Model

I LOVED this model. Even though Clark is very nice, it was a great change to be able to draw a young, artistic, unique woman. It's definitely a nice contrast from drawing a grandfather, anyway. I absolutely loved her hair. It was a crazy, afro mess, but it was a controlled chaos that she absolutely pulled off. I highly doubt anyone else could do so as gracefully. That's why I focused on her hair for the main portrait. I like to think the figure drawing appears graceful and interesting.

The other two are blind contours where I could only look at her and not at my paper. I think they are fairly interesting as well.

Line Project

This project was very complicated. We started off with a series of squares, inside each I could draw 25 lines. Then I scanned them all, and subsequently erased each tedious square outline. I took the line shapes into photoshop and layered them ontop of one another until I had five different designs that I liked. From there I printed each piece of the designs out. Then on each individual piece I brushed on a special acrylic coating, blew it dry with a hair dryer, brushed it on, and blew it dry, and so on and so forth until every little piece had 5 coats on it. As you can see with how many different pieces are in my project, this action in itself was extremely time consuming. Finally I scrubbed the paper off of the back of the new pieces, which would leave me with a clear base that had only the dark lines on it. That is when I placed the all onto the large papers in a design, and coated both sides to solidify my final project. My design was preplanned, as were many, in order to determine how many papers to print off originally. I can't even count how many hours I put into this project.

Individual Inks

Ink Series

The ink series I chose was the idea of entering a bathroom and going into the toilet. Originally I had about eight different squares that, in my opinion, went uncomfortably close and into the toilet. That was my entire point, however. I ended up narrowing it down the the four I liked the best, and I definitely sacrificed personal comfort in order to study my figure and draw it...


I used a bottle of ink, water, and a wooden stick for this project, so don't be too critical. YOU try using a stick to make pretty pictures...

...ok, I also used a little paint brush a couple of times with the water.

Vase

I chose this particular object to draw because I liked the shape. This is probably my favorite drawing of the semester.

Still Life

I'm very happy with the quality of this drawing. I used black charcoal on nice, thick paper. I'm especially happy with the texture of the half mannequin with the scarf around it. This took me about a week to finish, and specifically around 15 hours.

Plunger

This is a piece I did earlier in the year with charcoal, brown and red conte crayons, and white paint. I was extremely satisfied with the way that the plunger itself turned out, but I'm not sure how I feel about the shadow behind it. The only reason it is there is because once I finished the plunger I realized that it was not showing any "motion," which was the point of the assignment. Maybe I was trying to make it look like it was falling? I don't really know, I took the suggestion of another student in this decision, but I'm not happy with that particular choice. I almost photo-shopped it out so that no one knew it was there to begin with, but I decided that I'm more critical of my own work than anyone else is, so I'm just going to let everyone form their own opinions. The shadow doesn't cloud how much I like the plunger itself.

Portfolio Review

Here is my entire display for portfolio reviews, which is basically an art major's presentation to, and evaluation by, all of the faculty. This takes pace in front of whomever would like to watch. It's pretty intense. Before my first review last semester, I heard the professors tell a girl that she needed to choose a new major.

This year my review went really well. Any criticisms I got were in areas of my pieces that I didn't feel were as strong as others, so I definitely expected all that they said. The advice I received was very helpful, and I'm pleased to say that I passed my reviews.

First Semester

Sorry about the lengthy break. I've definitely been living an extremely busy life. However, here are some pieces I've been working on so far this year.

Razor.

For my 3D Design class we had an assignment to fuse any ordinary object with a part of our bodies. To do this, we made a plaster cast of both sides of our objects (in my case, a razor), and then connect it with a wax cast, that is then made into a plaster mold, of a body part. Although most people used their hands and fingers, I thought it'd be more interesting to use a cast of my lips, which would then represent the blades of my razor, as you can see. The wax allows the plaster cast to keep all of the details and lines of my lips intact. Then we had to coat our objects with whatever materials we saw fit. I thought that the silver confetti strips looked very metallic on the lips, and then the ribbon around the handle gave it that feminine touch.

Orwell.

My brother Patrick recently decided that the only presents he wanted from us were gifts that we made for him. Furthermore, the only gifts he will buy us from now on would be things to help us make him even cooler gifts. :)

This is the first gift I made for him. Because 1984 is one of his all-time favorite books, I thought I would paint him a picture of George Orwell. This lighting is pretty bad, so you can't see the different colors in his face, (and it looks rather yellow). However, you get the idea. I went to do the eyes last, and then I decided that I actually kind of liked it without any eyes. This way, it's as if the person "watching" could be anyone.

Photos.

These are just some black and white pictures I took around campus earlier this year.

One.

Hello.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I think it's the ridiculous amount of excitement and disappointment I've been experiencing during such a small amount of time. Some might consider this a problem. I guess I would too, if I didn't feel so much creative inspiration under these circumstances.

I hope to post some of my art work soon. Without a scanner, my process may be a bit slower than I would have liked, but I'll get it on here somehow. I've been working hard in my drawing and design classes, so minimally I'll have some homework assignments to show for myself. I've also been working quite a bit on my own though, so I'm anxious to show my successes, failures, and experiments.

I'm putting together another piano cd of dinner music that I want to be able to sell by the end of June. I've recorded about half of it, and if possible, I'd like to put some of that music on here. In the meantime, I'm still trying to find a couple more songs, not necessarily classical pieces, to put on it. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd be happy to hear it.

As far as my own music is concerned, for my birthday my parents gave me a nice microphone and preamp to help me record, so ideally, I'll have some original songs on here eventually too. To be honest, I'm not even sure if I can post music, but I'll certainly try.

I plan to use this as a creative journal of sorts. I hope you like it.

Mary