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!

Puppy Update!

Well, it's been a week since we received our first email regarding our greyhound changing foster homes and finally we have good news!  A big thank you goes out to all of our friends in our greyhound group for just being so supportive of our puppy and willing to stand up for what's right.  Our puppy will still be away for a while when we go on vacation, but we will continue to (hopefully) foster her afterwards as well.  Yay!

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!

ARE316 FINAL

1. The most significant show and tell in my opinion was Hali's Coding Academy show and tell.  I have no experience whatsoever in coding and it was not really offered at my high school.  I feel as though this is something vital that we need to learn in this day and age and it helped me understand the idea of "digital literacy" better.  The sites Hali provided seemed fun and easy to use and I plan to explore them and try to learn from them over the summer.  I have seen so many of my former teachers assigned courses that they have no idea how to teach, so I hope that in becoming more fluent in digital literacy, I might be able to better prepare myself for anything to come.  I believe that it could be fun to try to do a coding project in the classroom and after exploring these sites more, I hope I will have a better understanding of the limitations of coding and the possibilities of what we can do with it.  I believe knowing how to code is necessary for children today and it is better for them to learn it earlier rather than later.  I wish that I was taught a little about it in my required computer science classes in middle school instead of merely learning how to type faster.

2. Two readings that I think were important to this course were Gill 2009 and Kellner & Share 2005.  In Gill's essay he wrote:  "Games Generation workers rarely even think of reading a manual.  They'll just play with the software, hitting every key if necessary, until they figure it out."  This quote really made me evaluate what I wanted my teaching style to be like.  I realized that my lessons were too instructional based and did not contain enough free thinking and exploration for students to discover solutions on their own.  It also made me look at my own life and my stubborn refusal to look at instructions or manuals when I try to fix things or put them back together.  I also have to say that I loved this reading's positive look at how video games effect children's digital literacy.  Everything in the news always seems to discuss how violent video games are and how violent our children are becoming as a result of this exposure.  For Gill to actually say that scholars believe video games skills and abilities can transfer to other computer skills, I couldn't be happier.  This brings me back to this idea of skill acquired knowledge that I want my future classrooms to based around instead of lectures and demos.  This reading inspired me to make my 3D prosthetic project based on a design I saw in Assassin's Creed.  I modeled my design off of the hidden blade worn by Ezio Auditore in AC2 because I liked the sturdy design and I thought that it had the potential to be a very sleek and elegant design.  I also thought that the arm attachment offered more control than a finger attachment and the user would be able to put more pressure on it that one tiny little finger.

The second reading, Kellner & Share 2005, was equally important in its message to us as future educators.  In the reading it said, "Further, a student-centered, bottom-up approach is necessary for a standpoint analysis to come from the student's own culture, knowledge, and experiences."  I have seen this concept in effect in this course since day one.  All of the projects were centered around us coming up with our own solutions and working off of our past experiences.  Most projects were left very open ended for this particular reason as well.  This course was not about a professor lecturing us for hours on end.  Instead it focused on the students and how we can improve as artists, students, and future educators.  I have always worked off of my own knowledge, culture and experiences in this course - as evident in all of my projects and designs.  As said previously, I designed my prosthetic based on my favorite video game and I also designed my 3D lesson plan (the 3D CO2 race cars) based on a lesson I was taught in my middle school woodshop class.  My videos featured my roommates and their phone/technology addictions, my love for oil pastels (which I use in the majority of my artwork), and an awesome Irish Dance video since that is the culture I most strongly connect to and identify with.  For my last project, I helped come up with the kiosk design - which was based off of my Girl Scout Silver Award project (2 posts down if you haven't read about it already) and my experiences as flier designer and PR person for my dance/art/music team, FOCUS.  My final lesson plan, as said in other posts as well, was created because of all of the problems I see in my own community and my desire to fix them.  I think that by using this student-based approach, it helped us become more engaged in the class and its curriculum and I cannot wait to create more projects, videos, and lesson plans like the ones I made in this class.  This reading stressed students' need to desconstruct media and learn how to create their own and I hope I have become better able to do so as a result of this course.

3.  I absolutely loved every project we did in this class, so it's impossible for me to pick a favorite.  I loved working collaboratively in a group and think of ways to improve campus life for the community.  I also enjoyed learning about and using 3D printers and I think they are the coolest things ever.  I hope to take a digital design and fabrication course in the future here just so I can learn more.  However, if I had to choose the most influential project, it would have to be the video cluster.  That project introduced me to the laid-back atmosphere in this class, which was the complete opposite of the graphic design course I took last semester.  That class had such specific instructions that when I first walked in this class, I felt lost.  I went from having no options and no say in the projects we did to having free reign in everything we did in this class.  The first project cluster helped me get used to this kind of class format again and helped me make decisions for myself instead of blindly following the instructor's suggestions and decisions.  The videos also made me realize how much talent the people on Youtube really have since it took so many tries for me to make the least awkward video possible.  I never knew it would be so hard to talk to a camera until I made my instructional 10 minute video.  Looking back, there are so many things I would have done differently in that and my documentary.  I would have made them more eye-catching and attention grabbing if I could.  I would also change the formats around so they told a story more clearly.  I follow a few teachers who make instructional art videos on youtube for their students and everyone else, and I watched AP Calculus and Chemistry videos religiously when preparing for my exams.  I found them to be a great help in bridging the gap between classroom learning and my time at home.  These videos are essential in today's society as a way to take learning outside of the classroom and make it a continuous project.  This skill is definitely one I should work on for the future as it could help me in my career and just my overall sense of confidence.  For being such a horrible instructional video, I never imagined it would get so many comments and views on youtube.   While my Irish dance video only has 82 views to date, my oil pastel tutorial has 1,069 views and 21 likes.  I even received one comment giving me advice on other brands of oil pastels to try.  I think this is a great way for artists to connect to one another and give each other support and advice, so I hope to use my channel more for these types of tutorials (and maybe a few dance videos) in the future.

One final update on my Tinkercad 3D printing prosthetic

I know I finished my Tinkercad project a long time ago, but I still want to give you one final update.  Since I have to move out of my room tomorrow, I'm afraid my final project is already at my house, probably in storage.  So sadly, all I can show you is my final design:

https://tinkercad.com/things/bwhxApZD3iR

As you can see, I made the base of the design taller to better accommodate pens and eventually, I got rid of the rods altogether since they weren't printing out properly.  Instead, I used metal rods of about the same size that I took from an old car set my brother had.  I attached it to my arm with velcro wraps that I bought in A.C.Moore and I took the spring from my pen and attached it to the switch.  Sadly, I still needed to make adjustments for it to work properly, but it printed out in this awesome bright red color, so I can't be too disappointed in the way it turned out.

I could have printed it out a final time, but instead of that, I asked my little brother, who's a high school junior, what he wanted me to print for him.  I showed him Thingiverse and eventually, after hours of looking, he decided he wanted this:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22115

A Squirrel Guardian that he only picked because it had a cool name and he hoped it would bring him luck on his AP exams.  So despite my confusion, I printed it anyway.  Surprisingly, it turned out far better than I could have possibly imagined.  We had it printed in his favorite color: blue, and it stands at about 3 inches high.  Here's a picture of the finished product- the perfect guardian squirrel:

Lesson Plan Possibilities- Turning Plans into Realities

So I've been thinking about ways my lesson plan described previously could extend outward and actually effect the community and I think I've found a possible solution.  I think that since it is supposed to be taught at the high school level, it would be a perfect way to get any boy scouts or girl scouts to start thinking about their Eagle Project/Gold/Silver Award Projects.  Sadly, I never received my Gold Award due to some unforeseen circumstances in my troop during my senior year, but I did manage to get my silver and bronze awards.   For my silver award project, my troop and I updated and redesigned part of Bower Park:
http://pleasantvalley-ny.gov/community/parks/bower-park/

I was responsible for mapping out the entire park and trails and the rest of my troop made trail signs and a kiosk for the map and information about the trails.  I lived near this park for years and never even knew it existed until we started this project.  It helped me look at my community with a more critical eye of how we can make the most out of what we already have.  The park when we first visited was spacious enough and had plenty of trails, but they were hard to follow and left hikers confused on what direction to go.  After plenty of town hall meetings and setbacks, we were finally able to make our vision a reality and our project brought attention to the park.  Though it is highly unlikely my student's projects will ever come to fruition, I still want to open up the conversation of how to make the community better and maybe someday, we can make that happen.