Ok i know what you're thinking. But i can explain. This is the first part of my third painting assignment (he still has the second part, not giving back work seems to be a thing with my painting prof.) We were supposed to do an entire painting without the use of a brush. it wasn't required to be representational but the orange circle that ended up in the middle of my project had a swoop across the top and a rectangular portion at the bottom. i took one look at it and said "damn, i guess i have to paint hitler now." the project also required that we weave another piece of paper into our painting. ridiculous and not to mention gaudy and several other things but doing ugly pointless things to a perfectly good piece of art seems to be a thing with the painting dept. i tried to make it as subtle as possible and keep it limited to his blazer but he still kind of looks like a car dealership salesman. i dont know what that says about WW2 and the holocaust but there it is . . . there seems to be something that was stuck to the glass of the scanner in the bottom right of the pic. at some point i will re scan it but its not too much in the way now. i think its tape or something.

Everybody loves dinosaurs!! Especially me at age 5. (I know what you're thinking sarah) Project three for acrylics class was a lot of fun. The assignment was to do a painting using Gilbert Stone's process. basically slowly building up value with white on top of a colored ground, then quickly glazing in local color and darks. Plus, i got to paint dinosaurs. I think i need to clean up the edge but other than that i am really happy with this one. maybe i just love dinosaurs . . . . . . DINOSAURS!!!!!!!!

Its funny, for my second painting project (i still haven't gotten my first one back) we were supposed to do a painting, which i did, then BACKWARDS ink it by painting with white gouache where we dont want ink. Then paint the entire thing with black ink and then wash it off. I can usually find things to learn from a project even if i don't agree with it, and im not one to usually complain but come on! the painting looked good before the white gouache killed all the color and contrast (and wasted a twenty dollar tube of paint). If i wanted the thing to look like a block print why wouldn't i just DO a block print and paint on top, saving my self a lot of time and money. now i have to go back and cover up the damage that the requirements of the project did. the painting dept. seems to work backwards from the illustration dept. in that they spend as long as they can on their work and make up meaning later rather than working quickly towards a preset goal. phew. . . that class gets me worked up. but thats another story. not like its really a portfolio piece anyway but i would like to go back and fix the painting if not just for the jellyfish which were fun to draw.

Ok haven't posted for a while but what can i say my scanner is out of commission and im far from a comp lab. The two paintings below are practice samples for my second acrylic tech. project. It involves using a pencil or charcoal underdrawing to quickly turn out a painting. pretty useful i think. I think the raccoon/pig guy is cool and i might go back and work on him a little more. I like the big monkey man too but i think he is good as he is. As for the final piece, the little sign on the door says back in fifteen. Just a few more little highlights one the monkey and floor and i should be done with it.

These are two of the practice samples i did for my "plein air" painting project for acrylic techniques. Neither are really finished due to weather conditions (first rainy then waaayyy to hot but such is savannah) but the first is of my favorite coffee shop (gallery espresso) and the second is of some buildings near Morris Hall. (the illus. building) i dont know how i feel about painting ouitside just yet. it certainly is much harder than painting inside and it doesnt lend it self well to my "ok ill work for fifteen minutes then go make myself some coffee" mentality that i have. but its nice to just be sitting out there and working. its a little like doing the mural in that you have tons of random people just looking over your shoulder and trying to talk to you. i definitely wouldn't mind getting better at it in the long run even though i doubt i;ll be doing much plein air painting as an illustrator.

An inside page of the coloring and activity book i worked on for safe kids. this is without the caption but its about traffic being the movement of vehicles on a roadway and what sorts of vehicles one may encounter on said roadway. the scooter guy was fun to draw.

Ok so since this is technically a sketch blog i suppose i should post up some sketches from time to time and not just finished work. here are some sketches for the next part of the activity book for safe kids. the page is going to be part of a coloring book and will show what sorts of vechiles one may encounter on the roadway. i have to do it in the same style as i did the cover so the guy on the left middle was just for fun.

The second project I'm working on at safe kids is renewing their activity book on pedestrian safety. This is the cover minus the titles and logo. No this isn't my usual style, but i am working this way because i have to copy the style of an illustrator who did some work for safe kids a while back. i did everything except for the lady and the two kids. The illustrators name is John Worthen (i think thats spelled right). I have no other information on him and I can't find a website for him, so if this is somehow copyright infringing he can just know that I'm not getting paid for this job. All things considered, i like working in this more simplified style, maybe i'll try to do more with it now that I'm getting to know illustrator more.

Here is the first illustration from my internship at safe kids. It's for CPS (child passenger safety weesk) which is sometime in september. They wanted an activity sheet for kids to do so we made a "find whats wrong with this picture" page. I did the drawing and the Graphic Designer here did the layout.

I forgot to add this in any of the pics of the mural. this is on the overhang above the right side of the wall. i was up on the ladder painting the ceiling blue when it occured to me that Michalangelo must have had a hell of a time painting the sistine chapel. one thought led to another and i ended up at this. i called it the creation of sam adams.

Bum ba na na buh bum ba na na na na na! the mural is finished! it only took me a month but its finally done. here are some pics of the little people dancing around on it (note: i left some not colored in on purpose) much thanks to everyone who helped me finish it: ABB, OFJ, ZPL and most especially SeB. 

This is a quick flash movie that i just found hidden in the far reaches of my hard drive. i made it waaaayyyyy back in high school as a supplement to a movie that i had to make for a government class that i was done editing and to kill time while it was rendering i made this. the whole thing started when i found the weird noise thats in the background in the sound effects folder at the Career Center, one thing led to another and i ended up with this . . .

This is a little animation i made to demonstrate how to use flash. (i teach flash and photoshop at a summer camp). i just sort of started and kept adding to it with more and more doodles as time wore on im still adding to it.

Random doodles from hours of bordom due to the kids being too self sufficient with flash. oh well what can you do? i would color them but the driver for my wacom pad is not installed on the computers at the career center.

Here is another little poster for the CRS thing (see post below) i did this yesterday for some kids doing a backwards video. we teach them how to use video effects in premiere by haveing them go out and shoot stuff happenening forwards and then they make it backwards in editing. some kids filmed me doing this quick poster and played it backwards in their movie at -10000 speed shortening it from half an hour to like 20 or 30 seconds it looks cool ill post the movie if i can find it. now that i look at it i think i accidentally did it with the wrong pixel aspect ratio cause it looks smooshed but whatever

P.S. ok i found the movie!

I teach flash and photoshop at a summer camp, and in an attempt to get the kids to behave one of the other counselors told them that everything they did needed to be either classy respectful or supportive. the phrase caught on and two years later it has become a mainstay of the tv multimedia curriculum. in a hour of boredom i made my own version of james montgomery flagg's  i want you poster. im going to get it printed and have it hang right over the white board in the classroom

more mural stuff

here is the mural as of july 15. its just about done i think, i still need to add the windows on the rest of the grey buildings and there are some more people i need to paint on the buildings. hopefully finishing up this weekend.

 this is the mural as i left it this afternoon. (july 2nd) i start work at the career center next monday so i will have to finish up this thing in the rest of my spare time. i have a light and an extension chord so maybe i'll be able to work at night.

mural. oh yeah.

here is a poster for a hypothetical show of my work. this was the final project for my poster class. we had to do a self portrait but we weren't allowed to depict our selves. clothes on a clothesline proved hard enough to draw but the people were insanely hard to get right. i drew this by hand then colored in photoshop.

a public service announcement poster. im sure there isn't anyone left smoker or nonsmoker alike who doesn't know smoking is bad for you. so if you're going to smoke, go ahead but dont make it my problem. ok thats the only bit of moralizing that will be on this blog i promise! acrylic with a little colored pencil and photoshopped letters

a poster for devendra banhart. (i must re-iterate as much as i wish i was, i am not the poster designer for any of the bands or movies or whatever so these are not "legit") i made this after the song "Long Haired Child" you know, Imma wont dat chaild to bee-ee-e a loong hairred chaild! i did it in watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil (letteris in photoshop) and by the way thanks ashley.

movie poster for the movie The Fall. i was originally going to have the colors be vaguely realistic with a blue sky and brown staircase but i accidentally fliped the colors in photoshop and decided i liked them better as red and green. i used illustrator and photoshop

i really got into the whole poster thing this quarter and for my third vector project decided to make a poster for the (dc) local band Greenland. www.myspace.com/greenland they are really good and i expect that link to be clicked. 

for my first illustrator (adobe that is) assignment i had to design a skateboard and matching t shirt and hat. originally i was going to do several boards with pictures of different people scratching their butts on it but ended up not doing that. i think i'll use some of the drawings of butt scratchers especially the biker guy for something else.

A painting of my idea of wrath (the deadly sin). i had to illustrate one of the sins or virtues for survey of illu. nothing makes me more angry than the blaring berrrrnnnn bernnnnnn beeeerrrrrnnn that i am unfortunate enough to listen to every morning. it is in acrylic

this was for survey of illustration (a "how-does-art-history-influence-contemporary-illustration" class) it was a cut paper collage (god damn, never doing that again, fear of x-acto blades and chunks out my fingers) and illustrated a creation myth. i did the mayan myth. if you cant read my 

SUPER_HYPER-UBER--NANOSIZED-ABRIDGED version of the ridiculously long original version of the story on the picture. here is an even shorter version:

1. first there was god

2. he was bored

3. he thought up the world, because he was bored, and there it was

4. he made people out of clay

5. they drowned

6. he made people out of corn and he stroked his own ego

7. they lived

8. like a hundred other pages about some twins playing soccer/basketball and the rest of the story doesn't really relate or matter

But yeah, mayan art is awesome. so awesome in fact that i have signed up for a ethnographic art history class (tribal art . . . i didnt make up that other name thats what it's called)

all of the parts of it are different mayan pictographs, the meanings of which vaguely tell the story, i could go into it but this post is long enough.

I think i pretty much covered this one in the last post . . . or next post i guess that depends on which way you are reading them. band poster for andy birds bolw (tired of rewriting that word) of fire. if you have not heard them, DO SO. (so that i am not completely copyright infringing) also because they are awesome. swing jazzy rock music blend . . . ish, yeah they're good. anyway its done in photoshop. also check out Jay Ryan's website (see link) he is one of my artistic heros and he does most of the cover art and real legitimate posters for A. Bird.

thebirdmachine.com

these are some ideas for the first project of my electronic illustration class (chronological order be damned!) supposed to be a band poster and with the amount that i listen to his music how could i not pay props to Andrew Bird and his bowl of fire? even though he has dropped the bowl of fire these days. the first was my attempt to get a likeness of him even though in the final piece his face is at the side view and looks nothing like him. Mr. Bird, if you are for whatever reason reading this:

1. AWESOME, you are for some reason reading my blog.

2. you rock

3. your face looks totally different from profile view as it does from straight on (why?)

4. i have recently noticed that you look a lot like David Byrne (i think thats awesome)

(david byrne's face looks different from the side for that matter too)

PS: A. Bird doesn't really have squinty eyes like he does in the top drawing of him he was just playing violin in the picture i was useing as ref.