Writing 5 (blog posts) Artist Lecture

"Zoe - Age 8" By Gwen Walstrand

Gwen Walstrand's work in photography mainly deals with portraiture. She showed us many series of her work, but the ones that stood out to me most were those she titled "Between." They consisted of photos of preteens, and a few kids who were slightly older or younger than that range. Something about the way she photographed them really captured that feeling of being a preteen. The one that stood out to me the most from that series is:

"Elizabeth" by Gwen Walstrand

Just something about this portrait really jumps out at me. I think it might be how much the darker background makes the pale girl stand out that much more. She's also so thin and fragile looking, yet seems to have some sort of strength about her face. I usually don't care for portrait photography, but this one really stuck in my mind. I also really liked her series of photos from Italy:

"Italia - 102" By Gwen Walstrand

Ms. Walstrand has a knack for conveying personality and character with her subjects. As for her work with Ms. Perkins,  Ms. Walstrand said that the town was "...Interesting, it's like everyone walked out all at once." During her talk she told us more about how racial tensions had destroyed the town. Many violent acts had occurred there, including a lynching. This fighting destroyed the town and left it as the shell it is today. Ms. Walstrand did take some interesting photos of the town, but I didn't find any of them as engaging as her portraiture.

She said she was inspired by searching, the unknown, navigation both physical and spiritual, and said that it was likely a reaction to her strict religious upbringing. She also recommended a book called "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" by Rebecca Solnit. I've googled the title and it looks like a book I might have to check out once everything settles down from finals and graduation.

Writing 5(blog posts) for Crit 4

Last time it was suggested that, in order to add a bit more context and clarity to the world these characters live in, that I should include environment shots with the next batch of character designs. Not gonna lie, I really hate drawing scenery. I get frustrated with it easily. But I buckled down a couple weeks back and made myself practice. Here are the two I'm bringing to Critique (In rough stages):

This first one shows the New York City skyline as it looks after the merging of our world and the fantasy world. It was my hope that this would show my idea of how the worlds spliced together, and the dire consequences it sometimes had. In this world, it's fairly common to see the skeleton of some poor creature or human sticking out of an object or wall. This is due to that poor being's bad luck of being in the wrong place during the merging.

The second shows a coffee shop owned and run by fairies. In this world, there are many different fantastical races, and I wanted to show them mingling with modern humans to show how the two worlds integrated.

As for my character designs, I'm bringing three more.

  

 

The first one is Dagny, a faun who has the element of earth living inside her. She's very quiet and naive, but fiercely loyal.

 Tyler is the vessel for the Water element, and being of an artistic persuasion he has learned how to use his talent to work in watercolors.

Even though I'd drawn Cyth recently, I wanted to draw him again after he becomes the vessel to the wind element. His zipper eye was also pretty hard to see in the last picture, and I wanted an excuse to draw it. It's fun. :)

For my classmate highlight this blog entry, I'd like to direct your attention to Robbie Raio:
https://robbyraio.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/crit-three-introduction/
He's super talented with ceramics and jewelry making, and has a great sense of humor. He just recently started combining wire-wrapping techniques with ceramics, and it looked really cool. Hopefully he keeps pursuing that new combo.

Writing 3 (blog posts) for Crit3

Last critique I got a lot of compliments on my character design and some good advice on my environment sketch. I don't know if I'll have the latter completed by Friday, but hopefully I will. So far, I've got these two ready to go:

 

Both are characters from a story of mine where Earth has merged with another dimension that was a fantasy-styled world, resulting in magic (among other things) suddenly being introduced to the modern age. The first, Vivienne, has the embodiment of life energy living in her, and Belvedere has fire (much to his chagrin). It's been really fun to figure out what that world would look like, and to puzzle through how different parts of our society would react to it. 

I'd like to have at least three character designs from this world to show on friday. Here's what I have so far of the main character:

 

He has the embodiment of death living inside of him, and I've been trying to figure out how to convey how his power looks in my head on paper. I know he has the ability to make shadows rise off of surfaces and become solid, but I'm not sure how to show that yet.

During the merging of worlds, if a human from earth happened to be standing in the same location as a creature or object from the other dimension, the two would fuse together into something called a Chimera. More often than not, the Chimera would die instantly or shortly after its merging, but sometimes they survived. Sometimes this merging would result in a harmonious fusion of the two beings, but usually they're left horribly disfigured (extra limbs poking out of chests, two heads, and so on). They're social outcasts from both worlds due to their condition, but a faction has risen up comprised of surviving Chimeras that offers shelter to them. The leader of this faction is Alastor, who I'm trying to sketch down below:

 

He's been the most frustrating to draw so far, as I can't quite get him to look like how I want him to.  Since there's so much backstory to this world, I've thought about writing out a short synopsis and putting it with my drawings during the critique. 

In this latest batch of character designs, I've tried to focus more on a variety of body shapes and more fluid poses. For the latter, I've been studying an artist on Deviantart known as Kate-FoX:

 

 

 

I really admire her range of styles, and she has some really helpful pose studies and tutorials. I think I need to practice more, especially with hands and fluid poses. I'll try to make some time for that this week.

You should also check out Molly McVey's work:

http://mollymcvey.weebly.com/studio-critique-iii-16sp-art-650-01/writing-blog-posts-1

I'm not usually a huge fan of black and white photography but some of her photos are really stunning (I particularly like the one of the chandelier).  I wonder if she's ever thought about leaving her photos mainly black and white, but then having a small part of it be in color (Or vice versa)? I see in her writings that she admires photographers who can convey story in an image, and I think that color can be an extremely useful tool in that aspect.

Writing 2 Blog Post for Crit 2 (Critique III)

In my last critique, I got a lot of good feedback on my original character designs. I'm supposed to push volume more, try out watercolor pencils, get a definite light source, vary body types and faces, get distinct motions down and not be so hesitant in my line work. I'll try to have some new Character designs ready for the next critique, but I'll also have some landscapes.

Backgrounds have been my least favorite aspect of drawing, as I get frustrated with them quickly. Lately I've been forcing myself to draw them and practice. Here is an in-process sketch of one I hope to have ready to show by next critique:

Since I want to be a concept artist someday, the more I can confidently draw the better; character designs, backgrounds, items, and more.

Another one of my classmates that I'd like to feature is Jaqueline Denton:
http://jacquelinedenton.blogspot.com/2016/02/writing-blog-posts1.html
I'm a fan of bright colors, and she definitely uses them. She does psychedelic art and I think is very good at using her medium of choice.