College: so much supplies and so little space

So, as you know, I am preparing to go back to the wonderful world of college in a few days and so, I spent all of today packing and sorting all my art supplies.  Now since NONE of my art teachers have responded to me or sent me any sort of supply lists, I just have to overpack and hope for the best (and bring a lot of gift cards for the art stores in town).

My main worry for move in day is my roommate running out of the room, terrified that she's living with a hoarder who brought 8 boxes of art supplies on the first day.

In order to avoid this scenario, I am discreetly going to bring up my materials in different waves.  Since I live close by, my parents are going to bring my materials over the course of a few days, so I don't get overwhelmed the first day.  The hope is that I will also have an art locker (and HOPEFULLY a BFA art studio to work in) but we'll see.

For my first wave, I'm just bringing up the supplies I HAVE TO HAVE.  I also plan on working the weekend before classes start (such an overachiever) and I want to start working on another paper cutout model of my church.

So far my list is as follows:

FIRST WAVE-

• Mungyo Gallery Soft Oil Pastels (3 old boxes of 48)
• Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels (3 new boxes of 12)
• 3 Sennelier oil pastels (black, gray, and white)
• All tortillons I have on hand
• Prang watercolors (half and full pan)
• 4 cheap brushes
• 5 vine charcoal sticks of various sizes in a glass jar
• 2 Scraper tools
• 5 Color Shapers
• 2 Trays to hold water (for watercolors)
• 3 pieces of wood (16" x 4" x .25")
• Metal ruler
• 6" clear ruler
• T-Square
• Triangle Ruler (can't live without it)
• Tape Measure
• Scissors
• Smart Living Invisible Tape (6)
• Sandpaper (varying tooths and sheet sizes)
• thumb tacks
• 2 Strathmore Sketchpads 5.5" x 8.5", 100 sheets each
• Plastic portfolio 30" x 23"
• first aid kid (I'm clumsy)
• box cutter
• Cutting Mat 16" x 23"
• 6 Kneadable Erasers
• Pearl Eraser
• Camera/Charger
• Flashlight and Lamp (for light sources)
• pencil sharpener
• pack of Ticonderoga #2 pencils
• 8 leadless pencils
• pack of Bic round stic black pens
• a box full of old colored pencils of various brands, sizes, and colors
• giant drawing board with clips
• MY SAVIOR - my lap desk (a comfy drawing board with clips, a pillow underneath it, and indents to store all of my tools when I'm working

SECOND WAVE-

• 9 Oil Paint Tubes
• 2 Sable brushes
• 4 dead brushes (last year was a bad year)
• brush cleaner
• gamsol
• galkyd 
• 3 alcohol inks (Adirondack brights - red, blue, and yellow) 
• Alcohol Blending Solution
• India ink
• Sumi ink
• Face/Mouth mask (for charcoal)
• extra xacto knife (for my possible studio)
• 100 No. 11 xacto blades
• Iridescent Medium
• Ox Gall Liquid
• Masking Fluid
• Gum Arabic
• A Sponge (found in Hobby Lobby) - good for texture
• YES! Paste
• Scotch blue painter's tape
• electrical tape
• 4 Sharpies 
• 3 Golden Artist Colors Acrylic Paint tubes (red, blue, and yellow)
• Strathmore Sketchpad 5.5" x 8.5", 100 sheets
• Borden & Riley #880s Royal Sketch Book 6" x 9", 60 sheets
• Strathmore Watercolor pad 9" x 12", 12 sheets
• scrap pieces of tracing paper
• Canson XL Mixed Media Pad 18" x 24"
• Canson Drawing Pad 18" x 24"
• Strathmore Newsprint Pad 18" x 24"
• Canson Watercolor Pad 18" x 24" 
• Yupo Sheet (huge)
• Arches Paper 22" x 28" (around 7 sheets)
• Any old artworks, references, art magazines I feel are inspiring enough to bring back with me
• As much scrap paper as humanly possible

And there you have it.  This is the chaos that I'm living with right now.  I am taking a figure drawing class and a painting class next semester with professors I've never heard of, so I really have nothing to base my supply list on.  I can't say that I've used all of the materials mentioned since a lot of art professors make you buy a ton of stuff and never use it in their classes.  Honestly, if any of you know anything about Iridescent Medium, Ox Gall Liquid, Masking Fluid, or Gum Arabic PLEASE tell me!  

Anyway, thanks for listening to my hectic life.  Now that everything artsy is sorted (for the most part) I can go on to packing and sorting through all the clothes and books in my closet, YAY! *collapses from exhaustion*

Home Stretch!

Wow, 5 days left until I go back to school - which translates to 4 main work days and one packing day.  I'm trying to plan and sketch one of my last pieces of the summer which was inspired by the challenge #drawthisagain .  I plan to redo my glass squirrel picture again for the third time since 2012.  Let's hope I finish in time!

I'm also trying my best to write up and film the video on subtraction I've been working on and I also promised Lady Avolate (a good friend of mine) that I would try to do a dance video of Last of the Wilds by Nightwish.  While I don't have the editing tools, space or time alone to do it at home, I have already cut the song and am thinking of steps and choreography, so we'll see when that gets done.

Also, just to give you an idea of my progress the last few years, here are my two glass squirrel oil pastel pictures:


The first is from the summer of 2012, right before my senior year of high school and AP Art.

The second is from March of 2015.  It was made during my junior year of college for my Thematic Drawing class.  It was the first drawing I did in oil pastel and also one of the last since the professor hated oil pastels.  She also hated color which explains the sad lack of color.

My next picture (the one I'm working on this week) will also be in oil pastel and will thankfully be in color.  Getting started on it right now! Woohoo!

And Another One Done!

Woohoo! Just finished this piece a couple of minutes ago.  This piece looked hideous for so long that I'm actually excited it came out looking a little less ugly.  I definitely have trouble following through with my artwork and committing to ideas, so this was a practice of that more than anything else.  I created the base picture with all forms created and shaded with oil pastel - like I would do for any normal artwork of mine - except I left the figure and background lighter than usual.  Instead, I went over the whole thing with black charcoal in the darker areas to give it that extra layer of a smoky, rich black.  I only have 12 more days until I go back to school, so I'm trying to finish up as much as possible and straighten out my BFA ideas before classes begin.  

This piece is based on some Hermione/Lupin fanfiction (don't judge) I stumbled across where she ends up being bitten by a werewolf.  I am in love with the story and it made me start to research more about werewolf art and how artists depict the transformation.  Not to mention, I also just did another 2 hour "photoshoot" session where I just do random poses with random lighting and props and see what pictures inspire me.  I just completed another fabric "photoshoot" which only lasted for an hour since I was getting frustrated by the end, but I got a lot of creepy, twisted forms out of it, so I can't wait to start drawing them.  

I also just saw my new dorm room today and am freaking out since it is half the space I had the last 2 years.  I don't know where I'm going to store all of my at supplies since the desk is just a small board attached to the foot board of my bed.  There is no storage space and I haven't even begun to think where I can work in this tiny space that I will be sharing with a girl who is not an art major.  Needless to say, my anxiety is through the roof.  

Any video suggestions you might have for my artist channel can be left in the comments below, on my facebook page, or my youtube channel.  I am trying to at least do one or two more videos before college starts - but if I get more suggestions, I'll do more.  So far, I have the requested sgraffito video planned and I thought I might do one on what art supplies I'm taking with me to college.  Also, I have another piece (sgraffito) nearly done, so I will post that and show how I made it in my tutorial video.  

New Video!

Hi guys, just posted my new ART That video on my charcoal and oil pastel work.  Next up is a video someone in the comments asked me to make on sgraffito with oil pastels, so now I just have to decide what piece I'll be making for that video.  As always, I would love to hear from you - any comments, concerns, questions, suggestions, etc.  I only have a few weeks left before I go back to college, so I want to get as much done as possible before then.

I want to map out some of my BFA pictures and my theme a LOT more.  I have a huge list of books I want to read and some that also relate to my theme.  I also want to get ALL reference pictures I could ever want or imagine done while I'm at home since I won't be in a room with an art major this year and I will have no real personal space or time to myself.  And finally, I want to share as much as I can here and on Facebook and my Youtube page.  I'm reading a book called "Show Your Work!" by Austin Kleon and I would DEFINITELY recommend it!  It provides me with motivation and makes me want to work and share and build a community and network of artists.  Anyway, that's enough of my rambling for the night.  Good night everyone!

Experimentation and a Possible Theme

So this week I've been thinking about my strengths and some possible theme ideas for my BFA.  Originally my theme was impermanence, which I then narrowed down to my religious experiences.

I went back and looked at all my old artwork and found that the pieces I was most proud of were from two years ago during my foundations art year.  Those pieces were drawn mostly from life with some intense shadows and dramatic light sources.  I also found I love the methodical process of drawing fabric.

Though it wasn't my original idea to use religion and fabric together, now I find myself wanting to find a way to fit them together.  I promise the next post will go into my whole experiences with my church, but for length purposes, I thought it would be better to separate the posts.

I also want to say that I am in no way anti-Catholic or atheist or anti-church.  I still identify as a Roman Catholic and go to church regularly.  I've just had some bad experiences with corruption in the church that have made me struggle with my faith.

Now onto what I've been working on today.  I love drawing fabric, but find it's easiest to draw with pencil and charcoal.  The only problem is that I despise charcoal since it can just be wiped away in an instant (done it before by accident) and I hate breathing it in and getting it everywhere.  But now, I think I've found the perfect solution for me.

 My main medium is oil pastel, so I did one layer of pastels, blending them in with my fingers and I had a slight gradient to them to match the lighting of my reference picture.

From there, I did a separate drawing of the same figure on a piece of paper (the same size) mapping out the lights and darks of the piece.

 I then cut of the dark forms with my box cutter (since my xacto knife is mysteriously missing) and cut out the background as well since that too is dark.

Next I ground up some vine charcoal on some scrap paper, wiped my brush in it (just the cheapest paintbrush I could buy) and dabbed it on the stencil over my original oil pastel background.

I then removed the stencil and continued to play with brushes and creating lines and gradients in the picture.

My first test with a snowflake pattern cutout

The oil pastel locked in the charcoal so it doesn't move (unless I blend it out) and stays fixed to the paper.  It also creates that lovely smoky effect that charcoal is known for.  I want to experiment more with this because it sounds like a pretty awesome idea and I definitely need to work with it more.  It would look amazing as a large scale drawing, but I think I may be running low on my preferred Mungyo Soft oil pastels, so we'll see.

 As always, feel free to give me feedback and tell me what I should do next.  I want to make a Facebook page and get more of my art online, so we'll see when I decide to take on that project. Until next time!

Upcoming Pieces

So here are a few pieces I want to work on this summer:

I'd like to get a few more religious pieces/sketches out of the way since that's most likely what my BFA will consist of.  No real ideas yet, but we'll see.  I'll definitely have another post or 2 regarding my concept and theme and the story behind it.  Hopefully going back to the original concept will help my work be more focused.  We'll see.

Another topic I want to cover in my art is obviously my foster greyhound, which I told you about in my last two posts.  Now that there's a chance we'll get to keep her longer, I'm putting off sketching her for the time being, but I definitely have some fun drawings planned for her.

A huge focus of my summer work is going to be beach art and pictures of my favorite place in the entire world, Wildwood, New Jersey.  At college, all the professors want art with meaning and dialogue and soul searching.  So every summer, I like to take a step back from all that and just focus on art that makes me feel good.

Similarly, I want to do some fan art pieces for Disney stuff, favorite books, movies, etc.  Just like most artists, I suffer from some severe artist's block and there are times that I just feel no will to create.  I try to be more lenient with myself in the summer since I don't have the luxury of just doing nothing at school, but to work through these blocks, I try to just do stuff that's fun and enjoyable.  Sometimes I just need to remind myself of why I went into a major in the arts and just do something to keep that flame alive.  Some of the art I want to do include references to  Harry Potter, Stardust, Queen (2014 Bollywood movie), Pirates of the Caribbean, Tarzan, and definitely Hunchback of Notre Dame (which incidentally has been inspiring my religious themed artwork as well).

I also plan to finish up a lot of the Disney art I started last summer but failed to finish.  My original plan was to create little pictures that I could put up on my wall in college and create a cool mosaic/collage.

I'm also taking a figure drawing course in the fall, so I definitely have to get back in the swing of drawing people, since I've been avoiding it for a few months now.

There are also some major birthdays coming up regarding my friends and family, and I always make art for people just as a special way to give back and say "thank you" to them, so you can expect to see some works like that as well.  (I have a lovely Corona bottle on a beach picture that I've been working on for a while now that I plan to give to my mother for her birthday so stay tuned).

  I plan to update you guys on my process and sketches and ideas as I go.  I might also make a Facebook page for my art just so I can get the word out more.  I'm also looking forward to using my new Youtube page since my first oil pastel video was so popular.  (Don't worry, I promise the videos will be a lot less awkward now that it's not a school assignment).  And hopefully, you'll see less of me and more of my artwork.  That's all I can think of at the moment.  I just wanted to write everything down so I don't have any excuses next time I tell myself I have no ideas and nothing to draw!

Update: What have I been doing for the past month?

I can't believe it's been over a month since I finished my Digital Visual Culture class and the only question that comes to mind is "what have I done in the past month?".  The easy answer is that I'm taking a month long college course and then going on vacation, so I'm currently using that as my excuse to my lack of progress or artwork. 

On top of all of the craziness, my foster greyhound is being taken away because the leader of my greyhound rescue group is a terrible and spiteful person.  I have yet to hear back from the woman, but from what I've been told, she will be re-fostered (for the THIRD time) and taken away on Saturday.  Now please don't misunderstand.  I did not abuse her or do anything that would make them take her from me.  I merely asked for vacation coverage in the upcoming month and somehow that turned into finding another foster family.  I've had this dog for about 7 months at this point.  She was always the first one to greet me when I came home and the first to whine when I went away again.  I love this dog with all my heart and it's sad to say, but I love her more than my last greyhound, just because I feel like she's more affectionate and attached to me.  I wish I could adopt her, but like everything else in my life, the timing is just not right. 

I've been crying all week over this dog and I cannot imagine parting with her.  I can't bring myself to lock myself in my room to make art when I know that I could be spending these precious hours with my puppy.  I want to have SOMETHING to remember her by, so I might be making a picture or 2 (or 10) of her.  Originally, I wanted to make a rotoscope or zine of her, but as I am home for the summer, I no longer have access to Photoshop and I am pulling my hair out over gimp. 

Here's a picture of my baby.  All she needs is a good home and a family who love her.  She's good with other dogs, likes peanut butter and long naps and likes nothing better that licking and headbutting her owners.  She's having some trouble with slippery floors and open backed stairs, but we're working on it slowly but surely.  She's thunder friendly and one of the sweetest dogs you will ever meet. 

I plan to keep making posts as often as possible this summer - blogging about my art/sketches/ideas (maybe some more YouTube tutorials/time lapses) and possibly with some lessons/observations since I'll be tutoring my cousin all summer.  Check back for more updates, comment and follow my page and have a great day!

Kickstarter Research

Just found a very interesting kickstarter project that fits well with the class curriculum.  It's a delta 3D printer called Tiko that's cheap ($179 per unit) and unibody.  This means that it is easy to assemble, manufacture, and according to the website, almost impossible to misalign.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiko3d/tiko-the-unibody-3d-printer?ref=category_popular

I looked at their kickstarter video to see what they did and how it can help my group with our video presentation.  For one thing, it's short and to the point at only one minute and forty-nine seconds.  It starts off by introducing their team of innovators and then it gets into how regular 3D printers are faulty, time consuming, and fall short of our expectations.  They used words like "heavy," "overcomplicated," and "unreliable" and put the words on the screen to emphasize their point.  Then they introduced their design as the answer to all of our problems showing a video of it in the process of printing out an object.  Next, they compared other printer frames with multiple pieces to unsteady lego sets.  Once they got the comparison out of the way, they went into specifics about the printer, like automated shut off, wireless connectivity, cloud-based software, the max volume it can print and other special features.   At the end of the video, they sum up their goals of having everyone be able to own a 3D printer and say that's why they kept the price so low.  The commercial ends with "Imagine what you could build. Back us today and let's find out."

I think this commercial set up could definitely work with my group's project proposal.  We're designing an interactive kiosk that could replace bulletin boards on campus.  I agree we should start the video by stating the problem.  We could show pictures that I took of the either too cluttered or too empty boards around campus and maybe throw in some statistics from my poll.  After that, we should offer up our solution to the problem and then go into details about what it can do.  I'm worried the design students in my group are trying to make the video more complicated than it needs to be, but we'll see.  I wanted to make a website, but can't really argue with them since it's their part of the project and they're the ones with the digital skills.  I'm hoping my group can come to some sort of agreement on the video tomorrow (Monday) and hopefully start storyboarding so we're ready to film on Thursday.

DIY Prosthetic Project

So for my next project,  I am in the process of creating a 3D printed DIY prosthetic. After drawing  with my feet and mouth for my Spring break homework, I realized how vital control and pressure are to prosthesis designed to help amputees produce art.  I also realized that working with ones' arm is the most logical solution because it would still possess some fine motor skills even if the hand or some fingers were missing.

When designing, you have to think about the universality of your design.  Are you making an attachment for an already existing prosthetic?  Will your design only work with one specific pen/paintbrush/etc., and how can you generalize your design?  Since I decided to create a prosthetic that could hold a pen or pencil, I knew I would have to create a very general design that could fit multiple brands.  My design also had to give the user easy access to the drawing tools so they could quickly replace them.   I decided to make a device that attached to the wrist that way it was useable no matter how many fingers the person had.




 My design was loosely inspired by the hidden blade seen in Assassin's Creed.  For my research, on top of making cardboard models, I also watched tons of Youtube videos on hidden blade construction.  Initially, I wanted to make a spring loaded design that would make a pen or pencil pop out, but later I simplified it to just a pen/pencil holder.

 

My initial inspiration

cardboard model

I built my design on Tinkercad off of a hidden blade design I found on Thingiverse called "Hidden Blade!" by Theprintrbotmaker.  Here's what it looks like at the moment:

My Project 

I just printed out my initial Tinkercad design and am now in the process of making adjustments.   I'm going to attach it to my arm with Velcro and the small tab on the back will (hopefully) be able to hold the pen in place as I apply pressure to it while drawing.  The top of the device (the thing with the orange hole) will slide across the top of the device and I will glue it into place.  I took a spring out of a click pen and will use that to hold the tab in place.  Then, when the pen dies, the person just needs to press on the tab, lifting it from its previous position of blocking the hole and allowing the pen to slide out.

Right now, a lot of the parts I created are too small to print out properly, so I'm in the process of making them bigger and trying to get the back to actually work.

My Process

Just a few of my pages researching ideas for the video projects.  Here you can see the mess that is my thinking process and my attempt at storyboarding the documentary.  Most of these pages are just research for the Elements video - different dance steps, dubstep music, etc.  

Elements Update and how Pinterest ruined everything

So I mentioned in the last post that I wanted to use an awesome dubstep song in my video and make it a remix of different Irish step dancers who represent each element.

Well now I have a different idea so I'm scrapping all of that.  I think the main reason behind the switch would have to be my obsession with Pinterest.  I got so caught up pinning tons of different dancers and song ideas that I felt lost in the project.  I felt like I was just an editor and not a creator of a video, so I wanted to take the project in a more personal direction.

For myself that meant me dancing, even though I am extremely self-conscious and shy, and to make it even more challenging, it will be an acapella piece (like this one).  Irish step Hard Shoe isn't my forte, as I have a lot of trouble getting a firm and steady set of taps and bangs.  I think due to the loud nature of the filming, I will do it in Smiley, that way the residents of my dorm don't kill me.  I could also play with the lighting more in Smiley, especially if I bring my own lamp and film in the night.

The most challenging part of the process for me will be layering since I have almost no experience using iMovie outside of my class.  I want different dance steps to go with different elements and I think if I repeat and layer them, I could get a nice rhythm going.  One of the biggest inspirations for me at this stage is the first Irish step dance song I ever heard - Riverdance's "Reel Around the Sun":

Elements Dubstep Initial Idea

Now that my documentary is finishing up (Connected Documentary)
I thought I might start working on my Elements VideofreeX project.  My original idea for this video was inspired by Lindsey Stirling's "Elements" music video and TapTronic's many Irish step/dubstep dance videos.

Since we had a discussion about copyright and free use, I got permission from AP3HAUS on youtube to use his Gaelic Storm Dubstep video.  I also decided early on that I wanted to remix different youtube dance videos and put them in my project.  For example, this one girl I found definitely looks like she's dancing on AIR, while this next guy's performance is more grounded and powerful, making me think of FIRE.  I think a compilation of dancers would be make a cool video, especially after discovering this fan-made video featuring Lindsey and TapTronic together:

Instructional Video Project Research

While I'm working on my documentary project, I have also been thinking about my instructional video that has to be under 10 minutes long.  Right now I am leaning towards making it on art, specifically working with oil pastels since I've heard a lot of negative criticism of them from professors at school.  I have been watching and critiquing videos to see how others approach this topic.

Recently I found this video on youtube:

Though it was a somewhat decent tutorial, there were several things wrong with the video.  One of the most distracting elements of the video for me was the setting.  You can hear airplanes, birds and wind which all distract from the artist's voice.  He also filmed under a tree, so the sun hitting the paper also causes a distraction since it is constantly moving around.  Overall, I give the artist a lot of credit for having such smooth blending with cray-pas oil pastels which are cheaply made and hard to work with.

I think my documentary will be broken up into different sections and I will have more vocabulary words/descriptions on screen.  I have a lot of different brands of oil pastel, so I might talk about differences between brands as well.  I find that a lot of the time, teachers dismiss them because they think I will use a cheap, waxy pastel that will look terrible.

Watching Movies (As Research)

So I've been researching documentaries for my upcoming project, and by researching, I mean watching a LOT of videos (my netflix account is expiring soon).  Here are some, just to name a few:

Secrets: The Turin Shroud
Mystery Files: Pope Joan
Ancients Behaving Badly: Caligula
Ancients Behaving Badly: Cleopatra
Ancients Behaving Badly: Nero
The Most Evil Men in History: Caligula
Discovery: Royal Deaths and Diseases
Nat. Geo.: Finding Anastasia

Out of all of these, The Ancients Behaving Badly series was probably my favorite, just because of the graphic animations it included.  It has a feeling of nostalgia about it since the animation style is similar to the one used in "Blackwater Gospel".  (I used that video as inspiration for my rotoscope design last year for my Design Color class.)  Here's the video for reference, it's creepy, but beautifully put together:

In the Ancients Behaving Badly series, I liked how they put the subject of their documentary on a scale to compare his/her behavior to other famous psychopathic killers and rulers from history.  I found it much more enjoyable than the other documentary on Caligula that I watched, which included too many shots of statues and did not give the viewer a sense of his environment like the Ancients series did.  In that series, the reporter actually visited the ruins of the palace Caligula was held captive in and we get to see the underground passageways he took right before he was murdered.  Granted, the two documentaries were meant to serve different purposes.  The Most Evil Men in History was created to be a brief summary of Caligula's life and the atrocities he committed.  The Ancients Behaving Badly documentary, on the other hand, provided an in depth look at evidence implying Caligula's mental health and possible causes of his madness.  All in all, I think I have to do some more research before choosing a topic for my documentary.