Collage Paintings Final! Fall 2011

 ADOS=Attention Deficit Ooh, Shiny!

Time to Paint!

These are two paintings that I made in my Foundations Design I class for my final.  They were definitely my favorite projects, because I finally got to paint again!  We had a huge pile of shredded magazines and newspapers that we had to take a frame and stick it down on the pile without moving anything in the frame, and then tape it together and paint it.  We also had to find ourselves in this massive pile of chaos.  The things that I was looking for in the pile were smiles, anything referring to art, and anything bright and colorful.  I am an art major.  Enough said.  The hardest part of the top painting was finding that fluorescent pink color without having to buy fluorescent pink.  It took me between a half hour and an hour to actually figure out how to get that color, and I have no idea how I actually did it!  The hardest part of the second painting was just getting all of the details in.  This is a relatively small painting, but I had to fit so much in it, and so many different patterns with different shading and such.  Regardless of these difficulties, I still loved it!

Journey Final, Spring 2012

Climb Every Mountain

This was the final for my Foundations Drawing II class!  For this project, we had to depict a journey by using three different points of view, and they all had to be on one piece of paper.  Initially, this was pretty difficult for me to figure out how to draw, but once I came up with my idea, I just sat down and sketched everything out, and liked what I saw.  The journey that I chose was the last morning of my mission trip/conference in Colorado.  Along with a small group of people equally as crazy as me, we woke up at 4:30 in the morning so that we could climb a mountain, and watch the sunset.  We made it to the top just as the sun was beginning to peek over the tops of the mountains, and the entire view was breathtaking.  I used mostly soft pastels in this piece, and a little colored pencil.  This drawing in itself not including any of the planning took around 20 total hours, and they were all worth it!  My favorite parts are once again having to do with the different textures, and how they show how this year I was able to really loosen up my style, and figure out how different things work.  There was a lot of experimentation in this piece as well.

Self-Portraits! Spring 2012

These are all images of my self-portraits that I made for my Foundations Drawing II class.  For the first six images, I had to make at least 12 images that were either of me, or represented me!  I then had to put a piece of text along with each image, so the book would serve as a sort of autobiography.  As the images show, the book can completely stretch out so you can see all of the images, or you can open the book from cover to cover, then keep turning pages once you reach the back cover.  This was my favorite project for the semester, because we could use any media we wanted, and we could draw pretty much whatever we wanted as well.  I used colored pencils, soft pastels, pen and ink, paint, sharpies, oil pastels, and then photographs once I extended the book.  Originally, I just made 12 images, then for my Positive Psychology final, I researched self-concept, so I decided to extend the book.  Every page along with the text has some text from the Bible, because my faith is a huge part of my life.
The final image in this post is another self-portrait that I had to make.  We could use any non-colored media, so I decided to experiment with watered-down ink.  This was a very long, unforgiving process, but overall, I really like how it turned out considering the medium, and a bonus is it actually looks like me! This is also the first self-portrait that I have ever made by looking into a mirror instead at a photograph, so there was just a lot of experimenting with this piece.

Videos, Spring 2012

Genuine Act Video

Stop Motion Video

Both of these videos were done in my Foundations Design II class.  The first video is titled "Enjoying the Simple Things," and the assignment was to record a genuine act, then edit the video and post it on Youtube.  It had to be no more than two minutes long, so it was hard to decide what to put in the video.  This video also made it into the all student art show at Viterbo!  I really liked making this video, because I had a lot of fun with my friends and my little brother, just recording different things that we did.  The genuine act is along the lines of a day in the life of an art major.  The second video was part of my final, where we had to make a video using stop motion that recorded something going from point A to point B, and back to point A again.  Once again, we had to post it on Youtube.  I titled the video "Brother Swimming," and it is what it sounds like.  I took pictures of my little brother swimming from one end of a hotel pool to the other, then back. I also had to add a voice-over, although it isn't very exciting.  This video had to be between 5 and 20 seconds.

Fear Series Final, Fall 2011

Fear of the Unknown, part 1

 Fear of the Unknown, part 2

Fear of the Unknown, part 3

This series was my final project for my Foundations Drawing I class.  For this project, I had to represent something that I fear, or a moment where I felt afraid using three different panels.  The fear that I chose was the child-like fear of what is hiding in the shadows, which can also double as a general fear of the unknown.  For each part, I used pen and ink and charcoal, and I gradually transitioned from more pen and ink and less charcoal to more charcoal and less pen and ink as the light of the nightlight faded.  Each part also connects to the next, and they are supposed to be viewed side-by-side.  My favorite part of this project was experimenting with the different media, and also figuring out how to draw different textures.

Study Drawings, Fall 2011

Cloth Study, Charcoal

 Tree Study, Pen and Ink 

Tree in an Environment, Pen and Ink

In my Foundations Drawing I class, we had to do a lot of studies for our drawings.  The first drawing is a piece of a still-life, and I drew it using a kneaded eraser on charcoal.  Cloth is one of my favorite things to draw using charcoal, because in my high school art classes, I spent a lot of time drawing different fabrics.  The second and third drawings I made using a pen and ink, and they each took right around ten hours!  Although it was tedious, I love the outcomes.  After those assignments, I couldn't stop looking at trees, and figuring out how I would draw them!

Books! Spring 2012

 Coptic Stitch Journal

 Top 4 Coptic stitch, bottom 2 Japanese stab stitch

 Combination of Coptic (bottom), Perfect Bind (right), and Perfect Bind reinforced by Japanese stab stitch, and perforated pages (back)

 Combination of Coptic and Japanese stab stitch

 Coptic Family

 Spring-Bound!

 Spring-Bound Guest Book

Spring-Bound books opened up

These are some of the books that I got to make in my Foundations Design II class!  It was my favorite project by far this semester.  I made right around 20 total books, and then helped with making 50 books for the art show!  The first book that we learned how to make was the Coptic stitch, which is made up of several signatures, or groups of pages that are folded together.  Each signature is then sewn together.  The thickest Coptic stitch book that I made is also my favorite, and it is my journal, which is the top two images. There were 24 signatures in that book, and i stained each individual page with tea and hot chocolate, because I still haven't acquired the taste for coffee.  The Japanese stab stitch was much easier to make, because all of the pages were cut together, and then sewn together all the way through.  I also learned how to make is the perfect bind book, which is next in these images.  It consists of gluing all of the pages together on the spine with some string, and then gluing the cover on.  For a few of the perfect bind books that I made, I reinforced the spine by using the Japanese stab stitch as well, to make it stronger, and I perforated the pages, so that they could be ripped out for other uses.  The last images are of my spring-bound books, which I really enjoyed making.  These books are made by sewing, hammering, and a whole lot of gluing!  The longer book is a guest book that I made for my sister's wedding, which is this summer, which I am soo excited for!!! :-)

Platonic Solids, Fall 2011

All 5 Solids!

Icosahedron

Cube

Tetrahedron

Dodecahedron

Octahedron

These are images of the platonic solids that I had to make for my Foundations Design I class.  It was the first assignment that we had, and it had to be perfect.  Each solid is made up of perfect triangles, squares, or pentagons.  I had to learn how to draw each shape out using a baseline, a compass, a ruler, and a pencil.  It was harder at first figuring how to make each shape, but then it got easier.  The solids are an icosahedron, a cube, a tetrahedron, a dodecahedron, and an octahedron.

Wire Sculptures, Fall 2011

Don't Fall!

Whoops! I Dropped Something...

These two images are of the wire sculptures that I made in my Foundations Design I Class!  The assignment was to create two wire figures that represent the human figure in motion using six lines.  Four of the lines had to be curved, and two had to be straight.  We had to use exactly 20 inches of wire, and then create a base that represented a shadow coming off of the figure.  The process was really interesting and fun, but also frustrating at times.  To connect the wires, I used a butane gas torch and a combination of lead and silver solder.  The first figure is balancing, and the second figure is reaching down to pick something up.