more from the other class

Below: pen and ink
pen and ink:
pencil:

The one below is a piece I did in class with pen and ink and donated to a charity auction for the Boulder County Aids Project. It sold for over 50 dollars, but I'm not sure the total price. pencil:

Work from Figure drawing class

Above: pen and ink
Below: pen and ink
pencil:
chalk pastel:
pen and ink:

I dunno, just an idear

I always walk around and make little comments in my head like my life is in a book. For example: "She wrote on her blog, wondering if anyone really even reads it and what they think of her if they do so."
So I was thinking I could try and remember these little narritives and write them down and make little illustrations like my life was in a story book.

Trainspotting (trailer)

So I wasn't going to write the post about my most inspirational movie or past-time, because it was assigned right after I wrote that one post bearing my childhood. But then my roommates decided to raid my movies and choose to watch Trainspotting. It got me thinking about why I like this movie so much. I remember the first time I watched it (way back freshman year high school) I instantly declared it as my favorite movie of all time. Which is something I never do with anything, because I like to change my mind so much (btw I'm not so sure it's my fav anymore but it is one of the top 5). Anyway, this is one of the 1st movies i remeber seeing where everybody wasn't so good-looking and the whole environment was dirty and run-down. It's more realistic and raw than all the other shit hollywood tries to jam down our throats. It made me realize that (I came to this conclusion as to why i like the movie yesterday) things can be imperfect, maybe even to the point of making us uncomfortable, and still touch us and affect us.For your visual stimulation, here is the trailer

Yessss!

I love this time of year. My negative thoughts seem to melt off like the snow.

I've really been working on making myself more aware to things and as a result I remember every instance that tells me summer is coming. Last week I caught the first wiff of flowers for the season....Then I promptly layed down in the grass and took a nap.

It was Feb 13th when i first heard the birds chirping happily in the morning.

I went camping on Friday and my clothes still smell a little like camp fire.

I have yet to come across the smell of fresh-cut grass.

Flip Book

Hey!
I said I would post a blog with the website for making online flip-books. So here it is:
http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbookdeluxe/index.php
Enjoy.

The Second Piece of the Semester, The Second Stage

The next step was to created little boxes to close in around the face. They say things that pressure us such as: "You'll never be good enough", "You'll never be good-looking enough", "Be thinner", "Strive for nothing but the best", be this and be that, ect. There's a few different layers, the first is a layer made from transparancies:

The next's made from tracing paper. These are the pannels that make up the tracing-paper layer:

Then I made the box out of these pannels and put it arond the transparancy-box.

I made an opeing in the side and suck a mask in the oppening, because I get a little suffocated when I put masks on. I think it also says something about how someone suffocates themselves when they wear masks, metaphorically. I don't know, whatever.

I covered up christmas lights with red tissue paper to give a brothel-type feal . . . it came out pink, and not so much brothel-ly. Oh well, the pink was kinda nice.

Then you all saw the final piece at my critique. There was some question as to whether it was effective or not. I liked the idea that I sould have made it so that, in order for a person to look at it, they would have had to work to get to look inside the box. I also got a comment that I could have put a curtian around the opening of the face.

The Second Piece of the Semester, the first stage.

My next piece is a continuation of the last. In fact, that was the only criteria for this piece. I started thinking about the last piece and the main idea of it was suffocation, or the feeling one gets when bombarded by helpless ideas (like global warming). Then after talking with the class about where my ideas were going, it got the juices flowing for me to think about how suffocating expectations are. This is about all the expectations people are bobarded by, either to suceed in their lives, school, relationships with people around them, and the expections that media can impose upon people. I created a light-box to depict this idea, inspired by the fact that I was thinking about doing an installation (but I don't have access to a free room for an installation).

I lined the box with pages torn out from my old journals. (My journal are used for just about everything in my life: my thoughts, feelings, and is also used as a planner for assignments and things i need to get done.) I burned the pages that held the expectations (ie. the pages with the assignments and things of that nature). These pictures show that stage of the lining.

RAWR!

I'm pulling my hair out at the amount of school work I have to cram into this gloomy sunday. I've been trying to study for an Art History Test all weekend, I actually did so for like most of the day yesterday. However no matter how much I do, it never seems like I'm done. I'm trying to prioritize the things I need to do, so needless to say, I did not get a chance to finish up my piece. . .at this rate who knows when it'll get done.
. . . I just want to crawl into a hole . . . .

Reaction to My Crit.

Last week I had a critique on my piece for Project Trevor. It wasn't quite finished when we had the crit., which is okay with me. . . I like the feedback! All in all I got some positive responses to it. Suggestions about blending the back into the images of the animal and also the one about making the lables on the packages stand out more will be taken into effect. I just need to finish it, otherwise I'm pretty happy with the way it's going. Someone did say it could be done, in terms of composition, but I disagree with that. There isn't enough of a range of the creatures in the meat packages depicted to really push this piece to the max. I look forward to showing people a finished product.

Starting Up

I think it's pretty important to understand how an artist answers the question: what is art? For me, art is about the human experience. It's about what a person feels and sees and how he or she responds to the world/environment around them. Of coarse these feelings and whatnot can be expressed verbally and in a written manner, but I believe they have to be expressed in a visual manner for them to be considered visual art. (duh!)
That's where I'm at in terms of what my art is about for now. I like to change and grow so sometimes my answer to that question may change, so without further ado here is my bolg . . . . . . (and this is the part where I do a little jig)