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| Luncheon on the Grass |
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| Yeah, she's totally naked. But my blog is family friendly :)) |
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| "really? well fine then" |
Anyways, that's why this piece is named "Luncheon on the Grass."
It's a pun too... lunchin' on the grass... get it? :))
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Judgmental Giraffe is judging you
Anyways, that's why this piece is named "Luncheon on the Grass."
It's a pun too... lunchin' on the grass... get it? :))
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Mildly curious British bossy
I was flipping through a National Geographic, looking for pictures for a collage, when I happened across this photo. I loved it so much, I just knew I had to paint it.
This photo was taken by Sam Abell as part of a story called "Britain's Hedgerows" in the September 1993 National Geographic.
I tore the picture out and promised myself I would paint it later. I finally pulled it out again on one of those snow days.
I had a hard time copying the shape of the cow's head, so I projected my reference onto an 11x14" canvas I had painted red. Somehow I'd forgotten that I'm afraid of the dark... I really don't love working with super dark values. I was kind of in trouble. Eventually, with the deadline looming, I sucked it up and painted myself a cow.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to copy the hedge in extreme detail, so I just kind of fudged it. I tried to add some of the same textures and values without painstakingly copying every leaf, every blade of grass... I think I have come a long way since I started painting ;)
Sorry for no in progress pictures...
The colors are a bit off, and you can't really see the values in the face, but you get the idea...
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I probably wouldn't ever tell you that painting with really dark colors is one of my skills. However, through this piece, I got a teeny bit better at that. I kind of figured out how to paint using "pretty dark" and "really dark" instead of "light" and "medium" and "almost darkish." I also got to work on using textures besides "fluffy" and "feathery," especially with the hedge.
2. Artists Take Risks - I didn't quite realize it at the time, but it was a big risk for me to pick a little picture of a dark cow to make a big ole painting out of. Once I realized howpainful much work it would be, I decided not to give up because I really loved this cow. I'm not comfortable working with black and almost black. I still don't like using black paint to mix colors. I got past that a little bit with this piece because I just dove into it without thinking about the "risks."
3. Artists Solve Problems - I realized shortly after starting that I had a big problem... I tried and tried but I could not get the shape of the cow's head, especially her ears, onto the canvas. I decided to project the image onto the wall, prop up my canvas and trace the cow onto it. Then, I was having issues with the transparency of my paint. I couldn't get the green of the hedge to look right where it overlapped the blue of the sky I had already painted or the black of the cow that had to be there for the shape of the grasses to look right. With a whole lot of paint and a lot of random other colors mixed in, I finally got the green to cover what it needed to.
You can expect some more cows in the future :)
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| "With mild curiousity, three bossies look up from their grassy breakfast. Their pasture lies behind a lush hedge bank in Cornwall bedecked with tiny red valerian, purplish ragged robin, and cream-colored sprays of wild chervil, locally known as cow parsley." |
I tore the picture out and promised myself I would paint it later. I finally pulled it out again on one of those snow days.
I had a hard time copying the shape of the cow's head, so I projected my reference onto an 11x14" canvas I had painted red. Somehow I'd forgotten that I'm afraid of the dark... I really don't love working with super dark values. I was kind of in trouble. Eventually, with the deadline looming, I sucked it up and painted myself a cow.
I knew I wasn't going to be able to copy the hedge in extreme detail, so I just kind of fudged it. I tried to add some of the same textures and values without painstakingly copying every leaf, every blade of grass... I think I have come a long way since I started painting ;)
Sorry for no in progress pictures...
.JPG) |
| Here she is... a mildly curious british bossy;) |
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I probably wouldn't ever tell you that painting with really dark colors is one of my skills. However, through this piece, I got a teeny bit better at that. I kind of figured out how to paint using "pretty dark" and "really dark" instead of "light" and "medium" and "almost darkish." I also got to work on using textures besides "fluffy" and "feathery," especially with the hedge.
2. Artists Take Risks - I didn't quite realize it at the time, but it was a big risk for me to pick a little picture of a dark cow to make a big ole painting out of. Once I realized how
3. Artists Solve Problems - I realized shortly after starting that I had a big problem... I tried and tried but I could not get the shape of the cow's head, especially her ears, onto the canvas. I decided to project the image onto the wall, prop up my canvas and trace the cow onto it. Then, I was having issues with the transparency of my paint. I couldn't get the green of the hedge to look right where it overlapped the blue of the sky I had already painted or the black of the cow that had to be there for the shape of the grasses to look right. With a whole lot of paint and a lot of random other colors mixed in, I finally got the green to cover what it needed to.
You can expect some more cows in the future :)
The floating city
And built stuff like this:
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| the Hundertwasserhaus |
I did a super basic sketch to give me an idea of what I wanted to do. I thought underplanning would be better than overplanning... I have a tendency to overplan but lately I have been overcompensating for that... it might have been a bad idea, in retrospect, to plan so little.
Oh well!
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| a sketch... with secret code! kidding. just mixing oranges |
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| say... is that cheese?? |
It ended up not looking as much like a Hundertwasser as I intended because my try-to-make-it-look-ok instincts kicked in and I had a really hard time letting it be imperfect with crooked lines and everything. I decided to line the buildings in black, which is something I would normally never do but I think overall it enhanced the piece.
.JPG) |
| You & Me in the Floating City |
Hundertwassery or not, I am happy with this one. I am glad I chose to paint something besides cute fluffy animals... I've been feeling lately like that's all I'm really capable of.
you&me in the floating city
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Create Original Art - For this project I drew inspiration from Hundertwasser's pieces and the lovely city of Venice, Italy. I combined the colors and images of Venice with Hundertwasser's style to create a unique composition. Elements of my personal style show through, especially in the little people :)
2. Artists Take Risks - This whole piece kind of felt like a big risk to me. I suppose I could've made it feel less risky with a little more planning... I made myself make some choices that I normally would never make because I was attempting to embrace Hundertwasser's style, like the black lines and dark, crooked windows on the buildings. I'm typically a careful painter, so I was very nervous throwing dark paint on my fabulous orange
3. Artists Have a Global Awareness of Artmaking - The reason I made most of the choices I did with this piece is because I was trying to draw inspiration from Hundertwasser. I'm not certain exactly how successful I was in emulating his style, but it definitely influenced my choices and pushed me to take some risks. I think it was good for me to get out of my (fluffy animals) box -- as a wise friend once told me, there is no growth in a comfort zone, and there is no comfort in a growth zone.
Cardinal
I spotted this pretty lady
.JPG)
just outside my window on one of those snow days a couple weeks back. Since I've been painting animals, I really felt like I had to paint this bird, so my mom helped me take a couple pictures. I love the colors of the cardinal against the snow. Cardinals are such funny fat little birds, especially in the winter.
First I painted a 10x10" square canvas orange. Then I started layering the background colors on, but since gray is boring, I made it purple instead. Brownish is also a boring color, so her chest became vermillion.
This project took me a long time because I was working on several other pieces at the same time. I'm afraid I went a little dark with the purple on her belly, but overall I'm happy with the painting.
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Create Original Art - For this piece, I was inspired by the sight of a cardinal outside my window and took my own picture of the bird. I went beyond the photograph to create a unique piece that shows my style as a painter.
2. Artists Take Risks - As I was painting, I decided that I didn't want to stick with traditional or realistic colors. Instead, I intensified the colors that I saw to make the piece more interesting (and less boring to paint :)). I was actually kind of nervous, as I was inventing colors that I wasn't sure would look good together or that I would be able to create shape and form with. I had to be careful not to let the colors mix and create a nasty brown color. I think my color-mixing risks paid off. I am happy with how this turned out.
3. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I used oils for this project, a medium that I am getting more and more comfortable with, but I think I still learned some things about manipulating oil paints. I got a little more comfortable with using darker colors, something I tend to have trouble with, and I had to figure some things out about composition and simplifying the picture so the focus would be on the cardinal.
First I painted a 10x10" square canvas orange. Then I started layering the background colors on, but since gray is boring, I made it purple instead. Brownish is also a boring color, so her chest became vermillion.
This project took me a long time because I was working on several other pieces at the same time. I'm afraid I went a little dark with the purple on her belly, but overall I'm happy with the painting.
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Create Original Art - For this piece, I was inspired by the sight of a cardinal outside my window and took my own picture of the bird. I went beyond the photograph to create a unique piece that shows my style as a painter.
2. Artists Take Risks - As I was painting, I decided that I didn't want to stick with traditional or realistic colors. Instead, I intensified the colors that I saw to make the piece more interesting (and less boring to paint :)). I was actually kind of nervous, as I was inventing colors that I wasn't sure would look good together or that I would be able to create shape and form with. I had to be careful not to let the colors mix and create a nasty brown color. I think my color-mixing risks paid off. I am happy with how this turned out.
3. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I used oils for this project, a medium that I am getting more and more comfortable with, but I think I still learned some things about manipulating oil paints. I got a little more comfortable with using darker colors, something I tend to have trouble with, and I had to figure some things out about composition and simplifying the picture so the focus would be on the cardinal.
ugly duckling
My ballet company is performing a ballet "The Ugly Duckling" this spring. (I'm the ugly duckling:)) In honor of the ballet, I painted an ugly duckling (actually a cygnet) and a cute duckling. These adorable 4x4" canvases were an impulse buy at AC Moore... hey, they were on sale.
First the sketches, done in prismacolors:
(You can see the finished duck here)
And the original swan...
It took me a bit to actually start painting the baby swan, because I couldn't decide what color to make the shadows. I didn't really want to use just plain gray, but I was also kind of nervous about picking a color. I didn't really mean to make its feathers as blue as they turned out. It just kind of happened.
The hardest part for me was the foot on the left. I couldn't figure out what colors I needed and where to put them to make it look like a foot and not just a blue-gray extension of the body.
Overall I am pretty happy with how this one turned out :)
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Communicate Through Their Work - since this piece was inspired by my role as the ugly duckling, I wanted to communicate the mood of the character and the themes of the ballet. In one scene in particular, the ugly duckling is left behind by her "sisters," the ducklings. They proudly dance away and the ugly duckling realizes that she has been excluded when she wanted so badly to be one is them. I thought this picture captured the quiet disappointment of being left out... something I am not unfamiliar with.
2. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I *think* I am getting better at mixing realistic colors. Painting my animals in crazy colors is not just a stylistic thing... it is easier for me to pick out one color that I see and intensify it than to mix colors accurately. On this one I got a little closer to the gray of the cygnet's feathers than I have previously. I'm actually not sure if that is a good thing or not...
3. Artists Solve Problems - I had a really hard time starting this piece. For some reason, I could not get it to look right. I took a break from it for about a week, took a huge step back, and tried to look at it with new eyes. It turns out I had the shading all wrong - I had highlights in the wrong places and it made the whole thing look a really weird shape. Even though the swan didn't end up the exact same shape as my reference, I like the way it turned out.
First the sketches, done in prismacolors:
(You can see the finished duck here)
And the original swan...
It took me a bit to actually start painting the baby swan, because I couldn't decide what color to make the shadows. I didn't really want to use just plain gray, but I was also kind of nervous about picking a color. I didn't really mean to make its feathers as blue as they turned out. It just kind of happened.
.JPG) |
Overall I am pretty happy with how this one turned out :)
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Communicate Through Their Work - since this piece was inspired by my role as the ugly duckling, I wanted to communicate the mood of the character and the themes of the ballet. In one scene in particular, the ugly duckling is left behind by her "sisters," the ducklings. They proudly dance away and the ugly duckling realizes that she has been excluded when she wanted so badly to be one is them. I thought this picture captured the quiet disappointment of being left out... something I am not unfamiliar with.
2. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - I *think* I am getting better at mixing realistic colors. Painting my animals in crazy colors is not just a stylistic thing... it is easier for me to pick out one color that I see and intensify it than to mix colors accurately. On this one I got a little closer to the gray of the cygnet's feathers than I have previously. I'm actually not sure if that is a good thing or not...
3. Artists Solve Problems - I had a really hard time starting this piece. For some reason, I could not get it to look right. I took a break from it for about a week, took a huge step back, and tried to look at it with new eyes. It turns out I had the shading all wrong - I had highlights in the wrong places and it made the whole thing look a really weird shape. Even though the swan didn't end up the exact same shape as my reference, I like the way it turned out.
Friday, March 21, 2014
a duck for Laura
In January, my sister Laura was cast as the duck in the ballet "Peter and the Wolf," which my dance company is performing this May. I told her I would paint a duck in her honor :) There have been casting changes since then, but I still decided to paint a duck. Well, a duckling, actually.
(Side note - we are also performing "The Ugly Duckling" so we get double ducks :))
I painted it on a cute little 4x4" canvas I found at AC Moore...
I'm pretty happy with this one. It could use a bit more value in the feathers (plus this picture is kind of washed out... sorry) and I'm still working on the grassy parts... Turns out most of my oils are transparent or semitransparent, so it's tricky trying to get good coverage.
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - For this project, I used oil paints, which I am becoming more and more familiar with. I practiced manipulating the paints to get the textures I wanted, such as the down on the duckling's back. I believe I built my skills with this medium through this project.
2. Artists Solve Problems - As I mentioned before, many of my oil colors are transparent or semitransparent. This was especially a problem with the background, because I was trying to use transparent green paint over and orange background. To cover the area like I needed to, I used less medium so the paint was thicker and mixed the sap green with other colors that are more opaque. I also intentionally left some of the orange showing through to give the color more depth in some areas.
3. Artists Communicate Through Their Work - When I chose a picture to paint, I chose a duckling that seemed "dignified" rather than just cute or goofy-looking. This was important to me because I was trying to portray not only the duck from "Peter and the Wolf" but also the ducklings from "The Ugly Duckling," which are very proud in their rejection of the ugly duckling.
(Side note - we are also performing "The Ugly Duckling" so we get double ducks :))
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| look at those cuties |
Artist behaviors:
1. Artists Develop Art Making Skills - For this project, I used oil paints, which I am becoming more and more familiar with. I practiced manipulating the paints to get the textures I wanted, such as the down on the duckling's back. I believe I built my skills with this medium through this project.
2. Artists Solve Problems - As I mentioned before, many of my oil colors are transparent or semitransparent. This was especially a problem with the background, because I was trying to use transparent green paint over and orange background. To cover the area like I needed to, I used less medium so the paint was thicker and mixed the sap green with other colors that are more opaque. I also intentionally left some of the orange showing through to give the color more depth in some areas.
3. Artists Communicate Through Their Work - When I chose a picture to paint, I chose a duckling that seemed "dignified" rather than just cute or goofy-looking. This was important to me because I was trying to portray not only the duck from "Peter and the Wolf" but also the ducklings from "The Ugly Duckling," which are very proud in their rejection of the ugly duckling.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Prismacolor piggy
For this project, the assignment was to draw something transparent with Prismacolor colored pencils. I must admit, I was not thrilled because I really don't love working with pencils. I played around with a couple ideas, but most of them seemed pretty boring... all bottles and jars and stuff. But then I had the idea to work with ice. I stuck a plastic pig in the bottom of a cup, filled it with water, and froze the cup.
This was the result:
It's kinda scary, I know, but I just went with it. I practiced with the prismacolors a bit
and decided I was ready to start.
Voilà:
It was really frustrating because I don't really have the patience for colored pencil. I feel like I don't have enough control to blend the pencils and make the right colors (a big part of why I prefer painting). Mistakes feel a lot more permanent in colored pencil than they do in paint, too. All in all I guess it's not too terrible. It just wasn't very much fun.
This was the result:
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| AAAHGGHGHH IT'S ICE PIGGG |
It's kinda scary, I know, but I just went with it. I practiced with the prismacolors a bit
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| I actually used prismacolor watercolor pencils for the sketch |
and decided I was ready to start.
Voilà:
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| ICE PIG! he's coming for you. |
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
More sheep...
In case you haven't gathered this already, I like to make sheep. For my first project of the new semester, I decided to make another, only this time, as a 3D piece.
Environmental artist Bryant Holsenbeck visited Apex High and showed us how to make these cute little animals out of trash. (I almost decided to make an elephant instead... silly me)
First, I built a skeleton out of baling wire. Then I stuffed the skeleton with plastic grocery bags, wrapping the whole thing with yarn so it stayed together. I swear this thing has dozens of bags inside. It's heavier than you might expect...
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| Oh, you were expecting a realistic sheep? NOPE |
Next I tore an old pillowcase into strips and wrapped the sheep, because even though it is trash, it doesn't have to look like trash. I tucked some ears into his head, glued some trash to his face for eyes and a nose, and voilà!
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| Tada! |
I titled the piece "I like ewe", which is funny because I don't really think of it as a female sheep... more like a lamb of indeterminate gender. He/she doesn't have a name yet. Suggestions?
Right now this little guy, along with my other sheep, is on display at the Halle Arts Center in downtown Apex until March 14th. Go check him out! :))
Monday, January 13, 2014
chicken face
When I was thinking about what project to start next, I just kept thinking about how much fun I had painting my sheep. I wasn't sure what made that sheep different from any of my past projects, but I decided to roll with it and keep with the same theme. I decided to paint a chicken. I had also been sketching a little chicken Laura and I make up stories about when we babysit named Bob the Chicken.
I found some references...
...and made a sketch...
...and I just went for it.
This one was really fun, too. The hardest part so far has been bringing out lighter and darker values to make the chicken really pop, especially his comb. I'm still working on that actually :) I am also trying to give him texture without painting individual feathers. So far I'm very happy with this piece.
...I feel like he needs a name. Any suggestions?
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| Bob the Chicken |
I found some references...
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| I worked mostly from the little guy at the top, second from the left |
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| sketch with oil pastels |
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| Chicken face! |
This one was really fun, too. The hardest part so far has been bringing out lighter and darker values to make the chicken really pop, especially his comb. I'm still working on that actually :) I am also trying to give him texture without painting individual feathers. So far I'm very happy with this piece.
...I feel like he needs a name. Any suggestions?
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