Parallel Final

This here is a drawing (done in fine-point sharpie) of a rather oversized green plastic army man smashing a beauteous smattering of life-related personal items (wedding album, teddy bear etc). I read an article discussing some old war veteran who returned to normandy for the 70th anniversary of d-day. Both for the battle and his return, he jumped out of an airplane. With a parachute. All very cool. But then he said he'll probably do it again next year. This struck me as a little bit clingy to his war days. So for the project I decided to exaggerate this observation a bit and portray him as somebody who's so focused on this one past thing that it belittles and dominates every other aspect of his life. Thus the toy soldier crushing everything else.

Artists Develop Art Making Skills
Through my hard labor and toil in procuring this fine piece of markerwork, I learned how to create a gradient with a couple of sharpies. One simply presses the tips of two sharpies together, with the darker one on top, letting the darker ink run into the lighter pen. Then it just runs out in a dark-to-light gradient when the light pen is applied to paper. 

Artists Communicate Through Their Work
In this piece I communicated that whoever is bothering himself on a yearly basis with something that happened 70 years ago really ought to pay more attention to the rest of his 93 year old life. Feel the judgmentalism. Like daggers.

Artists Take Risks
The problem with sharpie is that when it's done, it's done. Pencil can be erased, some paints can be painted over, origami can be refolded. Not so with ink. When I finished the soldier I was really happy with it, and I was aware that I probably wouldn't be so satisfied with the rest, but I went ahead with it anyways.

Parallel Intro

For the parallel project we have to do something with taking a current event and making something basically symbolic of it. I don't really have any idea what I'll be doing. I've been considering doing something with the whole Russia/Ukraine thinggumy, but I have yet to have any concrete thinks. I am largely uninspired by current events.

Time Final

At the very first of fleeting glances, this may look like an ordinary arm. In fact, one may not even notice the arm due to the super distracting words "dunkin" and "donuts" in the background. But anyways, there's a sun on that arm. This magnificent phenomenon is caused by none other than the sun itself. Originally my plan was to cut out a stencil shaped like this or that and paste it to my arm. However, I discovered keeping paper taped to oneself is horribly irritating and tedious, so instead I used a thick layer of black acrylic paint. I painted the sun. Then I proceeded to make clever use of my pasty Caucasian hue by sitting out in the sunlight and getting a tan, except where the paint was blocking out the light. The result was a lovely temporary tattoo.

Artists Develop Art Making Skills
Well first off, I'd like to clarify that I detest painting. I don't usually voluntarily paint. Any painting at all is a step towards being better at painting, that's how little practice I get. And here I painted the sun. Also, I learned how to use something as everyday as the actual sun as a means of creating art.

Artists Take Risks
I took several risks when I dared attempt this project. First and foremost, I ran the horrible risk of getting skin cancer. Because that's what happens to people whenever they go out in the sun. I hiss in the sun's general direction. Also, there was absolutely no guarantee that this would even work. That's why I picked a simple design. I mean, look at how blurry the borders are anyways.

Artists Reflect
Not only did I thoroughly consider above risks during my intense reflection and introspection. I also had to plan ahead. We were going through something of a cloudy era at the time, so I had to be prepared for when the shy ol' sun finally showed its stupid face.

Perspective Intro

This is basically what we (everyone at my table) will do for our perspective project. Actually we already did this about five billion years ago, and this is a late post. But I'll write in future tense anyways, since this is the intro. So yeah, we will do this. It's a free expression tunnel. It will make fabulous use of the ever-puzzling conundrum that is one-point perspective. On the walls of the tunnel will be a whole mess of prime examples of street cred worthy graffiti. They will be drawn in perspective naturally. In chalk. Naturally.

Time Snapshot
3/26/14

It takes time to get a tan. So. I was thinking it would be cool to cut out some kind of stencil, paste it to my arm, and vegetate in the sun's lovely golden radiation until I acquire an artistically induced tan line. The idea is still in development. Mainly because I am waiting for a sunny day on which I am not otherwise occupied. Anyways, going outside is boring.

Artists create original art
Some people get tattoos. Some people get scars that look like pictures. I produce melanin.

Artists develop art making skills
Never in my life have I attempted to create a stencil.

Artists take risks
I don't know how strong the contrast will be. I don't know how sharp the lines will be. I don't even know if the sun will ever come out again.

Appropriation Final
3/7/14

Jack and the Bean Stalkers

I took the cute and civil little children's tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" and instead portrayed the title as meaning a wee boy being stalked by shady bean characters. I think my favorite part is the bricks. Because they are so done. I will never draw a brick ever again. Bad bad bricks. Beans. Boy. The letter B.

Artists create original art
When it comes to something like this, originality can only go so far. I took somebody's idea and modified it. That said, I think it's pretty original. I enjoy taking things out of context, in such a manner as this. I've never heard anybody else suggest such an interpretation of the title of a book.

Artists develop art making skills
Those bricks. Those are some pretty sweet bricks, I must say. I'd never created such a multitude of bricks in my life. They may look completely monochromatic, but I did in fact use not one, but two different colored pencils to draw those bad boys. I learned how to blend the two colors together in various ways to produce the semi-realistic effect of the street lamp shining on the building.

Artists communicate through their work
This piece reflects my personality a little bit. I enjoy taking ordinary situations and adding various impossibilities in my mind, and taking things out of context a bit, and perhaps adding a dark edge. And it never has to make sense.

Appropriation Snapshot 1

2/10/14
At this point I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But that's okay because I never do.

Artists create original art
I didn't know what I was going to do. Obviously I wasn't going to settle for copying somebody else's idea.

Artists develop art making skills
Despite my uncertainty and general lack of assignment related participation, I did not waste my time. I doodled a lot of random nonsense in my sketchbook. I furthered my skill with sharpies and colored pencils.

Artists reflect
I did indeed do much reflecting as I generated ideas. I achieved greater understanding of myself. I learned that most of my ideas are rather dreadful and perhaps off-topic. But that's okay because not every idea comes to fruition.

sparkle portrait

adding rain to an image tutorial

Create a reflected scribble picture

Create a new photoshop document with a picture of an animal, person, or whatever. Duplicate The layer so you have two identical picture of your subject. Select the top layer and click the create layer mask icon (grey with a white circle in the middle) on the bottom of the layers panel.

Hide the second layer by clicking the eye icon next to it. Make sure you keep the top layer selected. Use the paintbrush with black ink and a white background color. Scribble all over the picture until it disappears.

Unhide the second layer, and change it to 50% opacity. It will be used as a guide while you continue to work on the first layer. Make sure the mask on the top layer is selected. Switch you colors so that white is on top and black is on the bottom. Using the paintbrush (probably with a smaller radius), draw over the image again to create scribbles.

When you've finished scribbling over the top layer, do the same to the second layer. Change it back to 100% opacity, create the mask, hide it with black ink, show the scribbles with white ink. When you're done, you should have two layers of scribbles.

Select one layer and click the fx icon at the bottom of the layers panel, and click "drop shadow." Adjust as needed, and do the same to the other layer.

Click Alt + Ctrl + C on your keyboard to change the canvas size. Make it double the height. For example, the image I used was 554 pixel tall, so I changed to 1108 pixels.

Zoom out as needed. Right click on a layer in the layers panel and click "merge visible." move the subject to the upper half of the canvas.

With the subject still selected, hit Ctrl + C on the keyboard to copy the image to your clipboard, and Ctrl + V to paste it on a new layer. Then hit Ctrl + T, right click on the selection, and click "flip vertical."

Click the arrow above the layers panel next the word "normal." on the drop down menu, select "multiply." Move the upside down image so it is directly beneath the original image.

Make sure the upside down layer is selected. Select the gradient tool. If you don't see a gradient tool, click and hold over the paint bucket, then select the gradient tool as it appears. Make sure you have white ink selected. In the long rectangular drop down menu in the top left corner of your screen, select the white to transparent (checkered pattern) gradient. click and drag from the bottom of the image all the way to the top to create the reflection.

triangulation