Retro Lovin' (Finished)

-after-

-before-

It's finally done! I kept the composition I planned before and finally got the background in. It honestly felt like forever because the lines I had to scratch in for the rainbow background effect took so much accuracy and precision. The hot wax was really fun to play with and coat over the images although it sort of smudged some of the colors and made them opaque since they were just print outs on copy paper. The quality of the paper and ink couldn't really handle the heat of the wax, but in the end I feel like the results were good enough to keep me happy with the work. :)

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Girl Crush

-prismacolor colored pencils-

Every girl's got a girl crush whether it be on a celebrity, athlete, or other important figure. My girl crush though is the ultimate mega girl crush of girl crushes: Mila Kunis. While flipping through a Vogue magazine, I saw lo-and-behold my beautiful Mila Kunis displaying an equally beautiful emerald diamond necklace. I ripped the magazine page out and cut it in half so that I could draw her other half. I had to slowly develop the tone and shape of each object by using multiple colors; nothing had been colored in using one color. I'd use a light tan, then some brown, maybe some beige, and etc. This was done in order to conserve the sense of depth. If one color was used for the whole body, the image would become two dimensional.

The biggest challenge was definitely coloring in the necklace. So much patience and focus was required in order to capture the necklace's intricate detail. If I could change one thing in this image it would definitely be the eye because it's not proportionate to the other eye. Some areas such as the hand could have also used a bit more work and care. I apologize Mila for the minor inconveniences but you are mah bae and still perfect anyway.

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Grunge Life

-watercolor-

I think skeleton drawings are pretty cliche, but I couldn't help myself as my doodling skills overcame me. It started as a small sketch, but I continued to shade it in with a red colored pencil laying nearby. Next thing I know I'm whipping out my watercolors and making drips off the side of the skull. I thought it'd be fun to take a photo and edit it a bit to add effect. Maybe skeleton drawings aren't so cliche....

-digital edit-

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Revelation

-charcoal-

This was such a big drawing that consumed up a lot of time, but it was well worth it. It was such a revolutionary moment for me when I was trying to shade in the shadows and I couldn't quite figure out why it looked perfect up close but so wrong from afar. I later realized that the contrasting colors of white and black next to each other sort of influenced the eyes to see the colors differently from what they truly were. I shaded in the shadows much darker then they should've been, but after taking a step back, the white offset it to be the right tone I was looking for. Still lifes may not be exactly creative, aside from choosing a good composition, but it always helps to exceed my skills and teach me something new.

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Just Do It

-oil pastel-

Super super super quick little project. You get a large blank piece of paper and place tape over it to create borders and a pattern. Then you begin to color in the untaped parts with oil pastel. Once you're done coloring in the paper, you take the tape off and BOOM you've made a masterpiece in just a couple of minutes. Be careful not to smudge the color into the white borders while taking the tape off.

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Retro Lovin'

-paper cut outs collage-

This is just a rough draft of a collage that I started. The images aren't glued down yet since I'm still working on the composition, and resizing some of the images. The background is just of the board, but I'm going to create a rainbow background with oil pastel and go over it with black, then scratch out thin straight lines. The end product is supposed to have wax painted over. Hopefully the crayon won't smear or ruin the images.

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meow.

-ballpoint pen-

I think the whole word is literally going to through a cat obsession... Am I criticizing it? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I love cats despite their allergy inducing effects on my nose and eyes that basically turn me into a toad. One day I saw one of the mini-desk calendars that have different images for each day. One of the days had a picture of a cat, and you can guess what I did after. I started to draw it using a ballpoint pen. I was super nervous to start because if I messed up there was no turning back.

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From Down Under

-watercolor-

I live in California and I'm lucky to say that we're blessed with the opportunity to go to the beach year round, but also enjoy the pleasure of weekend getaways contrasting the coastal scene- the mountains. The fish I painted above is of a golden trout which is our official state fish. Going to big bear and fishing with my family sort of inspired this feeling of drawing fish. The viewer of the photo is supposed to be able to see in between the waterline, so that you get a view of above and below the water.

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Comes From Me

-watercolor-

I think it was all the post-apocalyptic movies I watched as a kid that really kind of freaked me out and got me interested in the health of the Earth's environment, and how human interaction with it can have either a negative or positive. The movies I watched were all fiction of course, but the reality of environmental disorder remains eminently clear.

When you first look at this image it might seem strange and random, however there's actually a story behind it. The face in the image is of a person who cares for nature. I put it to the extremes of having their eyelashes be trees and their tears being capable of creating a river. It's almost like a Mother Nature type of figure. The river is made up of tears not because it's just an ability they possess, but also because they are upset; they're upset that progressively through time, the environment is gradually being polluted and abused. The progression of birds turning into skeletal figures represent this diminishing beauty of nature.

The title of this piece is called "Comes From Me" because the ironic part of this image is that people themselves are the culprit to this tragic series of events; humans are the leading factors of the landscape being mutilated. All we seem to do is feel sad about it or acknowledge the fact that our environment is in jeopardy. Little though is put in by people into really trying to help make a change. Don't just hear about the world's problems, do something about it! It all comes from you.

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Keith Haring Inspired: Greedy Wealth

-acrylic-

Keith Haring is an inspirational artist who used a lot of symbolism in his art work. Some famous ones would include the crawling baby, barking dog, etc. as shown in the image below. His interest in art started at a young age with his father teaching him basic cartooning skills. Keith Haring also learned from popular culture like Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. As he grew older, his inspiration came from the innovation and energy of his contemporaries in New York City; things like the graffiti that was present everywhere. His love of children later inspired his artworks. Artists that influenced his work were Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit and Andy Warhol’s Running Fence.

Like Keith Haring, I tried to incorporate simple use of color and line. I also tried to use symbolism of objects to project a deeper message. In my painting you can see red hands, dollar bills, and dollar bills making up the Earth. The hands represent the greed and lust humanity has for wealth. They're red because it's a powerful color that is usually used to depict a powerful emotion. Greed is a considerably powerful emotion because it has the power to make people act absurd. The hands are savagely reaching down trying to grab as much money as possible. The dollar bills don't just represent wealth in terms of money, but whatever you may place value into. The big red hands pulling back on the Earth would be you trying to defend your wealth. I'm not implying that everyone is guilty of selfishness, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of people have some sort of lust and would prefer to keep their wealth.

It was really difficult working at a large scale because EVERYTHING had to be painted in evenly, in the same direction, and in the same texture. I was also faced with the challenge of only being allowed to use the primary colors red, yellow, and blue. Any of the other colors had to be produced myself such as the orange of the background and the green of the dollar bills. This was a challenge because I had to reproduce the same exact color each time I worked on the painting. Acrylic was a bit new to me, so trying to keep control of the brush and paint was fun to experiment with.

-Keith Haring work-

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