This project was meant to once again focus on negative space, see the weird connection between classes? We ripped up paper and had to tape it back to our big sheet in the shape of the negative spaces and went back in with charcoal. The pic above was the precursor for the pic below. The idea with the final project was to create a self portrait by using this style. Then you filled in space with something that described you. I chose my old bus schedules and transfers to fill in shadows and my hair, anything that is black or darkish. I like it.

Fish

Lunch last year

Adobe Illustrator and 2D design

This was just a fun time filling project done all in adobe illustrator. You know, when I should have been making that damn wire shoe. Its bad ass though, me'n the pen tool are slowly starting to understand each other, a bond is being formed. Anyways:
This is my assignment for 2D digital design. The point of the project was to create images out of negative space. Once again done with the pen tool, bonding continued. HOWEVER, I only need three images so which do you think I should turn in?

It’s raining here. It’s coming down in sheets and I must say it’s very pretty. The rain has been going all day, but as I was walking back from my first ever college artist talk I looked outside and it was just, pretty. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the art I had just seen (confessionals coupled with portraits of Iraqi prisoners from abu ghraib,) but it might have been the message behind his work. The text in the works depicted the memories of these prisoners of how they were arrested and what they went through. This was all part of a lawsuit to help the prisoners, the statements that is. But what I really love is that when you think of abu ghraib you think of those demeaning photographs of those poor people, most of which had not even been charged, and here you have Daniel Heyman who is painting and etching they’re portraits with the key purpose to return they’re dignity. So that people will see them as human and not a hooded figure. At least 2 of the Iraqis he meet have been killed. He told us the story of one man who during Ramadan, allowed his children to go get sweets from the shed across the street from the house. He gave them his keys and they went out side. All of a sudden he hears an explosion, and runs out side. He sees that 2 of his sons, one 9 and one 11 have been killed. He picks up one of the bodies and holds it, in complete shock even as the US troops come in. He sees a soldier walk into the field near his house and retrieve his sons head, which he hadn’t noticed had been severed, and saw the soldier lay the head down by his body. The man was then arrested (apparently common procedure,) and sent to abu ghraib until further notice, for lack of a better term. Torture occurred, but beyond that I can’t imagine not being able to mourn you children’s death. To not even be able to bury them or even talk to your wife. It just boggles my mind and I admit to crying in the lecture hall as his story was described. All of the stories were sad and perhaps that’s why the idea of being able to give back something like dignity through art really makes me happy. I guess I can’t describe it better than that. So that’s why I found the rain pretty, because I was in a midway place in my mind, and every things pretty when you see it correctly. It’s even better when you listen to this: http://www.singingrevolution.com/cgi-local/db_images/files/uploads/5-filename.mp3

Wife Swap is a terrible show

Hehehe, this is Me'n Monica in the future.

Contour

Look at how quick I am at updating when I'm asking for help! This next project is also for drawing, and actually both are due at the same time. This project is about contour line. Contour is all about making one slow, continuous line to create you piece. In contour you are not allowed to lift your pencil so there are often times where you get odd lines in places where there shouldn't be lines. We did our neighbors faces for a warm up (see above). It's terribly messy. I think most high school students remember contour drawing with disdain because of blind contour, WHICH SUCKS, but fear no future art students most of your professors hate blind contour too!. Ok, so it was the same project as the gesture one, still life, desk, yadayada, but no lifting of the pencil.

Once again I got in trouble for attempting to shade, but other than that my teacher thought is was pretty well done. Are there any areas that I should really go back and fix?

Something New

I am a pre-graphic design major up at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and during this semester I have 3 art classes; Drawing, 2D digital design and 3D design. They are the basic requirements for us pre-graphic design majors, and in these classes we build our portfolios for the final critique at the end of this semester which determines whether or not we become straight up Graphic Design majors. There are 5o(?) spots open for graphic design per year, and we have about 70 pre-graphic design majors right now. I, being a paranoid little git, am scared out of my mind that they wont like what I've got, despite the constant reassurances from family and friends. They, however, are NOT my PROFESSORS so even if they think I'll get into the program that doesn't really mean much. Not everyone will get in, and that scares me because as of now I don't really know what I'm up against. Which brings me to the point of this post. I will be posting my assignment pieces and sketches in the hope that they will be critiqued by, well, who ever reads this, and that way I can further improve my work beyond class room critiques. I would much appreciate polite, but truthful critiques and suggestions on how to improve.
I would like to start out with my drawing assignments. In drawing we started out with gesture drawing. Gesture is very loose, quick and messy. You are just trying to capture the object you are looking at as quickly as you can. There should be no real detail and NO SHADING. This skeleton was what I chose to do during warm up. (The still life is the skeleton with this rather odd plant behind it. I added graphite for some highlights.) So those are the kinds of strokes gesture is about. For our actual piece we were told to make our own still life and do a gesture drawing of it. I chose the mess I call a desk in my dorm.
The response I got from my teacher was that the lines were looking a bit too precise for gesture and that it was seriously bordering on being a value drawing because I was dumb and shaded parts in. She said that the composition was nice, the chaos making it interesting... and I think that's it. She's giving us all time to make adjustments to I would love some feed back. Thanks for the help!

Hehehe, ok so this is not the post I talked about on the back pack but is instead a tribute to my best friend. Maybe you should try this monica!
yay "no pink ponies"!

All righty then!
I was on the light rail a little while ago riding down to the MOA (mall of america for you not in the circle types) and I happened to be caught in between a bunch of businessmen and women, rush hour is hell on the light rail. Any ways after five stops or so I got to sit down and right across from me is this cute little Japanese man. He was wearing blue jeans with a purple/brown/tan/pink button up shirt (the light did not aid my sense of color,) tiva sandals with white socks and big gold wire framed glasses. His face was tan and wrinkly and he had salt and pepper hair and all the while I was watching him he was either drifting to sleep or staring down someone he would guess was a hooligan and holding his backpack tightly. Which brings me to why I started writing about him. In his backpacks water bottle holder he had a tree branch wrapped up in a plastic Lunds bag. I, for some reason or another, found this incredibly cool. It wasn’t even a cool tree, it was a cottonwood branch. I still wonder what he did with it. Did he want to grow a cottonwood tree? Is he doing research on the life span of a cottonwood? Hell I wonder if it was actually a cottonwood. What does one usually do with a tree branch? Personally I try to start fights with them, like when my brother and I found really big branches after a storm and we invented extreme ring toss. If you are curious we really just whipped a hula-hoop at each other. Imagine that he does this sort of thing a lot, is it a hobby or is it some secret government research under a tell and die rule. It would be really cool if he were a government agent.

He got off at the mall too, I wonder if he works there?