Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The School Year is Coming to an End.

Last project in Drawing studio of my freshman year of college. Phew... it is weird looking back on all the assignments I had to do. Assignments that would help me to become a better artist. To tell you the truth... At the beginning of the year I pretty much thought that becoming a fine artist would entail drawing master still life's! I never actually thought, until now that they were just getting our foundation structured. Yes we learned how to draw outlines of bottles, find negative space, thickness in line, and value. Forgive me for just now realizing this but, those lessons helped sooooooo much! After doing this final assignment and her explaining to us that we need to start thinking conceptually.. Well (whatever that means) but it makes sense. We need to start putting what we learned in studios to use. I couldn't have done that with out thinking of something that really meant a lot to me. Well this year. it was college.

College was my biggest fear. I remember like it was yesterday when my sister came down stairs after cleaning out her closet full of books.. standing in front of me while I was playing a very "important" video game. She was holding up a book. I don't remember the name of it but it was basically saying.."Next Step College." The next thing I know I chucked the book to the side. Of course I didn't want to start thinking of college. It sounded horrible. Being away from my family. Not knowing anyone! meeting new people? How the hell am I supposed to do all that while being a good student.

Well it was hard. Very hard. However, Of course I learned from it. Doesn't everyone learn from anything that happens. I know there are far worse things going on in the world but right now. I am now finishing up with the most hardest thing of my life. and everyone says, " we all went through it mary" but why didn't anyone do anything about it?

That is when I started sketching in my sketchbook. It became my journal... that I ended up sharing with a lot of people. In a way, I want the whole world to see it. Because I am pretty sure, we can all relate to one another. and not everything in my sketchbook is anger about things that happen, but it also has little things I have begun to recognize in my college life. Being away from home, seeing those changes. Being away from my high school friends who went to different schools. Or choosing to go out with new friends just because I know that I need to make some but at the same time, I am growing away from the people who are my friends. It is just weird to think about how, everyone says college is the best years of their lives. BUT IT IS SO DANG HARD!!!!

Well everyone has to deal with their feelings some how right? I put it into my drawings. That is when I begin to think, that I want the world to see them. Soooo as some of you might have known, the previous piece I posted on the Blog, about Things You Won't Understand. That was for a portfolio review that we are having at the moment. This review has nothing to do with whether I am going to continue on in fine arts next year or not. It has to do with starting out with your art career as a freshman in college. The word around the studios are that they are going to choose 12 people to show their work in a gallery next school year. I can assure you that you might not understand how important this would be for me.

All year being in a class that repeatedly says "SHOW YOUR WORK IN GALLERIES BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO BE FAMOUS" How do you think that made me feel. It drove me nuts! I didn't want to do that. Being a cartoonist, illustrator, photographer, sounds wayyyyy more fun. and you get payed regularly. Why would I ever wan to put my self into the position of being poor, hungry, living with random friends, and creating art work. Do you understand how expensive art supplies are? They are veryy expensive. So yes i wouldn't want to be a famous artist. I would like to make art on the side, as a hobby. But when i heard about this portfolio review. Something just clicked in my head. I had to do it. and on top of that. I had to create something from me. Something that I have created from my sketches. That would be " Things You Won't Understand." I hung that one up of course. with 3 other projects. By all means I don't expect them to look at all four projects and go Tadaa!!! She gets the award! Life is way harder than that. But I am hoping to God that they consider me. It would mean so much. But all I can do is wait. because it has been a week and they still haven't sent the god damn email.

But in the long run. I made something that was really important to me and that will be a part of me for life. I don't need stupid galleries to make me feel better. All I need is my sketchbook and a pencil. Oh and my friends and family that surround me. I wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for them.
Here are my four pieces.
So yea this post was just going to be about the last drawing assignment but this last one helped me understand what I have been doing this whole year.
This project was a collaborative/ individual drawing. The way this worked was: that I started out with the paper and drew what ever I wanted. (Paying attention to mark making. Considering composition, directional lines, and visual texture) Well hot damn. I know I accolmplished all of those requirements. and the weird thing is. that this is just another one of my sketches from my sketchbook. But here is what I did first. If you can't tell... on the left hand side of the paper is cut out V shapes overlapping one another. this was my way of creating visual texture, and seeing how someone else would handle it.
Next was my friend Kelly.. She began to work in the faces where I left blank. I was a little hesitant but....
Now this is the final piece. However, I did switch with one other girl. She began to fill in between the V shapes with black pastel. I knew someone was going to at some point. But once it got back to me, after starring at it for a while. I knew what I wanted to do. Well this is what I did.
Looking back at this piece. It is weird thinking about what people do in reaction to seeing something. Kinda like how my first year of college went...........

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Photography

For Time Studio, we moved into photography. We were given different prompts to follow.

BELOW: This photo is based off the Passenger prompt. The passenger I chose to take a picture of was my Nana with her walking stick. This picture portrays a journey that my Nana has taken. However, I have realized that people can interpret this picture many ways. One being as the ground is marble and the traveler is wealthy. Another being that the traveler is going through snow. (which why would you be walking through seeping snow with a walking stick) But the real story behind it is that she was walking through the sand, struggling to get down to the beach.
BELOW: This is a group of stills. I followed my brother-in-law and his daughter down to our creek. My brother-in-law is a huge outdoors man and loves taking his daughter down to the creek to skip stones. She gets so excited whenever the stone bounces along the water.
After looking at the photos, I decided to warp around the colors to make the picture give out more of a journey feeling. I did this through Hue and Saturation.


BELOW: Based off the Prompt Army of Me. I took picture of my Mom working in her flower garden. Taking pictures of her moving back and forth down the line of the house to arrange the flowers. I thought it was funny, because every year my Mom plants the same flowers, saying that they will last through the next year but every year she is out there again planting the same flowers. Every year for mothers day, my Mom asks us to help but, this year I just watched her. So by taking pictures I created an army of her to work in the garden.
BELOW: I kinda made up my own prompt for this picture. It could, however, be based off of poetics of space. The area in which I live. I live in a dormitory and my bed is low to the ground. I always have stuff being piled up underneath there. So i chose to take a picture of me searching for what I needed underneath my bed.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Thinking about it....

Sooooooo.... Along with working on my projects in class, I have been obsessed with drawing in my sketchbook. What do I draw? Well, I draw what I would write in my journal if I had one. I draw things that happened during my day, or how I felt about that day.
I recently have become more relaxed in drawing. These drawing always make me feel better when I go back and look at them. As you will be able to see, I kinda mess around with different body shapes. I think it helps me get my point across. I used to always think I had to draw the perfect muscular body but that never showed my style in it. So take a look at these on my tumblr! I am giving the world permission to look at my journal! Make sure you look at the full view of each one. I am still working with my portfolio on tumblr and need to figure out how to display the whole image?

Oh and obviously I have been thinking about illustration a lot more. Drawing cartoons have always been a part of my life, but I have never been able to bring myself to create something of my own. Just a thought. Illustration and comics would be really fun!
CHECK IT OUT!!! http://lytlemary.tumblr.com/

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Fooling around in Photoshop

Our next project involves us working and manipulating photos that we have taken for different prompts. Here is something I was experimenting with to refresh on my photoshop skills.



Monday, May 2, 2011

Redesigned!!

Here are the redesigned posters! I tried to keep them as simple as possible with a sharper image.




This projected wasn't like anything I thought it was going to be. My teacher wasn't happy with the first poster I redesigned. I thought the point of the project was to put our own design to the posters while still providing all the information. Well, it wasn't what he was looking. So he tried to put into my mind that it should be as simple as possible.
I always thought I wanted to go into advertising later in my life but after doing this project, I have changed my mind! Guess that is why I am taking all these classes. To figure out what I want to do!

BORING!!!!

In Time Studio we are replacing found flyers with smart, tight, and sharply designed flyers we make celebratory gestures to the everyday lost cat sign. Re-imaging the world with more potent aesthetics.

Check out these sights:

http://cardoncopy.com/

http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

http://lostfrog.org/

Here are the posters I chose to remake!






Next Post will have the re designed posters!