Reflections on my college artwork: portraiture

Time for another reflective post on my college art. I mentioned in this post that collage was a big part of my work at college. The other subject I spent a lot of time on was portraiture. Portraiture is still something I enjoy, even though it isn't my main focus right now.

I'd worked on drawing people's faces a lot throughout junior high and high school. Faces are pretty tough, but something about them kept compelling me to continue practicing, even when I wasn't satisfied. By the time I hit college, I'd made enough progress that my portraits actually started to resemble the people I was trying to draw. And then came painting.

After a very brief semester of basic oil painting, we jumped headlong into painting portraits. Looking back on these paintings, I can tell I was still struggling to capture the subtle nuances of each face. But, I can also tell I was starting to make headway in producing an interesting portrait. 

Oil painting came (relatively) easily to me. Watercolor, on the other hand, was a much bigger struggle. I took a watercolor class around the same time as my second semester in oil painting and felt completely discouraged every time I tried to make something. Watercolor was so different from oil and I could not figure out how to make it work. Then we reached a portrait assignment and I painted this.

It completely blew my mind that, while my still lives looked horrible, this portrait actually turned out pretty good. I had enough knowledge and experience with faces that I could get the paint were it needed to be. After this painting, I tried my hand at other water color portraits. Some were less than stellar, but others ended up being quite successful. 

I still find it amusing that watercolor became such a big part of the art I do now, when I remember how hard it was to learn. I'm actually more comfortable working in watercolor now than with oils. Hopefully, that will change as I continue to do pieces in my water mixable oil paints. (Side note: If you're interested in working with oils, but can't/don't want to deal with turpentine, I highly recommend water mixable oil paints. They've been just as satisfactory as the real thing and much easier to clean up.) 

Looking at these old portraits, it's nice to see how much progress I've made. Since leaving college, I've made it a priority to be constantly learning and improving in as many areas of art as possible. And, even though I've spent a lot of time working on other topics, I know I'll always love portraits.

onward and upward,

Bethany

July sketchbook '14

Slim pickings for this months sketchbook post. Sorry about that. I did throw in a few development sketches of The Onion Princess, just so things don't feel so sparse. Hopefully next month will be better. 

Also, today is Jon and my 4 year anniversary!!! ^_^ It's been an amazing adventure, and I can't wait to see what the coming years have in store for us!

onward and upward,

Bethany

Bulbasaur Illustration

Last month, I started playing Pokémon for the first time!! (I'm making up for missed opportunities as a child.) Jon has a smart phone now, so he was able to download an emulator for me. Anyway, it's super fun and I now have a totally valid excuse to make Pokémon fan art!!! Yay!! ^_^  And since I chose Bulbasaur as my first pokémon, he seemed like a good place to start.

I've been wanting to try collage in illustration for awhile and this seemed like the perfect chance to experiment. Most collage illustrations tend to call a lot of attention to the individual elements used and lack visual depth. My goal is to combine the magazine pieces with watercolor to create something that's a little more blended. I still want the magazine pieces to be recognizable, but not so much so that they take away from the subject matter as a whole.

 

Needless to say, I have a long, long way to go before I feel really proficient in this technique. There are so many options to explore and I'm still really slow at the process. But I'm excited about all the possibilities this medium holds. And at the chance to make more Pokémon art! ;-)

onward and upward,

Bethany

July Skill Building: Hair, Poses, Hands, and....Perspective!!

Here's some stuff from the secong half of last month's skill building challenge. 

After I finished my skill building challenge, I vowed I would work on that dreaded and most mathematically of art disciplines; perspective. Needless to say, the road to mastering perspective has been fraught with difficulty. I spent hours drawing lots of boxes in 1, 2, and 3 pt perspective on large pieces of paper. (In my non air conditioned kitchen with pencils that kept breaking, I might add.) However, at long last, I'm beginning to see some improvement. I can now draw piles of boxes in perspective without the use of a ruler!! I still have a ways to go before I reach my goal of completing 100 perspective exercises, but at least I can see my skill levels increasing. 

onward and upward,

Bethany

Samurai cat

So, this sketch is sort of based on one of Jon's co-workers, who is apparently introverted, cat-like, and honor bound. Thus, a Samurai Cat. Jon tasked me with drawing this character and I'm really surprised at how well it turned out. 

I think a huge part of it is good reference. I was about to dive right in and start drawing, but I stopped myself, looked at some old photos of actual samurai, did a few practice sketches, and then started the final. Yay, reference!

onward and upward,

Bethany

June '14 Sketchbook

I would have had these ready a little earlier, but I got caught up painting the tiger lilies outside my window. 

(And yes, I am aware that I spelled "lilies" wrong on the second to last image.)

onward and upward,

Bethany

Reflections on my college artwork: collage

Part of the purpose of this blog is so I can have a place to post my latest artwork. But today, I thought it would be neat to show some of my old stuff from college. The first subject I want to share is collage.

Collage is a media near and dear to my heart. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, it involves creating art pieces from various materials; paper, cardboard, magazines, and any found object that can be attached to your desired surface. Despite how influential collage is to my art, I didn't really get into it till my junior year. Since there weren't any classes or instructors in the topic at my art school, I had to learn it on my own.

I realized early on that collage is a highly intuitive process. It still follows a lot of "art rules" like balance, form, negative space, and color harmony, but those rules manifest themselves in completely different ways from say, drawing, illustration, or traditional painting. It's more about the materials themselves and how they are arranged. Collage takes mundane, ignored objects and transforms them into something unexpected and beautiful. 

My senior art show featured three white shadow boxes and two panels, one blue and one green.

In retrospect, I can see that my early work is a lot less experienced. I filled most of the space with a patchwork of small, paper pieces, creating something that's pretty chaotic. While the artworks still have a lot of visual interest, they feel somewhat incoherent to me now. As I learned more about the media, I gained a better sense of how to create less overwhelming collages by using a variety of paper sizes. 

Looking at these early collage attempts, I'm reminded of the chance art school offers to think big. You have more freedom to try extravagant, inconvenient projects without having to worry as much about the consequences. Now, I have to consider storage space and what I'm going to do with my artwork after it's done. While I miss the opportunities to go crazy in the name of artistic exploration, being forced to take responsibility for the aftermath of my art projects has helped me evaluate which ideas are actually worth pursuing. 

Thanks for letting me share! There are a few more pieces from college I'm planning on share, so stay tuned for that. 

onward and upward,

Bethany