A Little Disturbed

Creepy much?

Hey guys! Happy October!!! So several times over the years my very intelligent Grandfather has commended me on my artsy-fartsyness while implying the question, are you emotional/mental okay?...I always laugh and say, "yes Grandpa I'm all good there it's just an artistic style or subject I'm interested in." But then while my friend was studying next to me a couple days ago I took a hard look in the front camera of my now shattered iphone, sigh, and realized...maybe there's a reason Grandpa thinks I'm emotionally disturbed. You see, I was bored and decided to take my make up bag and paint on some extremely creepy monster make-up on my face to pass the time...ya know casual.  Anyhoo...once I decided that my stitches were on point I played around with the webcam effects on my laptop as you can see below. So anyway yeah maaaaaaaybe Grandpa had a point. I doon't believe I am emotional disturbed just maybe a little artistically inspired by disturbing things?? Anyway it's Halloween season so I FIT IN! WOO!

Death and all his friends [Summer Projects]

Hello world! My apologies for lagging on posting lately been quite busy as of recently. Some of you may have seen on my Instagram or Facebook my recent art project/social experiment that took place earlier this month at the local county fair. But I'll get back to that...so I didn't nearly come close to my goal of completing my entire art portfolio this summer but I did keep busy with art work here and there. I had the fortunate opportunity of designing my friend's first tattoo and completed, a well over do, drawing for my lovely Aunt. I'm stoked on life with how well they both turned out!

So now for the explanation to the title Death and all his friends. As part of my art portfolio concentration I painted 9 of my close friends like skeletons and went and waked around the county fair. Now before you say to yourself, "Umm...okay these kids are freaks.." remember...we are. That day was the highlight of my summer this year. Not only did we get treated like rockstars or some kind of celebrity with the amount of people who wanted to take our photo but the reactions we got from the masses were quite interesting. 

 More explanation on the message/point of this project to come with the further progression of my portfolio I promise. (:

 
 

My Favorite Time of the School Year

Hello my friends! Happy Easter and all that! I have to say April is probably my favorite month of the school year art wise. Unfortunately this year I've been annoyingly sick but I still got to enjoy some of the main activities I've looked forward to all year. First, was my school's annual
Chalk Festival!

Me and my friend Michael working on our chalk drawing.

 I've participated in my school's chalk fest for the last three years but this year instead of a group of four or five it was just me and my partner Michael working on a smaller piece than the last two years. We decided to draw a rendition of Bruce Mackay's motoGP artwork. Valentino Rossi is my family's personal favorite moto rider so I was really excited about drawing this. Basically chalk fest is a bunch of the art students (art 2- AP) form groups and set up in the quad for two days with towels, umbrellas, and chalk pastels to draw art pieces to auction off at the schools art show. 

 I love this event! It's so much fun and I didn't even get sun burnt this year...in the past I've turned purple...and the pictured turned out far better than I anticipated. I'm not quite sure how much it sold for but I was told that my photography teacher's girlfriend bought it. Yay!




ART SHOW!
The art show follows Chalk Fest later that night. The whole art department displays their work outside in the quad for the school to see. Photography, artwork from art 1-AP, Chalk drawings, and tape sculptures are displayed and some are also available for purchase. 

Some of my art work on display at my school art show.

Easter!!!

With being sick and all I was hopped up on meds (proscribed by my doctor don't worry) and kinda went a little over board on the egg decorating...super fun though so I didn't mind the lack of sleep. 

The best part about Easter though is getting to spend it with my kooky family. 

Habit

Moving on from anything is hard. Breaking habit is even harder. How do you break out of out orbit without flying endlessly into space? --Weird things I found myself pondering late last night. Not that I'm really looking to change anything in my life or have any habits I really need to break other than picking at my split ends--gross I know I'm working on it--but I mean really there are certain things that are just part of your own vicious circle of life that you just keep revolving around. Do you quit things? I personally quit things all the time...ya know for like a day. I say "No I'm done, it's over" and then two days later I miss the normality of spinning. Do you have a guilty pleasure? **coughcough--my dad and cigarettes--coughcough** I can see the smoke coming over the wall you're hiding your hand behind Dad. Habits are comforts. It's as simple as that.  They're something that becomes a constant norm and for some reason we love normal. That in itself is a guilty pleasure, we don't praise normality, we praise the odd and goofy. Artists are the perfect example. I would never in a million years describe myself as "normal" or "average" those are dangerous adjectives. Yet look at me...I live in the stereotypical American Dream household, I go to a good school get good grades and take selfies with my Starbucks. I'm pretty normal. I mean, I writing this on my damn blog. I took a hard reality check the other day that really set this rant off. There is something I have got to walk away from and I think (like most teenagers) publishing written evidence online should make that concrete (sarcastic voice). so I'm done, it's over but luckily for little normal me I have some odd and goofy people with habits of their own to orbit with in this vicious circle we call life and I couldn't be happier.

My vicious circle, I have a habit of loving them

Portraits/Charcoal/Graphite

Hello there world! Sorry I haven't posted anything in awhile...been pretty busy...anyway I'm going to talk about a portrait of my best friend I recently completed. I've attempted to do sketches of people but never a full fledged portrait of someone. Above is a graphite/charcoal drawing of Desiree Hernandez  my main bestie. 

I began this process by stocking her Instagram profile for a suitable picture I could use as reference. #creeper

After this step I blew the image up on my monitor and used the light from the computer to work as a light table would, only vertical. I outlined only around her face and lightly marked with circles where her eyes, nose, and lips lie.

From there it was all refining and shading. When drawing a portrait you want to focus on the highlights and shadows in their skin. This will bring out the form of the models facial features and keep the model's characteristics in place (it looks like them) without over drawing/shading and putting attention on maybe the areas the model does not quite admire about themselves. Lucky for me I chose a model that has no flaws(;

 Coffee Addicts

"Love the Way You Lie"

Last year for my photography final the class was assigned a music influenced final. The idea was to select a song that spoke to you and portray it through 10 photographs that can all hold their own if viewed separately. It took me what felt like forever to even come up with a song that I wanted to try and photograph...I'm talkin' like a whole three weeks out of the four we were given to complete the project. The song was a cover of "Love the Way You Lie" by Ariana Grande, it was about a dysfunctional relationship between two people. By the time I had all this sorted out it was 7:30pm and the deadline for finals was tomorrow. I had only two photos done (the ones above and below) and so I grabbed my camera and my reluctant ( to say at best) little sister and finished the rest.

Here's the finished product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4L0UYHHwwY&feature=youtu.be

What is Your Deepest Darkest Dandelion?

Think into your most deepest darkest of desires. What wonders and terrors you may face while scouring what may lie just beneath your gated exterior. Think. Think long and curiously. What do you crave for the most? What fuels your every breathe and wills your next step? What do you wish for at midnight, on a shooting star, at 11:11 am/pm? What comes to mind when you see a dandelion? 

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone has survived the tsunami of "New Year -New Me" posts on Instagram or whatever social network you're perusing late at night while coming down from your "oh-so exciting lives!" 

My very handsome and very wonderful father--oh uhh I mean Santa--gave me an INCREDIBLE art set for Christmas and as you can see I now have a new charcoal/ Sharpie image to add to my portfolio. 

Hands are my nemesis and feet are their trusty side-kick. So for any other art freaks that happen to read this here's a small tip that helps me extremely:

Position your hand the way you want to draw the hand on the paper and take a picture of it.

You won't believe how much help this simple (very uncreative, sorry) little thing can be. Pop! Mind blown.

Until next time my friends, comment your new years resolution below!