I deserve to be wearing one right now for not posting the last few months. I'm really sorry. It was getting near the end of school and I had AP Tests and graduation to worry about. Speaking of, I'm officially a high school graduate now. Yay! Now back to the apologies. I really was extremely busy. I was sloughing classes the last few weeks of school so I could finish my AP Art Portfolio and to get some extra sleep in. And, of course, now that school is over and done with, our computer decides to stop turning on which happens to be the computer that has all my photos and Photoshop on it and is the computer that my tablet hooks up to and also our scanner. So, you'll be getting some real old stuff and not so great pictures today. When we get our computer back, I'll be able to upload all the drawings I've been doing and better edited pictures.
Before I talk about what I have been doing, I'd like to talk a little about what I'm planning on doing. So, I've just graduated high school and I'm off to University in just a few months. I've already changed my major three times, but currently I'm planning on going into Illustration. I hear it's really hard to get into, but I'm going to try anyways. I register for classes tonight and I'm planning on taking Drawing in the fall. It sounds so scary and intense to me, but also exciting and adventurous. Yeah, that's about it - on to other stuff.
I'll start with some older pictures.
These is just a compilation of random doodles I had uploaded on a separate site from my sketchbook. I really need to start getting away from pointless doodles and start creating actual pieces that have backgrounds and such.
I love art memes. They're so much fun and really good for practicing. This is another old one I had on my other site. As is this next one.
Just a random picture that I really liked.
My nieces were down a few weeks ago and we did chalk drawings. It was tons of fun. My niece made this outline of me and then I just filled it in. I'm incredibly pleased with that boot.
Look familiar? A girl in my friend's painting class really wanted me to make her one, so I did. I completely redid the pattern and I think it's a lot better than the first. I put beans in the bottom so it actually sits well, this time.
I also saved the pattern, because I think I want to start making more of these and maybe set up an Etsy store sometime in the future. Of course, I'll have to have a little better quality and get some decent photos, but I think it's worth a try.
More chalk drawing. This was at our school's end of year rock concert thing. A friend of mine brought a little box of chalk, which was quickly decimated by about 50 high school students. This was my little offering.
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| Now for some recent stuff and somewhat better pictures. This is Pumkin (purposely spelled like that) from the Youtube series Baman Piderman. I made it for a friend of mine for her birthday. I really love how his sweater turned out. Also, it's the first time I've ever succeeded at needle-felting. Here are some more angles and detail shots of him. |
This was one of my last art dolls for my AP portfolio. His name is Steward, and yes, that tree is supposed to be his head. Seriously, somebody asked me where his head was once. My favorite part was grass-staining his pants. My neighbors must wonder sometimes what I'm doing out in my yard rubbing a tiny pair of pants across my lawn.
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| I love how this picture turned out! In case you're a little confused, he has little pots and bags of trees tied to the strap on his shoulder. |
He's a pretty good tree-climber.
So, I've been doing a lot of rearranging in my room lately, trying to figure out what I'll be taking to college and whatnot, and my art dolls outgrew their little shelf and I moved them all to the top of my art supply bookshelf. From left to right there's: Baby Harry Potter, Beowulf, Grendel, Bengta, Steward, the Lady Greene, Mo the the Stop-Mo armature I, Admiral Ackbar, Audubon, Kamaji, Truman, and Hagrid.
For Graduation my sister and brother-in-law gave me a Hobby Lobby gift card. I spent it on a bottle cutter and made myself a set of drinking glasses to take to University with me in the fall (just two and a half more months 'til I can move out . . . not that I'm counting).
I had a Fanta bottle to go with my Coke and Sprite ones, but it broke down the middle in the hot and cold water baths.
These two were the cleanest separations and they really look the best.
I love doing art projects with little kids, especially my nieces. The last time we had them over they collected rocks from our garden and wanted to paint them. So I joined in on the fun and painted a space-dinosaur. He is definitely coming to University with me. (Side note: I noticed someone earlier saying University like people usually say college (like without putting an article in front of it) and I decided I wanted to start saying it. I mean, I am going to a University, not a college, so why not?)
This is the reason I didn't post this blog entry yesterday. I wanted to, but my mom commandeered me to help build a chicken coop. It was pretty awesome and fun. The picture makes it look a lot simpler than it actually is. There's a door on the back that my mom and I put up with a bunch of random hardware we got at Ace. There were a lot of obstacles, but my mom and I managed to finally get a pretty sturdy, effective coop built before my dad came home. And yes, it is the bottom portion of a child's playground. We've got three adorable little chicks - Suds (who I really want to start calling Camilla, like from the Muppets) the white one, Danny Kay, and Rose Tyler (they're both brown).
This picture and the last ones are my very last project I put in my AP Portfolio. It's a doll tree-house. I had the more finished pictures on my other computer, but I can't get them now. Even now, though, it isn't entirely finished. It still needs a ladder, a railing, a crow's nest, a ladder to the crow's nest, some props, and possibly a second tree house to connect to it. Also, it's the first time I've ever built something to scale. It's all in 1:12 scale. And I intend on making all the props in 1:12 as well.
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| Installing the floor on the completed frame. |
A little out of order, but the finished frame and just the first two floorboards put in. The floor boards were possibly my favorite part to install.
I felt like the extra pieces of floor board looked pretty nifty stacked up inside the tree house. Genre detail, I suppose.
Window frame.
Completed Floor. I love the look of it. I'll have to take more pictures of the completed-looking version that has walls and shingles and stuff. Oh and a tire swing. You can actually see the tire I used at the bottom of this last picture. I went to DI and bought a broken toy tractor just so I could strip one of the tires off.
Okay, one more thing before I close. I missed two more days of creating. One was while we were on Tour in Disneyland. We got back to our hotel at practically midnight and I hadn't had time to do anything. The other was the day of Graduation. I spent the morning at a friend's where we
talked about creating a stop-motion video, but I never actually did anything. Unless you count scribbling in my niece's coloring book while being half-asleep, or pretending to do macrame with my gold cords. So it looks like I'm three days behind, now. Still, that isn't too bad, I suppose.
Expanding Horizons
One of my best friend's painted this picture and I absolutely love it. So I'm going to show it to you guys and make all of you love it. She's fantastic and one of my favorite people ever (and I still owe her a birthday present :( )
Tips or Whatnot
Do art with friends. You can bounce ideas off each other and get friendly opinions, plus, it's nice to do what you like with people you like. Art parties are the best parties. The more the merrier and all that good cliche stuff.
