Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was pretty great. I got to talk to my brother who's serving in Boston on an LDS mission for nearly four hours, I was given a bunch of new art supplies that I can't wait to incorporate into some of my upcoming projects, and, most importantly, I got to spend my vacation surrounded by amazing friends and family. I was able to make a few presents this year, mostly for friends, but the only thing I have pictures of is a stuffed frog I made for my niece.
The day before Christmas I realized I didn't have anything for her, so I asked her what her favorite animal was. She told me "a fwog". I was so excited she hadn't said a cat or a dog or something normal like that. A frog was different, a frog was interesting. So I busied myself with the creation of this all Christmas Eve. It was so much fun coming up with the pattern and sewing it. Anyone recognize the fabric? I used the sleeves that were left over from my Hobbit vest. Hoarding seemingly useless things really comes in handy sometimes.
As 2012 heads out along with all of its apocalypses and doomsdays, 2013 comes roaring over the horizon. What a fantastic year this could be. I get to graduate high school and begin my young adult years as a starving college student. What a prospect! Currently, I hope to go to BYU down here in Provo and hopefully maybe study Animation . . . or Art Education . . . or Set Design . . . or Art Therapy . . . or all of them! I just can't see me doing anything with the rest of my life that doesn't involve art in some way. Goodness, even when I think of raising a family one day, I think of all the crafts and projects I want to do with them. Even my New Year's resolutions are riddled with art-related goals. I commit to putting one-hundred percent into everything I create. No short-cuts, no excuses. If I don't care about what I'm doing, why do it? Just because I enjoy making things that are sometimes light-hearted and whimsical doesn't mean they're pointless. You can be sincere without being stuffily serious. As I continue my Create the Day project, I want to infuse art into my life even deeper. I want to add personal artistic touches to everything I do - including organizing. In fact, being more organized is somewhat of another resolution I have for this year, especially as I move away to college. So far, I'm doing pretty good. I recently just finished organizing my art nook under my loft bed.
For me, organinzing in and of itself is pretty much an art. It probably still looks hectic and chaotic to other people, but it took me forever to figure out what should go in which boxes and how those boxes should be stacked, etc. I actually really like how it looks. The longest part was divying up all my beads into jars and seeing which beads fit best into which bottles. Then I decided to sort my buttons, as well, using these adorable little green boxes I got for Christmas. And, along with the whole fusing art and life thing, I then decided to do this with the little boxes.
I have this thing where I just can't throw out drawings, especially ones that I like (okay, yeah, I do trash the ones that turn out awful). But the thing is, if I have paper, 9 times out of 10 I'm going to cover it in doodles. They're all over my notes and homework and tests for school. And then, at the end of the year, I cut them all out and throw them in a box for future use along with all my other collage pictures. Well, I think I've found a pretty good use for all the smaller pictures I have. I have more, but I just decided to show these three.
I have quite a lot of plans for more creatively organizing my stuff, but we'll see if I ever get around to those. What with AP Art projects that need designing and scholarships that need applying. Moving on.
Though, speaking of school, a few good art-things have come out of it recently. I just barely finished my Painting class (I'm gonna miss it so much D: ) and I have a few of my projects to show. All of my watercolor paintings were chosen to be in our school's student art show, so I only have the acrylic ones right now. I may have the watercolor paintings back some time in April or May, and I'll hopefully remember to post those then.
These pumpkins were our first acrylic project. Unlike watercolor, my teacher didn't give us all that much instruction for the acrylics. She just gave us the paints, plopped some pumpkins in front of us, and told us to paint them. So, Ta da! My first ever acrylic still life. I was rather pleased with this. Except for maybe the two smaller pumpkins in front. There's just something off about them.
This was our second project. We had to take a picture of ourself, posterize it on Photoshop, and paint it using different shades of one color. This is a case, where I think I should've stuck to the assignment just a little more closely. It's a picture of my older brother and I when we were smaller. He's the green one on the left, I'm the sickly yellow one on the right. It's kind of hard to get different shades of yellow that actually look good. Blech.
This next project was a little bit terrifying. We had to draw a group of people simplified (I chose the Fellowship of the Ring from the Lord of the Rings) and then we had to take that picture, cut it up into strips and put them back together, but displaced. The whole finished product didn't quite fit on my scanner, but I think it gives the overall effect of how things turned out. It was better than I expected and didn't completely ruin my painting, but I must say, running my art under a papercutter multiple times was a little like cutting off my left hand. It was painful. Although not nearly as painful as my last acrylic project.
Looks pretty nice, right? It took me forever to draw it up and then paint it. I was finally feeling a little more confident with my acrylic painting skills. And then . . . this happened:
As part of the assignment we had to cover our painting in ink and then wash the ink off again. No one told me that the paint would start washing off as well. It looks awful! But, I'm hoping it can still be salvaged. I'm going to go in with my pen again and redo some of the lines that disappeared and fix the whites of the eyes. I'm really disappointed and unhappy with this. Erg!
Unlike my Painting class, AP Art seems to be moving rather slowly. The last project I finished was a bit of an experiment our class decided to try out. We replaced an assignment where we (and by we, I mean the 2D design students) would've had to do charcoal self-portraits. Instead, we all drew names and had to paint/draw/sculpt that person from our class. It was a little awkward, but fun all the same.
I had to sculpt a girl that I somewhat know. She likes to longboard - hence, the longboard. My only real satisfaction with this project are the folds and wrinkles and textures on the clothes, which don't really show up very well in this picture. Yeah, I could go off about all the things that are horrible about it, but I'll spare you all and leave it at that.
In other AP Art news, we recently voted on pieces from our class to go to a rather prestigious high school art show in Springville. We're allowed to send 18 works, I believe, and there's a possibility my Box Elder Fettish or my winged robot could be going. But don't hold your breath.
Going all the way back to when I was talking about art in all areas of my life, I really like it when I finally get to bring my cultivating artistic abilities into my other classes. This year, it seems Astronomy takes the cake for creative projects. I recently had to design and draw an alien that could potentially live on a designated celestial body. My assigned destination was Europa, one of Jupiter's Galilean satellites. Scientists believe has underground oceans. So I designed a fish.
The
Hypostomus spatii, or Europan Suckerfish. It's kind of obviously based off a suckerfish and an angler fish. I had a lot of fun drawing and experiment with this. I decided to whip out my tablet and continue to try and get better at that complex and confusing program known as Photoshop. Overall, I'm pleased, not thrilled, but pleased.
Another resolution I have for 2013, is to stop saying 'not yet'. I can't carve wood, yet. I don't know how to sculpt people, yet. If I never try, I'll never go anywhere. In fact, there really is no try: do or do not. Well, recently, I was sitting there, saying to myself "I need to continue researching stop-motion armatures; I can't build one, yet." But then I stopped myself. Why not? I'd done quite a lot of researching, there really wasn't anything new for me to learn by searching the internet. I know where the joints are supposed to go, I know proportions, I know how everything is supposed to move. Why didn't I just sit down and make one? And then I did. I didn't need fancy welding materials or expensive dremels. I had wire, sculpey, magnets. Who says they can't be turned into a working armature. So, I did it. I made my own stop-motion armature. It's super posable, proportionate, and it stands! The feet even have joints for walking. However, this is more of a prototype. I know it's not nearly durable enough, yet. One of the feet came loose the other day and the magnet tie-downs aren't nearly strong enough to always keep it balanced. But I'm that much closer. I have defenestrated that baneful phrase of 'not yet' and I intend for it to stay that way. I can't believe what I accomplished in my first experiment with this. I can't wait to build a better one. In fact, I even went out and bought better magnets today at Hobby Lobby. Ah! so excited.
Before I wrap up, now, I have one last project I'd like to share with you all.
Backpants! I had these really awesome cargo pants that were getting some major holes in the knees. I knew last Saturday would have to be my last time wearing them out in public, but I really didn't want to just toss them in the trash. They were far too sentimental to me. So, somehow or another, I got the idea to turn them into a backpack. The pants themselves had a lining, so I wouldn't have to worry about adding one in to keep them sturdy. Plus, they were already covered in awesome pockets and the top even had a drawstring. There really wasn't all that much complex work that had to go into this. I cut the bottom of the legs off right above the unsightly holes, used the extra, undamaged fabric to create a rectangular bottom for the bag and also the straps, did some sewing, and voila! Backpants! The hardest part was stuffing the straps for the pack. I sewed down the middle of the straps and then filled them with fiberfil so they'd be padded (and let me tell, you they're pretty comfy). But it took forever pushing each little bit of stuffing down the little holes and making sure it was all even and not bunching up. I'm possibly thinking of incorporating it into a steampunk outfit I've been brewing over in the crock pot of my mind. Who knows!
And now, as we conclude this once again far too-long post, I leave you with some extra tidbits.
Helpful Hint
Eh, I don't really know what to call this section of my blog, yet. Anyone got some suggestions? Well, on to the tips. Don't throw things away! Well, do throw out stuff that really should be thrown out, like food and smelly things, but be very careful. Before you scrap anything, ask yourself: is there any part of this broken old thing that has potential artistic value? The answer is almost always, yes. I'm considering doing my concentration for AP Art as Up-cycling or repurposing old stuff. Luckily, when I was making my Backpants, I was able to use this old plastic clasp thing to keep the drawstring closed that I had scavenged off a dead backpack some years ago. I had constantly debated about whether I should continue to let it take up space in my organizers and now I'm so glad that I did. It was perfect.
Expanding Your Horizon
One of my all-time favorite artists is Shaun Tan. He's an Australian illustrator/bookwriter/really awesome person. He combines mixed media techniques and superb storytelling to create the most fascinating worlds that feel so real. I first became acquainted with his work when I received his book
Tales from Outer Suburbia from my dad for my 16th birthday. It's so quirky and almost nostalgic for me. The Christmas afterwards, I was given his book
Lost and Found. One of the book's stories deals with depression and it's really uplifting and inspiring and creative. I love it. That's part of the reason I like Shaun Tan so much. His work makes me happy. He's not one of those artists who get to be called artists because they have some serious mental problem and decide to use that to justify their depressing pieces of art. He may be unique and non-traditional, but he certainly isn't depressing. This last Christmas, I got his very first book that I believe won some prestigious award.
The Arrival. It's so fantastic. I really can't describe how fantastic his work is. Look him up. Read his books. Here, this is his website: http://www.shauntan.net/ .
