old when she's supposed to be a kid. I googled "How to fix a lino cut" and got this post from artist Erin Curry's Blog. She details using Bondo, an auto body repair putty to fill back in a area to then re-cut it like new. Easy right? Unless I used the wrong bondo it didn't do the trick for me at all. I was working in a relatively small area and let it dry and sanded it down like she said but it just crumbled out. The only thing I can think of is that she's using some better lino than me.

Not to be deterred I tried my own idea for a fix, super glue. It takes a little longer to dry and it's harder to sand down but it cut much cleaner. I still had to be careful not to pop out the super glue chunk while cutting but after adding an extra drop to stick it in place, the super glue worked and held up under the pressure of printing!

Now to edition all my printmaking stuff. I should just hide a sleeping bag in the art building somewhere for that. Stay tuned for more hare-brained art madness.

Up within this weekend, another Artists FYI on a long time favorite of mine!

An Evening With the French Romantics

2011-04-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Still not done but almost there.

Time warp back in time!

The very beginning layout

Erin's concert, she's the gorgeous one in the long dress.

Yesterday I had the honor of working on stage during the recital of a close friend. She planned the entirety of the show herself. In between some of the songs she would have people come on stage to read a short poem. I was the first and last to go on stage and it was a little nerve racking just working the entire time with my back to an audience. Although it was great being able to work so close to all of the performers as I could hear everybody perfectly, and they were great! All of the music was from the Romantic period in France and thus the poetry and my piece were all French themed too.

The piece was partially prepared before hand so that people could tell what it was supposed to be from the start but not too far along so that there was a decent progression over the course of the show. The piece is supposed to be depicting the Seine River that runs through Paris. I used a stock photo with a free license for reference as I've never been to Paris and was having trouble imagining the city of light. There is still some work to be done but at least now I won't have the feeling of eyes on me as I finish. I considered starting with a blank board but I would have had to work extremely fast which I feared would have been too loud working with pastels on board.

Thanks again to Erin for asking me to work on stage for her kick ass recital!

Big Printmaking Plate is done!

2011-03-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Detail

Hands detail!

Hands from farther away.

The whole print!

Finally it is done! I wanted to include this plate in a portfolio review for a scholarship so I pulled an all nighter in the print studio to etch a final time and apply the aquatint. I stage bit the aquatint to create the spotlight effect. Click the words for definitions! The plate itself is 18 by 9.5 inches, the paper I printed on is 25 by 18. I like big borders on finished pieces, it's more traditional and professional anyway. Now just to edition it!

To explain stage biting quickly, stage or step biting is "the way plates are etched to varying depths. When a plate is etched, the nonimage areas are protected by an acid-resistant ground. In step biting the plate is periodically removed from the acid and more ground is applied. Then the plate is put back in the acid for a deeper bite." as Magical Secrets masterfully explains.

Yes the site is really called "Magical Secrets: A Printmaking Community". The site is run by Crown Point Press which is, as far as I'm concerned, the most awesome printmaking studio in the states. Artists who are invited to work there are good. They've made it when crown point wants them there, in their fabulous studios that I can only dream of working in. Scuse me while I stare off into space.....

Anyway, Once I edition it I think I'll throw a little contest so someone can win a free print of it! Details later! (contest idea from my good friend Theresa!)

Such Great heights? (More life drawing)

2011-03-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

This is my latest piece out of life drawing. I say such "great" heights because I was perched on some studio benches and had to crank up the easel and add a support bar to be able to work normally. Ideally I want to work another 5 or 6 hours, longer if needed to resolve some of the more unfinished areas. Although, some people like it as is and say not to over work it. I'm not sure but I think the piece can go quite a bit further. It might be hard to tell from the picture but this is pretty big at 22 inches by 36 inches (?). I'll have to measure later and I'll edit this.

It was a bit frustrating finding out that we were done with the pose. I had missed one day from being sick but thought we at least had one or two more classes with her.

This one is the new piece I just started. It's the same size 22 inches by 36(?) and I think I'm getting more comfortable working larger. This is after 2 classes and has been a pain in the butt because some people missed class for the second night and because my teacher brought the one table in to work on a monotype. If it's there I draw it, even when the scene changes so these pieces constantly change. It is tiring but fun work. Two more sessions with our model!

Both were working with vine and compressed charcoal.

Printmaking Proofs

2011-03-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Hahhaha, the top right corner was quickly photoshoped
as my scanner scanned some wrinkles in on the proof.

SO MANY HANDS!!! Zombie horde?

Proofs, showing how the girl has progressed.

I've been slacking a bit this first semester but I got a lot done over Spring break. The top is basically how the piece looks right now. The next se is to add more shading to the girl, and to start shading on the hundreds of hands. After I'm satisfied with that I'll do aquatint for dramatic lighting, ohhhh!

Lately I've been considering doing some tutorials on traditional printmaking in case people are interested. I'm no expert but I know my way around all the basic steps. I can cover everything from cutting copper, beveling the sharp edges, degreasing, applying asphaltum, etching, biting the etch with acid, and then going to print which is a whole other series of steps. I could even briefly cover aquatint though I'm still learning how to control it a bit more. Anyone wanna see something like that? It's sort of a dying art but it's a lot of fun for me.

Send Japan Some Love and Support

2011-03-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

People in the states can help Japan a little by texting REDCROSS to 90999. It donates $10 to The Japanese Red Cross. Stay strong Japan! It's only a little but its one way people can do something.

If you wanna verify it, here's the RedCross site!

Still waiting for my friend over there to get back to me, hope you're okay.

**Edit: My friends and their families over there are safe! So happy and thankful for this.

New Layout!

2011-03-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

Old image

The old header bar was getting a little boring looking. As much as I like the painting it's from, it's an old painting and not anything more recent. I painted the new header bar today in photoshop and am playing around a little bit with the funky colors. I still gotta fix things with parts of it though. Which one do you like better? Stick with the old or in with the new?

Photo's from Spain! ¡Photos de España!

2011-03-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

This whole evening I'll be editing and uploading the better photos I took while living in Spain at my Deviant account. Go take a look, you'll be able to view them larger over there and each photo will have the story behind it in English and Spanish.

----------

Este noche estaré editando y cargando las photos mejoras que saqué mientras vivía en España sobre mi sitio de Deviant. Va y tomar una mirada, puede verlas más grande de aqui y cada photo tiene el cuento detras de la photo en Inglés y Español. <¡Perdóname, mi Español no es perfecto!

Drawality Fan Work and Review!

2011-03-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

Her tights were a pain in the butt!

Usually I don't draw fan works. I have plenty of series I absolutely love but I never seem to get around to drawing for them. Lately I've been thinking about doing more just as it's a good drawing exercise whether I'm drawing in my own style or sticking with theirs. This fan piece is for a web comic called Drawality. They only go by the names Left, and Right and they alternate turns for comic pages. Left will update with his own page, and the next update is up to Right. That's only the beginning to why this comic is unique from others.

They don't plan out anything for the comic. It's meant to be something of a fun experiment, "whatever happens on a page is only decided on the very moment the picture gets drawn by the one who draws it" as they explain on their About page. Honestly, at first I was a little worried their comic would be hard to follow with one person drawing one page and then the other for the next. They do a nice tag team though and so far what's going on is easily understood. On top of not planning where the story is going next, they don't limit themselves to media or style which has turned out to be refreshing in my opinion. Despite changes in media they swear to "always try (their) best to make it possible for you to recognize the characters and follow what’s happening."

Another feature that I really like is the lack of talking. Most panels are just the action or panels of drawing to explain what is happening. Any time that there is any "speech" they substitute it for made-up characters that don't actually stand for anything, unless I've just failed to work out any meaning. This is the one thing that I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of yet but it certainly doesn't hurt things.

It's fun to see both artists evolve in drawing and to see how the story progresses. New characters keep popping up and I love the spontaneous nature of it. The project is something fun for them and you can tell. I love that they aren't worried about how it turns out in the end as it makes it really fun to watch. I think that sometimes when people plan out their work too much they can lose some great ideas than if they were to just go back to being a kid, and just go back to just doodling and drawing for the fun of it.

Go check Drawality out!

I ended up enjoying this fan piece a lot because their style is cartoony and mine isn't, so forcing me to simplify things turned out to be really cool. I had to think a little differently about how to draw things my way while still retaining their designs for the characters. The symbol in the background is one that shows up in the comic a lot, at this point it seems to be the logo for this huge corporation. Enjoy!

Art Rant 4: How to not show your work. Part 1

2011-03-04T23:36:00.000-08:00

While I'm a young artist I feel like I have a good idea of what decent or good presentation is about. A good show of an artists work often includes some sort of web site or portfolio site. It is clean looking, easy to navigate but also contains a narrowed selection of their work. People and possible clients viewing a portfolio site don't want, nor need to see everything you've done in the past 5 years. An artist should show off current series and display an expertise in a variety of mediums. This does not mean including sketches and every little thing you do, that is not what a portfolio site is for. If one don't have the time to build or pay to create and upkeep a professional site, something more casual, like a blog, or heading to Deviant might be more for them.
Occasionally I get the urge to go on Craigslist to wade through the hundreds of posts seeing if there's anything up for grabs that's worthwhile, you might already be cringing at thought. The majority of posts are often times people up selling not only their items but also their services. This is how I came upon the work of... lets call him 'John' for some privacy. Normally I would not be so highly critical of a fellow artist. There are many different styles and levels of work and while I don't like everything, I can at least appreciate the ideas, and work put behind pieces of art. Even when something isn't my proverbial cup of tea, I realize someone put effort into it. It's when there's a very apparent lack of effort that I don't feel bad for being the 'art bitch' about art.

More after the jump, it's gonna be a long rant.

example photos too!

Here is the first post of John's that I stumbled upon. Like many other artists, he's looking for some work, good for you John. What can I learn of him just from this post? John needs work, he looooooves art, its like, his LIFE! Also, John is so talented that he can basically do everything you could possibly need or think of. Wow John, in your almost 21 years of experience you've done a lot. I have some things to learn I guess.

Back to reality. If your BS detectors haven't gone off yet you have a high tolerance. If someone is looking for graphic design or illustration work, it is assumed that they really like art. It's their job. Then comes, "(I) have been doing it for almost 21 years now". While sometimes it doesn't hurt to say "I've been in the industry blah years", people and possible clients are going to judge a portfolio, not the number of years of "experience" someone has. There are some very experienced artists with bad work just as there are hard workers with almost no actual experience but fantastic work. Forget years of practice, look at the work itself. Van Gogh didn't start painting until his late 20's, early 30's and yet he produced a large mass of work and was good at it. That's ignoring the fact that at the he wasn't extremely popular or successful in his lifetime but it shows that sometimes one doesn't need years of experience to their name to do good.

There are quite a few things listed there besides anything you can think of. Each of these arts is very different, but, he's claiming he can do anything. First up is illustration for books. Good illustrations are either highly detailed or use a definitive, appealing, graphic style. Just look at the past winners and honorable mentions of the Caldecott awards to see what type of exemplary work it takes to be the illustartor for a kids book. They're good, very good.

Next he listed cd covers and album art. That's a jump, skip and hop away from kids books. Album art and covers can be illustration but also photography, typography, logos or symbols for the band, even simplistic. It's a very broad field. Period.

Movie posters too, he's worked everywhere! Much like album covers, movie posters can be very different and their intent is to draw a viewers attention. The thing good posters consistently have is some way to catch a viewers eye to draw their interest. Usually noticeable ones are very bold in some way or have strange, startling, or strong imagery.

Wait, you can wear his art too on T-shirts! Hate to break it to him but t-shirt design has it's own booming subculture with sites like Threadless, Design By Human, and TeeFury. Even if a client wants something specifically commissioned, T-shirt art heavily relies on design. Unless they're just in need for Susie's Soccer sweatshirt for practice.... but no, even then, Susie should look cool damnit.

Are we done yet? Tattoo designs and stickers are left. There are tattoos of literally everything, there is no limit on content so I'll let it slide. Moving on to stickers. Stickers!? Is this guy from Hallmark? Let him create a plethora of stickers for which to adorn letters or 'anything' as he broadly stated about his own work.

Big point here is that while artists can learn how to do many different media's, in the majority of cases they are good at a few things, not sucky to alright with everything. This isn't saying that it's bad to explore mediums or create different art, that's great. When it comes to selling work though, put a lid on everything you've ever tried and stick with what you're good at.

Last but not least, LET HIM KNOW if you want to commission him! Typing in all caps does nothing but show that you are DESPERATE for money and while it could be true, don't be so OBVIOUS! But wait there more!!!

Above is a whole separate post on tattoo's. Geesh, once again with the caps, because he's YOUR man! He designs all of his own tattoos, 8 in fact, and he has some links for you to see. Too bad two of his links are broken. He's gonna do it alright. Viewers can only get on through to his artwork which I'm saving for tomorrow.

This is by far a big enough dose of snark for anyone in one sitting. Part two up tomorrow night!

*I am hiding any hints or leads to his identity because it's a sarcastic and brutal critique on a poor unsuspecting guy. This is meant to be more of a show of what not to do rather than "public" humiliation.

They do it on purpose for enjoyment.

2011-03-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

First published in The Saint, Aquinas College's student paper.

Our Spring break starts at the end of this week! For me it will be a week of art, I actually made a schedule for each day on what I'm gonna get done. Super dorky right? I know though, if I don't do something like that, nothing will get done and I want to be productive. As a result of that, next week every day will have a post showing what I accomplished that day. Stay tuned.
This situation isn't funny when it happens to you but for the rest of us it is. I tried hand lettering this time and really like it. I might stick with it as it adds more to the comic feel. Also, the comic is more cartoony this time rather than having more realistic characters. I love Johnny Wander, a fantastic webcomic and Yuko's style is cartoony but extremely expressive so I tried it out in my own way. What do you guys think?

Happy Spring break & good luck on midterms!

*As always, full view is the best*

(Self) Portrait Bust!

2011-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

The only progress shot I was able to get from my friends phone.

Self portrait bust from Sculpture I is almost done! The first shot is the only progress photo I have. I really wanted to have a step by step progression up but just never had the camera with me. The turn around above is to give an idea of it from all angles.

ANY critique is completely welcome as I'm completely new to this.

Still To Do:

Detail the eyes! I re-did the eyes and brow bone as the first time my brow bone was way too prominent than it really is and the pupils carved in were more of a joke for the photo.
Narrow the mouth! As it is now, it's a bit too wide. I also wanna make the smile more realistic and get rid of those "duck lips".
Why yes I do have teeth in real life! I've been putting this off for awhile as it's incredibly easy to sculpt it "wrong" or just plain bad looking in my opinion. I'll do it after the main problems with the mouth are fixed.
Finish Hair! As anyone can tell, I still got a lot to do in the back, sides, heck all over.
Make it me!(?) I sound like Orpah, "Make it you baby! Be your own person", but what I mean with that it to really make make into something a little more. I want it to represent me, and be more than just a realistic bust. I'm still figuring out what exactly it is that I want to add to it all to do that.

Student Art Show!

2011-02-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

So many amazing things!

By Jim Zordan

By Katie Pleune

We had the opening of our student art show this past Sunday and it went really well. There is such a variety of disciplines and styles across our student body as well as a range of levels in study. It's really nice too being able to see the work of your peers, especially when they enter work you haven't seen yet. After the jury by the professors it is entirely student run. We space, tag, and hang every piece. All of the lighting is adjusted by us as well for each student show. It's great as everyone gets to learn how to do everything themselves if needed.

I was a little short on work as I was away for study abroad but I did enter my first anatomy and life drawing piece from this semester, it's the big one all the way on the left in the bottom photo! The other huge one on the right is the fantastic work of my classmate, I'm officially jealous. I was really grateful with framing as my teacher Chris and his girlfriend MJ totally did everything. From getting oversized matting, to a huge piece of glass, to putting the frame together; they had it all covered. They are really fantastic people.

If you want to come see any of this amazing work and are hanging around Grand Rapids, Michigan stop on by to see it! Aquinas college is at 1607 Robinson Road S.E. in GR and you'd be looking for the AMC or Art and Music Center on campus. The show ends April 1st, 2011.

Oh gosh, Pokémon again...

2011-02-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

First published in The Saint, Aquinas College's student newspaper.

Even though our paper came out a few days after Valentines I still made it slightly focused on the commercial holiday and love. This came about because of a conversation about how ridiculous Pokémon would be, were it real. Come on, someone would do this.

*Click it for FULL view, then you can see all the details. It's much better I promise!

First Life Drawing piece of the year is DONE!

2011-02-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

The finished piece, before the painter's tape was removed.

Detail of some of my classmates.

Detail of some of the background and the model.

Everybody in class loved the hair so here it is.

Trying to give an idea of size.

The best part about being back in the states is not only being reunited with friends and family but my studios and art supplies. Here is the first "finished" piece out of Anatomy and Life Drawing. I might alter a few small things later but for now I'm satisfied with it.

The pose was two weeks long. That's two classes a week. About 2.5 hours per class, excluding break and setup times. So, 10 or so hours working with a model and my entire class. I wasn't entirely happy with some things though and so I worked farther yesterday and that adds 6.5 more hours of work for a grand total of 16.5 hours.

*My next art rant might be a bit self-centered, covering the fun and difficulties of drawing not only our class model but the entire class. More than anything it'll be a rant about the things this series has taught me.

Old Time Gangsters

2011-02-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

My roomies and I all watched Public Enemies awhile ago and I've had this image stuck in my head ever since. My little illustration however is based off the real John Dillinger rather than the Johnny Depp version. I really want to make this into a more finished and color piece because this turned out almost exactly as it looked in my head.

Artists FYI 2: Katherine Sullivan's "The Docile Body"

2011-02-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

Katherine Sullivan has an exhibition at Aquinas College, in Grand rapids, the gallery show started January 16 and will run until February 11th. Katherine received her BFA from the University of Michigan in 1997 and in 2001 received her MFA in Painting and drawing from Boston University. Galleries across the country have shown her work such as New York, Ithaca, and Indianapolis.

I had the privilege of hearing a lecture from Katherine Sullivan about her work this past week. Katherines work ranges many different medias such as different forms of printmaking, to painting and drawing. "The Docile Body" is composed of acrylic and gouache works. This series of works started to develop after Sullivan saw photos of the abuse of prisoner's in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. ***The rest of the review after the jump.

Just one of the horrifying images of abuse to come from Abu Ghraib.

She explores the abuse of authority through her work. Earlier on in the series actual human figures were discernible as well as other things such as hands, almost always painted in a aqua blue, the same color of the gloves the abusers wear in many of the photos from Abu Ghraib. Later on her work has imagery where both authority figures and subjects are hard or impossible to tell apart. There is still a main form present in every piece but it is more a jumble of both victim and abuser in one form rather than two separate forms placed closely.

This is only a brief explanation of her series and also only a snapshot of all her work. On Katherine's portfolio site there is a much larger body of work displayed and of her body of work online there is even more being shown at our college gallery. I'm amazed at the sheer number of her works. If you'd like to come see the exhibition The Docile Body come the the Arts and Music Center of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids Michigan, you will not regret seeing her moving work.

It was interesting to see how students at our college made the connection of body parts within the forms before they had even heard Sullivan's lecture on her body of work. Without any back story at all people were able to sense some sort of negativity about the forms despite the appearance of forms that resemble rope or simply cloth wrapped objects. It is certainly an accomplishment when viewers of a work can begin to perceive the background of a work before they even know anything about an artist statement. During the lecture Katherine also showed a progression of her older work to the current series of The Docile Body. It was privilege to see how such an accomplished artist works.

Things Awry at AQ

2011-02-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

First published in The Saint, Aquinas College's student newspaper.

Now that I'm back stateside I'm also back to doing comics for The Saint again, our college's newspaper. I made the comic out to be a Twilight Zone episode as things have been a little strange at my college. Aquinas just hired a new Dean of students as the previous was 'let go' to put it nicely. Our president has also resigned, we have a lot of new area coordinators and our ResLife Director shaved a mustache that's been there since eternity. Everyone is adjusting alright, but some of the larger changes were a bit of a surprise.

In the past I would hand draw, ink and shade everything in and then scan the comic in but I decided to try drawing it with photoshop. In the end it's much faster, neater, and easier to get what I want for the comics because of handy photoshop things like layers. Also, with photoshop I can erase where as with inking a comic in by hand, I can't. Not gonna lie, I love my creepy little eyeballs the best.

*note: Artists FYI is postponed until tomorrow.

I doodle, anytime anywhere.

2011-01-31T20:15:00.000-08:00

I attended a lecture this past week on artist Jim Dine at the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. There is a new exhibit there of his work until May 8th. The lecture was great and very informative on the progression of his work however a few hours long so later I began drawing on the handout. The original is pencil and I added some more tone and shading in photoshop. The highlights and crazy color are very obviously digital too.

Up tomorrow, the second Artists FYI on Katherine Sullivan, a fantastic artist who teaches at Hope college and currently has a gallery show at my college Aquinas called The Docile Body. Stay tuned to hear more about her great work or if you'd like to jump ahead go look at her portfolio site.

A wild bidoof appears! Oh wait...

2011-01-26T00:16:00.000-08:00

This is an inside joke between a few friends of mine. Despite our college age some of us still play Pokémon. My friend Dan, to annoy his friend, calls him a bidoof. A bidoof is basically is the dumbest looking and most useless pokémon, it's a name more to tease. So I drew Dan's friend as his unwanted nickname. Dumb but nice to do something quick as I haven't had the chance to use Corel Painter in ages!

Life Drawing progress shots.

2011-01-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

The first photo is what it looked like at the beginning of class today while the second is the progress I made over the course of the class period. I have already worked on it for 2 class periods and while that may seem like slow work the piece is larger than I've worked before, roughly 3.25 feet wide and 2 feet tall. I'll get an exact size later.

The last photo is from my previous semester of Anatomy and life drawing, before I left for my semester abroad. I really enjoy drawing everyone in the room including the students and my professor. It creates a challenge as I have to focus on everyone's anatomy and make sure that everything looks correct in proportion to one another. For this continuation of life drawing I'm continuing this same theme.

The biggest difference between now and my past semester is the media. Before I was using a bic pen, while I ended the class with a lot more knowledge I was not happy at all during much of the course. I'm not one for patience and trying to work somewhat large (18 X 22) or slightly bigger with only pen can test even the most patient.

Leave your anatomy and life drawing class experiences below!

Twitter, Gesture Drawing and Printmaking Planning

2011-01-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

I have yet again jumped on another social networking bandwagon despite trying to resist it's power for the longest time. Now, I have a twitter. Go find me at MaxianDesign if you do that twitter thang. In other news, I started Anatomy and Life Drawing III, Print II and Sculpture I about a two weeks ago.

-More after the jump!

^A sample of some of the gestures from Anat III. We started a longer pose of about 3 weeks (2, 3 hour classes a week) so I'll try to take some photos of the progress of the large piece.

^Roughs and planning for a series of etchings and aquatints I'm starting up in Print III. It'll be a series on all different kinds of relationships with individuals and groups, there will be one positive version of each and one opposing negative. For example, if I do a etching/ aquatint of the relationship of a group of friends, the positive might be a plate depicting the support that they can give. The negative might show the exclusion of an individual from a group of friends after some sort of event between them or choice of the individual.

Art Rant 2, part 1: Plagiarism

2011-01-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

This all was sparked by a something a saw fellow artists tweeting about a day or so ago on Twitter, the plagiarizing of a original design by a large well known business. Namely: Gap. I couldn't believe that a large business would try to get away with selling a design that is so obviously not their own. One look at the designs show that the idea of the picture, style, and composition are all too similar. There's no doubt that they ripped off a hard working artist. Who's the victim here? Let me introduce Gemma Correl. A freelance illustrator with quite the nice track record of work for magazines from many different countries. She also has some gallery shows on top of all her commissioned illustration work.

Below is her original Illustration that she sells on apparel

through New Standard

And Below is the Gap design

The Gap design is different, yes. But the style of ink work, the pink color on the dog, the clothing of the dog is all the same or way too similar. The only things they bothered to change was the dog a bit, the scarf was turned into a bow and the lettering. Personally I'd highly suggest you go check out Gemma's work at her Blog or her Portfolio site, support her.

See more Sad, blatant rip-offs of original artists by companies and other "artists" at You Thought We Wouldn't Notice. What do you all think?

Honestly this makes me furious. Large business' have the necessary funds to pay a artist for the use of their design. It kills me that they just decide to try and sneak on by through changing things just "enough" to make the design their "own". The You Thought We Wouldn't Notice blog is driving me nuts too. Other than a few cases where the copied work doesn't really appear to be copied, more inspired from there are many prime examples of terrible plagiarism. There will perhaps be a part 2 to this rant as there are some specific examples from the blog that I'd really like to bitch about. Until next time.

*Photo's of both designs taken from Gemma's own blog.

The Lock Pros have a new place!

2011-01-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

The lock Pros is a local business and they're moving out of a home business and into a a nice new location. To commemorate the new place I was asked to do a architectural drawing of the building with pen and ink and whatever media I chose to add some color. I decided upon color pencil to more easily render gradations.

Congratulations Lock Pros!

Artists FYI 1: Kate Beaton's "Hark! A vagrant" is fantastic.

2011-01-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

If you have not yet read Hark! A vagrant written and drawn by Kate Beaton go read and discover it now. She creates amazingly witty, usually three panel comics. There are loads of them and anyone could be entertained for hours.

The comic often draws from history and sometimes current society too. Beaton's style is simple but very expressive and she has a knack for writing out the short dialogues of the comics. While the dialogues never fail to be funny many times I find myself just laughing at the expression or mannerisms of one of the characters. She certainly has a talent for humor and drawing.

Go read it!

More information on Artist FYI after the jump...

Artist FYI will be a short feature that I'm going to run to highlight current, young artists whose work I find interesting. Artist FYI will cover all medias, and types of art. The unchanging variable is that each artist posted, in my eyes, has a little something special that makes them stand out. The age group could be anything from a high schooler with exceptional talent to someone who's been in the business for a few years. Basically this is meant to give a shout out to other artists I respect and a short summary on why I think they are a great contributor to to art in general.

It's a MEEEEeeeee Mario!

2011-01-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

As some of you might have read with the last entry it was one of my best friends 21st birthday! we all went out but after the bar it was something of a sleepover movie night as none of us wanted drinking and driving issues. My color pencils even accompany me to Birthday sleepovers, I never know when I'll want or need to draw. This time it was a good thing that I had brought the supplies as I wanted to draw a little something for my friends little brother Ryan. A sweet energetic kid who adores Mario.

The Mario drawing originally only started out as just mario shooting a fireball with Ryan's name right on it. I actually almost got his fireflower outfit right without a reference, the only thing I fudged up was the hat, but not too shabby eh? After I was almost done with Mario and the fireball I figured I should add something of a background. Weird or warped perspectives are a favorite of mine and so I sketched a quick one out as I wanted this to feel a little more 3-D rather than a old school flat mario.

Just Cupcakes Logo

2011-01-06T01:13:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends and her mother have started up a wonderful small business called Just Cupcakes, and as you might guess they bake, just cupcakes.

I offered to make some logos for them awhile ago but that was right before my semester abroad and although I honestly wanted to do this, it just didn't happen. Now being reunited with my wacom tablet I figured to not go back on my word, even if I am a little late. Not too late however, as this is just in time for my friends 21st birthday (for "part" of her gift)

They specified that they would like the following things present in their designs: polka dots! Chocolate brown and pinks for the colors. Cupcakes making up the letter "U" for the business name "Just Cupcakes" Other than those requests I had free reign.

I am missing the polka dots for now but when I see my friend tomorrow I'll see what color or where she'd like them for placement or if she's happy with this as is. I'm unsure about the knife and fork but I thought it was a funny touch. They can easily be removed if it's not quite what my friend had in mind.

Old people are great

2011-01-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

A quick illustration drawn with Harmony for a short story that my boyfriends writing. I'll link to his blog and the story once he's done writing.

The unoriginal prompt I gave him was: A crabby old man who needs a live in nurse. Over time though he becomes somewhat nicer as the nurse is down to earth, nice and legitimately caring. I also stressed that he becomes happier because she is nice and not because she's a hot piece of ass although I bet that'd sure do the trick too.

Next Threadless design (preview)!

2011-01-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

I will not say anything more. Just wanted to show people what I was currently working on. There will be an explanation later for any who are curious. Done in Photoshop 4 but I may be upgrading to Photoshop 9 soon!

Ringing in 2011!

2010-12-31T00:10:00.000-08:00

I will be out enjoying festivities at my brothers tonight and will not be around later, thus in advance, have a great new years everyone!!!!

I have a new Threadless design up!

2010-12-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

Edit: Ohhhh Ouch, first scoring that I've had close early.

Go VOTE! Thanks : )

It's 8 colors and looks good on any dark tee. I'm hoping people see the heart illusion easily enough, I wanted it to be there but not something that's slap you in the face. If you'd like to see more detail click the picture to see it bigger. Wish me luck!

Tuve un gran "mama" en España --- I had a great "mom" in Spain!

2010-12-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

and I miss her dearly.

The finished first and the progress shot after. Color Pencil. My host mom in Spain loved my art so I drew her a card before I left. She's religious so I went with a somewhat religious theme, also angels are Christmas-y.

Study Abroad really crippled this blog.

2010-12-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Thank you to my few followers for not leaving after this huge gap of nothing. I have been studying in Spain and have very limited access to the internet and thus nothing. I return stateside in 9 days though so things will be back up and running and you'll all be able to see what I've been up to art wise while abroad! Thanks guys!

2010-09-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

A pretty simple card that I made awhile ago for a friends 21st birthday. I wanted it to be classy so I made it simple and clean with a monogram of her name on the front and added cut out edges for little something extra with a Martha Stewart craft puncher. Typically, Martha Stewart isn't really my type of person or brand but even I have to admit, she made a damn good edge punch. So, remember, almost all scrapbooking stuff can be used to make fun personalized cards too. Try it out.

Art Prize!

2010-09-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

If you live anywhere in Michigan or by Michigan, you should come to Art Prize. If you live anywhere near Grand Rapids, you NEED to come to art prize. It's a huge art competition with pretty nice prizes, but the nice thing? It's open to everyone! There is every imaginable media and type of art from crafty, to interactive pieces, giant sculptures to giant paintings.I have not participated yet but I think I will next year for the third one. Just to note, the first photo posted is the amazing work of my teacher, Chris LaPorte!

-It's been a bit slow the past two weeks as I have been packing, and preparing for my semester abroad. Updates should be a bit more back on track from now on.

Travel Gnome is Done! Now he needs a name.

2010-09-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here he is! Mini monocle and all. Painted with acrylics and sealed with Krylon matte finish

Now, any ideas on what his name should be?

Travel Gnome

2010-09-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Since I'll be going abroad this next semester I figured that I'd get a travel gnome to take photos of every place I go, except I ran into a problem. The only gnomes at Meijer or any garden center around here are either way too heavy, big, or just ugly so I decided to make my own gnome. I still have to bake, paint and name him but here he is in all of his miniature glory. I haven't really sculpted before so I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. Hopefully I won't over bake him in the oven, keep your fingers crossed! Made with sculpy III

Scott Pilgrim!!!

2010-09-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

So, I'm lame and still haven't seen the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World movie but it looks amazing! This post is a cop out as I didn't draw this, it's from the awesome movie web site avatar creator that's fun to play around with. This avatar is now much more accurate than my profile photo as I just recently had my hair cut to a boyish pixie cut!

BOCZEK Dog.

2010-09-08T18:37:00.000-07:00

This is from a conversation with a friend of mine. I had asked what the Polish word for bacon was, and he thought of how funny it would be if there was a Polish "beggin Strips" dog. Thus, boczek dog was born.

My attempt at Pisanki, or decorative eggs

2010-09-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot these! I made these two egg's way back a little before Easter. They aren't perfect but for the first try I'd say not too shabby eh? To make the designs you draw on the eggs with melted wax using kistkas (wax funnel pen's) and then dip the egg in dye after each wax decoration. The wax is then cleaned or carefully melted off after the decorations and dye jobs are done. It's a pain in the butt but it's fun.

Character sketch

2010-09-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was a reading a story (lol, fanfiction) with Professor Layton from Level-5's games and the authors character and what she looked like just popped into my head and wouldn't leave so I had to draw her. I kept it a little in the style of the games. Drawn with Deviant art's Muro.

Printmaking 3

2010-09-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

Aquatint. I've had people ask me why 'the woman has buck teeth'.... I thought it was clear that it was that she had glossy lips. However you see it, lip gloss or some chunky teeth, I love this print a little. I don't really feel that the plate is fully finished though, it's a little too simplistic as of now.

A lino-cut study of some dried out flowers(?) or leaves I found on my campus on handmade paper.

Here is a failed dry point, more or less. I worked my butt off on this and it's still too light in value. I ended up with about 12 proofs of this dang thing because I just couldn't get it to work out. The plate itself looks way better than the prints, I might try doing something with the plate itself if I can.

These are just a few more printmaking pieces that I thought I had previously put up. These are traditional printmaking techniques and these pieces, however simple looking or unfinished as they appear, were very time-intensive. (I'm talking a minimum 4 hours for the aquatint, and 12-15 for the dry-point) I don't consider the aquatint or dry point finished, if I have a chance to finish them in the future you will see more of them!

I've been considering making some short comics about the printmaking process as it's really confusing to explain to people. I am lucky that I have a great printmaking teacher to explain everything but when someone is first learning the differences in technique it can be SO dang confusing.

Awkward letter to my host family? Check!

2010-09-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

So I will shortly be leaving for study abroad Spain! Here is my 'nice to meet you I'm your host student' letter to my future familia. I wanted to make the card fun because they have a 10 year old and a 2 year old. I was gonna print out some photos of my friends and what not to stick in there but forgot about it last minute.

If any of you can speak spanish and are reading my letter, it's too late to correct any of my mistakes, it is mailed out. The letter was proof read and edited but that doesn't mean I catch all my mistakes, I'm not fluent yet!

Edit: So, my original host family ended up being kinda crazy and I switched after only two weeks of staying with them. No worries though, my new host family was normal, and incredibly nice : )

More Comics!

2010-09-03T09:00:00.001-07:00

I stumbled upon another old comic of mine that I did for my college student newspaper. This was done at the height of all the H1N1 media reports and H1N1 fear. Made to look like those cheesey old american horror film posters.

There's a few more comics I did for the newspaper but I don't know where I misplaced them. I know there's one where I don't have te hardcopy anymore but the actual newspaper print of it. I'll have to look.

Facebook 'Graffiti' 5

2010-09-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Remo! : D

Art Rant 1: productivity

2010-09-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Sketch drawn with Harmony

   While I've been more productive art wise this Summer I still come to a slow period in productivity over summer vacation which really doesn't make any sense. I'd like to say I've been busy but that is a huge exaggeration. I'm extremely busier during the school year between classes and work and yet I create an insane amount more. So why is this?

   So why is it that over the summer, when I have a TON of time on my hands, my productivity slows to small little (craft-like) projects? Over the course of the school year I could finish even a 'larger' real work within a week as I'd just go and literally live in the studio. Is location the reason then? At home I don't have anything resembling a studio much less any good way to store all of my art. I have a table and some space but I still live with my parents. Any place I set up to work I have to be careful not to spill or accidently get paint on anything where as at school I go to the studio and if some paint drops it's okay. I don't have to make a set up each time I work to make sure everything around me stays immaculate.

   Am I pure lazy then? Because I won't take the time to put down some tarps and clean up an area? Sadly I think that's true, really spot on. I'm so caught up in ideas and what I could do that I just plain don't get much of anything done at all and it's infuriating. I am shamed by kids half my age who maybe aren't insanely talented but hold a work ethic the same as a professional illustrator. I'm amazed by these teens who just keep cranking out work. Then there's me, and over the summer when I'm supposed to be working my ass off I don't get much done. Really it's alarming. I see other art students that I know and I wanna slap them in the face. They put out something 'good' or something that they spent a little time on and instead of getting right back to work they wallow in the 'ohhhs' and 'ahhhs' from their adoring friends and don't create anything for a whole other few months! That's what I've turned into too and I hate it. I expect more attention for less work and frankly it's getting old.

   I'm 20. Still young and still time to fix my lazy ass work ethic because I know I could do a hell of a lot more. At the same time 20 means I've already wasted a lot of valuable time I could've used being productive. The Sketchbook Project will help make me stay active while I'm studying abroad in Spain but mainly it comes down to me to change my habits to be a better artist worth some respect.

   I saw a taped lecture of Chuck Close today and something he said rings all too true for a huge majority of artists today I fear, definitely including myself as of now. He said "Inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work" If you couldn't tell from my tone I believe that myself and the majority of artists are the amateurs he's referring to.

Aldrich house!

2010-08-31T10:12:00.000-07:00

My parents went to see some old friends who now own and operate a cozy, little bed and breakfast place so I sketched the place out on the bottle of wine my parents were bringing for them. Sharpie on glass. If you're interested in going, it's in Galena, IL They would love to see you!

I would totally offer this up as some type of service except you can't mail full bottles of hooch. It would be really fun to see what type of requests there would be though. Maybe I could do it on empty bottles?

Drawing whatever my mind spits out.

2010-08-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

My boyfriends parents have a amazing garden with quite the array of flowers, plants, herbs, vegetables and fruit trees (and grapes!!!!). They could match a small garden center. (crappy) color pencils! Sorry Derwent studio, Prisma can kick your ass everyday day of the week.

WIP, I haven't done a page like this in awhile but I think it's a good sign that it's popping up again. This is my doodle when I'm bored page and it's not done until it's entirely filled.

Some trees by our camp site.

People often see a page and ask why did you draw this or that? Or something like "What are you gonna draw?" Typically I don't know, if it's a big project, chance are I do have a direction but when I'm sketching my hand just goes and makes decisions. Maybe I know unconsciously but I don't start out knowing what the drawing will end up to be. The drawing decides where it's going, not me.

*Format change! Instead of boring people to death with my ranting and random bullshit I've decided that pictures will now always come first. It seems like better marketing. Catch people with a cool drawing first and they can read more and if they so then desire.

Facebook 'Graffiti' 4

2010-08-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

As with every other time I get bored, I draw. This time it was back to the classics with Mario! It was one of my favorite games when I was little, especially tanooki suit Mario.

DNR dogs!

2010-08-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

I kid, I kid, just some dogs out on a camping trip drawn while I was out camping myself. This is for the shyest but cutest kid ever, if you can't guess she loves dogs.

pen, faber castelle grey tone markers, and some white conte on handmade paper.

I still love Canada

2010-08-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

Better late than never, here are the sketches from when I was up in Canada! You should go if you ever get the chance.

I was working on trying to get accurate color with these as the day and lighting changed. It was a little frustrating but worthwhile. Color pencil!

Sketchbook Sketch 7

2010-08-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

I told you there'd be something up, Here are some recent sketchs!

FOX, grey tone markers!

I creeped on people and drew them while I was in Millennium Park and on the train back home, I'm out of practice unfortunately so these aren't the best. I'm trying to make this more of a habit.

You might be making this face:

2010-08-12T23:08:00.000-07:00

You might be making this face because I have not updated in a few days and famous last words but more stuff up tomorrow!

*wonderful photo of me courtesy of Ashley "A-Ding" who takes snapshots when my web cam freezes at great times like this prime example.

Art Trade!

2010-08-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Jamie and I were bored and decided to have a trade off, here's my side of the trade, her character Zhire (on the right)! For her part of the trade, she drew a kick ass demon dog because it was my favorite summon from a game I used to play when I was younger. I will never grow up.

*I'll put her's up too if she's cool with it, I just gotta check. : )

Watercolor, and color pencil. I was happy with it but I still think I should have done the background waaaaaaay better justice than I did. Next time, it will be better.

Another Birthday, another card.

2010-08-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is a Farmville themed birthday card but don't judge me just yet. This is for the awesome mom of a friend of mine and as my friend says, "she has Farmville with her coffee every morning" We thought a birthday card with all of her Farmville goodness could be kinda fun as I love animals, even internet, gif. animals.

I signed up to it for about 2 minutes so that I could go see her cyber farm in action and to take some screen captures for reference so that the card has quite a few things that her actual 'farm' does.

There are some lines running vertically through the picture where the creases land, the four panels fold into a regular card size so that it would fit into an envelope.

The colors look like total poop but that's because it was under a yellow-y light! I'll see if I can replace the photos later if I visit them or something. Watercolor and color pencil

We have a sensitive student body...

2010-08-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is work from a little earlier this year for my colleges newspaper The Saint.

Our college was playing with the idea of imposing a smoking ban where students and faculty would have to be entirely off school property in order to smoke. Some of their main reasoning was because it would result in "cleaner" air. This is just poking fun at how far people would have to walk and questions if "cleaner" air would be achieved.

Copic pens and Faber Castelle grey tone markers, (yeah! AB in the background!)

-If people want to know, I don't really smoke. Maybe hookah once in awhile but no more than a handful of times a year. This ban was kinda ridiculous to me though as I know many faculty, staff and students who smoke and I think that it would be unfair to them.

Sketchbook Sketch 6

2010-08-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

^Pen, gesso, and grey tone markers.

Inspired by Cirque Du Soleil and all of their crazy cool acrobats.

Last minute card

2010-07-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Hey, here's a quick birthday card for the son of one of my mom's friends! He loves the statue of liberty so I figured a statue of liberty with balloons is even better. (Happy Birthday Billy!!!!)

^The card is only about 4 inches tall and folds down in the middle.

*Better photo is up! 7/31

Today is great!

2010-07-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

Probably the first time that I've posted twice in a day but I have two awesome pieces of news:

I just got word that my sketchbook for the sketchbook project was shipped out! I chose a red cover with the theme "sleepless". Go check it out!
An e-mail from my study abroad director came in today too and I found out who my host family is for study abroad Spain! This is really exciting as I've been waiting all Summer to find out. This sort of connects to the sketchbook project too as I'll be in Spain almost the entire time I have it before I send it back!

Here's a short CNN video talking about last years Sketchbook project

Oh highschool Art.... -Part 3

2010-07-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

Finally we're getting to my old work that I'm not afraid to go and drag out of my closet. This is the stuff from highschool that I'm somewhat or for the most part happy with. Last stretch here we go!

^ Our assignment was to abstract an everyday object, I chose my grandmothers ring where the stone had fallen out. acrylic(?), I don't remember anymore.

^Oh my gosh!!!! My first oil painting ever! I have this awesome decorative kettle that we were given as a gift by our neighbors, if you were wondering what that was. Surprisingly I had an offer to buy this but it's kind of a personal piece so I said no.

^ This tree is in my backyard and at the right time everyday during sunset the houses across the street cast shadows and the space between them create this huge beam of light on our lawn, colors aside, this is basically what it looks like. I think this was oil?

^hahahahah eye see you..... study of my eyeball in watercolor! A lot of people seem to like it so maybe I'll do something similar again. This ones only 18 by 24 so I'd probably try slightly bigger.

^My art class had a field trip to a state park and it has amazing cliffs and waterfalls and caves, definitely one of the best field trips of my life.

^Originally this was a bas relief type project but I wanted to sculpt so I checked with my professor and went out to get a chunk of balsa foam instead of going with a thick little sheet. There are things wrong with it but I still like it, not to shabby for my first sculpture. I had wanted to do something that would kinda gross viewers out and I think I got that a little bit.

^I had left over oil paint so I was just playing around, I think that I'll leave it like this because I like that it's like a sketch done with paint, usually I have a hard time working loose so thats another reason, third, my hair is about a 1/3 of the length now.

Next update it's back to current works! There are some sketches from Canada I forgot about and some WIP's I can show. See ya around.

Oh Highschool Art.... -Part duex

2010-07-27T23:05:00.000-07:00

The great thing about my highschool self portraits? I usually drew my forehead gigantically huge, not on purpose mind you, I just didn't notice how abnormally big my forehead looked in the drawing until it was too late!!!!

^ Ohhhhh, look at me, I must have used bold colors to be "unique"! Sure that's what it was! I'm also glaring to show how badass of a suburb kid I am, that's right! I really don't particularly hate this one, and if your guessing how I could not, scroll down to see an even bigger past abomination. Color Pencil

^ aghhhhh!? What did I have jaundice or something!? Watercolor and color pencil.

^ What was a hand study pleasantly turned out to look like an epic fist pump into the air.

^ Surprise, surprise, more fantasy! These are two characters of mine from a crazy fantasy story I cooked up when I was younger about wars and fighting over effective medicine after plague breaks out everywhere. This is not finished and thus that is why it only appears that the pale chick has no bottoms! Color Pencil.

^ Another hand study, but this time of the skin texture on your hand, I'm still a bit fond of this one actually.

^This was for a juried show for my towns 100th(?) aniversary. It made it into the finals and was a honorable mention. Here's a tip for any artsy folk out there, don't procrastinate. This would be a bit better looking if I hadn't been a little procrastinator.

P.S. I did not matte it like that! They had a framing place do it for the show and while I should be appreciative that it got matted for free, who leaves the edge like that!? They left it in because they thought I wanted it that way and that it looked artsy! Yeah? No! Honestly at the time it was pretty embarrassing as it looks really sloppy to me. What do you think?

^ I was trying out something new and it turned out to be pretty cool. I wanna re-do this sometime in a much bigger format, and possibly make some stencils and spray paint to get bold lines.

Don't run away yet, I've got more of my fantastic art from the yonder days coming up! Next update will have a lot more of my highschool senior year stuff so it actually has some worth. Stay tuned ; )

Oh Highschool Art.... -Part 1

2010-07-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

This will be updated in parts as to avoid a mass spam of all my... "wonderful" stuff from highschool. I Think taking a look back from where you've come is important to see how you have improved and what still needs work, so that's why I'll be having a few "Oh highschool" updates.

Putting older stuff up is also to show people that everyone had to start at some point and that artists don't just wake up one day to paint something awe inspiring. I've always had a lot of people ask "how did you do that?" and I usually just tell them "I put my pencil on the paper...." or "I got some water and took some paint out, and painted..." While something of a sarcastic remark, it's true. There's no special secret, it's just practice and work, even when you've drawn that hand over for the fifteenth time. So here, you all will get to see a lot of my older work and practice, including the ones that didn't quite work out.

^ Perspective Study, pen.

^This was originally made for a coffee shop that was opening but they ran out of money and unfortunately never even made it to opening. Painted with concentrated coffee, yes I'm serious...

^ This was painted on a board so excuse the shiny-ness of it. Nature girl? I'm not entirely sure. I couldn't paint faces? Correct!

^ White conté and charcoal on blue paper. We had to do some sort of scene with multiple animals and make an attempt to make them look somewhat natural.

^I was a closet fan of anime and the chibi style. I've since moved on.

^I think that this is literally my first big 'official' self portrait. Just like painting with coffee, I liked to try weird stuff to use as media, so here is sophomore (?) me in feathers. Let me say, they were a bitch to work with but this baby won me a summer art camp so I can't complain.

^And you weren't convinced that I was a big geek. I already regret posting this but I said I was gonna put up everything, so here is one of the bad. The very bad. If there is one thing that this shows about freshman me it's that I thought fantasy shit was cool, looking back, not so much. I don't know where I was going with this, just as with much of my art back then but if I effectively portrayed anything, it was only that I loved my dogs and that I still couldn't draw people.

More old school goodness tomorrow!

Work from High school, (preview)

2010-07-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago I was looking for something in my plethora of old work and came across a lot of my old highschool stuff. I was a little surprised and had forgotten how much of it I actually have. As a preview heres a ink wash portrait I did of my grandpa! (Junior year I think?)

Nowadays I don't work from photos unless absolutely necessary but it was an assignment on grey-tone value and we were supposed to have a reference. On top of that, my grandpa was dead long before I was ever born so painting from life wasn't an option.

I love Canada!

2010-07-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

We have some fantastic, wonderful friends in Canada and every year we bring them big bottles of Malibu when we come visit because alcohol is cheaper and comes in bigger bottles in the states. As a result, every year, I decorate said bottles for our fantastic friends. Here they are!

Facebook can be great motivation to draw

2010-07-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

So awhile ago I had some strips of good paper that I had left over from print making and I was not gonna throw them away. I set my Facebook status to "What is your favorite animal? No questions!" and simply drew/painted the favorite animals of everyone who responded in whatever style they turned out to be. (Though if I do this again I'll try to be consistent in a style) I figure that it's good practice, especially if it's something I typically don't draw so it turned out to be a lot of fun. Here they are!

Which one is your favorite?

Some old portraits

2010-06-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

I drew with a dip pen first from life, no drawing or sketching in pencil and then went through with color pencil, they were slightly frustrating as I had to start a few people over about ten minutes in because I was not satisfied. It was interesting to see how much more accurate I was by the end of this project. Thanks again to my awesome friends for sitting still long enough for me to do this!

Facebook 'Graffiti' 3

2010-06-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

baaaawwwww, don't you just wanna take him home to sift through your garbage?

sketchbook Sketch 5

2010-06-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

A quick sketch of some stuff that was in my dorm, color pencil! I just wanted to get basic shapes and areas of color down as I didn't have a whole lot of time to do this.

Printmaking 2

2010-06-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

My favorite: Monotype, because it is fun, quick and easy!

For the curious, monotype is one of those arts where it's near impossible to be nit picky or extremely detailed. All there is to it is putting ink on a glass or plexiglass plate and wiping it around, or painting with it. It's then printed on damp paper and so the ink bleeds slightly, thus the messiness. In fact, it can bleed from too much ink too, and even when you're careful, the image will still be fuzzy or out of focus .

Printmaking 1

2010-06-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

A late night post because I had work! Collograph print! Does anyone else know traditional printmaking too? : )

Sketchbook Sketch 4

2010-06-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

pen and ink drawing of a silk flower.

Birthday card!

2010-06-14T11:05:00.000-07:00

This years card for my boyfriends birthday! It combines the ideas of the gifts that I got him and the fact that we're both going to Spain for study abroad this next semester! (Even though a sombrero is a mexican tourist thing...) His b-day goodies were this awesome shirt and a book about different types of guitars made from different companies.

Chicago 2

2010-06-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

Chicago 2, Oil paint.

Facebook 'Graffiti' 2

2010-06-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

A lot of my friends and I still love anime. I'm 20 now but I honestly don't think I'll ever be too old for some of it, whether I adore it for amazing animation or a great storyline, both of which can be few and far inbetween. Below are graffiti's for two of my friends, number one from FLCL! and the second is Sesshomaru from the ever dragging on like Dragon Ball Z Inuyasha.

yeaaaaaah, I spelled the name wrong in the actual 'graffiti'...