Life and Death.

So ... final artwork for life and death. For this assignment, I chose a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch and then a rotting jack-o-lantern sitting on a porch. I this is my fourth version of the live pumpkin, so that's good. It really took a while to get the hang of the scale of the pumpkin in relation to the rest of the piece. I had initially had some little pumpkins in the background of the pumpkin patch but did away with those in the final version of this artwork. I added in some leaves in order to balance the color and make it not all just dirt, as well as to bring out the green of the stem as well as the accent color in the pumpkin. I used a flat brush to achieve the grass effect in the back of the pumpkin patch, and a wash of light blue (which didn't translate well in the reproduced image) for the sky of this piece.

Now, moving on to the jack-o-lantern. This one was much more of a struggle. I had been working so long with gouache that I kind of forgot how to use watercolor. Also, this piece is watercolor, which I neglected to mentioned in my earlier ramblings. But anyway, my entire technique was wet on dry and I miiight have been just a little tiny bit "fussy" in doing this assignment. But anyway, instead of scrapping the whole piece, I went in with water and "erased" a lot of what I had laid down earlier. And then I went back in, while the piece was still wet, and added in pigment. I used darker reds, oranges, yellows and browns in addition to the black in order to get the decaying effect. I had initially just had a brown floor and a weird grayish blue background but I decided to change to bricks.

From start to finish, I would say I probably spent about 11 hours, possibly more, on these two pieces combined.

I Was Drunk the Day My Momma Got Out of Prison

So ... not to inflate your ego and give you the impression that you're actually funny, Rusty, but I informed my mother of this morning's events and this was the response: 

 

 There is now only one person  another person in the Rusty Nelson Fan Club. 

... so there's that. 

But in real life news, here are the re-submissions for my midterm portfolio.

According to the little grade sheet thing, I am resubmitting these for Watercolor 2, 3, and 4, as well as Gouache 2. 

Watercolor 2: This was part of the 10 A Days, I believe on the ones focused on skyscapes. I spent about twenty five minutes on this piece, fulfilling the time budget. I think I utilized the medium well here in this piece, especially in regards to the reflection of the sky in the water. If I were to redo this watercolor, I would approach the boat and ripples differently. 

Watercolor 3: This piece was in the first set of watercolors, and took a little over twenty minutes. I liked how I handled the tone in the trees, but wish I would have spent more time in the foreground. 

Watercolor 4: This piece was a part of the "Skyscapes" Assignment, and took a little over twenty five minutes, which was the budget. This is a painting of a sunrise, and I think I depicted that scene well. I like the interaction between the two hues in the sky, achieved through a wet on wet technique. If I were to do this piece over again, I would use a less harsh hue than black to depict the trees. 

Gouache 2: This gouache piece involved a lot of layering of the medium to achieve the effect. I had initially utilized the pick out technique, but it wasn't working to my liking so I just started adding differing layers of gouache to achieve the darkness and highlights. If I were to redo this piece, I would approach the bright white highlights differently, and only use them when absolutely necessary. 

Product Illustration

So here's my product illustration. 

I chose a bottle of Coke for this illustration, and used about three different reference photographs in order to compose this illustration. 

In regards to time, I was pretty near the budget of 12 hours. However, contrary to a certain professor's theory that all homework for his class is done within twenty four hours of the deadline, this was not the case. Only the last four hours or so was like that ... so, you're kind of right, Rusty. But only kind of. 

One triumph (if you can call it that) of this piece was the way in which I rendered the form. I think I did well with this aspect, and am happy with the way the highlights worked out as well. However, I ran into a bit of a roadblock when I worked towards the top of the bottle, as the photo I was using for reference featured a clear bottle. So naturally, I made up a green color and used it for the glass, and threw in a few green highlights towards the bottom. 

Life and Death and Marker Comps

How good is this marker comp, right? 

So for this project of juxtaposition of life and death, I chose a healthy little pumpkin (which I suppose is already dead but let's forget that) and a rotting jack-o-lantern. I shot the photo on the left on Saturday when we ventured out to La Plata to go to a pumpkin patch, and then I found some photo reference on the left on the almighty internets.

I'm not sure yet which medium I will be using for this project. So there's that.

Global Slavery.

For the submission to Truman's Lincoln contest depicting modern slavery, I chose the topic of modern child slavery. To convey this concept, I drew a pair of baby feet wrapped in chains. Here is the marker comp: 

And the final: 

There was no budget for this project (according to god) or I'm just blind and can't find it on the blog. But I had an initial concept that wasn't working but probably spent about three hours on the marker comp for that one. And by marker comp I mean it was actually Prismacolors because I only have 12 markers and about 1 of those 12 was one that I could actually use for this assignment. So regardless, I spent three hours with the initial marker comp, about one hour on this marker comp here, and from about 11 until 2 on Friday night (I'm super cool, I know) working on the final. So all in all it was about eight hours. I still have a little bit more to do with this one but I will upload the file I use for printing to my blog when it's all done and pretty (and doesn't cut off a chunk of the image, thanks lab scanners)

Pleasing the gods of the Liberal Arts

So this isn't Illustration ... but I haven't gotten around to scanning in my (now completed) project for the Lincoln assignment. So I'm blogging about this instead. 

So here we have the artwork for a mural proposal for Kirksville Skate Park for my Drawing III class. It's Kirksville themed and pretty hokey and apparently one of four in the running to actually be painted in real life at the skate park. So, sorry Kirksville. 

These little ones here are all gouache, with no pick out technique in sight. Here are the four together: 

And then each one individually:

So ... if you get a chance, apparently you will have the ability to vote for these on the Parks and Rec Facebook page at some point so if you want to see this hot mess on the Kirksville Skate Park (which apparently is a thing), feel free to throw your vote up there. 

Blog Murder.

So I haven't blogged in a week so sorry about that one ... does that mean my blog is dead?  but I suppose it's excusable with being gone for five days, right? Right. Okay good.

So in lieu of bringing a sketchbook and working on Illustration during my fall break, I went to Oklahoma to serve those who had been affected by the series of tornados that hit late May of this year and did not do any illustration at all. I brought my Nikon but did not take a single picture with it, as I really wanted to be immersed in service and did not want to hide behind the lens. Although I took some pictures on my phone, so here are a few of my Instagram pictures from the trip:

Naturally if you're on a road trip you need a picture of the road. Especially if it's an open road and you have nine more hours of driving ahead of you.

We spent a morning sifting through a pile of rubble and throwing away all of the glass, metal, toilets, trash, gutters, etc that had ended up in that pile from the tornado. Also in that pile of rubble was a large wooden stick (with nails sticking out of random places, let's hope everyone had their tetanus shots up to date) as well as a baseball. So we played some good old fashioned stickball in the dirt during lunchtime. 

We also got lost somewhere between Shawnee and Moore, but it proved to be a very scenic route through rural Oklahoma. 

I don't know what it is about water towers but this one was cool. Also, Moore is the home of Toby Keith so that's exciting if you're into that kind of thing. 

After one day of service, we drove through an area that was most physically affected by the storm. It was a very surreal experience, driving through what seemed like vacant lots. But as we looked closely, we realized there were sidewalks, driveways, and foundations of homes. There were areas that were completely sound after the storms and areas that were just flattened. But it was incredible driving through this neighborhood and seeing this message. 

But anyway, that was Oklahoma and this is Kirksville, and when I got home after driving all day on Sunday I worked on Illustration and came up with a few ideas for the modern day slavery assignment. After doing a bit of research on the different kinds of modern slavery, I decided I wanted to focus on child slavery in the modern world. I drew up a sketch, and am currently working on a comp of this piece. So here's the unfinished version of it so far.

FOUR LINE ART 

The work: this piece is from one of the ten a days for line art, specifically the "selfie" assignment. The picture that I used for reference for this one was taken outside of a restaurant when my father came to visit me one time freshman year. I think he took a picture to prove to my mother that I was still alive or whatnot. So there's that. 

Technique: I used a Micron pen for this one, and went in with the intent of making it more stylized. This photo was taken a few weeks before I cut of (almost) all of my hair a few years ago, and my hair was a bit of a wet, scraggly mess during this photo. I decided to use that to my advantage stylistically and not focus on drawing each little clump of hair but instead drawing the hair just all over the place. 

Time it took: This one was around 20 minutes, five minutes under budget. 

Success you believe you had: I believe I was successful in my stylistic intent. This was one of the ones that Rusty marked to re-draw twice as large. 

Things you would do next time to do better: The eyes and nose, in my opinion, look a little bit awkward. I think I could have taken a little bit more time to be more detailed, but then again, that could also ruin the free strokes of this drawing. 

The work: This was another one of the selfies. That's all. 

Technique: As noted above, I wanted to use more of a stylized approach in this one as well. I focused on the detail in the features and then just did some basic line work for the hair. I used two weights (I can't remember which they were off the top of my head) for this one. 

Time It Took: This was just a little bit over budget, about 31 minutes. 

Success You Believe You Had: I liked how this one turned out. I think I was successful in the execution of the features, especially in regard to detail. The heavy weight of the eyes and eyebrows contrast well with the fine lines of the hair. Additionally, the facial expression is captured well in this drawing. I also had success with the hair, because I was afraid that the little curl things at the bottom would turn out looking too ... childish maybe? stick figure drawing? I'm not quite sure what the right word for that would be but it doesn't matter because it didn't turn out that way. 

Things You Would Do Next Time to do Better: I think I would clean up the line near the nose that looks a little bit jagged, and maybe clean up the hair lines as well. But there's not much else that I would to do change this piece. 

The work: So ... I kind of sold out. Sorry Rusty. I was going to redo one of my line art things because I couldn't find one that I liked but in the sake of time/the fact that I'm going to Oklahoma in 58 minutes, I decided to run with this little deal. Also, sorry I'm not sorry that I picked three of the four to be selfies. So there's that

The technique: This one was done with micron pens, and I did it a little bit stylistically different from the other two self portraits. This was a mixture of crosshatching and whatever the hell the hair is. I focused on detail in the features as well in this piece. 

Success: I think overall this piece works well. I think I rendered the features and the overall form nicely but stylistically it's a bit different from what I usually do. 

Failures and or what I would do differently: The teeth are kind of a mess. And I have this fear of drawing teeth that has been instilled in me since a young age due to my mother's advisement against drawing teeth in a mouth because it always looks like there's too many. So I went with this. Which was a little rough. 

The work: The scaled up of a ten a day architecture. This one was the clocktower at the Anheuser-Busch brewery. (There seems to be a theme here. Also, I have a problem.)

technique: This was a line art with the technique of stipling. Which is an awful decision to make because it takes forever and ever and ever and ever. And is just all kinds of tedious. 

time it took: about fiveish hours. Which I think is an hour over the budget that we had? 

success you believe you had: Actually I think this worked well. I did well with the shadows and the overall integrity of the piece. (I actually have no idea what that's supposed to mean. Let's try again) Overall, this piece worked well, but there are aspects of it that could be improved. Which leads us to .... 

things you would do next time to do better: I'm not quite sure how that line on the right side got so ridiculously skewed. How does that happen? I don't know. But it can be fixed. So that would be one thing. 

WATERCOLOR

The work: This piece is one of the ten a days, from the first landscape assignment for watercolor. Actually, this may have been the first watercolor that I did. Don't quote me on that one though. The photographic reference for this photo was shot at my family farm in Pershing, Missouri. 

Technique: I knew for this piece that I layed down some pigment on both the top and bottom, and used a range of blue-grays and green. One of the things that I learned in doing the first set of ten a days was patience, that there's a lot of waiting for watercolor to dry. So I layed down that pigment and then worked on other things while it dried. After the first layer, I added in the middle portion which was just dark blueish gray hues and worked with some suggested mountainy hill things. After that, I added in the trees by loading my brush with green and yellow, and later threw some clouds up in there. I liked how loose this piece is. 

Time it took: This one was about twenty five minutes. As I mentioned above, I was working on multiple watercolors at a time, and would basically just do an assembly line of work. But I believe this piece averaged about twenty five to thirty minutes. Which was just around the budgeted time. 

Success you believe you had: I believe that I utilized the medium of watercolor well in this piece. I was able to "let go" and let the medium do its work after I had made the decisions as to what pigment I would put down and how I would add the pigment to the paper. After that, I put all "fussing" aside and just let it be. Because of that, there were some really nice things that started happening in this work. 

What I would do differently: I think I would work a little bit differently in the foreground. I'm not sure what, but something a little different. Also, the horizon isn't totally and completely straight, but I suppose it works. 

The work: So this is Kirk Memorial, which was a photo I had taken way back in the day in like the first week of freshman year when I thought it was really cool to walk around campus with my Nikon and take pictures of everything. I was probably even wearing purple at the time.  Not lame at all, right? #bulldogpride 

technique: Well this is watercolor, so there's that. I sketched this out very lightly with pencil as I believe it was one of the parameters to not use line art. I tried to use different approaches in how I handled the different aspects of this piece, as I used wet on wet for the marble-y (that's the technical term) parts of this building to give it a bit of a worn effect. The bricks were a hot mess. I started at the top and they looked real good but then after a bit of time I lost ambition in the bricks and realized I could have just done some suggested bricks instead of painting every. damn. brick. in the building and that frustration is translated in the bricks smack dab in the middle because a. they're about seven times larger than the bricks at the top and b. they're not even in a straight line. 

time it took: This took probably about six hours. I believe our budget was four for this one. I watched a lot of "Undercover Boss" while I was working on this one. If it weren't for the bricks, I would have been right on time, and would probably have saved myself a lot of frustration with this piece. 

success you believe you had: Even with the things that I'm not 100% thrilled about, I am happy with this piece. I think the application of watercolor works well in most areas. Overall, I think it's a good work, and I believe it would be effective as a promotional spot for Truman. 

things you would do next time to do better: Well, first and foremost, the bricks. I would do some suggested bricks, maybe save myself some time and a little and/or a lot of frustration. But, it's okay. Because I learned a valuable life lesson from that experience. Also in the realm of valuable life lessons, I learned that one should not use a stencil to make a perfect circle unless they are very light with their hand and don't dig ridiculously hard into the paper because then it creates a mess and then said person tries to overcompensate by painting some trees that do not at all in the slightest go with the piece and just look like a mess. I mean that might have happened just a little bit in this piece. But, hey, life lessons. 

The work: This is the large watercolor, done on 22 x 30 watercolor paper (which is by far the most awkward size of paper/foamcore/anything to carry). I'm just a big fan of Red October and was really feeling the StL pride and just really miss St. Louis and went with this (possibly overambitious) deal here. I mean the only way this piece could be more St. Louis is if everyone in the crowd was eating t-ravs and Ted Drewes and if Nelly was driving the hitch.

Technique: I printed off the photo in black and white (this was taken from a playoff game that I went to over fall break freshman year at Busch) and then did the whole Lucy deal and spent a good part of Friday night meticulously transferring the bridles and harnesses to the paper. I didn't quite realize how detailed this was until I was about halfway through tracing. But it's alright. Also I strayed away from using any kind of corporate sponsorship (minus the obvious Anheuser-Busch promotion because that's just the best) but I did away with the other advertisements in the background because I didn't want that to influence the piece. 

Time Spent: I'm going to estimate this took a solid nine hours. I spent about three hours Friday night on it, partially transferring the image and partially laying down the initial pigment. Then I spent a glorious six hours straight (I wish I was joking) on Sunday morning/afternoon because I out in the middle of nowhere in Novinger all Saturday/early Sunday morning. So that's that. 

Success You Believe You Had: I'm a big fan of this piece. I'm actually really surprised that it didn't turn out a total shitshow. I really liked how the horses turned out, as I used a wet on wet technique for those little buddies. I also liked the contrast between the sharp edges of the wagon and that technical form with the organic form of the horses in motion. Also, fun fact, the dog that's sitting on the wagon's name is King. Also no one really had a name on their jersey but I just really love Jon Jay so some rando got a Jon Jay jersey. 

What I would have done differently: (Also, I think the name of each of these subcategories changes slightly with each work. That's okay, right? I mean it is. It's happening) So anyway, there's a lot more that I want to do with this piece but I wanted to get it to the point where it could be turned in. But there is a lot more of detail that I want to add in and a few more layers that I want to work in, especially in the crowd area. Also, the baseballs (which are hard to see right now and might actually just be my OCD in this work) could have been handled differently. Also I knew that I didn't want to draw every single person in the crowd so I just did the front row in order to differentiate between the dirt and the seats but then I didn't really know what to do so I just went with a sea of red. Which is really just what Busch is in postseason October. 

The work: Another one of the ten a days from the "landscape" assignment. This was a photo taken of the lake at Thousand Hills. 

Technique: I laid down blocks of pigment in this piece for the water, the trees/hills/whatever the hell that is, and the sky. The photo was a little bit "dreary" and wasn't the best in regards to coloring, but I made it do. (What? That's not even a real phrase). I came back in and added the little pink clouds and reflection and the trees and mountainy things and whatnot. 

Time Spent: 25 minutes. Right on the money.

Successes you believe you had: I think I handled the reflection of the sky in the water well as well as the texture of the trees. I don't really have much else to say about that. 

Failures What you would improve upon (let's stay positive): The trees in the background get a little bit muddled and I could have handled that differently, and the grass in the front is kind of just hovering on that patch of green. 

GOUACHE

The work: One of the gouache assignments. This one was of my dear Great Aunt Shirley. 

Technique: I decided to stay monochrome in this one. I ran into problems in the gouache before this one when I tried to add color in, so I wanted to master just the picking out before I went with more color. 

Time Spent: About five hours. Which is an hour over budget. 

Successes you believe you had: I believe I was successful in this piece in regards to what I set out to accomplish. I handled the highlights of this piece well, and didn't "overwork" or "fuss" with it. The approach to the hair was a tough decision to make, but in the end I decided to use a Kleenex to get the effect and I liked how it turned out. I believe the features were  handled well additionally in this piece, especially the ear and the nose. And, this isn't really that important or anything but I just really liked how her wedding ring stood out in the shadow, and I wanted to incorporate that into this work.

What you would do differently: I got a little stuck on the background, and couldn't decide what to do with it so I just let it be. At one point, I had started working on it and then decided against it so it looks like someone violently attacked the right top hand corner of this one and then tried to cover up their tracks. Also I would want to approach the wrinkles a bit differently, although I'm pleased with how they turned out. 

3 COMPOSITION GOUACHE w/ ADDITIONS 

The work: Here was the three composition gouache. I chose a giraffe, a teapot, and a cupcake (repeated twice). Then I did some trippy-ass modeled gouache in the background. 

The technique: I chose the three images and then arranged them in Photoshop meticulously trying to get the perfect composition. Like, I actually spent probably an hour rearranging to get it perfect. So there's that. And then once I got all of that out of the way I traced it onto some watercolor paper. Actually let's rewind. I started with a totally different composition with three different objects. Then I ran into some problems with the pigment and scrapped it. And then I started over with this little composition here and made horrible choices in regards to what hues I used and maaayyyybeee two minutes in I literally threw it in the trash. Wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. So then I started over with this one, and went with some more muted hues. I started with the teapot and painted that a dark blueish gray, then the cupcakes, then the giraffe. I did this in bits and pieces and then once I finished all of the picking out and adding in and all of that good stuff I went with a super trippy background. 

Time spent: forever. 

Successes you believe you had: That teapot. Big fan. I think I handled this really well, and that the picking out on this one worked. The my new giraffe friend wasn't bad either. Overall, I think that this piece works well in regards to the assignment. 

What I would do differently: I really need to add in some definition in the giraffe. But sometimes there's just not enough time in the world. Also the cupcakes could use some work, I really struggled with these little guys. The icing on the cupcake was rough. 

All Kinds of Overdue.

So gouache. 

This week's assignment has been a little rough. Just a little bit. 

In regards to my three object gouache, I had initially started (#redundant) with three different objects. I had a cupcake, an elephant, and Theodore Roosevelt. (In searching for images of the latter, I discovered this gem http://fuckyeatheodoreroosevelt.tumblr.com/ and may have spent wayyyy too much time perusing the site. Does that figure into my nine hours? Probably not. Good.) So anyway, I was about half - maybe a fourth - of the way through and realized it wasn't working. Mainly because that demon spectrum red that I was struggling with. The elephant was pink, as were were forced advised to not use the same color as it had been in the photographic reference. And if even an ounce of spectrum red is in the mixture, the whole thing is just stained a horrid shade of pink. So the whole gouache pickout technique was not working. 

So what is one to do? Obviously scrap the piece. (Actually I still have it and may post a picture of it if I find the time and/or the motivation. It wasn't the worst thing in the world but I wasn't happy with it). Also, the composition was a little off. So naturally I spent the next hour or so with Photoshop painstakingly arranging three separate images in the hopes of creating a decent composition. I ended up with some cupcakes, a giraffe, and a teapot. I started with this idea that I wanted to use really bright colors and it would look crazy and cool and all it was was a hot mess. It was bad. It went straight in the trash about five minutes in. Maybe about fifteen. I don't know, all I know is that I actually threw it away. 

So third time's a charm, right? I redrew the composition and then only used a black and white photo for reference ... so I was not even tempted to use the original colors. I used muted hues because I of what happened with the bright colors, and knew that I could introduce those cRaZaY colors in later if necessary. (Also please ignore my reversion to the kind of internet language of about 2006, apparently blogging this early makes me type like I did in the 7th grade.) So I used a blueish gray deal for the teapot, which is what I did first, because I'm more of a "let's build my confidence and then I'll think I'm able to conquer the rest of this deal" rather than "let's do the hardest part but OH MY GOD this is a shitshow and it's never going to get better" girl when it comes to projects like this. So moral of the story, the teapot came first. 

Then came the cupcakes. Those were a little rough. I used the whole spectrum red dealio for these to my advantage, as I whipped up a brown hue for the icing parts which had a little spectrum red thrown in the mix, so that when I scrubbed (and did not cause pilling of the paper this time around, thank you very much) it lifted up to a nice light pinkish. Which was great. The wrappers of the cupcake aren't my favorite thing in the world but hey, they're alright. 

Thennnnn the giraffe happened. I was a little afraid of it. But it wasn't that bad. It was actually almost kind of fun. There were a lot of highlights which was nice because it makes the pick out technique a lot easier and kind of fulfills the purpose of the picking out. And everything's in proportion, so that's good. I did run into a few of those pencil lines whilst picking out the neck which were a bit of a nuisance because I just wanted to be a free spirit with those spots but fate wouldn't have it so I was bound by the constraints of my original sketch. But alas, it turned out alright. Apparently the giraffe needs "definition" and a little "contrast" (note the quotes ... that means I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen but maybe I will forego all of my other classes/responsibilities/semblance of a healthy social life in order to make that happen by portfolio. We shall see about that.) And finally I threw in a few little baby white highlights and a smorgasbord of hues for the background. It's a little trippy. Actually it's a lot of trippy. But it's alright. I'm okay with it. 

(once again we have the award winning iPhone photography working in our favor ... I'll scan it someday and by someday I mean by next Wednesday for the portfolio)