A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Assemblage Series Finished!

Again, another throwback to a much older post. I finished my assemblage series many months ago and even exhibited them since then! However I am just now getting around the writing the final post about them. It's summer's fault I swear! In my last post which you can find here, I showed the painting of the woman with the ribbon hair, now completely finished it looks like this: 

And this mixed media piece incorporating natural elements, which is finished:

I also worked on three other pieces during this class, they all incorporated fiber arts and natural materials. This first one is a comment on decisions involving love, specifically in my life, but my hope is that viewers will see there own choices and love reflected in this piece as well. 

In progress...

In progress...

In progress...

And finished product, please ignore the other piece in the corner, it was on display when I took the picture. The second of my pieces involved the idea of grief. I used a combination yarn, branches and wax. Sadly, I don't have a good image for this one!

The last piece I worked on was a bit of a culmination of the the whole series. I wanted to depict moments or frames of life and how each moment is a choice and the all connect together and create a 'tapestry' of my life and the choices made therein. As you will see, I went through a ton of steps and reconstructions to create the final piece.

Composition work...

Redo composition

And more composition change.

Finally starting on the final piece.

Got all the pieces on and decided I didn't like it... ripped them all off.

On the right track!

Continuing to work...

Final piece. Although it's not my favorite, I do feel like it communicated my idea successfully and was a good end to this class and series.

  

What's Going on in the Classroom: Fun in the Darkroom!

Hey hey, it's so beautiful outside! It makes me want summer so bad! I've realized recently that I have not been updating this here blog with any images from photo class! We just finished a section where we did some very cool and fun techniques in the darkroom. The first one was painting with developer. This is where instead of putting the whole piece of photo paper in the developer and allowing all areas of it to develop at the same rate, students painted (or dripped or splattered) on the developer so that parts of the image developed at different rates or not at all! The results are really cool! The other technique we used was to sandwich two negatives in the enlarger. This is when two negatives are placed in the enlarger on top of each other cause there to be two images on the paper when it is exposed and developed. This also looks pretty cool, check it out!

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Assemblage Series

I'm currently enrolled in grad school and I have the pleasure of taking an assemblage and mixed media class this term. My favorite thing about a studio-heavy grad program is the guaranteed time to create each week. It's much easier to make that time when you literally have to do it. Also it's something that my coworkers and administrators understand. If I tell them I'm busy in the evenings because I'm finishing grad course work, they totally get it verses just saying I'm making art. Although my admins are pretty cool so that might be okay with that too!

In this class I'm creating some pieces that are going to be a part of a series about life and the choices I have made in life. My hope is that these pieces will speak as a metaphor for the choices and challenges that everyone faces in their lives and as a result, speak to their hearts. Here's a peak at what I've been working on....

Beginning with a pieced together canvas on stretched screen. 

Several of these pieces incorporate some fiber arts.

Beginning the painting

Attached to the canvas.

Creating the textured 'hair' element

This is where I currently am, although very close, it is not finished.

This next piece used both fiber art and some natural elements as well as some cool old piano keys, beads, buttons and random items from around my house.

Yarn wrapped over sticks and twigs

Attaching misc. items to canvas

It's a work in progress, my current goal is to do better at visually connecting the nature elements with the canvas background.

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Flight Series

My students are currently working on an assessment drawing of a still life and photo students are in the film developing stages. Although I was tempted to post some still life pictures, I know we all know how to lead a project like that and it's not a terribly new idea. So for times like this, I decided to have posts either about project I'm working on or artwork I'm creating. Hence the last post about my home decor and now this post about my current work!

I'm taking some graduate level courses and right now and I'm in the thick of a studio painting class. We are working very large scale which is awesome and sometimes intimidating. For these paintings, I wanted my inspiration to come from flight. If I haven't shared this yet, my husband is a pilot and we are currently building a plane in our garage. So flying and flight have a huge impact on my life right now.

When I began thinking about flight however, I wanted to stay away from the idea of clouds and wind and blue etc... I didn't want the theme to be immediately obvious or cliche. Then I started thinking about the plane, the only way that humans can fly. The only way that we can experience flight is through a metal box and metal wings, hard and unyielding, which is totally at odds with the open and and wind currents and clouds.

To that end, I chose to do a series of paintings of plane parts that my husband has been working on. Primarily in monochromatic color schemes. To keep the idea of flight apparent, since these pieces don't appear to be plane-like yet, I made the background very airy and cloud-ish.

I haven't actually finished any of them, but they're all awesome works in progress and I'm excited about this series.

Just finishing the background area of the first painting.

Here's my sketch of the basic shapes.

Blocking in darks and lights.

Refining...

And more... it's almost done, this is how far I am :)

Number 2, same process.

Pretty much finished I think...

Third piece, this is the only one that is for sure finished.

DIY- New Home Makeover!

So we moved into a house! Woohoo! And the unpacking/decorating has gone slowly. However, I think a couple of rooms are ready for before and after pictures. Not to say they're completely done, but they are looking more or less how I'd like them. First of all, I apologize for the before pictures, my husband took them with a phone when we were signing the final papers, so they might be a touch blurry.

Here's the front of our cute little red-doored house!

This is the main floor living room with me!

And after....

Now for the main bedroom before...

And after...

This dresser has it's own before picture as well!

Last room to share, pardon the picture-heavy post! The downstairs family room before...

And after...

Thank you for taking a look see! Hopefully the bathroom, kitchen and office will be ready for viewing soon!