• Work-folio
  • Resume
  • About
  • Ishkadoodles
  • Guat Gang!
  • Archives
  • Categories

    • Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

    « Older Entries

    Buried in art supplies


    2010 - 08.16

    Posted in Art, Crafting, Socializing | No Comments »

    It was decided that this week I would host Art it Out night, a weekly gathering of my friends where we dedicate the evening to art and girly chatting. It’s delightful. I was absolutely thrilled for this…except when I remembered the state of my studio (or what is really just the south end of the basement at my aunt’s house where I live). I started cleaning off the tables that were covered with huge pads of paper, canvas boards, unfinished paintings, collaging supplies, sketchbooks, watercolor paints, feathers, yarn, pencils, pens, fleece, catnip, crochet hooks…and all other manner of creative things conveniently forgotten and tucked away in the basement… I’ve made the startling realization that I could hermit away in my studio for well over a month and barely put a dent in all the art supplies I have…

    Projects started but never finished, books purchased but barely read, supplies bought on a whim because I want to try everything… Coming from a family of pack-rats, artist and overachievers, I’m doomed to drown in art supplies! It’s overwhelming…

    Cleaning makes me want to start working on something…anything…Josh’s painting, another ATC, crocheting, more catnip toys…the mannequin…oh my poor neglected mannequin, will you ever forgive me as you lay in pieces throughout my studio? o.O *sigh* but I should continue cleaning…maybe this happy little realization will be another reminder that I don’t spend enough time down here…

    I may need to reinstate my art day… Just claim every Thursday for myself to work on projects… mark myself as busy and stick to it… It’s like someone carving out time in their schedule for working out (which is another thing I need to do >.<)

    Too much to do…not enough time in the day… back to work…

    Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)


    2010 - 07.29

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in Art, Crafting, Design | No Comments »

    While browsing Blick Art Materials the other day, I meandered to the back of the store where I don’t usually go. Tucked away on the corner end display I found a book on Artist Trading Cards (I’ll try and remember to post the title and author when I have a chance, right now I’m not at home) along with little packs of various types of paper. I started paging through the book and really enjoyed the range of techniques they walked through…but I’m getting ahead of myself… ATCs are small, 2.5 x 3.5″ pieces of art work. The sky is the limit as far as what you can do with them… a very small chunk of sky that is… So far I’ve done three ATCs since I got the book a couple of weeks ago. The size limitation is extremely daunting…and the inspiration in the book is a little intimidating. But the informal nature of the cards has let me lighten up a bit and allow myself to play.

    Lately, just getting me to work on art has been challenging. I have a tendency to over-think art and scare myself out of starting anything because I’m afraid that it will suck… but the cards trick my brain into making the art less about the final product…it’s easier to throw away a little card than it is to repaint a canvas or toss an overworked piece of watercolor paper. I don’t know, here I am over thinking it again. But the point is that I’m really enjoying what ATCs have done for me so far. Once I get used to the size and try out a few more things I might actually start trading them at organized trading events…but for now I’m just having fun building up my collection. I’ve added a new tab for them under Ishkadoodles, soon the gallery will be full of cute little works of art! I think my favorite so far is the Rose…it looks like it might be unfinished, but now I’m afraid of ruining it…see!!! over thinking it…I might go back later and work on it more…but I like it…

    All tied up


    2010 - 06.20

    Posted in Art, Clothing, Crafting, Design | 1 Comment »

    This afternoon, after a delightful breakfast of cinnamon bagels from Panera, Chris and I ran out to Savers in Bloomington and had ourselves an adventure of the thrift store variety. Naturally we got lost in the book section and I picked up two Stephen King books that I can’t wait to read…(after The Dark Tower series of course…just started book 4! go me!) After reminiscing over some VHS tapes (An American Tail: Fievel goes West anyone? <3) and giggling over the board games we looked into the clothing sections… Of all places, I get lost in the ties… At $2 a pop, I allowed myself to get 10 neck ties for the next skirt project… I may have to go back tomorrow before belly dance because I looked at my stores of neckties and I’m running low on interesting ones…and man…did I hit the jackpot at Savers… check them out!!!

    Ties from Savers today

    The next skirt is going to be totally different from the past three skirts that I’ve made…I should hunt down some pictures…one sec…

    Okay, forgive the terrible pictures of me 5 years ago… just look at the skirts…allow them to distract you from the person wearing them…particularly my hair…good god… anyway…

    The Rooster Skirt! so name because of the length in the back kind of looking like a rooster tail. the colors were laid out just right I think. this is my all time favorite skirt that I’ve made.

    This is the first tie skirt that I made back in Senior year of high school. Good times… learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work and I think I finished it in two days…

    I have one more tie skirt that I don’t seem to have any pictures of at the moment but it’s a knee length one that’s pretty darn cute.

    Can’t wait to finish this one!!! should be fun.

    Graduation Come and Gone


    2010 - 05.16

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Art, MCAD, Socializing | No Comments »

    The ceremony was lovely yesterday. It was exciting to see so much talent walk across the stage to receive the recognition that they’ve worked so hard for. The student speakers did a fabulous job of delivering words of wisdom that didn’t sound too cliche.

    The guest speaker was Stephen Lundin, author of “Fish”, “Cats” and “Ubuntu”. I just looked him up and it turns out he actually went to the same High School as I did…not that that really means a whole lot, but it’s kinda cool all the same. My favorite quote that I was able to remember long enough to get a whole of pen and paper was, “Life is too precious to just be passing through.” It struck me because I’ve found myself getting swept up in the motions of life, getting overwhelmed by the to do list, the planning, all the things I say I have to do. He said something to the effect of when you see your life planned out on paper, it’s no longer your life, it’s someone else’s expectations. Because not only can you not really plan your life, but your expectations of yourself change over time. You can’t turn down possibilities just because they aren’t part of your plan. He also said that when you start to feel the edge of change, don’t resist it because change will come no matter what. But if you move with it and work with it, you’ll have the advantage over the ones that resisted the change.

    So my BS: Viz degree is officially completed, soon I will have my piece of paper that says I know stuff. I don’t feel terribly different or considerably more valuable but it does feel pretty awesome to have achieved a huge goal in my life. I’ve been looking back on my college career, wishing I had done more with it, pushed myself harder, focused less on relationships that ended up failing anyway, and gotten more involved with campus activities…but I can’t change what I did. I’m the person I am today because of what I did (and didn’t do) and that will guide what I chose to do in the future, what I place value in.

    So, congratulations MCAD class of 2010!



    Jerry Allen and I

    Jerry Allen, Myself and Abbi Allen

    These two changed my life

    Macro Assignment


    2010 - 05.15

    Posted in Art, Blogging, Guatemala | No Comments »

    Okay, this is probably going to be just a quick post because it’s a busy weekend for me… Graduating in 4 hours, going to Guatemala in less than 72… whee! I still had time for one more assignment before I left the country… This week’s assignment was Macro, any medium, any size, any subject…just zoom in really really close. (sorry the photo is a little off with the color but I don’t think it would fit in our scanner…)

    lion fish fin

    I’m really happy with how it turned out. I got to use my inktense pencils again and really test them out. It was challenging to guess how the colors would interact with each other when I got around to using my water brushes because the pencil colors differ from the ink colors once they’ve been watered down. The image is a zoomed in look at a Lion-fish I photographed at the zoo a few weeks ago. I loved the colors and structure of the fin.

    Fun assignment! Back to packing and getting dressed… whee!

    Oh, shameless plug… keep track of my ventures in Guatemala at this blog… http://mcadguatemala2010.wordpress.com

    Scratchboard: The Peacock


    2010 - 05.05

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in Art, Blogging, MCAD, Socializing | No Comments »

    Okay, I’m going to be a little lazy and just copy paste a post I wrote for another blog detailing this latest project that I finished. But to Preface it I’ll explain what it’s for. A few weeks ago my friends Mike and Megan decided that we missed art classes so we started meeting at a cafe in St. Paul once a week to devote an evening to doodle, sketch, experiment and get the creative juices flowing a bit. The first night we challenged each other to do something we don’t usually do. I was told to do a landscape with pastels, Mike was told to do a landscape with inks (red, teal and black only) and Megan got to do a self portrait with charcoal. Thus, the assignments were born, we immediately began writing down as many ideas as we could think of, themes, mediums, locations, subjects, anything that could be mixed and matched as we saw fit. We had a great time and came up with assignments that could last us well through the summer. This endeavor also got a name, we’re calling it Art Pandemonium. Last week we created a wordpress blog in order to keep track of our work and our thoughts on it. This post is about our second assignment, I’m hoping to scan and write about the first assignment tonight or tomorrow. But for now… here’s the scratchboard assignment:

    Two weeks ago we chose scratchboard as our assignment and I think we were all a little nervous yet still excited to try a medium that was rumored to be completely unforgiving. I was inspired by a woman that works at The Wildcat Sanctuary where I volunteer every other saturday. Trista Campbell is a very talented artist and an incredibly wonderful woman, she works tirelessly for the cats at the sanctuary!

    Lately I’ve been thinking about peacocks a lot, partially because of a performance that I have coming up that I might end up incorporating their feathers into my costume. While bumming around flickr, looking for ideas. I came across this image by dee_r and instantly knew it was perfect.

    My process involved changing the image to black and white and making sure the levels were just right on photoshop, gridding off the image and creating a sketch on regular paper, tracing the image and then finally using transfer paper to get the image onto the scratchboard. Then the real work began…scratchboard is definitely a labor of love, but it felt like a medium that was well suited to my line quality (read: “I can’t draw a straight line to save my life!”).

    I learned a lot about  line work, cross-hatching and how to treat foreground, middleground and background with this assignment. I think next time I do scratchboard I will be using a picture of my cat Midnight Moon and do a portrait of him. He is the Prince of Darkness after all and deserves his own personal portrait artist to catch him an all his glory…or at least he thinks so…

    The PeacockFor my first scratchboard, I’m exceedingly happy with the results. I owe it all to wonderful inspiration and a very talented photographer.

    Long overdue update, Job, Travel and Zoos


    2010 - 04.10

    Tags: , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Art, Design, Internship, MCAD, Socializing, Volunteering | No Comments »

    So, as I’m sure you have noticed, I’m not a very consistant blogger. I get so darn caught up in the activities that I’m doing that I forget to write about them…I think I have a lot to talk about…like a lot a lot…Tons of great things have been happening and I can’t remember what I’ve written and what I haven’t.

    I may have mentioned this once before, but in case I haven’t I should say that I found out a few weeks ago that my bosses at the company that I’ve been doing my externship at for the past few months have decided they want to bring me on full time after graduation. At EatonGolden, I’ve been learning more about Information Architecture and Usability for websites. It’s been really exciting being fully immersed in the projects and I’ve had fun getting to work with real clients with truly talented professionals. I was so lucky to have John as a professor at MCAD where he could preview my work ethic and personality. When he knew I was looking for an externship we both felt I would be a good fit for EatonGolden. I love having a job that motivates me to work harder, learn more and improve my skills constantly. Plus everyone there seems to like me…always a plus! My official start date should be sometime early June. I’m still working as an intern until I graduate, but it certainly feels good to know that I won’t have to worry about the whole job hunt thing after school…

    Speaking of graduation…hard to believe it’s almost here…I’ve spent roughly 75% of my life in school…Now it’s time for the “real world”. Luckily the transition will be super smooth since I’ve been working full time for 4 months and not taking classes anyway… but still…weird. Although I’ll never stop learning and pushing myself to try new things, it will feel strange not being in a formal education system anymore… but the lasting impression of student debt will no doubt keep me company for years to come…

    More exciting news…after graduation I’m going to spend 11 days in Guatemala with a group of fellow MCAD students. We will be working with the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy to paint a mural and do some community outreach work with the students. I can’t wait! It will be so nice to get out of the country for a bit and do something good for other people. I was so happy when my bosses at EG encouraged me to take some time off for travel after commencement because that was one of my main concerns about going on the trip. I didn’t want that to be a hinderance to my hiring potential at all. (I seriously can’t count all the ways that I love my job, but the primary thing is the people I work with).

    In other news, went to the MN Zoo, compliments of MCAD this afternoon. Took TONS of pictures, hopefully some of it will inspire art soon. The sea dragons were particularly awesome and beautiful, so was the Amur Leopard (I was amazed to learn that there are only about 30 Amur leopards in the wild!!! holy crap! that’s ridiculous!!! and I thought I was amazed by there being only about 4,000 tigers in the wild…). If you want to see all of the pictures I took, I’ve posted them on facebook and you can see them here and here. But here’s a preview…

    Be expecting more art from me in the future, I just dropped entirely too much money on new art supplies to play with and I can’t wait to test them out more. I have that mural for my friend to make some more progress on, the mannequin is getting lonely, these new zoo photos to play with and I’ve been making feather fascinators like crazy. I should post those soon, they’re super awesome.

    For now, I’m going to wrap this up so I can get ready to go to Balls Cabaret at Midnight. Good times!

    Dr. Sketchy’s 3-28-2010


    2010 - 03.28

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Art, Socializing | No Comments »

    Warning…gallery contains content that may be unsuitable for young children or close minded adults… that said, if you can’t handle nudity you probably should ignore this post.

    Every month, the 331 Club and the lovely Ophelia Flame of Lily’s Burlesque Review hosts Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. They have dancers of various fame and infamy model for artist who are bored with standard figure drawing. Drinking, Drawing and Dancing occur for all who attend, there are contests for the best art (decided on audience cheers and gauged by Dick the bartender’s cheer-o-meter).

    Today was a very special session. Being the 5 year anniversary of the 331 club, we celebrated in style and sequins. 5 dancers graced us with their presence and acted as our muses. The following gallery is the result, my 5 favorites. I have to say that switching between so many models was a little mind boggling. You get used to one and then she’s switched with a new one right away. But it was fabulous fun anyway. I’m mostly happy with what I did. My personal favorites are Ms. Tomahawk Tassels and the lovely Coco Dupree.

    My Sunday was well spent in the company of my good friends Christine and Mike, drawing the afternoon away and sharing laughs over good drinks. I couldn’t ask for anything better.

    Mannequin Progress and other Adventures


    2010 - 03.07

    Tags: , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Art, Design, Socializing | 1 Comment »

    Sorry for the blur...they're just too fast!

    Went to my first Roller Derby last night at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium with Mike. I thought it was crazy awesome and can’t wait for the next bout. The seats might have been less than awesome but we definitely got a birds eye view of the action. Next time it might be nice to have ringside seats to see if any derby girls fall in our laps (but they say that we can’t take them home with us if they do…darn) Knowing very little about Derby before coming I was really excited to figure out the rules and see how it all works. I also didn’t know who to cheer for so I randomly chose the Garda Belts (based on their intro that featured bag pipers) and the Dagger Dolls (based on the fact that some of them were wearing tutus). Sadly they both got trounced by the Atomic Bombshells and the Rockits (respectively) but that’s okay…they played really well… The game was all sold out so I was really glad Mike got tickets earlier this week. Super Win.

    Base coats are pretty much all done!

    Started to paint the Constellations into the torso

    Left (Silver) will be a mechanical arm for the concept of technology, Right (Black) will be splatter painted for the concept of Art

    Just in case you thought I was slacking off on the mannequin I thought I’d update with some pictures so you knew that wasn’t the case. It’s been a little dull because I was determined to get the base coats done on all of the limbs so that I could paint on them simultaneously and make sure things came together alright. Have a little bit of touching up to do but I’m pretty much at the point where things will get interesting! yay!

    In addition to the Mannequin project, I’ve taken on a collaboration project with my graphic designer friend who wanted a series of paintings for his newly painted office. He designed the layout and the subject matter, I’m going to paint it…should be interesting…especially with the crazy tree he decided to throw at me…jerk… Just started griding off the canvases based on the photoshop file he sent me last night and can’t wait to get started! :D Cause you know…I need a new project like I need a hole in my head… oh well…it should keep me out of trouble. :p

    ahh, blank white canvases...time to change that...

    Good times…very good times…

    Day 3 of the Mannequin


    2010 - 02.12

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Art, Crafting, Design | No Comments »

    More progress! I’m having way too much fun with her so far…it’s great.

    This evening I’m going with a friend out to Donnie Dirk’s Zombie Den…I love this place, it’s oddly classy, delightfully quirky and very cozy. pretty yummy drinks too… can’t go wrong with Zombies…for real.

    Tomorrow is a day of shopping, painting and relaxing…should be wonderful!

    My Valentine’s Day plans consist of an all day Art day with my dear friend Christine who is going to teach me how to crochet! then later in the evening Debbie and I are going to “According to Coyote” at the Children’s Theater. I have a nice and busy weekend but I’ll be busy doing the things I love with the people I love. Good times!

    « Older Entries