Roadkill in Middle Earth, maybe. This was another one of the texture projects, and though it didn't come out really how I wanted it to, it's not that bad. I don't mind posting it here.

What was I even thinking with this...maybe a little of Howl's Moving Castle.

Okay it's been a little while since I updated here, let's keep going through the old stuff...This one was a texture exercise/assignment. I chose to look at an old Japanese shrine door that had this little iron charm on it. It was so cool, it was something I wanted to paint pretty directly from, without adding splashes or style or whatever. Just as it was. I know it's pretty gestural, but I like how it came out more than the other texture pieces.

Ah yeah, the time machine...this one didn't come out exactly as I'd planned, but not really...bad, I guess? It was a loose interpretation of a time machine in some ways, mostly to help feed my World War II obsession. But I liked the concept; scarab wings on a guy first off, but then they open to a working time travel gear? Niiiice. I think the color gets me the most on this one; I'll have to try and paint something else gold and red and see what happens.

I looked through some of my file today and realized that I haven't done a multiple image post since the very first one, so here's some studies and scraps. This first one was when we had mini painting sessions with the model Meg, who I normally don't thoroughly enjoy...but this one was on a good day. I felt experimental and maybe kind of bored, but hey, a kind of good result, yeah?


The second was an ink test on this one journal I hadn't tried before. Of some...person, some guy. I don't know, the colors came to me later and I really loved the way the ink bloomed into it.

Self portraits have always given me a little bit of trouble; it's not that I don't like to draw myself, I'm okay with that. But maybe it's more...I don't know what to be doing, or how to compose the piece so that it truly reflects ME. Somehow this made it seem easier to accomplish. I did some observational painting with it, for the items in the painting. It was alot of improvisation for everything else, and I just tried to let it come out as it would. I definitely had alot of time to think about myself, I was trapped painting in a closet the whole time!

I miss enjoying school assignments this much.

And old painting that I still find room in my heart for. I think this was a big turning point for me, as far as painting goes. I was finally free to paint in a way I liked while still learning to sculpt objects further and work with bouncing reflections in the glass. Jessie and I worked together to create all this, trying to fit the theme of 'True Blood'. I think we got this pretty well down!

Can't wait until the next season...anyways, I'll have some newer stuff on here soon.

I didn't even think about putting this one up, considering it's my header, but...here it is. I love this book called 'Milkweed', and as an assignment a few semesters ago, we had to remake a book cover. Instantly chose this one. I liked how the colors came out, and how the paper accepted medium, so I might use it again sometime. I haven't thought about it for a while, but...it would be cool to use this paper again.

I haven't been able to sketch things out lately; I'm worried that I won't be able to get anything good out at Savannah. Maybe it's just time for a change of sketchbooks. God, I don't know, I feel like I switch so often. Is it an inevitable waste of money?

This painting's finished. And I love it. I think after struggling for a while on deciding how to best interpret my love for this film...I think I finally found solid ground.

I think the connected disconnect between the characters was perfect for their jumbled relationship; the colors, the background...I'm just really happy with everything. Finally, the first painting I can be solidly happy about! I'm definitely getting influenced by the painters around me.

A study painting I did of the model Rachel. Her body was plump, but beautifully curved, and she had tattoos that, for some reason, no one was painting. I thought they helped to make up who she was. I've also heard about her backstory before she became a model and was inspired by that. I especially love THIS painting because it sort of depicts the idea that our models are just that, a nice body to paint, when they actually have all these little secrets to tell, a life of amazing tales. 

This is a portrait I finished for my watercolor class about a month ago; of course it has to do with the Holocaust, the Warsaw Uprising to be more specific. I'm carrying this Uri character over into alot of my drawings, doodles, paintings...everything. Something about him really intrigues me, like I need to make up this entire life for him, despite the fact that he dies young.

I definitely saw him as a part of the Polish Underground; he seems like the kind of kid that'd be pissed off about oppression.

Thinking about this character makes me think of what resistance means nowadays, and how futile and trivial it all seems, when all we need is to find an innovative way to send a message in order to change our social inequities.

So I wish I would have taken more pictures of the progress on this, but today was the first time, sadly. Well, other than the pencil of it. Anyways, this painting is turning out so incredibly well, to me at least, that I'm loving the story behind it as well, all the possibilities it presents for Makoto and Chaki (of Tokikake). Yeah, it's a fanart, something I haven't really done in a while. Not with passion. But these characters have always touched me in a special way, as well as the story behind them. I can't wait until I get my storyboard artbook in the mail. Someday.

I'd like to frame this when it's done. Hopefully.

Finally almost finished this piece. I forgot to ground her ass on the beach, though! Which is huge, so I might go back and fix it. I don't know if I like it enough to really go into it and make it perfect, though. I'm over it.

But I did have some interest taken from it in painting the Latino culture. I might explore this even more...

Started a new project today in my watercolor class; it's supposed to be two figures existing in the same space, but not interacting. This isn't the whole composition, because it's a very vertical piece, but it's the only sketching I'm going to do. Tomorrow is going to be the start of the painting process.

This one's an oldie. But I still feel very drawn to it, for some reason. The human body is so intriguing to me, especially when it exists in some unknown space. I always end up drawing the two together, and at one time I thought it may be because I was too lazy to create a background for them but I almost prefer having no real sense of location. It's less to be distracted on.

I also notice that then and now I like to incorporate line around the figure, whether geometric or spindly.

This started out as a study that I didn't care for (I was absent when the pose was set up, so I didn't have alot of choice in where to sit), but after I cropped it some, I ended up liking it just a bit. This woman has the strangest, beautiful body; my friend Lucas described it as that overly perfect idealism that the Greeks tried for in the Classical period, and that makes total sense to me. You may not be able to tell that from just this painting but...this girl had ABS, let me tell you. She was really nice, but a little over zealous, I think. She was trying too hard to impress the art students. Oh well.

This one's only about two weeks old; was kind of experimenting with...something? The model was great, though. She didn't even have to stand like this and I could get her body structure pretty accurate.

The only thing is...I don't know what I was trying to say with this, by deliberately not painting her in the pose she was in, by still stylizing the figure and adding the little arrows to the background. I just don't know; just decided I should stick them in. I also couldn't do justice to that gorgeous dress she had on that day; the yellowish panel had all kinds of intricate patterns on it, which I barely touched on with splatters of red. 

Okay so this is my first of two Mexican pinups for a veggie burger. It's an art direction assignment that I'm not a hundred percent 'INTO' right now, but it's not bad either. I still have some rendering to do on this one, hopefully it'll be done tomorrow.

Annnnd a sketch for the second one. I'll start it soonish, I just don't know if I like the face enough. We'll see!

I didn't enjoy the first one so much because...well, I think it looks weird. Just sayin'. The second one I'm loving alot more, I just have to finish little bits of it and then I'll post another picture of it. I'm finding more and more that I'm interested in drawing Latino/a's. Very NEW.

This is just a bit old, but it's still from this semester, so whatever. I love the band Crystal Castles, so when we were supposed to try a print-ad for some kind of product or service, I figured I'd promote their self-titled premiere album. Like so.

  I've always loved doing cross-hatchings; they're really therapeutic. Unfortunately, I still have little bits to learn about doing it so that it also looks good in the end. This result was alright, but I lost will with Ethan Kath. Alice? No problamo, but I can't just choose the hot ones!

After reading The Painted Bird by Jerry Kosinski, I painted...well, the main character. He doesn't have a name, he's just a stray boy roaming Europe. It's a pretty rough read, but a really good one. There's no huge moral to the story, it's just a coming-of-age type of thing, but it's fascinating to see how this boy is taken through a life of love or hatred, belief or skepticism. The novel is actually high controversial for some reason, probably because of the harsh content but...I didn't think it was THAT bad. Maybe for the time it came out...anyways, I don't know.

This next one is a birthday gift, long LONG overdue, for a friend on LiveJournal. She didn't know what she wanted done, so I looked at her profile interests and somehow came up with this. I had fun with it...I just wish it wasn't so late.

Annnnd this is just a sketch of a guy I saw one day at Millennium Park. He didn't stay still for long.

Ehhh, terrible picture of it, but this is a little watercolor I did in my sketchbook. It's a scene I've imagined of Uri fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. He's about to stab an SS Officer that raped and 'killed' his girlfriend. He's just pissed. It's not exactly how I wanted it to come out, but not bad either.

That's all I've got for the day.

This was an Art Direction assignment, even though it has nothing to do with Art Direction. The Higher Learning Commission is having an art contest with the theme of 'Quality in Higher Education'. Their usual entries/winners are extremely abstract, but this is as far as I wanted to go with it. It used to have a square format buuut I think this was alot better.

I'm still working on some new stuff to scan in, should have at least one thing in here by tomorrow.

STAY IN SCHOOL, KIDDIES.

Sketchbook, first page. Was thinking about the Holocaust as I almost always do. I wanted to work on more trivial actions throughout one's day, and so here's a character taking a break, drinking a soda. His name is Uri, and he's a runaway, about fifteen years old. He takes care of orphaned boys.

Following on the same thought track, I drew a profile of Misha, one of the young boys Uri takes care of. He's probably like, 8 or 9 years old. 

And another. Rabbi Goldflamm from 'THE WALL'. I don't know if I'm really into this book yet or not, but....I'm still giving it my time. It gets really interesting and then severely slows down. Then something suddenly happens to make it interesting again. It's like a pendulum of a book.