Color Theory Class

Some work from my color theory class:

Color Wheel - The first project was to design a color wheel that maintained its functionality but was more artistic than a normal circular color wheel. Since entering school I have been rather obsessed with the shapes of buildings and clouds. I love the harsh angles that buildings provide tempered with the lightness and fluffiness of clouds, these two elements juxtaposed really fascinate me. For my color wheel I combined these two elements, and for the most part I think it looks pretty cool. My one disappointment was with my inability to control and maintain the value of all the colors for each ring. I did OK, but there is room for improvement. I do believe that the colors themselves are mixed pretty well, and I like the design.
 
City and Clouds Color Wheel (20 x 15) Acrylic on Illustration Board

Complimentary Colors - In this project we were asked to draw a plant of some kind and then paint it using only one set of complimentary colors (which are any two colors across from each other on the color wheel). We could mix the two colors together in anyway we wanted and add black or white to those colors to tint or shade them. We also had to have at least 3 transparency effects in our painting and have two sections where we used the pure colors that we mixed from. Which is why there is a red-orange branch.

For my colors I chose to do red-orange, and blue-green. I could have done green and red, because you can get a nice gray, but not the right kind of brown. However, most people were doing that color combination because of the green which made me not want to use it. Plus, I felt that blue-green, and the pinkish color I could get from red-orange seemed more Japanese somehow.

Bonsai Tree Transparencies (20 x 15) Acrylic on Illustration Board

Here is a close up of the transparency effect.

 

The painting turned out good for the assignment, but I don't really like how abstract the solid colors make it. In the drawings you could really see how the bonsai twisted together, so I think I am partial to the drawing, even though it was done on crappy paper. In hindsight, I wish I would have just drawn it on nice paper. I didn't only because I thought I would use this drawing as the transfer, which didn't happen because the transfer would have been backwards.

Sort of hard to see but here is the drawing (click for a better shot)

Here is the transfer, but it is flipped correctly, I couldn't bring myself to look at it the other way. It is too weird.

Cultural Patterns -  In this project we were asked to find a pattern of some sort from a culture that we found interesting. Since I had just been looking at bonsai trees and a lot of Asian art I kind of wanted to stay in that part of the world. So I found this Indonesian Batik fabric design which I felt was really cool. Once we found the design we were supposed to replicate it as closely as possible, and then do another version using a color scheme of our choice. I chose to do a monochromatic color scheme using only red.

Original fabric picture from the web:

Batik Indonesian fabric design (20 x 12 each square 8 x 7) Acrylic on Illustration Board

 

Closeup of Duplicated Original Side:

 

Closeup of Monochromatic Side:

Artistic Inspiration: For the final project we were asked to find a painter, or a painting, that inspired us and do a report on the painter, or painting, and then to create our own painting from the inspiration of the artist's techniques or content of a particular piece.

I chose Jacob Van Ruisdael as my artist, but had no one particular painting in mind. He does these amazing paintings of clouds and the Dutch landscape. Seeing as how I love clouds but have never attempted to paint them I figured this was my shot.

I learned a ton by doing this, and while I feel this is probably my strongest painting to date, there are also some things I dislike about it. But that's part of the learning and I am ready to do it again. Also, being that this is my 10th painting ever I feel that I have shown vast improvement in a very short time.

In Ruisdael's works you can see how realistic his clouds are, which is what I wanted to do, but an accidental late night use of purple made me head into a more abstract looking cloud. I still think it looks pretty cool, but for my next cloud painting I really want to try for realism.

Some Ruisdael pieces:

Clouds, and Barn (20 x 15) Acrylic on Illustration Board

I kind of got lost in the top half of the painting, and I wish I could fix it, but worry I might screw it up more if I touch it. Here is the pic with the top clouds cut off.

Worse or better?

Digital Presentation

Here is some work I did for my digital presentation class.


                                                    
 First project was to take a photo and add elements to it that weren't there to begin with. Which, because of my photoshop experience, was super easy. I mean I could do this in my sleep. The first couple of weeks of this class were extremely easy because it dealt with really basic photoshop skills.

I showed this in another post but oh well here it is again. This was the first major project we had to do, and once again it dealt with photoshop, so it was pretty easy to accomplish. The idea was to take a design of your own and combine it with another artist's to create a new work.

 

 So this was our second major project and we were supposed to design something that made a political statement.

There are a few illistrator designs, but I guess I do not have jpgs of those, and I currently don't own illistrator so I have no way of opening them up. Oh well. Same with a few flash files, and it seems the websites are down, but thats good because the website was really basic and not very good.

FIN!!!

Holy shit.....

What a mind blowing week. I do not know how I completed all the work for all those classes.

I had two paintings, a report, and a presentation for color theory. A sculpture carved out of plaster (the size of a pringle can, I know this because I used a pringle can for my mold) showing concavity and erosion, mounted at an angle on a wood base, devoid of any wires showing, for my 3d design. A flash animation for digital presentation that went along with sound fx gathered by me (i didnt record my own but just pulled random sound FX off the internet and mixed them to a single track using audacity) as well as a functioning website displaying the three major projects from the class. In my gallery class I had to write a one page paper about a gallery I visited, and I also had to hang my art show.

The show included printing out show cards (which I displayed in a previous post), making a sign for the show, having enough quality work to actually put on the show in the first place (which fortunately I did), and because I had about 15 pieces that were being displayed and very little money I couldn't afford to buy frames, or have them framed professionally. So instead I bought some wood and headed out to Rachel's dad's house. We finished about three frames and then I had to leave to do work (not before I made him feed me). So he finished cutting and building the frames.Then because I had about a zillion things to do, I made Rachel paint every single frame.

Without the two of them, the show would not have gone up on time and I would have failed that class. So a... HUGE thank you to the two of them. (I have some pics of the show which I will post in the next couple of days)

AND, if that wasn't enough, I had a test on the evolution of man and genetics in my physical anthropology class, and a 7 page paper about sex and society of the chimpanzee. As well as a 12 page paper for philosophy of art dealing with theories on formalism and representationalism.

I still have two finals for anthro and philo next week but the rest of it is done and over with. I think every term I feel there will be no way for me to finish, but this term has been the worst. I would literally finish projects moments before class. There were many times where I was so tired I would just pass out, wake up a few minutes later and keep working. I had too many times where I was basically reduced to tears and panic. I can not begin to count how many times I had to stop and tell myself to get ahold of some sanity because freaking out was not going to do anything....

but... its finished. I did it... and for the most part I did it well. There were a few projects I just had to start cutting corners and editing my ideas, and I think it made the overall project worse,

but I finished.

Incredibly Busy

It has been a few weeks since I have posted and it will be a bit longer before I can post anything worthwhile. It is crunch time and as usual I have too much to do and not enough time. Once this is all over I will have some work to post from the classes, as well as picture from the show. It has been an incredibly challenging term but I think I have turned out some pretty nice pieces and I can hardly wait to share them.

ok back to work

Art Show Card

In my gallery class for our final exam we are suppose to put on an art show. I am only slightly (sarcasm) stressed out. I worry I wont have enough quality pieces to fill up the space. I have alleviated a bit of this stress by asking one of my fellow students (Huacho Zhou) to join the show with me, but still, I worry that my work is all crap. She on the other hand is ridiculously good. Which of course adds more stress because now I have to at least be on par with her amazing pieces. Cross your finger folks!

Anyway, part of this process is to develop a show card to promote the show. So here is mine.
 **Note**
While this show is going to be going on, and my works will be being displayed, this isn't really an official show. So no one should feel obligated to come see this for any reason. Plus, I will be posting pictures once the show is set up you can view them here. **

3D Design Projects 1

Just finished my second 3D design project. Took pictures before submitting it for grading, and just got the first one back so I will am able to show both at once.

The first project was to use rectilinier volumes to make three different unique forms. A dominate, subdominate, and subordinate. We had to come up with 9 distinct shapes that would work in 3 arrangments of three. From there we picked the best clay maquette, and used foam core board to enlarge it by 3 times.

Rectilinear Volume Project 1: We had twenty minutes to make nine shapes, twenty minutes to refine our shapes and pick the 3 best, and then 20 minutes to walk around the room exchange shapes for shapes until we had whatever we wanted. Once back at the table we were suppose to create 3 designs using 3 forms each. We had no tools to form the shapes and used only our hands.

Clay Maquettes:

Design 1: Towers

Design 2: Overhang





















Design 3: Arm





















The professor chose the third maquette for me to enlarge. Here is the end result (didn't get a shot of them side by side for size comparison but its three times as big I swear!):

The Second project was to make 8 curvalinier shapes and then take those 8 shapes and make two compositions. One of three, and the other of five. The professor selected whichever composition was the strongest, and then you were suppose to go out and find objects that could be: painted white, and would reflect the proper proportions (enlarged of course) from that of the maquette.

Here is the maquette:

and here is the finished product:





The cone is a party hat, I have two wood dowels of varying width, a ping-pong ball, and a rubber bouncy ball from some store. And a wood base.




Pretty decent resemblance.

My latest piece

Here is a piece that I just finished for my digital presentation class.This assignment was to blend a few images from the web and a few of our own images into a composition that was either depicting a graphical message of some sort, or a picture representing a simulacrum or hyper reality.

I went for the graphical representation. Here it is.


Photoshop Cs4
11x14 (click to see it larger a lot of detail lost at this level)

Second Week Of School

Its only week two and things are starting to heat up. You know you have bitten off more then you can chew when on the second week you start sweating deadlines and figuring out which corners you can cut. So far, all the corners seem to be uncutable. Dont worry, Ill find a way.

So for my Digital Presentation class we have just been going over photoshop and its tools. Photoshop is one program that I have spent the last 8 or 9 years using every day. This makes for really fast completion of projects, but I fear that once this weeks over and we move onto other things what the work load will be. I am unsure if I should post any of these projects because they are fairly simple. I will look them over again and if something is interesting then I will post them.

3D design is kind of odd. It has zero to do with 3d programs and is more about real life objects (think desk, ipod, computer tower, tables, cellphone). This is all done so far from clay and foam core board. I will post the first project after its done (due Friday hint hint should be working on that). After working with the clay and trying to sculpt objects I think I might enjoy the sculpting class I will have to take.

Color Theory is fun. I am lacking on my knowledge of colors and how they interact with each other, or how to use color really to benefit your design or drawing. This summer I read up a lot about color theory, I did some drawings from Conceptart.org (if you havent checked this site out you should, the forums are full of endless inspiration and tons of helpful techniques) and a book by betty edwards (I think thats her name cant remember hte book title either damn I suck). Anyway, we are making a color wheel which is pretty fun. And I am finally getting my first real taste of Acrylic paint. I still prefer oils, but I like them more now.

Gallery is only once a week but we have to go to art shows and hang art work. There are a few papers to write, but this class isn't too hard.

Philosophy of Art is one of those classes that you think will be cool, but its not really that cool. Tons of reading that is dry as burnt toast. There is a massive paper to write for this class and I cant even think about that. Other than that the class itself is not very hard, just time consuming. We watch a lot of youtube videos and stuff in class though so that part isnt bad.

Physical Antrhopology is not horrible, but it is a lot of reading. Reading in these classes are a huge time sink. Right now we are reading "Through a window" by Jane Goodall, and its interesting. Chimpanzees are interesting, and she doesn't write like a scientist. Its very easy to read.

Well come next week Ill have some projects to post. They wont be amazing, fairly basic stuff really, but Ill post them none the less.

School Has Started

So school has started once agian. First week is done yay!!! I think this term is going to be very exhausting for me, 3 studio art classes (3D design, Color Theory, Digital Presentation), a class dealing with showing art in Galleries, philosophy of art, and physical anthropology.

I just got done writing in all the due dates for all the projects in my little calendar. I start to hiperventilate when I see the amount of times multiple classes have "project due" falling on the same day. Oh well I love this shit.

So, I have the Dark Tower Tour done, but I think I made a huge mistake by not just posting it right away. Back then It was fresh and New and I was just in awe that I pulled that huge task off in the amount of time that I had to complete them. But now when I look those pictures I only see the flaws and things I dislike about it. It weird I am almost feel ashamed of it like, nothing looks good and its all just crap. I hate that Blaine is skinny in that one pic, the town doesn't look weathered enough (or at all), but I wasnt suppose to make it look weathered (I just think it should be), and sooo many things wrong with the actual map.

ughh... anyway, its not going to be posted until I can do something to make myself feel better about it.
But more projects will be coming down the pipeline. I have a few pieces I was working on over summer break, and obviously my classes will have work done in them.

long overdue

I know I havent posted in a long while. I have a few things to post but life has been pretty hectic. I have also been toying with the idea of posting older works, and sketches... but cant quite seem to decide. Well I think the older works are decent enough to post, but the sketches I dont know.... I have seen other artists maintain two blogs for their art. Sketches on one, and finished or mostly finished work in the other.

The only problem with that is that those artists' sketches look pretty damn amazing, and I dont think mine could necessarily carry a whole blog.... oh woe is me! lol.... what a thing to contemplate... what a hard life I lead.

anyway, I will be updating soon, I have finished the dark tower park walk through, and I have a few other posts waiting to be written.

My First Painting Class

So last term I took my very first painting class. I did ok I think for first time painter, but far from anything worth mentioning. Which is why I am going to talk about each project in depth! We used mostly Oils, but there were a few times we used acrylic paints as well.

Here are all my paintings for the term. Don't judge too harshly! But if you want leave me a critique, as always, feel free.

24 x 20


The first abstract painting thing... I think looks pretty cool. It is extremely vibrant and colorful, and for a first painting I think I did a pretty good job... at what I dont know, but It looks better than some other first paintings I've seen (granted those were by second graders). In my intro to painting class on the first day we went around and talked about what painting experience we had. People had long resumes of their accomplishments and or skills, but when it came to me I said "I've used paint by numbers before". It got a pretty big laugh and the professor then went off on a long rambling speech. The thing was I wasn't joking, but thank god people took it as one.

We were given two weeks to finish the painting. I took a day designing and laying down color ideas. The painting is suppose to be grid based so I felt that probably all the people would do variations of squares and or what not to accomplish this. So I contemplated what I could do that was still grid based but without being obvious squares? Could circles be grid based? of course, but its still just a basic shape repeating, and thats when I came up with the idea of these organic shapes (that if reduced to basic lines or the negative space) would form a simple tic tac toe grid and then I thought, "well I might as well throw some circles in for good measure just to have some shapes and plus they look cool". People questioned weather it was a grid or not... the professor ruled in my favor... although i think hesitantly.

==============================

8 x 10


The small hand painting was just a quick study of my hand, it was literally done in... maybe five minutes. It was just suppose to be a mock up of tonal transition and conceptualization for the larger picture. It also gave me a chance to work with acrylic, and.. I dont know how I feel about acrylic. We had two weeks to finish the small painting and the larger hand painting.

==============================

18 x 24


The large hand painting is pretty far from done, the hand still needs to be rendered completely, and the background was suppose to be something but couldn't figure it out and so it became blue with these horrible yellow streaks... (garrish). I think the foreshortening and form of the hand are pretty good. For me each painting was an exercise in staving off frustration. I knew not a single thing about painting and so.... I wasted so much time just trying to teach myself habits about painting that I hardly had time to figure out technique, and when I felt I had finally figured out something technical, it turned out I had done no such thing. I felt really lost at times. It was really quite pathetic.

==============================

18 x 22


Now the self portrait is... really really really bad.... I mean really bad....I hate to admit that I painted it. The painting feels like it was painted by a third grade kid that eats paste all the time, that's who turns this kind of self portrait out. It is so embarrassing to show it, but I feel in the long run it will be a piece that I can point to and say, look at the progress I have made. Also to make myself feel better I always say, Van Goghs first self portraits look really bad. dont stare too long it sucks at the soul.

Anyway, there are things in the picture that resemble me, but its kind of a caricature of me really. I don't understand how to mix good skin tones (hence why Im like some other ethnicity), I drew the form nicely, but when fine tuning it and looking in the mirror everything became sort of wonky. The perspective gets all mixed up and discombobulated, There are harsh outlines, everything looks flat and stretched its very weird. I noticed that the eyes weren't aligned properly the day of the critique so I decided I could probably easily fix it with an hour before class. So i fixed it, the result was that I moved the eye to an even shittier position, I really dont know what I was thinking....

Anyway, I think we had two weeks on this one as well.

===============================

6 x 12 8 x 8


Now then we had a few class periods where we did quick 5 to 10 minute paintings on poster board from sketches that we made over the weekend. No pictures allowed just notes on color or whatever we sketched. the colors kind of run on these boards so it was interesting trying to learn how to paint on them.

1. the trees and contrails one is, well it should have had a better composition.

2. Sand dunes, i think that the sky is probably (even though its subtle) a very good representation of what was going on that day. I think the forms of the people are ok, but obviously simplistic because of the time. The ground is a bit... flat and... vibrant. I am color challenged it seems.

There were several more but I seem to have misplaced them, which could be a good thing.

===============================

24 x 20


and then finally the last one, the landscape (I included two shots one is kind of over exposed and the other one is dark, I couldnt get it quite right so its somewhere in the middle of these two). I think it looks better in person because I took a lot more time to think about brush strokes, as well as having had 5 weeks of getting into a routine. I was feeling fairly confident that I wouldnt completely suck ass at drawing or painting some trees. I believe we had 2 weeks and a class period to finish this.

I like it, i think I did pretty well. I am obviously still challenged by color, and I dont have a real nice concept of how to paint, but it looks ok for my sixth painting ever... who knows.

Theme Park Project Part 5: The Dark Tower Theme Park

CHECK OUT THE *Updated Drawing* OF THE THEME PARK!!!!!

Well here it is the last piece (if there are any critiques feel free to leave one or more if you so desire). There are a few things that were excluded and things placed where they were never intended because of time limits, but I have since gone back in and started to add the elements I wanted to put in but couldn't (ill address those as we see them). I would like to eventually color it, but I feel that is going to be further on down the road.

I did an incredible amount of research as well as used my already fairly good knowledge of the dark tower series to construct the world in such a way that it flowed, and showed all the major places from the book.

I will be adding a movie clip that shows the progress of my drawing, as well as really close up of each of the individual elements that will trace Roland and his parties progress through his world in the books as well as show you the attention payed to detail. So if I have forgotten something or linked things that dont make sense let me know so that I can add it or decide Im to lazy to add it before coloring it.

I hope you think its cool. The only last thing I guess I will say is that. I think the main thing to think about in visualizing the theme park is when you first walk through the front gate off in the far distance you can see the tower jutting up into the sky. So no matter where you are or what you are doing, you can always see it, and how you get there or which course you take is completely up to you.

It is the ultimate in theme parks, and as I mentioned before a better term would be immersion park.

The Dark Tower Theme Park Finished (in a sense)
(slightly smaller than 24x18)


Early Sketch. The Idea didnt change too much from this. The only real big thing is that It became wider so elements moved to fill in the sides.



Ok so I did blow these up to larger chunks but the video will have even closer pictures of the individual elements so I encourage you to check that out when I finally put it up.

One thing I should clarify for everyone is that, one of the elements I wanted to put in, but ended up not having time to do it all, is the idea of the Beams that hold up the dark tower. These beams were not physical beams but more like currents of electricity and each beam had an animal guardian counterpart. Each beam met at the dark tower, so two beams always had two guardians protecting it. Roland and his band of travelers traveled mostly along the beam of the Bear/Turtle (i believe it was turtle I could be wrong, its written on the drawing).

So to incorporate this idea into the theme park each beam would be an entrance into or an exit out of the theme park. What they go to or where they come from was not really thought of. However, I think there is only one Main Entrance and Exit to the Park, and that is through the Bear Door. So the other doors maybe would go to Elements of New York, Main, or whatever places Roland and his band visited outside of his world.

Enough about beams, if you dont know what they are then they are completely unimportant, and if you do know what they are then you already understand what I am talking about.


Top Left Corner: In this part of the Park you can see One of the Beams (eagle). You can see Odd Lane in the trees just to the right of the Eagle Door. Below that would be the Land of ThunderClap in it is Alja Sentiel, and Castle Discordia.





Top Middle: The Dark Tower, surrounded by the field of Roses and the stone heads. Below that you can see the final stop of Blain the Mono Topeka Kansas, and the highway system.



Top Right: The Forge of the Crimson King (town not finished and building not represented exactly the way I wanted it to be). A hole Into Todash Darkness, and the mountain for the doorway cave. You can also see that the Fish doorway is being drawn now that I have time.

This area is where the Calla will eventually be, but since the Calla is rather large it was one of hte parts that I didnt have a real good grasp on how to represent it and therefore ran out of time.

Below is another hill this is the hill that Rhea of the Coos lives on. It was placed here to take up room for the Calla and later will be moved down with the rest of hte Mejis stuff.
To the left of the coos hill you can kind of see Eyebolt Canyon.



Mid Left: Thunderclap, Blaines Mono Rails. Below that the city of Lud and the waste lands, to the right of that the giant forest, and Misty Mountain Range. You can also see the coastline and the doors from the second book.

Harder to see is the Rivers Crossing and the Circle of Stones that Susannah encounters the demon.




Mid Mid: Topeka kansas, the highway system, lud, at the bottom the weigh station.




Mid Right: Eyebolt Canyon, Coos Hill, Mejis, Susann Delgados place, and bottom is Citgo ail pumps, and a bad representation of Jericho Hill




Bottom Left: The beach and the 3 doors, lud, rivers crossing, the nazi plane, the weight station, misty mountains, the swamp and circle of stones that is first encountered, a start to the Rat door, and the corner of Tull.





Mid Bottom; Top left is the weigh station, to the right, Brown and Zoltans place, and tull




Bottom Right: Jericho Hill, Mejis, citgo, and Gilead

Theme Park Project Part 4: Blaine The Mono

Check Out the map of MidWorld in the Theme Park Project Part 5:
Dark Tower Map 

I have also recently updated the midworld project here is the newest version

*Updated Mid World Map*

(I have recently finished this to the point of what for now will be considered completion. It is currently in the art show so when that comes down Ill get better pictures and post the revised edition. I also added some new stuff to the Blaine the Mono drawing.)

This drawing consists of Two drawings, One an Illustration of a ride in the theme park, and an Orthographic of some important piece of equipment used in the ride.

For those of you unfamiliar with the books, Blaine the Mono is one of two trams that run from the city of Lud. Patricia (a pink Monorail) and Blaine. Patricia I believe is somehow sabotaged by Blaine (i cant remember) but Blaine is basically HAL from 2001 a space odyssey.

The machinery in Rolands world seems to be breaking down, and Blaine is no exception. The Gang escapes on Blaine as the horde of the waring "grays" and "pubes". Blaine takes them through the waste lands that lie beyond LUD, but the moment of safety is short lived, because the party finds out that Blaine intends to kill himself and everyone on board.

Their only chance of escape is to stump him with a riddle. The book ends as the party is trying to come up with a riddle to stump Blaine, but he has easily answered all the riddles thus far and the destination on the map is getting closer... it took Stephen King 5 or 6 years to finish and release the fourth book... a very very long cliff hanger indeed. So here is my rendition of what Blaine would look like.



Sketches of Blaine, the front gate, and some other structures that never made it into the finale theme park drawing.


First sketch of the Blaine the Mono ride Illistration.



The first draft of the illistration



The second Draft, you can see I moved some monsters and removed my crappy mock up of blaine the mono


My first attempt at rendering Blaine the Mono



My second Attempt at rendering Blaine the Mono




The finished illustration with the second rendered attempt on Blaine the mono. By drawing the mono on a separate sheet of paper I knew I could use a light table to transfer it (even though I find the transferring of drawings VIA light table to lack something). This would help save on erasing and the possibility of ripping the paper.



The transferred and Finale Image
You can see that the Mono came out a bit squished and flat. I will eventually go back and fix it, but due to time this is where it was left. If you enlarge this image you can see in the background the Mountains and Woods that the party first enters into in book three. These were added after the class but were always intended to be there.





And here is the Finale Orthographic of Blaine the Mono.
Think it looks pretty good. I think the only one I dislike is the Back view.