I did SOMETHING this summer besides move across the country!

So life has essentially been madness this summer, but at least that madness has included some art!  I was lucky enough to get to go on a field trip to Arizona and New Mexico with the art department in May, to explore landscapes and local culture and some very neat art galleries.  I've been working on some small paintings based mostly on the architecture of Santa Fe that will hopefully be included in an art show of work inspired by the trip.  It was a combined effort of the studio, photography, and illustration departments, so there should be lots of very cool stuff when it finally gets put together.

I did a lot of sketching while we were there and also took many photos, and now I'm working several of them up in to finished paintings.  (I forgot how much I love acryla gouache!  Why haven't I been using this stuff for the last few years? Oh right, my classes all required oils... And oils and I have a love-hate relationship.)  Here is a quick sampling of what I have so far:

In other news, we live in Boston now! We have a tiny basement apartment in the most undergrad-y section of an undergrad-y town, but I love it so far.  (Moving to Boston is a horrendous trial but living in Boston is nice.)  We live in the district of used furniture stores and every imaginable variety of Asian restaurant.  We've slowly been exploring the areas within walking distance of our apartment and pointing out the cool things that I want to show all my friends if they come to visit: the pet store around the corner that always has a huge Newfoundland at least one ugly bulldog just chilling by the door; the old stone church down the street that is now a "Palestinian Cultural Center" and mosque; and the public park near our house where the ground is practically paved with broken beer bottles in some places, and the first time we went there we encountered a few students in fedoras playing guitar and indeed to my delight they were playing "Wonderwall."

And I really like living in a proper city, with lots of tiny quirky shops and weird and quirky people.  I've begun to sketch the more fascinating individuals I encounter on the streets.

My BFA show is DONE!

After nearly a year of work, research, and distractions, it is complete!  My senior show is up!  To get a BFA degree at BYU, one has to write a research paper on a topic connected to your field and in conjunction with that present a solo show of the work you've developed from your research.  I decided to look into concept design for animation, since that's what I want to do, and to create a series of concept art for a theoretical animated movie.  I chose to work from Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard, a great book that I love.  I thought the variety of characters and environments and cool story would be fun to illustrate.  I went through loads of sketches in my little book and eventually developed them into finished concepts of key characters and props.  So here it is, the summation of my college experience, no big:

As part of the show I included a bunch of the sketches and some color studies as well as the finished pieces, to show off the creative process.

The environments turned out to be some of my favorites.  The city and the subway station both started from detailed pencil drawings, which in some ways is nice because a lot of the details are already planned out but in other ways is frustrating because you have so much to work around...

So there!  Thank you to everyone who's come to see it and given me compliments, and thanks to my mother-in-law who's shared it with lots of people, thus ensuring that when I visited Boston last week people that I'd never met told me that they loved it. And thanks forever to my mom and my sister and my husband who helped put it all together and helped me survive the week beforehand. :)

A Griffin and a Snake and a Cottage

What have I been up to lately??  Well, life has been a little ridiculous these few months and I haven't felt like posting even though thanks to classes I've made all kinds of stuff.  I just didn't like much of it.  But now I have a few things that I'm rather proud of even though only one of them is technically finished!

This is my favorite thing that I've created in a long time.

I don't know how good it is from a subjective standpoint, but I like it lots.  And it was accepted into the Mayhew Show and is now on display in the HFAC so yeah!  I drew every outline of that griffin in pencil before painting it, and it took approximately years.

Redwall!  This one still needs a little polishing for which I have not had time, but I quite like where it's going.  The snakes scales on this one also took years (why do I keep doing this to myself?) but I'm very pleased with them and with the shadow patterns.   This one and the one above both started with pencil drawings that were scanned, then painted in black and white, then layered over with lots of transparent colors, and finally polished up on a last solid layer.

And this last needs some edits, but I feel like I finally got the hang of concept design landscapes!  There's a fine balance between the level of detail and the overall shapes and colors...and I have a hard time finding it.  But I like the roof of the cottage especially.  This is for my theoretical Pixar short I've been working on in concept design.

Happy Valentimes

Tell people that you love them! I really just love pretty colors.  Pretty colors should be my Valentine.

On a related note I finally filled up another 4GB flash drive.  Need to get a new one...

Downton Abbey dreams

Last Friday I had a series of dreams that I was one of the daughters in Downton Abbey, but with some definite elements of Jane Austen mixed in (everyone was much sweeter, and there was a charming young pastor).  Our house was in a tiny lovely seaside town, and I played on the beach all the time. It was very romantic and dramatic and beautiful.  This was my favorite part of our house:

Roman archways + contemporary art water garden + Victorian manor.  It really doesn't make sense but it was so lovely...

Sunday Doodles #5 (Or, The Whole Month of December)

Knotwork snowflakes!

Anyone who's spent any time around me at all knows that I like to draw fancy knots.  It's probably the most common thing that I doodle, especially at church because that's the only place I don't do any homework.  

My computer being out of commission for all of Christmas break due to a broken backlight in my screen means I don't have much else to show for my two weeks off... But soon! Soon!