ILL 2 is the shit!

For you old people, that means that it's really really cool. Let me tell you why!
I had never tried watercolor before, and Camille makes it AWESOME. She's helpful because she has such a strong technical knowledge of the medium, and she's really encouraging. She makes me feel like my pieces are never as bad as I think they are, and she always has suggestions on how to make something 100% better. So, I thought I'd share some of the stuff our class is working on.

Exhibit A: We had to do a natural light study and an artificial light study. I kind of made my sister look like an alien but otherwise they went alright!



Our first mega-huge assignment was our illustrated store bag. I chose a bookstore, so I thought a bunch of famous literary characters would be fun. Poor Othello, no one recognized him! Oh well. By the way, I painted this on a HUUUUGE piece of paper. I forget how massive, like 30x30" or something. Admittedly, it's really helpful when you're doing something like painting a bunch of tiny heads. But the sheer amount of time it takes to lay down a glaze....just, no. Don't ever do this!



We did an exercise in class the other day where we all took a scene from Goldilocks and the three bears and illustrated it in less than an hour. I had the first part. I like that it's a lot looser than my other things - gotta learn to relax, I guess!



And lastly, we had our animal project. It started with a realistic rendering of an animal, and then a cartoony/animated version with one color painting and 2 inked orthographic views. I still don't quite have a handle on this medium so it was a little rocky, but I learned a lot.





This semester has been INTENSE. Grahhhhhh.

CF3 dump

Ohmygossssh. Haven't updated in so long. Took the summer off and all that. Majorly sorry about lagging interaction in the AAU blogosphere - everyone on my blogroll has been producing some awesome stuff, I can hardly keep up! Anywayyy, thought I'd post some work for the first few weeks of Clothed Fig 3.


Week 1


Weeks 2/3


Week 4



More stuff coming soon from Illustration 2, Eccentric Ill and Modeling for Games!

Blah Blah Finals

Ill1 final, book cover



CF2 final, dressing a figure



Digital final, greek theme w/palace of fine art stock

I should just start calling this Kelly's Clothed Figure Blog

We had vampire day in Lisa's class. Fun times. Very ehhh...Resident Evil-esque? Hahaha. Some longer drawings (clockwise from top left: 20, 30, 20, 40) we were encouraged to work more with tonal shapes and designing frames and shapes to enhance storytelling. My vampires are a little too broody but I think some of the girls in the class didn't mind 'em :P



Oh also! We're starting our final composite project for digital. Gotta be something related to greek/roman mythology for the most part and we are supposed to use the reference we took at the Palace of Fine Arts yesterday when we went there on a field trip. Maybe it's a touristy place but it sure is pretty :) Here's a pic I took, can't wait to work on this project:

These posts used to have names!

Just another illustration/cf2 update. Sorry art comrades for my lack of commenting; life is very very busy right now...and...FARRK the spring show is coming! Bahhh!

Mucha Day in Lisa's CF2 class:



Editorial about canadian seal hunting:

More recent stuff yadda yadda

Here's my illustration 1 Myth/Story project. I took a scene from the Great Train Robbery. Hopefully I get a B or better on it so I never have to paint in gouache again. ...Sorry, Chantal - gouache and I are not gonna be BFFs.



Some more Clothed Fig 2 stuff. Love love this class. Mostly Conte, mostly 20's and 40's.



Pic of some comic boards for the Bold Riley story I'm illustrating for my friend Leia Weathington. I need to get my ass going on those pages.

Clothed Figure = Love

HOW MUCH do I love clothed figure 2? Thiiiiiiiiiiis much! I feel like Clothed Fig 1 did a great job preparing me, and now I'm moving on to more fine-tuning of my drawing techniques.
So, today we had this model I haven't drawn before, Robert or Bobby or something, he was great, and we played with a mobster kind of theme, and I had a lot of fun drawing him. I probably mentioned this before...but I think today was similar to the pirate day where it's easier for me to have fun (and therefore, draw better) when I really get into the character and storytelling. Also? LOOK AT THOSE HALF-LOCKS. YEAH BITCHES.



Okay, I really shouldn't be that excited about a fold. But do you ever just get that ridiculous rush when you finally "get" something, or when a particular technique "clicks"? Yeah. I dunno.

Also, we got our first largish Clothed Fig 2 assignment handed back today, which was to take clothed figure reference and turn it into some kind of character or creature. I took pictures of my buddy Mark (who must be tired of me soliciting him for help with my art school homework) and drew him up like a leperchaun type guy. Who makes shoes. Leperchauns make shoes. I read that somewhere.



Also, have managed to hit up a *few* workshops so far this semester. I'm really bummed that I can't make it to Bill Sanchez's clothed figure workshop on Fridays, but well, I work Fridays, and I need to eat. Sorry Bill, you'll miss out on my occasionally awesome halflocks for another semester. Tragic.
But here are some clothed and nude quickstudies pages. They need some work but I think I'm gradually able to add more detail in a shorter amount of time. Gettin' there.



I feel like I blabber a lot more on my blog than on any other ones I've seen. Hrm. Well, for me it's a breakdown of my learning process, not just a place for me to vomit out my latest work. So, deal with it. :P

HAPPY SPRING BREAK EVERYONE! I'm off to Sonoma County, I hope everyone has a restful break.

ETA: Insane spring schedule situation resolved. Talked to the folks about it and they said I could take classes part-time and finish anything else up in the summer after graduation. Huzzah!

Some Ink and Some Weirdness

Quick post - my two returned ink projects from Illustration 1. They turned out okay. Wish I could spend an entire class in pen and ink!



And if you haven't read about it in Petur's Blog, he and Ed and Emerson and me all had a round-table sketch game thing where we each drew for a couple minutes, passed our sketchbooks in one direction, and kept drawing. Sometimes it's nice to step back from the seeerious business illustration student lifestyle for a while and goof off.



Speaking of student business...Can anyone offer any words of wisdom on this? I just learned from my advisor that I might be graduating a year from now, that is, Spring 2010. Not only am I mortified and feel like I should be a lot better for someone who's about to be a senior, (I'm not fishing for encouragement, I just honestly feel terrified) but in order to graduate in spring I'd have to have some insane semesters. My Spring 2010 term would be like Illustration 3 plus Advanced Perspective plus Senior Portfolio plus some other illustration class by advisement. And that's even with me taking classes that summer after I cross the stage. Insanity!

I'd rather take fewer classes next spring and slow it down...
Thing is, my family and I are a bit tight on cash at the moment (who isn't?), and they'd really REALLY really like me to be done ASAP. What the heck do ya do? I know it's important to take your time with learning this stuff so I can maximize my chances of getting a job without burning myself out...but...such is life, right?

And yeah. I know it's kind of early to be worrying about all this...but I just got a total reality check with my appointment with my advisor and I'm freakin'. A lot.

Yarrrrrrh!

Pirate day in Clothed Figure 2! Rock on. I think finally at week 3 I'm shedding a little but of the rust I accumulated over break. Also switched from pitt charcoal sticks to conte crayon - I forget that the pitt charcoal really seems to just exacerbate my heavy-handedness problem and leaves my drawings rather dark and disjointed and clumsy. Seems to take a month for me to remember that every semester!

All twenty minute poses below. Love clothed figure! I learn so much in these classes. Probably because the thematic/illustrative/characterization element makes it a little more enjoyable than the standard figurative charcoal class for me. I like that stuff.



Oh, everyone? I'd like you to meet Engelbert. I created him during an inkwash exercise in Chantal's class. He's really excited about Illustration 1.



Off to Blick to spend my savings on Illustration 1 supplies. It's COLD!

Random Post is Random

Basically, just catching up and posting a few odds and ends before I get engulfed by the new term. First is my printmaking portfolio; it's kind of sad that this little quilt of prints represents SO SO MANY HOURS of toiling in the printmaking labs. Especially etching. Etching is my favorite printing method by far, but also possibly the most pain in the ass process in terms of time and mess and elbow grease. Anyway, I'm glad I took it. :)



I should throw this up too even though it's like quadruple-posted. It's my interior figure for Jason Bowen's class. It hadn't turned out particularly well at first but after a classmate of mine showed interest in it, I spent some more time on it, and I ended up selling it to her! My first painting I've ever sold. Hurrah! I think it has a nice narrative quality. Got to have a little steampunk/fantasy fun. And I got to march around in goggles and a dress for a few hours.



Here are the only character drawings I got done before spring term started :/ I did a pathetic amount of practicing and drawing over break. Ahhh well.
On the left is a drawing of Bold Riley, a character in a story written by my friend Leia Weathington - I'm illustrating a chapter in her anthology. In the middle is a werewolf from a 40 minute werewolf draw-off with Ed and Petur. He's like, mid transformation, or something. And then the last one is this angry monk dude with a scowl and a weird phallic sword. Yeah. Drawings. Word.



And last but not least, this is a comic I did for an exercise today for my first day of Comics 1 with Dan Cooney. I had fun with it, heheheh.



Hopefully the next post will be filled with more polished, finished-type things...

Extremely belated update...

Wow, I haven't posted since midterms...lame! D: It's been a flurry of projects since then, I can't quite clearly recall most of the events of the semester! Suffice to say, it ended well. I think my final project for FA:Heads and Hands shows marked improvement in my figure painting, though I really need obvious improvement on color variation, incorporating more chroma, and keeping my colors from getting too muddy. Steadier range would be nice. And there are some small proportional issues. But hey...you can at least tell it's me, right? ...right?


why, yes, I did give it to my parents for christmas. Hey, I'm not a cheapskate! D:

Detail of my lovely visage (lolol)
I'm not the best in the world at head painting, or painting in general, but I sure enjoy painting portraits. I took some photo refs of a friend I'm going to paint just for fun, and I got a commission for a double portrait! Wow! (albeit, from my aunt ;P) Also setting up a commissioned still life that has to be done before february, ackkk! I'm a busy lady! What on earth has possessed these people to want my paintingssss...gah.


Check out that moustache...!
This is the detail of my portrait assignment for Intro to Fig. Again, plenty of issues with it, but I was really happy with my effort! The likeness is like...70%...but I think at the time I was finally beginning to comprehend skin tone a little more.

I'll post again soon with some more illustrative updates as soon as I get home to my tablet and scanner. How I have missed them! D: