.empowered.

Hello friends! As promised, I am posting pictures TONIGHT! Yay! Not much to blog about really... My first critique went well in printmaking, so I am happy... now I just have to start brainstorming my next project. Well, here are the photos! Enjoy and good night :)

.eggs and oranges.

Hello everyone! So, I guess this is the start of week three of school! The busyness has begun! As promised... I pulled my first print and took a quick snapshot! (Don't judge me, I took it with my phone and it's terrible):

So, this is the first print! I constructed my plate with masking tape and craft paper from Joann's Fabrics. This is just one of those projects that comes together easily... Making the plate was effortless and I really enjoyed it! My next step is to go back into the face and add more depth using glue and different variations of modeling and molding pastes. Glue bottle drawings are my favorite because they are so painterly in the prints. More photos to come here!

On the other side of the spectrum, I am struggling in my drawing class. I just can't seem to get it. It's hard for me not to outline things... in real life, people don't have outlines, we don't walk around with big black lines dividing us from the space around us.. our bodies are visually divided from the space around us by our mass. But how do you capture that with a stick of charcoal or a pencil? I don't know.. I guess it's pure magic... My drawing teacher wants us to pick a master to copy. So, here are just a few painters/drawers that I admire and aspire to be like...

Albrecht Durer. I think this man rocked my world when one of my drawing class saw a series of his prints at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts. It was so fun to go around with the little magnifying glasses and look at all the details in the prints, but my favorite part was drawing the compositions of his prints and drawings. Durer to me was a master in the art of creating compositions that convey depth and space. In the particular print, I feel the man's knee coming towards me and can relate with the way his body is contorting to look at the small figure above his head. 

Mary Cassatt. Okay, so I'm not sure if she is what they call a classic master, but I think she's a master painter. I have always loved looking at Cassatt's intimate spaces and figures. Her paintings portray women and I just love the way she displays the female figure. She has such a way of bringing the viewer in and making them a vital part of her spaces. She is another master of composition. If I could combine her way of creating intimate spaces and Durer's masterful way of portraying space and depth in his compositions, I would be in heaven!

Well, that's it for now, I think. I am sitting in Einstein's waiting for the line to go down to get some of their Vanilla Hazelnut coffee.. deeelish!

Oh, and I had to draw eggs and oranges for my drawing class this weekend.. not my finest homework assignment... 

.testing, testing.

Hello everyone! It's finally Thursday! I am currently sitting in the printmaking studio getting ready to pull my first test print of my new collagraph plate! I am so excited :) We've definitely had some problems getting the plate sealed and ready, but today is the day for a test run!

Things have been going pretty well, minus the lack of sleep... but here is a quick picture of my plate before the inking...

So, we'll see how it goes! Been keeping super busy getting this plate ready for today. And by the way, for those of you not familiar with collagraph printmaking. it's amazing! Dickblick.com has a good little section on Collagraph where they teach you how to make your own plates :)

.the late nights.

Hello all!

Thought I'd write a quick blog before bed today. The semester is already getting into full swing and I have already been pulling some late nights working on projects.

My big project right now is my first printmaking project of the semester. In my paintings during last spring, I really focused more on self-portraits. The fun thing about taking lots of different classes is that you can transfer ideas into other mediums and see what they convey. We'll see how it turns out. Recently I've been really inspired by

Alphonse Muchas' way of portraying the female figure:

 and also the structure of Constructivist Posters:

Hopefully I will be pulling a print later this week so I can post photos! 

Good night :)