Finished series

Well, I did it! I finally got my butt into the studio and I finished my series! I don't know how I did it but I ended up with a lot of pieces that I am really proud of. I really need to take pictures of them so that I compare the differences on here but I will have to track down a camera first. I made two completely new pieces that I didn't even make studies for but I love them.
One piece is the ghost print of a lotus flower. For that piece I crafted a new technique that I hadn't used or learned from anyone else before for blending colors for a monotype. I first did a base coat color on the plexiglass and then painted on with a paintbrush several darker shades of pink and then I rolled over the colors to even them all out and blend them together with the 2 inch roller.
I can't wait to post pictures! I am really happy I decided to pull a ghost print from it. :)

Pictures to come soon!

turkey break

So since I have been slacking on my work getting zero work done from my last post to now, I will have to stay on campus over my Thanksgiving break instead of going home. So yay for that! I don't really mind though. There is nothing more that I love than to be jamming out in the studio with my music and all of the inks, press, and paper to myself. I finished two more pieces, both of which are beautiful and clean, unlike the first one. Since I did that one in such a rush and used gloss medium instead of ink I ended up with a very different texture in my print that I was willing to roll with but didn't necessarily want. Anyways, can't decide if I want to redo that print yet. I think I will wait until I am done with all the others.
I was right about the paper making a huge difference though. In some of my pieces I use white ink for some parts of it and so it only shows up when you are facing it at a certain angle. The rives absorbed the white ink so well that I didn't have to think about staining the paper anything to make it pop.
 I have 3 more prints to go though! I should have them all done by Sunday if all my out-of-town plans go smoothly.

Visiting Artist Critique 2

So we had a surprise critique this week. It was a surprise because the visiting artist was suppose to be critiquing the painting class and not ours but it all turned out okay. By the time that he came to visit, I had finished one larger piece (22x30) and another study.
I definitely got some much better criticism from this artist (I felt like) because he actually took the time to listen to the detail of my work and read the titles. The suggestion that he made was to play with the scale of my images so that I could define the people in the pieces as more unique by how I scaled them.
I didn't take his advice and change anything big, but I have had a really strong feeling that this work is something I want to continue later on so I think that that is a suggestion I will use later in my work.
Because I didn't get my sixth study done I admit that I am dragging my feet a little on getting my series finished. I was hoping to get all six done before scaling up but now I'm not even sure I will have time for that. We have approximately two weeks to go and I have five more pieces to finish!! What am I doing to myself??

A few steps forward a one back is still progress....

Here are some pictures to share of some of the progress I have made on my drafts.
I will warn you that they do not look impressive and a lot of the detail doesn't show up well because of the quality of the paper but I anticipate them to all turn out beautifully in the end ;)

I plan on making six pieces so I have two to go but I am really struggling with those pieces because I am having a hard time deciding what imagery to use.

Visiting Artist Critique

So I got to experience my first artist critique with a complete stranger yesterday and it was not my favorite. If you are in any way familiar with the series that I have been blogging about so much then hopefully you would know some general idea of what I am doing and how important both aspects of the title and the piece are!
We were told to not be defensive and work on our listening skills and that is exactly what I did but I was a bit upset and annoyed that the person didn't really take the time to actually read any of the titles, he just skimmed over a few of them and made a bunch of suggestions that I didn't feel like fit what I was trying to do. It was a bit of a wasted critique I think because since he didn't bother to take the time to read the titles he didn't understand and so none of his comments were really on the mark or things that I wanted to change. His impression was that I am trying to create some experience for people through their senses but really, I am trying to educate viewers. I don't know, maybe it was the time constraint or the maybe I didn't articulate myself as well as I could have (but I am usually really good at doing so) that he didn't get it. But yeah. If I have another critique again I hope it goes a lot better than it did yesterday......

Phone vs. Email Interview and more

It has taken me a while to complete all my interviews but I finally got them finished and most of the titles are finished too! I did have some issues with one person's stuff though because I guess I didn't make it clear to them what kind of information I wanted so we tried an email interview first and the way they responded was completely different than how I knew they would on the phone so I wasn't that excited about using that information. However, I struggled to find a way to talk to them about it so I wouldn't offend them. I had to talk to my professor about it before I did so. I don't really want to offend someone who is already doing me a favor you know?
Turns out thought that it was a relief for both of us to be able to talk it out and I think she was much more excited about being in my art show after she understood what I was doing. So that was a win-win.

Here is a title that I have finished:

I feel like if I can get through that then there aren’t many things I can’t get through so I might as well keep trying…adversity elicits strength…I don’t give up or quit trying even after I lose…I am more tolerant… more perseverant…more observant…more stubborn…I don’t like one uppers who think life is a contest… There have been some really degrading things and I feel like I’ve done enough to compensate for that and I am content with myself, mostly…I am more proud of myself…Now any disapproval of me is from me.

What do you think? 

Dream Job Perhaps?

I was exposed to Claire Morgan's impressive artwork this week and I loved it! I also enjoy it when I find an artist that is as passionate about her process as well as her concept. It fascinates me to think about how she was able to transform her drawings and drafts into these 3D sculptures that obviously take a lot of time and patience. When I did a similar hanging project with some paper mache can that I had made, I had a really hard time hanging that piece on my own and if you looked closely, the mechanics of it did not look that great. Those cans were the size of my first however and I couldn't imagine making a sculpture out of pieces that could be as tiny as fruit flies. Whaaat?? That's crazy.
Claire Morgan, if you ever need an intern to help you out with your artwork, just let me know and I'll fly out to Europe to give you a hand and learn from you.