The New Year Wears Yellow

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I must say, I am pretty excited to welcome 2011.  But at the same time I think I can confidently say that, by and by 2010 was a good year for me.  I managed to successfully complete my first year of college and sophomore year is most definitely off to a good start!  My grades were great, I made some fun new friends, and most important of all I was accepted into the Individualized Major Program as an Animation and Storyboarding major!!!  I know that most of the traffic that comes here is from Facebook and so this probably isn't anything new to most people, but gosh darn it it's a big deal!  I can now pursue my passion and not have to worry about whether or not I'll actually receive a relevant diploma at the end of my 4 years.  It felt amazing to finally hear those much sought-after words of approval and welcome after working so hard on my overall application process.  I hope to continue to ride this wave all the way into the new year and the new semester :)

So I mentioned at the end of my last post that I had gotten a fun new "toy" for my computer for Christmas. Well it just so happens that I got a brand new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet!!!  For those of you who have no idea what that means, allow me to link you here so that you may educate yourselves.
It was a hefty gift to be sure but goodness it's worth it!  I am predominantly a traditional artist (and most likely always will be), and while having a reliable and solid grasp of traditional skills is always important it is clear that my intended profession continues to move in a more and more digital direction.  This tablet will allow me to improve on my digital painting and drawing skills, and also make drawing directly into programs like Flash a WHOLE lot easier.  While I know that it is not the tools that make the artist, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a few nice things here and there to make your life a little easier, right?
Now since it's the new year and all and I have been playing around and trying to get a feel for using my tablet for the last few days, I figured now would be a perfect time to post an awesome, new years themed picture!  Well I spent basically the entire evening wracking my little brain for something to draw and ended up scrapping at least half a dozen different sketches in the process.  In the end this was all I could come up with:

It's simple and easy and apparently all I could manage today.  I can't say if it's really what I consider to be my "style", but it is a style that I enjoy and is fun to draw.  Figuring out what my own unique "style" is, a plight/goal for all artists, will certainly be one of my main focuses in the new year.  That among a million other things!  

I really do hope that all of you out there have had a wonderful year and were able to bring in 2011 amongst friends and/or family :)  Let's all do our best to make it a good one!!

ps.  fun fact:  purple is my fave color.  I bet you thought it was yellow didn't you?  I'm so tricky.

pps.  apparently here in blogspot world time is like, 3 hours behind the midwest.  I assure you though, it was... is?... was 2011 when I posted this.  Just sayin'!

Plasterrr

Well hey there!

I said before that I wasn't planning on posting until after finals and everything and by golly, I MEANT it.  I managed to survive and turn in all my final projects on time and show up to my exams and apparently pass them, so I have to say I'm pretty pleased with myself.  This past semester was a doozy to be sure, but all things considered I got a lot of work done that I was happy with and I think that's something to be proud of :)
Now that the holiday is done (I hope everyone out there had a wonderful time!) and things are calming down a bit I finally have time to sit and make a new post!  Ohmygosh yaaaayyyy!!

So here it is, project 5, the final assignment I had for my 3D media class.  For this one all we had to do was create 3 separate, abstract plaster sculptures.  There could be an overarching theme to them if we wanted so that they functioned as a set, or they could be totally independent pieces, it didn't matter.  For me, I started out with a sort of theme as my initial inspiration/starting point, but in the end the pieces sort of took on a life of their own.

We had to cast the blocks of plaster ourselves and then using a hammer and chisel (and other filing and sculpting tools) we pretty much could do whatever we wanted here.  Let me tell you, it really gave me a whole new appreciation for the old-school masters who sculpted this way.  I mean seriously, I can't even begin to IMAGINE working on the scale or at the same level of precision that they did.  Truly amazing.

Sculpture 1

 Sculpture 2

Sculpture 3

The complete "set"

Just in case anyone was wondering, the way we got the plaster to appear so smooth and shiny was due to hours and hours of sanding followed by several coats of a mixture of water and ivory soap that we used to buff them at the very end.  This shiny look wasn't mandatory at all, nor was the sanding.  Some people chose to leave their chisel marks or to only buff up certain parts of their sculptures.  It was all up to the artist and what look they were aiming for.  Obviously I chose to sand and shine all 3 of my pieces.

I hope everyone continues to enjoy or has enjoyed their holiday break!  It's always so nice to have the time off to rest up and be lazy for a little bit :)  Stay safe and warm!

ps.  I got an awesome new 'toy' for my computer for Christmas, so you can expect to see some new work showing up in the near future.  Ohboyohboyohboy!