Pop Goes the Artist!

This is the sun mobile I spent so many hours working on. It was my final project in printmaking/3D arts sophomore year and I seriously underestimated the amount of time it would take. To give an idea: it started out with 2D cardboard shapes, which were padded with folded newspaper attached with masking tape (a lot of masking tape). That was, I think, then covered with a layer of papier-mache and painted white. Then I painted the designs on (and because it was crappy acrylic paint, it took at least 2 coats per color), and finally strung everything together with screw eyes, jump rings, and hot glue. It’s now hanging over my bed and for the first few days I was afraid something would give and it would fall on me in the middle of the night. I spent several months hating it, just because I was so sick of looking at it, but I like it now.

This was another mediocre project from 3D arts sophomore year, one that looked radically better in my head than it turned out. The way I originally envisioned it didn’t involve the collage background, but the project objectives included something about “representing ourselves,” so I felt like I had to include it. The face is actually my own–we made plaster casts of our faces (or feet or hands) and incorporated them into the work. That was pretty fun, except for the part where I scrubbed my face raw getting all the Vaseline off it from making the mask. The whole sun/moon thing was a big theme of mine sophomore year–these two works, plus a print with a sun motif and a fold-out book type thing with a night sky theme going on.

This is the Lautrec-style poster I did last year in Studio Survey. I got down Lautrec’s colors pretty well, if nothing else, and I think the composition is fairly strong, particularly since it’s designed to be a poster. My teacher got me to turn it into a homecoming t-shirt design, with “Homecoming 2004″ instead of “support the,” but it works much better as a poster than a t-shirt. The cropping just doesn’t make sense without the borders of the paper there. (Which is why it wasn’t chosen.) The lettering, in particular, took forever, since I didn’t use any sort of stencil, just a ruler and my eyeballs. I think I did this on watercolor paper, which isn’t quite as nasty to work on as smooth paper, although I still prefer canvas, just because it doesn’t buckle. (acrylic on watercolor paper, 18×24)
This is a pastel painting I began the summer before junior year (I think) and only finished last winter or spring for my NAHS application. It’s now framed and hanging in the spare room, which is why the picture is at a funky angle–I didn’t want my reflection and the flash in it. Someday I’m going to have to try to get a better shot of this one. That angle just kills me. I was never quite satisfied with the way the water turned out, but eventually it got so overworked I just had to stop so I didn’t make things worse. It still looks sort of flat. Ditto the tree trunk, although that’s less obvious in this photo. However, I’m really happy with the rocks and the vegetation in the foreground. (pastel, 19×25)

I finally got around to breaking out my dad’s digital camera, so here are some of my larger paintings. (Funny, for someone who doesn’t generally enjoy painting, I sure do a lot of it.)

I did this early last year in Studio Survey. It was supposed to be in the style of Paul Gauguin, hence the rather bright colors. (The in-your-face yellow background is my favorite part.) I’ve always had mixed feelings about this painting, although I know it turned out well. It was from life, so there are a lot of very similar pieces floating around out there, albeit in a variety of artist’s styles. Myself, I chose Gauguin because it seemed to be the one in which I could get away with the flattest colors and the most minimal blending of paint. In other words, it seemed to cater to my artistic weaknesses. Please forgive the carpet showing around the edges; I’ll replace this with a better picture when/if I take one. (acrylic on canvas paper stuff, 16×20″)

This is the pop art self-portrait I did in Studio Survey near the end of last year, in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, one of my favorite artists. Once again, I loved the flat color. I decided to stick with Lichtenstein’s favored primary color scheme as much as possible, although that blue in my shirt is awfully dark. I had a lot of fun with this one, despite the craziness of doing all those yellow background dots with a pencil eraser. I’ve decided I like the Ronald McDonald hair, which I had trouble with at the time, since Lichtenstein didn’t paint any red heads (or any women with such free-form curls). Someday this will have a similar portrait of my younger brother as a companion piece. Again, please ignore the carpet. (acrylic on paper–ew, 18×24″) (Interesting to note that not long after I painted this, I gave up on novel-writing, probably for good. Blame very severe burnout–and perhaps I jinxed myself.)
This is an old and still technically unfinished pastel painting that I think I began the summer before sophomore year. The horses are finished, but in the photo, there’s all this bushy vegetation around them that I never got around to doing, because I got bored and couldn’t make it come out right. If I get desperate enough for something to work on, I may come back to this, but I can’t see that happening any time soon. I haven’t done such a large pastel painting in quite awhile and I’m really starting to miss it, since pastel is my all-time favorite medium. It combines the control of drawing with the brilliant colors of paint (with, I think, far easier blendability). I really need to get back to pastelling. (pastel, 19×25″)

I still have four more large pieces left to post, so expect another entry in the next few days.