So these two paintings were also done in my developing design class. They both also came out of scribble drawings, but I think that they both look better as paintings. I originally thought of the first one as a moose, but different people have called it a reindeer, or something similar to that. I eventually decided that it would be an elk. Because then I could call the painting, "Yellk". because it's yelling. My teacher/mentor James also told me that it looks like Christmas wrapping paper to him. I would love to have wrapping paper with a Yellk on it!

The second painting ended up looking a lot sadder than the original drawing did, which is pretty awesome! You kind of just want to give the little guy a hug! I got to use my metallic paints again which always makes me happy, and I really like how his shell turned out. it kind of reminds me of the book, The Rainbow Fish which I loved as a child(and still do!). I still need to work out the background though, because the goldish blobs aren't really doing it for me. I also need to think of a name for him, any suggestions are welcome!

This first painting was done when we had a model in my developing design class. We did some warm up gestures and then a quick painting where we were only allowed to use black, white and one color to paint the model. This is the second painting that I did of the model and I did it a little less realistic than the first one. Because of how blank her expression turned out I decided to put something crazy in the backround. I also got to use my metallic paint again for the grass and was pretty excited about that!



The second painting which is being called 'Office Chicken' until I think of a better name came out of a squiggle drawing that I had done in my sketchbook. We were supposed to do something with some perspective in it to give it a bit of depth which is where the cubicles came from. My favorite part is probably the #1 Dad mug in the corner with the picture of his kids on it. His computer monitor is also very small compared to his head....maybe that's why he wears those glasses.

These are a couple of paintings that I did a while ago in one of my developing design classes in the USCAD program. I'm posting them in an attempt to post things a little more regularly (we'll see how that goes...). I'll post them a couple at a time because longer, picture filled posts are sometimes tricky. And here are the first two!

I call this one 'Lizard Foot' because that's sort of what it looks like to me. We were supposed to experiment with different techniques like color, collage, paint application and stuff like that. I was really excited to use some of my shiny metallic paint and used it for the lizard foot type thing and on the cutout strips of paper. It also kind of looks like the lizard is stepping on chunks of cheese that may or may not be exploding in some places...

For this piece we were supposed to combine different pictures, so I took two different drawings from my sketchbook; a goat that I sketched at the zoo and some jazzy beatnik type characters that I had on another page. I really like the simplistic character designs from UPA cartoons in the 50's so I designed my musicians in a similar style. The entire time I was painting the pink goat my instructor was convinced that it was a cow...luckily it ended up looking more goat-like by the time I was finished. I originally wanted the goat to look a little more upset at having it's slumber disturbed, but I think that it turned out ok anyways. I haven't decided on a name yet, but it will probably be something cheesy like 'jazzy dreams' although I really hope that I can come up with something wittier than that. Any better name suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The beast is finally finished!!!!

So I finally finished my octopus chair. It only took me about a year! It has been a very interesting and very time consuming project, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! A lady in one of the other sculpture classes actually told me that she had a dream about it one night...I just hope that it wasn't a nightmare...

So I forgot to put these in my other post, but here are my thumbnail sketches that I quickly did up before starting the massive project that was my chair. It all seemed much simpler on paper.

In the last post the octopus didn't have any eyes so I made it some out of halves of giant kinder surprise capsules. I then used little pieces of styrofoam to give it some angry eyebrows.

Once the eyebrows were finished I covered the entire head in the strips of muslin cloth and glue/water goo like I did the rest of the body.

Ta da!

So once I had the entire head/body covered in the cloth I bought a giant tub of clear super duper thick gel to help seal it and mask the appearance of the strips of cloth. It also made it look kind of shiny and slimy and like it had just come out of the water

Once I had given it a couple of coats and it had dried, I painted it bright magenta. It made it look slightly terrifying, but luckily it was only the base color. I tried airbrushing it first but soon realized that if I wanted to finish it sometime over the next few hundred years it would be better to just use acrylic paint with some gel mixed in. I have a very tiny airbrush...

I then painted the majority of the chair a reddish purpley color. I think that if I ever actually met an angry octopus it would be purple.

I went over the magenta that was left on the underside of the chair and tentacles with a slightly more pinkish red tone so that it wouldn't stand out quite as much, but you could still see that there was a difference in color.

Using some great spatter painting techniques I probably learned in kindergarten and a trusty dollarama toothbrush I 'spiced up' the octopus' skin so that it wouldn't just be a boring solid color.

But alas, the eyes were not yet finished! And how is an angry octopus chair supposed to look at you angrily without eyes?

So I painted them. And then took a very attractive picture of myself.

After I had put the eyes in I laughed for about 5 minutes because it looked utterly ridiculous. I was quite proud of myself.

But the chair was still missing something....

Tentacles!!!! Which were made of suction cups that I painted pink. It was a real 'treat' to try and find the holes that I had drilled earlier and try and force the suction cups into them and get them to stay...I had to put myself in some very interesting positions to get them all into each leg and I'm sure that anyone looking in a window must have wondered what the heck was going on.

Eventually I got them all in!

I gave it's eyes some highlights to give it bit more life, and then it was done!

I was pretty excited when it was all finally done! SO excited in fact that it was only when I had put it on a dolly and was trying to get it out the door that I realised that I had made it slightly bigger than the doorway...Luckily, with some creative maneuvering and some help from my mom, we got it out and into the back of my dad's van where it could stare at people out the back window as we drove it home. It is now being stored in my family room under some towels and a tarp because we have a dog that really likes to pee on our belongings...And there it shall stay until my graduating art show at the beginning of August! How exciting!

Oh, and did I mention that it's eyes light up....How awesome is that?!