sydney harbor

I went to Australia in December of 2007 for two weeks with my roommate at the time. We had a great time there and took the ferry out of Circular Quay across the harbor to the zoo, to Darling Harbor, and again to Manly. This was our favorite view from the ferry boats.

When returned I started taking a monotype printmaking class. The first project was to cover 22 x 26 piece of plexiglass with a layer of ink and then use different objects to remove ink from the plexi. We then ran the plate through a printing press to transfer the image.

I made this print as a gift to her. The perspective is a off on the bridge, but I think it just adds to the character of the piece :)

color

this isn't finished.
I just love the colors.
I tend to gravitate towards highly saturated, bright, awesomeness.

I would say this represents that fairly well.

highschool art

I was so proud of this when I did it.
To look at it now makes me laugh.

We had to take ordinary objects, in this case glassware, and draw them in open space, then fill in the space around it.

I loved working on this one. I remember going into the art room during my open period at the end of the day to spend more time on it. ah highschool.



my first experience with pen and ink wash.. fell in love with the medium.



self-portrait, senior year. I know this was "printmaking" but after taking 3 printmaking studios in college, this was so not a good representation of how awesome printmaking can be.



I LOVED THESE. My frogs. I love love loved doing these.



my first pencil drawing in my first highschool art class.

eve

when I was attending community college (shoot me in the face), I painted this oil painting for a history class. we had to write a paper and do a project that correlated with the time period/subject matter we chose.

the project could be anything, as long as it was time intensive and showed effort.
so I painted Eve's face from the Sistine Chapel.

this is one of the only oil paintings I've ever done, and for good reason. I'm not patient enough. c'est la vie.

Dom's art show

My cousin Dom presented his final projects at the UO extension campus in Portland this past week. His exhibit is the one shown to the left. 

He created all of the forms with 3D modeling software and "printed" them with the use of a 3D "printer".

His concept was interesting and unique. I will try to post a video of him describing his work to some by-standers.

these prints really struck a chord with me...
see the artist's website HERE

sermon sketching

I realized this past Sunday, sitting in church, that my mind gets flooded with inspiration when I'm sitting through a sermon.
This is probably my fault, it's probably grown out of doing little else BUT drawing during sermons for the entirety of my life.

Now that I try to sit and listen, my head still reels with ideas and wants to plan.


So.. this weeks Sunday Sketching?:

what was to be my studio

I still don't know whether I will get to use the prayer chapel or not.

These were my grand plans:




the verdict is still out however.

broken windows and green grass

Photo by Layne Haley, Photographer Extraodinaire.. hailing from Kansas City, KS

I love this girl.
She posted this image on one of her websites and I fell in love with it.
I told her, basically, that I needed to have it.. as big as possible.

A few weeks later a 24x36 poster arrived in my mailbox.

Here it is framed and prominent in my room, a reminder of HER, a reminder of our friendship and a constant source of inspiration.

wandering

I wandered upon this post today.

via twitter, via kellyraeroberts, via her guest post at superherodesigns, via the archives, via randomly choosing May 2004.

this was the entry at the top of the page.

dreams

I was reminded today of an important turning point in my creative life. A woman wrote to me and asked, "How do you keep your confidence up (without letting it dissipate) to keep living your creative dream?"

What came to mind is something a friend of mine told me years ago. I was saying something self-deprecating and insecure about my artwork and he turned to me and said, "When are you going to take it for granted that you are a talented artist? When are you going to stop trying to prove it? Assume it. Take it for granted and imagine what you could create from that place..."

My whole life changed that day.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

it's exactly what I needed today.
Thank you.

wood block printing: eggshells

"walking on eggshells"- shown two colorways.
This particular set of prints was inspired by the song by Landon Pigg called Eggshells. I'd been listening to him a lot at the time thanks to that "I think that possibly, maybe I'm falling for you" song. And when you're trying to be creative in several outlets at the same time, sometimes your stock gets low and you have to seek elsewhere. That's how the content came about.

And this was my first attempt at wood block printing - fyi, it's not my favorite.
I don't like the rough quality, or the time and energy it takes just to carve the blocks of wood.