This is the one thing I can't not do.

United We

2011-08-19T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is the piece that made it into Best of Ringling this year. It started in Bronze casting, but it took so long I had to finish it my last semester at Ringling. :) I gave the larger half of the piece to my mother and father as a thank you gift for all their help over the years, the single bird remains with me, as a reminder of what I am supposed to do.

Best of Ringling 2011

Materials Award

Honorable mention from the Fine Arts Faculty

All for now! Love and coffee,

Anne

A little doodle :)

2011-08-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Joe's been doing more painting lately and the cintiq was set up yesterday so I pulled out an old piece and finished it up. I am hesitant to put it up here, but I like it... and with the packing and finding a house... I've been really busy, :) so I'm happy to be making a post.

Update to the Demo Project, also Hedgehog zBrush

2011-07-05T22:07:00.000-07:00

Still trying to post the last of my stuff from school, here's an update to the Demographic project, the piece is nearly complete now, though I am not sure I have the resources I need to finish it yet. Sometime soon I hope,

Also, here is a model from zBrush, it's a squeaky-toy hedgehog, complete with girly and boyish options:

All for now, Love and Coffee!

Anne

Gathering

2011-06-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, our last project for conceptual practices was a campus-wide group installation. We made white dangerous animals and placed them all over the school. I ended up with snakes so I did some sand graffitisnakes on the path and one soft sculpture snake in the tree, all of the snakes on the ground are traveling in the direction of the snake in the tree. My hope was that people might follow the snakes along to the central snake but I was installing in the morning before my 8:30 class and I had to waitfor the groundskeepers to come through so I didn't get as many snakes on the ground as I would have liked.

Love and coffee,

Anne

Sci-Fi Final for Advanced Media

2011-06-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Sci-Fi piece had to be acrylic and framed, but there was little else in the way of requirements so I decided to present the live stars of PostapoCatlyptic. Wrench is returning home to her rooftop and discovers a cat. I have a basic story, I need to do a page-layout and script but I am excited to work on this project, it's gonna be good.

Love and coffee,
Anne

Senior Illustration Show

2011-06-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos from the Senior Illustration Show. I tried to present both sides of my illustration faithfully. The cheerful and frivolous on the left and the more serious SCOTUS portraits on the right.

All for now, Love and Coffee!

~Anne

SCOTUS Thesis 2/2

2011-05-26T19:15:00.001-07:00

The second half of my completed thesis. The missing sketches were previously posted. Enjoy!

Antonin Scalia

Clarence Thomas

Harlan F Stone

John G Roberts

Joseph Story

Anthony M Kennedy

Elena Kagan

All for now! Love and Coffee,

~Anne

SCOTUS Thesis 1/2

2011-05-24T00:20:00.000-07:00

Some of my thesis was posted as I went, but here's about half of what was left (none of the finished images have been posted until now). So here are the first eight Justices:

William O. Douglas

William Howard Taft

Thurgood Marshall

Stephen G. Breyer

Sonia Sotomayor

Sandra Day O'Connor

Samuel A. Alito

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

That's all for today. Love, and Coffee,
~Anne

Just another quick Fine Art post

2011-04-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's thesis time so I imagine you all understand the lack of posts. I am trying very hard to get my thesis done on time. That said I have an exciting bit of news, I won an award for a piece I entered into The Best of Ringling. I received the library materials award and the fine arts department actually gave me an honorable mention as well. :) Unfortunately I cannot post the piece that made it into the show until after graduation... and I cannot tell you why I can't post it either. SO! In lieu of posting that piece, here is my piece for our "Realism" assignment.

Love and Coffee,

~Anne

The Return

2011-04-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

The requirements for this piece were that I use straight lines and string. Within those limitations I wanted to create something that would be so playful it would draw the whole class in. I also wanted to bring everyone back to their childhood. To that end, the set up is meant to be reminiscent of a kid's science museum with the grid and the shiny numbers and letters.

I called the class over to it, and they looked at the bag hanging on it's string from the ceiling and then I unplugged the end and pushed it toward the rest of the class. Some people reacted initially, pushing the bag, trying to make it draw on the floor, others didn't warm up to it until the colors started to shift.
By the end, the whole class was involved so some degree or other and I consider the piece a success.

Love and coffee,

~Anne

Cute Show Entry

2011-04-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

In general, cute things do not make it into the serious shows here at Ringling. Because of that my friend Mandy arranged for a "Cute Show" to occur. I almost forgot about it but at the last second I realized I was about to miss the deadline. So, here is the piece I created for that show:

But I Bought You Flowers!

All for now, Love and coffee,

~Anne

Kagan and Thomas

2011-04-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

Two more judges for you, drawings for Thomas and Kagan respectively:

Love and Coffee,

Anne

Florals

2011-04-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

Florals created for card portfolios (start to finish in a day):

Love and Coffee,

~Anne

The last Sketches of the judges and a drawing

2011-04-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Scalia's drawing is done:

And the last five sketches of the judges (from left to right: Sotomayor, Breyer, Douglas, Marshall, and Taft):

All for now! Love and coffee,

Anne

ZBrush :)

2011-03-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Here is my maquette from ZBrush and the sketch that preceded it:

Love and coffee,

Anne

Bruins v. Penguins

2011-03-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

Final pencils, Watercolor final and gouache final:

Love and coffee,

Anne

Media

2011-03-18T08:36:00.000-07:00

The final for the "Man Pet Machine" ink project:

{Sigh} Love and coffee,

~Anne

Sketchbook pages,

2011-03-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

Sketches and such!

All For Now!!! Love and Coffee!!

~Anne

A Fine Art Post

2011-02-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

Our First Assignment for Media was to create three small works that would relate to the following terms: Beauty, Irony and Art.

Beauty:

Reminiscences: The Unconventional Happy Meal

Irony:

The Quality that the Time Posesses

Art:

Instigation

Our second assignment is one I have already posted about, the sketch went up a week or so ago, anyway here is my appropriations piece:

Confrontational

Also, some time ago I completed the waxes for the two cherub-like figures in my bronze, here is one of the photos:

On the subject of casting, "United We" has finally been cast and while I don't have photos of it yet (it's beautiful, believe me!) I do have some photos of the pour:

All for now!!! Love and coffee,

~Anne

recent stuff

2011-02-17T19:34:00.000-08:00

I did a couple things specifically for the card companies:

Also, we have my first zBrush model:

All for now! Love and Coffee!

~Anne

Stuff for cards, media and Senior Portrait

2011-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I did some watercolor cats for Cat Depot, since it's just about time to apply with card companies I decided to do some dogs to go with them:

Then we have a thumbnail for the next media assignment, Transportation (if you cannot tell that's a Bruin and a Penguin):

The incomplete version of my self-portrait that will go on the Senior show poster:

All for now, Love and coffee!

~Anne

Moar.

2011-02-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

Media began with a 48-hour assignment, a self-portrait of oneself screaming, in ink. I did mine, and it was going well, if I had managed to stop at a certain point it would have been a pretty good self-portrait. As it stands I wish I had never added shadow to the face. Also the sketch for the second Media assignment, "Man, Pet and Machine":

Next up, I finally scanned an older piece for Postapocatlyptic, I post it because it shows sort of what I want to do with the backgrounds:

Here is an initial idea and the layout and drawing that I am going with for my Senior Portrait:

Three more SCOTUS Thumbnails (Ginsburg, Alito and O'Connor respectively):

And finally we have the Sketch for my appropriations piece for Conceptual Practices:

All for now, Love and Coffee,

Anne

End of last/Beginning of this semester

2011-01-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

First, Postapocatlyptic. It grows complicated, but the cat has a form. Standing in the second image, with meat in hands:

Goblins:

Our first assignment for media was a self-portrait shouting, in ink. The second in also ink and is a man a pet and a machine. Here are my eight ideas:

All for now! Love and coffee,

Anne

Sculpture

2010-11-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Sketch for "Remnants":

And the completed waxes for "United We":

All for now! Love and coffee,
Anne

Ill work

2010-11-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

First up we have the postapoCat and his girl, the cat on the far left is sort of fabley with that crown though...

Next up we have some more goblins and the Pumplin I made for Halloween:

And finally some more SCOTUS thumbnails:

All for now! Love and coffee,

~Anne

A few things

2010-11-08T11:04:00.000-08:00

First off scanned some revised sketches of Agorot, King of the Goblins and a larger drawing of the Teacher character.

Next, the first of 4 images for a friend from the census:

And the first couple of drawings for a new thing, PostapoCatlyptic. More on that later.

And that is all for now! Love and coffee,
~Anne

A bunch of stuff

2010-10-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I volunteered to help Cat Depot (the local no kill shelter for cats) with an event they are having. I showed up for training and further volunteered to help with the signs for a couple of the events. I was then asked to make a couple more signs. Here are the illustrations for the signs:

Also awhile back I took over a commission for Joe to paint a couple of fellows from a photo. The photo wasn't great but I think I managed to make it pretty nice:

Also, More Goblins! This is the first page in a new sketchbook. The note I made next to this when I drew it is actually kind of cute. It says, "The ancient goblin tradition of 'bathing the bridegroom' goes back to a time when many marriages went unconsummated due to the brides' inability to stand their husbands' odor." And there is Agorot in the background falling toward the bath.

Next up we have the drawing for SCOTUS Judge Anthony M. Kennedy:

Finally, last week I was asked by Lauen to help with a half-completed project for a co-worker. She needed it by Saturday and I am pleased to say I met that deadline. The drawings for pages 1-6 were drawn so I made some adjustments in places but tried to stay true to what the previous artist had done. I tried to maintain the style for the rest of the images.

All for now!!! Love and Coffee

~Anne

So far so good but slow in bronze casting

2010-10-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

The waxes are going well for the Demographic project:

Love and Coffee,

Anne

Supreme court and goblins

2010-10-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

First we have the goblins. This update has the variously colored goblins and also character designs for the two main characters. The first two images were the first I did and after these two I decided that the goblins clothing is all tied, folded or tucked in, no clasps or anything of that nature.

You really want to click these last two images to have a good look at these guys. ;)

Then we have two more Supreme court thumbs, Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan:

Love and Coffee,

~Anka the Art Cat

Final and thumbs

2010-10-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Finally scanned the Alter Ego piece, so here is that final:

Also, here are two thumbnails for my Supreme Court Justices, Kennedy and Scalia:

Love and Coffee,

Anne

The more professional version of my blog,

2010-10-04T05:13:00.000-07:00

based on some very helpful comments by Charles at the Ringling CCS I have created a new blog:

Anne's one thing,
It has all the same things really but free of frivolity and commentary, and organized in a way that will allow every viewer to make sense of what is going on. I don't care which blog you all decide to follow. They're the same really.

Love and coffee,

Anne

another Goblin doodle and we had a guest!

2010-09-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

We had a guest in portfolio class today, a fellow by the name of Chris Ryniak. His gallery work inspired some doodling:

I need to do some cartoon drawing too, he works for American Greetings and I know they recruit here in the spring. Otherwise, here is another goblin:

Love and Coffee,

~Anne

better with lines

2010-09-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Love and Coffee,

~Anne

Sketch book and Gobos

2010-09-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I take on a project that makes me feel terrible about myself. I think that I will be able to find the time for the project and then I cannot. This is one of those projects. I still want to do it but when I finally went back to work on it I no longer liked the design. So I started over a bit:

Also a drawing from my sketchbook:

Love and coffee,
Anne

What do I want to cast in bronze? Also, welding.

2010-09-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Deciding what to do for bronze casting was driving me crazy over the summer, whatever I did was going to stick around for awhile so I had to do a real piece with some serious concept behind it. And that was terrifying. So I thought about it and I worried about it and I went to the class still without any idea what I was going to do and then I let it go. Once I let it go I was actually able to think about the sorts of ideas that need to be explored and then it slowly came to me:

I know that some people are going to roll their eyes and declare that this is just one of those "shock-value" works and that's their right. I know the image is simple but I hope some people will stop and think about what it means. It already has a title: "The 13 to 31 Demographic: Portrait of MJ". The piece will be in the round and wall-mounted.

We were supposed to come in with three pieces to do over the course of the semester, I have a feeling this piece is going to take most of my time. That said I still need to finish "I-Ra-Ra-Ran" and I want to do some larger welding after that. I am thinking of making a fourth piece in the I-Ran set. This one would be taller and a little more organic, almost tree-like:

If the set of three is meant to bring to mind a field of oil derricks, this one should bring to mind something similar but something that is twisting and growing. It should be a lot of fun to work on.

All for now! Love and coffee,

~Anne

Preservations from my sketchbook

2010-09-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

Sketchbooks decay. There is no real way to prevent this and as they decay they take all the things within them and rub away their vitality, leaving them in a half-way state where their quality is apparent, but also lost. This is not, in itself, a bad thing, but here are a couple images I wanted to preserve:

All for now! Love and coffee,
Anne

Almost finished...

2010-09-07T07:16:00.000-07:00

As it turns out the image had to be vertical so here is the revised thumbnail:
and the almost final:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

color study for my alter Ego

2010-08-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

The protester, the bringer of change, what is she protesting? Who knows? Does it matter? That sounds good right? Anyway, here's the further sketch:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Way to jump the gun Dunnick :)

2010-08-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Just got an e-mail from my new illustration teacher stating that the pencils for our first assignment are due tomorrow. So my plans of working on the drawings I posted the other day have been delayed. The assignment is "Alter Ego" and here is my thumbnail:

More later. Love and coffee,
~Anka the Art Cat

Panic Subsiding

2010-08-22T02:07:00.000-07:00

We move on Saturday. Class starts Monday. Things due to the apartment complex on Wednesday.

Monday I have bronze casting. I may have some sketches to do before the next class, but that's probably about it... So, I am less terrified about getting things done. Also helping that is the fact that I have completed the drawings for a ton of the little projects I have to do. Lydia's last drawing is done:
Lydia's commission is at the top of my list of things to get done, but Joe also passed a commission on to me and I have that drawing done:
Finally for today we have two projects from last summer that I set aside and had basically forgotten about... :\ I have more of these sorts of projects saved that I talked to people about made sketches for and saved somewhere. If you asked me for something, I probably haven't forgotten about it. Morgan, you're in there, Ivy, Matt, you guys too. I promise.
It's not like a couple sketches is the same as finishing a bunch of projects, but it made me feel better. From here Lydia's stuff will get painted first and Matt, I'll get back to it, things have been crazy and I am so sorry...

Love and coffee
~Anne

3 children, drawings

2010-08-18T08:52:00.001-07:00

Three of the four drawings for my friend Lydia, from the census (the last one will be a group shot):

Love and coffee,
Anne

another port for a friend

2010-07-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy with the way this one came out, got a few things figured out:

Love and coffee,

~Anne

BJ Final

2010-07-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

The final piece for the commission of the grandsons:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Business Card

2010-07-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Completed one commission in the wee hours this morning and realized I need to print some more business cards. Then I realized I had never posted my card here, and after some thought I decided to take my phone # off the internet version of the card, just wanted everyone to see the design:
The drawing is borrowed from a computer Ill project. I'm happy with it.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

UPDATES!!!

2010-07-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

This piece is fighting with me every inch of the way. I'm to the painting part and at times I think it's just a little too big for this technique, but I know I can do it. The drawing was tough too, but I got it:

And then there's the piece for our friend Chris. His daughter is so cute that she's actually making it harder, it's gonna be a real challenge to do her proper justice. For example, I initially drew her and thought the drawing was done. When I got to school to scan it I realized how off it was and ended up erasing nearly the whole drawing, but to good end. Here's the final drawing for that piece:

Last for this post is the thumbnail for the piece with Lydia's kids. We met at the beach early in the morning and I got some good shots to work from. My favorite ones didn't show the kids' faces so I decided to do additional portraits so she has each of the kids and also the group shot. This is entirely selfish, of course. It allows me to do the painting I want, who would say no to bonus art? :)

And that is all for now!
Love and coffee,
~Anne

Commission work

2010-07-13T00:33:00.000-07:00

Having received new photos for my commission for the portrait of the two boys I made up two new thumbnails:
I, of course, preferred the less formal, less posed image on the left, the photos I would be referencing were very nice, the older boy looked like a cherub in his photo. I left it to the commissioner to decide and he seems to be a fan of formality, so formal it shall be. :)

Did I mention I am trying to finish this piece by the end of the week? I also have a second commission to finish by the end of the week, for our friend Chris. It's a portrait of his daughter, for his wife for their anniversary, which was passed before he sent me the reference. She is seriously adorable (even if you can't tell from my thumbnails):
I was concerned that he wanted her whole body in the image and I was having trouble making it work so I drew the above thumbnails and asked him. He said he prefers the bust and that made me happy. ^_^

The drawing for the two boys is done, the background is a little crazy, but I am confident I can make it work. After these two I have another commission for another co-worker at the census, also of children, and then I have some older work to catch up on. Lots to do before school picks up.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

New project

2010-07-07T17:18:00.001-07:00

Having brought the portrait of Robert to work to deliver, I was offered a small commission by another of my census workers, it'll be a painting of his grandkids, for their mother's wedding anniversary. He would like me to incorporate a bunch of things that the two boys like. He brought me a bunch of photos of the boys and I came up with two thumbnails:

I am really hoping he'll go for the first one, it'll be a lot more fun to work on and I really think it'll just be a nicer piece...

Love and coffee,
~Anne

A portrait

2010-07-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

I have been working at the census and not finding any time at all to do artistic or creative things. This has sucked. Alot. So, I asked one of my co-workers, a fellow by the name of Robert:
If I could perhaps paint his portrait. He agreed and I brought my camera to shoot the above photo. My hope was that having someone I see everyday waiting for artwork would prompt me to make good use of what little time I did have between shifts. It helped. I soon showed him the drawing:
And then a painting:

I think it's good, I'm pretty happy with it.

Love and coffee,
Anne

Summer Began! A personal post.

2010-07-05T13:50:00.001-07:00

So far summer has been pretty alright. My camera, which I thought was broken, just had something lodged in the lens cover, which was remarkably easy to fix once I caught on.
I planted a garden early in the summer, while I was still looking for a job. Liv and J came and helped, it was a lot of fun. Then I got hired by the census and since then I have had so little time to do anything at all that I've been going a little crazy. I'm good at data entry, great even, but it's boring. For awhile I kept hoping I'd get fired for lack of work but things have picked up again. I still have high hopes that I'll be without work for most of August so I can get some work done, especially on Matt's goblin story.

Love and coffee,
Anne

The end of the school year 4/4: Installation part 3

2010-07-05T13:33:00.001-07:00

One of the most awesome projects we had this semester in installation was the outdoor project. We went to a horse pasture owned by a friend of Wendy and had about two hours to decide what we were doing and where and then to execute the piece. I was thinking about my grandfather who lives in California and after a little while this piece just sort of happened. I gathered all the fallen branches from around the tree and wrapped them carefully, stacking them and interlocking them. I think it became a very pretty piece by the end.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

The end of the school year 3/4: Installation part 2

2010-07-05T13:14:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at setting up this piece was a disaster, it was a windy morning and by the time I got the class there to look at it it was just a bunch of cigarette butts scattered in the courtyard. This time I soaked them in a bucket of water all night so they would not blow away but even still the piece had to be smaller than I had intended because halfway through the bucket the butts I had put down first were drying out and starting to blow away. Even still I'm happy with the piece. It was actually rather pretty while it was set up. Maybe next time I shall soak them in oil...

Love and coffee,
~Anne

The end of the school year 2/4: Installation part 1

2010-07-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

Installation was a really fun class and I think it didn't get as much of my attention as it deserved sometimes. This project is an example of that. We had to come up with a participatory art project. I wanted to send postcards and I had an idea that had to do with hallmark and sending kind words that have nothing to do with you or your loved one because you didn't write them. It was a good beginning but I started in on the project without ever figuring out all of what I wanted to say with it.

Love and coffee,

Anne

The end of the School Year 1/4: Figure

2010-07-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

Not much to show from figure painting this last semester. I really feel like I didn't learn anything the whole time, I don't have a better sense of painting with oils, I don't have a better grasp of what colors to use and how to apply them, in general I feel like the only thing I got out of the class was a feeling of frustration and despair toward oil painting. That said, here are two of the few paintings I was actually happy with from the semester. There's another one I would like to post but the file is lost.

Love and coffee,

~Anne

DJ Rekha and Goblins

2010-04-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

I had to do a band gig poster for Thiel's class. I asked Joe to do the graphic design and her did an excellent job but Thiel (naturally) hated it.
So I redid the graphic design more the way Thiel wanted it. It still says Indian but I'm not sure it says Hip Hop anymore.
Also, Morgan pout me in contact with a fellow named Matt who has written a very sweet children's book. I won't be posting everything about that but I thought it would probably be okay to post the first set of sketches.

All for now! Love and coffee!
~Anne

Cockroach character designs

2010-04-03T07:30:00.001-07:00

Here are the final designs for the character design/sequential project that was due Wednesday.
I bit off a little more than I could chew and was not done on time but I was in very good company. I think there was 1 person in the class who was actually done. Anyway. I'm going to wait to post the whole sequence until it's really done, but for now, enjoy the first image!

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Illustration

2010-03-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

We're doing character designs and sequential pieces in Ill II. I came in with a design for a goblin character which Thiel said was "Shrek 2" because the character was green. Keep in mind, it was not even close to the same color of green and that was the only similarity between my character and Shrek... So, I came in with a new character design:

Grembo, the Hormone Problem Fairy

Thiel Hated it. I had also worked up a different character design, which I plan to work while I complete my official piece:

Meet Professor James Sian, Who thinks Everything is garbage. Also, Mr. Goblin!

I wanted to work over the break so I made a point of catching Thiel on Friday to show him my new idea, The Quest for the Vision Cave:

He approved but I ended up spending nearly the whole break working on my piece for Cosmix. Which came out okay. Anyway, here's the progression of the character designs:

Love and Coffee,

~Anne

Two Installations

2010-03-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

"Free Campus"
One of the first pieces of the semester was a public intervention. I went all around campus collecting cigarette butts in a plastic bucket. The morning of the critique I showed up very early and laid the butts out in a pattern on the ground but it was windy and they immediately started blowing away and rolling. I had to clump them together to protect them from the wind, which made the pattern simpler, clunkier. Even with this precaution, by the time we got there for critique this was all that remained:
So I will soon be re-doing that piece and I am thinking I will soak the butts so they are wet and drippy when I lay them down, that way they will have trouble blowing away.

"Unreported"
We also have a project that involves a closet. Each week one of us has the key to the closet and we get to make a project in that space, we can do whatever we like, and initially I had intended to get a pole and hand men's suits and put some shoes in there so it would be... a closet :) I thought it was funny but I decided to do something a little more serious. What I came up with:Got ruined a little bit by the fact that I could not find enough chalk to complete it the way I wanted. All the interior walls are painted with chalkboard paint and I crushed chalk to a powder and mixed in some sport chalk (also powder) to cover the floor with. There still wasn't enough chalk so I supplemented with baby powder, which turned out to be a huge mistake because the smell was so strong. Anyway I locked myself in the closet and threw myself against the walls and fell into the powder and all in all it was okay but if I could do the project again I know I could make it far more successful.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

drawings

2010-02-27T22:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a drawing for a piece for Installation, we are doing videos to project on the dome at the local planetarium:

Next up we have the drawing for the next Illustration II assignment which is for an article from The Onion, about how sad it is that dinosaurs went extinct before we invented things to blow them up with.
Love and coffee,
Anne

Movie Poster for Figure

2010-02-27T22:16:00.000-08:00

Figure Painting: Pratt gave us the same movie-poster assignment as Thiel and I chose to do the other film from the list that I hadn't seen which was available on Netflix's website. Here are the three faces:

Props to anyone who can tell who these guys are.

And the rather odd piece that resulted:

Love and coffee,
Anne

BAHD!

2010-02-23T07:30:00.001-08:00

Third Piece for Ill II

2010-02-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

The final painting for "While the Women are Sleeping" and the final version after editing with photoshop:
I'm pretty happy with this piece, I think the shadows look like shadows the silhouette is good and I love the cloud, so. Love and coffee,

~Anne

Continuing!

2010-02-06T21:04:00.000-08:00

Over the break Thiel asked me to do some drawings in the style of the piece I did about Ben Bernenke and Allen Greenspan, one of them was a baby tiger. I completed the piece using open acrylics and I am not sure it worked. I am continuing to paint it and hopefully it will at least be a nice painting someday.
Next up we have the second assignment for Ill II. I had been working on the tiger test all weekend and on Monday Thiel decided that the final for our second piece was due Wednesday. That's two days. I had a thumbnail and reference. So for a two-day piece it's not so bad. For a final piece by a Junior Illustrator, it's terrible. This is for a story by David Sedaris titled "Loggerheads".
Finally we have the drawing for the third Ill II assignment. The Story is "While the Women Are Sleeping" by Javier Marias. I have started the drawing. The thumbnail is not yet approved. I hope to have the final done by class on Monday.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

The last of last and the first of this

2010-02-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

The second of three finals for Kid's book from last semester:
The final for our first assignment in Ill II:
We were meant to do a movie poster for one of the now canceled illustration film festival. I watched two of the films that I hadn't seen before, one of which was the Shawshank Redemption. Above is my final. Below is Thiel's version.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

The Last of Last semester...Almost 2

2010-02-02T22:01:00.000-08:00

Multiple Project--"Passage"
Found Object--"Mama?"

There's a lot to some of these pieces and I hope you all can enjoy them and I hope no one is offended. More photos at my other blog: http://ankatheartcat.livejournal.com/43416.html Love and coffee,

~Anne

The Last of Last semester...Almost

2010-02-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

This is what I did in sculpture, I'd have posted them earlier but I lost the files and had to borrow the disk from my professor that I handed in last semester.

Paper project--"Things Loved, Misremembered"

Subtractive--"I Didn't Mean It..."

Wood Project--"There Are Mountains Where I'm From"

Metal Project--"I-RA-RA-RA-n!"

More from last semester

2010-01-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

You remember the project for Ill II for Thiel where we had to do a book cover and he canceled me at the last minute? And he wanted me to do something different with it, something like the Fed Chair piece? Yeah, well I tried, and had little luck with it:
Fortunately I think that I can give him what he wants this semester and make some stuff that's good. Anyway, we also had a children's book illustration image we had to do and again he hated what I was doing so I did a version that I thought he would like but Thiel thinks photoshop filters are better artists than I am so here's the version I did for him and what he did with the other version of it:
Finally for today we have another piece for Children's book. Eli is supposed to do the cover for our book so I did a book cover for a Neil Gaiman story about a princess with pearls for eyes:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Last semester

2010-01-14T18:13:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the beginning of the stuff that should have been posted at the end of last semester.

Today We have the final assignment from computer Ill:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

One of the finals for Computer Ill

2009-12-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

Here is one of the finals from Children's book. Due to some computer problems I do not have all of the work for this class. My laptop was useless for a little while so I had to put files on my external hardrive. Anyway, here's the main image for pages 2-3

Love and coffee,
Anne

Sample pages of Kid's book

2009-12-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

I managed to complete the work for Children's book more-or-less on time. I don't want to post all of the dummy book pages here but I thought I would pick a few to show:

"I Love You Sandwich" Written by Justin Tibault, Illustrated by Anne Terres

Love and coffee,
Anne

Computer Ill from awhile back.

2009-12-15T12:16:00.000-08:00

We had an open project that was meant to involve an imaginary film based around the three little pigs. My group decided to do a surreal film inspired by "Babe: Pig in the City" which is a cracked film. If you ever want to watch something that is totally weird I recommend it highly. I wrote the whole synopsis so our group would all be on the same page but no one read it. {shrug} I ended up doing storyboards and drew directly into photoshop, which is not something I usually do. It was hard.
In the end I ran out of time and the class felt that the sequence of events didn't read well without description. I think that's fine as these are meant to be storyboards and the camera crew would have a shot list and a script to go from as well. If he wanted comic pages he should have said so. Otherwise the project went fine. Casey did some nice character designs and Meg did some cool locations. Overall we did a pretty nice job. Go team! ;)

Love and coffee,

~Anne

Finally. Fashion done!

2009-11-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

As the title implies, here is the complete and acceptable fashion Illustration for Thiel's class:

I like any number of my other fashion illustrations better and Thiel said he was flipping through a fashion magazine at the gym and was surprised at how much nudity there was. I think this makes my second attempt acceptable but Pfft. I'm just waiting for him to realize the 80's are coming back so he can see that the second (better) drawing like this one should have been fine too.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Portraits.

2009-11-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

We had to do 30 12x12 portraits in 30 days for painting. In order to complete the task I limited myself to one hour per portrait and mixed mass quantities of fleshy colors at a time. The results are not great but I had all 30 done and only my five favorites are being posted here so you don't have to suffer through the worst of them:

If you'd like to see all but the bad ones, check out my LJ: http://ankatheartcat.livejournal.com/41653.html

Yeah, so, that's it.
Love and Coffee,
~Anne

The fine results of a productive night :)

2009-11-23T00:41:00.000-08:00

Let's start with Kid's book... No wait, let me back up a touch. So, working at Joe's house has been hard. We have this big studio space in the back room but it was just not a good workspace. I don't know why but any time I came back here I lost the desire to work. So this weekend I came back here to work while Joe was playing games and I got that "Ugh, I don't want to do this" feeling and decided the room must be tended to. So I poked my head out the door to the living room and asked Joe if I might make the room a proper studio space. He said I could go to town on it. So I moved almost everything. I cleaned and cleared and removed. There was a big corner sofa set in a corner with a TV stand in it, there were about a million chairs... generally there was too much stuff and it wasn't in places that made any sense. So, the whiteboard went up on the wall, the sofa went in the corner, the art supplies went in the cabinet. Everything got swept and dusted and now the space feels like a work environment. It feels comfortable and intentional. I'm proud of my work. All of that said, I started working this afternoon and have only stopped for occassional breaks. I sat down with a paper and a pencil and wrote out an extensive to-do list. I have accomplished a respectable portion of that list in the past hours. Now, let's start with Kid's book:

Most of the people in my children's book class chose stories that involve one character or a few characters, but I am working with Justin. This means two things as near as I can tell. First, it will be awesome when it's done, if it gets done. Second, it cannot be easy. I have to design at least one new character for every page of the book except maybe the last page, depending on the final format of the book. So it's been slow going. The class before last we had a review and I showed the following page of character designs:
It contains the out-of-date version of Sandwich and Kibble (lower left) and the six prototype people that I made to figure the style out (lower right). Between that class and this evening I figured out that all the info I need is in my sketchbook so if I had my sketchbook I could work on designs. The third, fourth and fifth characters on this next page were designed at odd intervals when I had my sketchbook with me:
The rest were designed tonight. I'm sure that doesn't sound like much to my non-art people, but I had to look at each of the page descriptions consider what the characters needed to communicate and who they needed to interact with... Okay, so maybe it isn't all that much work, but it took a long time and it's hard to make this many characters look unique in black and white. The bottom characters are Vanilla Latte (the mother in the story), Kibble (the dog) and Sandwich. They had to be re-designed. In addition to these character designs I have prepared the thumbnails for all but the last 4 pages. This was also a lot of work. I am happy I will have something serious to show in class tomorrow.

So, aside from Kid's book I found all of the reference for my next computer Ill project and primed the god-bird for the next Sculpture assignment.

And then there's Ill II... In which my past two assignments have BOMBED. So, I have to work on re-doing everything from the past several weeks. I finally re-drew the fashion drawing that Thiel liked:
I'll be tossing some digital color behind the drawing and crossing my fingers, I still like the second on like this better.

So then there's the next assignment, which is a double-page spread for a children's book. I decided to do the fable of the farmer and the rattlesnake. I want to do the final scene, wherein the snake has bitten the old man and he is dying and the snake leaves. I did thumbnails and then the thumbnail that I am planning to go with:
Wish me luck! It would be really nice if Thiel actually liked something I do again. I also composed the reference photos for the revision of the book cover. {yawn}.

Love and coffee!
~Anne

Ill II does not go well

2009-11-19T06:51:00.000-08:00

So, if you saw my previous post about the fashion illustration for Ill II you know that it was kind of a rough week. Well... that is sort of how this latest assignment has gone too. We had to do a cover for a book. I decided to do a full jacket for "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs. I did thumbnails, I worked it out, all was well... then I came in on Monday with this half-complete image and Thiel hated it. Just hated it. He said to start over, he wants me to do it the way I did the Greenspan/Bernanke piece. Okay but it's due Wednesday. AGAIN. So I went and checked out a camera and a tripod but I couldn't get the tripod until the next day and I couldn't get anyone who I could shoot reference of in the daylight... Ugh. Needless to say I did not complete the assignment by Wednesday. But here's the incomplete of what the cover was going to look like with some text thrown in:
And the drawing a little clearer, I don't know why he hates it, he said it didn't look like anything else I had ever done... I'll have to figure it out.

Working hard. Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure work 2/2

2009-11-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

More figure: (this first one is my favorite so far!)

All for now! Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure work 1/2

2009-11-18T21:08:00.001-08:00

Figure work from my figure painting class, some of it's older, I'm trying to post it in order as best I remember. These first two were from a class in which I developed a much better sense of how to go about things:

Fawshun.

2009-11-08T16:51:00.001-08:00

Oh god the fashion illustration assignment. Thiel gave us this one and I just couldn't seem to get it going. I did some sketches and settled on this one idea that I have played with in my head a great deal. There is something unsettling about amputation, there is also something poetic and beautiful about it and I thought about it and the fashion industry breaks (primarily) women up into component parts as needed. So I fell into this idea, I wanted to have the woman on the floor, limbless with that same fashion stare, dead eyes, she had to look cold, but at the same time she needed to be sexualized. I had to include the hands and feet as disembodied seperate fashion images partly because it helped the point and partly because I didn't want to be accused of hand/foot avoidance:
So Iworked this idea, I took a long time compiling photos and I made this photo-collage sketch for Thiel and he hated it. He finally just said, "No, absolutely not, you can't do this." I spent that class working on it anyhow because I had no other ideas. I ended up with something I could work with and turn into something nice, but that's as far as it got. All told I miss the above-view of the initial sketch and I think I need to get someone to model for a couple of photos so I can complete the image as I really wanted to.

After he finally decided that my idea was too... I dunno, I actually have no idea what his objection was aside from the fact that he just didn't like it. If that's the case then he should have decided it was not okay right away because there was no way he was going to suddenly be less disturbed by amputees. Anyway, after he said no to this idea he decided that the project was due the next class. This wouldn't be such a problem if it was the wednesday session of our class. But it was the monday session, which meant I had a day to do a complete illustration from start to finish. I asked Thiel if he found nipples offensive but the discusion quickly became one of "do they publish nipples in magazines like Vogue?" The answer is yes. Anyhow I found some photos that I liked, edited them cropped them and made them into something I could draw from and maybe make a nice image out of. I am certain I made sufficient changes for my own legal protection. Anyway, here is what I came up with in a day:
Thiel liked the second one for technical reasons (I shouldn't have used the salt on the first one, I didn't have anything to block the skin with) but he still said they weren't acceptable and that I should do it again. So I sat down and got out pencil and a paper and drew a super-skinny gross fashion girl with no breasts and that dead fashion stare. Thiel liked it, he said I should ink it. I wanted to put down ballpoint on it, I thought it would work nice, alas, my ballpoint pen had died in my bag so I used this clunky brush-marker, then I put down some watercolor and then some gouache, Thiel says that I murdered it: (I will replace this image once I re-scan the picture, the file got lost)
Eli felt it might have been okay if the colors hadn't gotten so muddy, but they're muddy on purpose, I don't want this grotesque creature to be mistaken for an attempt at creating something appealing, which he got but he still suggested making it look like it's trying to be something nice and I think he's right. He also had some good advice about inking, I need to work on that. Regardless Thiel wanted me to re-do it, and not ink it or color it, so I have:

A little different but the same general idea... and that's where the fashion illustration project stands!

Love and coffee,
Anne

Stopgap

2009-10-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

The final for my pulp: Red Passion. (I am actually planning to re-do this in a painted style, the only reason I didn't go with a painted style from the outset was the fear that I would not be able to make it good... {sigh} but I think it'll be really nice if I find the time to re-do it)
Another final that I am not done with. This is watercolor, and a little digital correction/combination. I still have some painting I want to do on the originals of this, I'll post the new version when I get a chance.
Ah children's book. The terrible chaos and fury of children's book. This is more or less how it's going:
I am pleased, though the progress is slow, there's a lot of working things out and I am having some fun with it.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Mini-update

2009-10-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

The sketch for the Pulp cover. It's due today but it may be a little while before I save the final in a postable format. I saved the sketch a bit ago so I figured I would finally post it.
Sketches for the celebrity portrait for Ill II:
Serious hugs for anyone who knows who these two are.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Kids Book character designs

2009-10-12T21:00:00.001-07:00

Justin made a suggestion about the style for the kid's book and I have tried to work it out:

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Pulp Cover for Computer Ill

2009-10-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the woodshop,could really use a nap :) but I have much to do and little enough time! Here's a little update on Computer Ill. After the turn-around/3 image project Prochnow assigned us a pulp-fiction book cover. I researched the old pulp books and looked at perhaps a hundred covers. I decided that the funniest of the pulps were the "adult reading" books, specifically the lesbian books. I decided to do a soviet themed cover and I titled my book "Red Passion". Here are the sketches for the cover:
Should be good, wish me luck!

Love and coffee,
Anne

Top Secret Project

2009-10-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

Deer for Ill II

2009-10-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

Illustration II we got a story about a kid who's dad used to take him hunting and the kid shot a deer when he was 11 and the father later killed himself. It wasn't great but at least there was some imagery to work with. I started with thumbnails. The one I wanted to do is in the second image:
Thiel did not want me to do that image. No. No, Thiel liked the stupid picture with the human head mounted as a trophy. :( IT's SO STUPID. But I did it anyway:

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Computer Illustration

2009-10-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

We had to do a turn-around or three images of a character in different situations for computer illustration. I initially did a girl in the style I intend to use for the people in the kid's book:
But as you can see, I was having trouble making her look like not plastic. SO, I opted to do something else:

Liv was the biggest help ever. I met up with her on the Saturday before this one and she showed me some really useful tools. I couldn't have done it without her help.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

The desk

2009-10-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

Joe and I completed this desk awhile back but I never managed to post the photos, so here they are!
^_^

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Oh the chickmanity. 2/2

2009-09-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

When I got to class (all ready to do the final painting) and Eli and Thiel helped me shape the final piece, which involved no more painting and which I have two versions of with more and less woodgrain, respectively:

All for now, love and coffee,

Anne

Oh the chickmanity. 1/2

2009-09-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

Updates on the Chicken Project from color studies and drawing to completion. It went over pretty well but... ugh, the thumbnails for the next project went bad... but more on that later. Anyway, I initially presented this first sketch after the thumbnail was approved:
Thiel actually smiled at it, a good sign. From there I did the final drawing:
and two more color studies:

Goblins.

2009-09-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I was going to need a new story for the kid's book class and I had a character I made for a game. A goblin named Grisks:
I made a young version of her for the kid's book story too:
I may have to go back to this if I can't make the other one work, so I'll keep developing it in the back of my head.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Children's book... UGH.

2009-09-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Children's book has not been going particularly well. It's supposed to be my fun class, my free to do what I want class. Working with Justin has been difficult. On the one hand it's his story, he deserves some control. On the other hand, he's very particular, and I had some trouble keeping myself interested in the project. I needed to be able to move forward. Here is the piece I thought would be the last I ever did for the project:

and what I thought would be the last character design work for it:
and here's why:

The last time I put pen to paper to do character revisions, the above is what resulted... or part of what resulted. I was ready to give up and do something else. I asserted my position and sat down with my creative partner and I think things are ready to move forward again. The main problem I was having involved the mother, who has now been completely cut from the story all together, she may be seen once at the end, from behind. Maybe.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

God. Fing Computers.

2009-09-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

Had to do a portrait for Computer Illustration. Huge pain in the ass. I chose to do Gustav Klimt and to base my illustration on a painting of his. Unfortunately, as graphic as his work was, it still had brush-strokes and bits of stray color, and texture and generally looked 9-million times better than anything I could do with illustrator. I did three versions of the final image:

On the left is a version in which the colors in the skin are drawn from a self-portrait of Richard Gerstl, who was a fellow of Klimt's in the Vienna Secession. The middle image is my original idea, which pulls the flesh colors from Klimt's piece: Hope II. This is also the image that the other elements of the image are drawn from. The pattern and colors on the clothing as well as the background are drawn from that painting. It's beautiful, look it up. The image on the right is just my attempt at a normal flesh color.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure and 3D

2009-09-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

We have been working with plaster in 3D, it's good fun but apparently the humidity has combined with our collective ineptitude to create the disagreeable situation of everyone having wet plaster to work with that seems like it might never dry. Oh well, here's the initial sketch:
In figure painting we have been doing 15-minute paintings, here's my best from several classes ago:
but we also had a homework assignment (in addition to the 15 sketchbook pages) that involved a self-portrait using viridian (green), burnt sienna (reddish brown) and titanium white. It's not great but I am planning to continue working on it so I figured I'd scan and post it before I fuck it up:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Ill II

2009-09-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

Remember when I posted the final version of my car illustration? Yeeeah. Thiel hated it. He made really vague suggestions about what I should do to improve it that I could not for the life of me decipher. Eli cleared them up a little. I was going to start over and all told I think I should have because Thiel didn't like the new final any better than the first version I made. Here are the three versions I brought to critique:
Through much discussion I eventuallyfigured out why these aren't any good at all. It has to do with the fact that I was not willing to draw the car in the way I usually would if I were planning to put down a drawing for watercolor because cars are supposed to be a certain way, they're shiny and sleek and I was afraid that the way I draw might make the car look jaggey... so basically, if I had just gone with what I do and drawn the car the way I would draw a person I probably would have been okay. I didn't, it's not.

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Klimt for Computer Illustration

2009-09-14T22:45:00.001-07:00

Our next assignment for Computer Illustration is a portrait. I have opted to do Gustav Klimt, in as close an approximation of his own style as I can manage in illustrator. Here is my sketch:

Love and coffee,
~Anne

Final Post for the Day: Children's Book characters!

2009-09-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

To start working on our children's books we needed a story. Justin and I had been planning to do a story together and it turned out perfect for this assignment. I started with these character designs:
It was a reasonable starting point, I worked on the mother for a while, drawing a re-drawing changing and tweaking, then the boy. Once I had the boy worked out:
I added that style to the mother (far right) and asked some advice. Joe said she was a little "naughty schoolgirl" and not so much "business casual". I didn't like that for her to be "motherly" she had to be thick, but he's right, she looks better (though it may have more to do with the different outfit I put on her)
So here are the final working character designs, sized to scale!

And that is finally all for now! Love and coffee,
~Anne

Figure Painting Homework and For Fun

2009-09-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Part of our figure painting homework is to do a themed drawing/painting every week in our sketchbook (after researching an illustration in the same theme). The first week was animal, I found an illustration by Jill Bennett from Roald Dahl's "Fantastic Mr. Fox", which was a favorite book of mine as a child. I painted a Donkey. I need to work on contrast and figured it would be a good space to practice.
Also, I picked up a pack of tiny Ampersand watercolor boards just to try them out and I figured my girl in the striped shirt got rejected from the car illustration so I'd make use of her here, lest she never be seen again.

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Figure Painting Sketchbook

2009-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

Pratt has assigned us 15 pages of sketches from life, per week, plus an additional sketchbook illustration. Here are a couple of the sketches I did the first week. (I am now behind and need to catch up, go figure)

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Ill II continues

2009-09-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

For our next assignment in Ill II we have to do an illustration for a really short story about chickens and a man who eats them. I did thumbnails and Thiel actually approved the one that I liked best, it should be fun!

(Obviously the one I'm doing is the one marked with color.)

Love and coffee,
~Anne

The Car Project

2009-09-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the beginning to end of our first assignment in Illustration II. I have Thiel this semester, I find myself enjoying him as a professor. I think you'll see why.
He gave us the introduction to a story for a magazine that talked about high-end, fast cars. I had a lot of trouble doing thumbnails because as near as I could tell the only real option was to make a nice drawing of a car. So I read and re-read the intro, I drew thumbnails, banged my fists, cried and on and on until I came up with a solution. Random balloon girl:
I showed the thumbnails to Thiel, explained my dilemma and he said that they were all stupid. He looked closer at the girl-on-a-car thumbnail on the left page ^ and asked about it, I explained that she'd be a hot Brit with bad teeth and he said "I guess you could do that one" I told him I wanted to do the balloon girl, but in the tall format of the second to last thumbnail I drew for it.
Thiel agreed initially, then I drew it bigger, he came back over, said it was stupid, we argued. I said that the car is in the picture, he said the picture was stupid, he doesn't like the balloon, I erased the balloon, put grapes in the background, he grudginly agreed to let me do it. He came back over said it was stupid again and I sighed and looked for something else to do. I ended up looking at bicycles. came across a penny-farthing bicycle, which I'm sure you all know was the logo for the Village in "The Prisoner". I hoped that Britian was the birthplace of the bicycle, but it turned out to be Germany or something. Pfft. Anyway, I did little sketch, ^ got approval from Thiel, found reference and did a color sketch.
And a final:
There are some serious problems with the final. Mostly, it's all pretty light. I'm thinking of throwing some gouache on it now, since I have a scan of the final watercolor that I can print if I fuck up the repairs. Wish me luck!

Love and Coffee,
~Anne

Computer Ill

2009-09-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

We had an assignment in computer Ill to do three related images. I chose to do the three most sighted birds from the NH Audubon society's backyard winter bird survey. Sketches:

From left to right: Black-Capped Chickadee, Mourning Dove and the Common Redpoll

Finals:

These took forever, they are not good enough for the time invested in them.

Love and Coffee,
Anka the Art Cat

Back at school!!! 2/2

2009-09-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

In 3-D we've started with a 3D modeling program. The models we made can be printed and we're making the actual sculptures out of paper. I made 4 but these are the two I went with:

Also, I finally have a photo of Joe and I... it's a nice photo of him at least.

2/2 Love and coffee,
~Anne