Matriculation

So on Monday, I took a class from my friend Tally at Viva Gallery. We did prints on a tray of solid gelatin and WOW! I could do that all day. Except maybe I'm too lazy to make gelatin right now. Um, but in class, I printed on this great architectural paper that was available and I loved the way it looked so I kept at it.

This is actually a silhouette Kat Von D. I cut her out of a magazine. The image on the left is the negative print and then I peeled her up and did a positive print on the right. She's got some rays of sunshine coming from her... um... thigh... because the woman who used the gelatin before me used this bit of nature that was kind of a hard, sharp, three-dimensional leaf and it left an impression. I think it still looks cool, though. It's hard to go wrong with this stuff. Lots of room to play.

Here's my experimental phase with lots of different prints and layers of color. I'll probably use these as background papers or something.

This is my little Mad Hat Symbol that I cut out of paper. I really like the marbling effect in the second one. These, I may end up using as Photoshop brushes. I'll show you if I do something cool with them.

I'm also taking an ONLINE class from my Muse and Guru, Suzi Blu.

I'm not even sure how I found her to begin with, but every time I visit her blog or watch one of her videos I am completely inspired. She set up a little community of Suzi Blu followers and is teaching an online drawing class. I'm having fun and finally learning to draw faces that don't look all slanty and weird.

This girlie is not finished. But hopefully she doesn't look all slanty and weird to you. I'm still practicing and honing my style. And Suzi is very good about teaching step by step shading but I'm not quite getting it yet. Well, I understand it, but I just can't seem to make it happen. I keep painting over my progress.

But I definitely think I'm getting the hang of faces in general. I made this drawing tonight and I'm pretty happy with it. Symmetry is the key. Her face is juuuust about symmetrical. And that makes it look so much better. At least to my eyes. So simple but so brilliant!

I learn a lot from Suzi about a lot of things. Mostly how to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and just being happy with what I'm doing.

She's wacky but wise, that Suzi Blu. And her accent reminds me of being back home in Philly, even though she's a Jersey Girl.

Close enough.

THIS JUST IN: I wasn't planning to go to Artfest this year because the registration kind of snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. (Opens September 2nd!!) But I went through the classes last night and I have three solid choices for each day so I'll be happy with whatever I get. So I'm going to register after all! Yeep!

It must have been the nostalgia after flipping through the fatbook I just received from the girls of Dorm 202. Holla! They sort of adopted me since I stayed in a hotel (and O YES I will be staying in a hotel again this year! I'm not THAT nostalgic.) But it definitely made me yearn for Fort Worden! I'm really excited now! Who else is going?

Le Sigh

Hello Manchester
Uploaded by mjsbigblog

So, I have to admit that I've spent a lot... a LOT... of time on the computer this summer dorking out over David Cook and finding out what's happening on tour and beyond. For those of you who don't know (very few of you by now) I am totally one of his groupies (band aids) and oh yes I WILL be flying to Tulsa, Oklahoma to see the last American Idol concert in September. (I have already been to two of these concerts and I've met him once. Yee!)

See, Tulsa is where he was living before he auditioned for idol so this venue is sure to be jacked up with David love and I just really wanted to be there. I'm hardcore like that.

Slowly Unraveling

It's been more than a week since coming back from Art Unraveled and I am just now getting around to posting about it. I have become a very irresponsible blogger, but I'm making a solemn vow to update at least once a week from now on. Swear.

I wanted to finish a few things that I worked on in my classes before photographing them for the blog, but then KF woke up on Thursday and said "Let's go to Vegas." So, not 72 hours after driving home from Phoenix, I found myself headed back into the damn desert.

Well, I'm finally home now and I got to put some final touches on some things last night. So, without anymore rambling, here's a look at what I did on my summer vacation:

My first class was with an artist named Juana Martinez-Neal. I had a lot of fun, met some great people and ended up with this painting:



It's got all kinds of nifty texture, which I didn't think I was into, but I really like it. The texture was done with gel medium and some star shaped bits. Juana was a great teacher and I learned some very cool techniques.

And guess what? I sold this painting!!! To a very kind woman who I met in that same class. We became hanging out buddies for the rest of the week. She tried to teach me how to take a compliment but I'm not sure that lesson will ever stick onto me. Hi Betsy! I hope you start a blog soon so I can link to you!

I'm very proud of this one. This is a painting I made in one of my three classes taught by Judy Wise. She's just an awesome teacher, a great artist with a great attitude. After this class I took a photo of the painting and sent it to KF who responded that I was "getting really good with faces." I almost didn't have the heart to tell him the face belongs to Botticelli's Venus. I just painted over her and added some of my favorite flowy, unaturally colored hair. She makes me happy.

Another great class I took was called "Voice Lessons" with Carla Sonheim. It was the most enlightening, most inspiring class of the week. We did a bunch of little exercises that really helped me loosen up, creatively. I think I need to take this class every year.

These are some line drawings I did that I think are kind of cool.
This guy was a blind contour drawing. You're not allowed to look down at your paper while you draw. My model was a toy alligator and I was so surprised when I looked down and saw something that actually looked like an alligator!


These are my groovy line drawings of a house and guitar. Drawn with a Sharpie because four out of five teachers agree that erasing is for wimps.


Here's a water color painting. I had a lot of fun with her too. Same class. We covered a lot in Carla's class!

And now for Kelly Kilmer's fun class. I don't think I followed the rules all that well on the first one, but Kelly said it was okay... so I'm gonna run with that. Also, this is far from finished. But I just like her little sassy face (a photo I took of my Pullip doll) and her little Monster sidekick. He came about totally by accident because I was working fast and just cutting paper.

I heart him.

Here's another page from Kelly's class. I went a little too orange, but other than that I really kind of like it. The quote is by a man named Arthur O'Shaunghnessy but I know it from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.


Back to Judy Wise again. We covered so much ground in this class, I had paint up past my elbows. LOVED it.




I sort of... almost... finally learned to stop being so uptight about my visual journal and to let go without ending up with something hideous... most of the time. Of course, I'm going back and redoing/enhancing a bunch of pages, but that's just how I roll, baby. It's all good. (That's me being relaxed and stuff. I'm talking like a stoner from the seventies, but whatever works, man.) This class was mostly all about trying lots of different painting techniques in the journal. Most of the pages I did aren't finished or just work as backgrounds right now but I'll post them when they reach maturity.

My third class with Judy Wise was all about making art into a business. I learned SO MUCH. Mostly I learned that it's hard work and I need to stop whimpering and just do it already. At the very least I'm going to try to get some stuff up on Etsy. I'm just gonna toss some stuff up there and see what sticks. Buy it, don't buy it... see if I care. (Yeah, I'm such a savvy business woman, can't you tell?)

There's so much more to say but this is another ridiculously long blog post.

I'll just say that it was a great week and I'm so inspired to get to work! Watch this space for further developments.

This is Comic Con

(Believe it or not I cut a ton of pictures out of this post because it was taking a zillion years to load. To see the rest of them, click HERE )





\




KF was off doing work stuff so I ate lunch with Wonder Woman.


Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes. Rawr.

Zacharary Levi from Chuck.

If you're a geek, you'll know who this is. If not, it's Jonathan Frakes from Star Trek.


Girl with super cool hair.







That's KF's dreamgirl in the center. His eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw her.


This was some weird Dharma Initiative booth. Don't know what was going on there, but it was fishy.




A zombie parade wandering by in downtown San Diego... as I sat there eating a bucket of crab legs.




TOYS!There's a lot of great art at the Con, but this year I was all about the toys. This is a doll by CJ Metzger. I've wanted this doll for a year but she's so hard to get. Her name is Mischievous Maeve. Isn't she prettay!?

I went a little crazy on the toys, but it's only once a year!


And I got this fun art print, signed by the artist, Martin Hsu.

And now I'm nice and done.

This post is dedicated to my good friend Neil Levin, who should have been there.