Monday, April 25, 2011

Dance, Move, and Draw!

For Drawing studio, We were told to bring every medium we own into class so we could have numerous options for our painting. For five classes we had to paint on a 21x40 Lintex paper. My teacher put on a different radio station everyday to give us different varieties of feelings.
At first I was nervous about this project because, I have always hated doing abstract art. I have never been able to do it successfully. However, I never had music to listen to while working. It all made sense to listen to the music and make drawing/painting movements from there on.
I mainly stuck to acrylic paint and soft pastel. With side materials like: sand paper, painters tape, and hemp. Here is what I came up with...
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5 Final
After doing this project, I learned to make layers, and windows to see back through the layers. I was told to not fall in love with anything while I was working. Sooner or later it will be covered up!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Just a Little Something

I was just playing with my Prismacolor Markers that I haven't touched in a while.
Above: Throw Up Love
Above: Shutup, I Wanna Talk
Above: Good Things Happen
Above: Don't Go to Bed
Above: Big Storm

Monday, April 11, 2011

Inspired by a Book

First Drawing 3 project was to go out and get a old book and create a repeated folding patten to render the book so it became unreadable. Our teacher told us to transform the book into a work of art while considering social issues, the state of the world, investigate yourself, or a psychological you. I chose to investigate myself. After the Keith Haring project, I have realized that I enjoy drawing characters and I wanted to continue on with that. When I was looking for a book, I found a book called The Manual of Play, that was published in 1914. This book had descriptions of how kids play and what they play with. One of the sections was about imagination for kids at a certain age. This gave me the idea of imagining who characters are in a book with out pictures. When someone is reading a book with out pictures, they have to imagine what the character looks like with a very vague description.
For my project I began folding the pages in the book as tightly as I could. I started in the middle and worked to the outside. Once I got closer to the outside, the pages began to tear. Once I finished folding the pages, I realized that it resembles my mind in the way that it is tight and crammed most of the time. I then decided to make a mold out of my face and forehead and the book would be in between each mold. I covered the book with gray spray paint stuffing from a pillow. Then I covered the stuffing with the characters I made from hearing or seeing things around me. Once I put all the things I had together how I wanted it, I realized the mold face doesn't have very much meaning to the project so I decided to write the words of the things I drew.
I think this projects worked as conceptual art because everything I used related back to my idea.
Here is the finished project!


If you want to see it; it is in the glass case on the sixth floor of D.A.A.P.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Tweet Tweet! Chirp! Chirp!

First project of the final quarter! We were assigned to make a bird house! For this project we worked with FUTURE Blooms and Keep Cincinnati Beautiful to build artist made birdhouses in a new bird sanctuary in Avondale. We first had to do research on the bird we wanted to make a house for. After seeing that all the holes were mostly the same size, I decided to make it accessible to all birds. Right away, I thought of a bee hive hanging in a tree. I wanted to create rings increasing in size from top to bottom. The bottom would be a bird bath, then there would be a surface for the bird to make a nest on, then a level that has perches on it. We had a small critique to discuss our ideas and everyone seemed to approve of my idea. However, my teacher told me to look up the Guggenheim Museum, because the building spirals up to different floors. I decided to use bicycle tire and tubing for my material. To start out, I covered a plastic container with rubber tubing. This would be the bottom for the bird bath. Then I took a tire and spiraled it up to the height I wanted it at. To stick everything together, i used crazy glue and goop. I made sure there would be enough room between the levels for the birds to get in. Instead of making a whole, the birds can enter the bird house at any section. The surface for the bird to make a nest on and the roof are made out of a thick piece of cardboard wrapped in bike tubing. The roof can be taken off because I put ledges for the roof to sit on. Instead of making the perches on the inside, I decided to put them sporadically on the outside. I was going to use wood for the perches and then I realized that I could use the valve stem from the bicycle. I used invisible cord to hang the bird house.
Here it is before I painted it.
I painted it a shade of green that wouldn't be too bright. I wanted it to blend in outside.
Here is a view of the inside.
This is it hung outside on campus after our critique.
During the critique, the lady from FUTURE Blooms said that it would be perfect to hang at their sanctuary. However, I told her that I wanted to keep it so I could keep an eye on it and see how it does with the birds. I was also thinking of putting some kind of vine plant in the bottom of the bird house to attract humming birds. I will post more pictures as spring moves on to see what happens with this bird house.
Many thanks to my sister who works at Cycle Sport for giving me used bicycle tires and my Mom for giving me left over paint she didn't need anymore. This was probably the cheapest project I have done yet this year.