And it continues...

What's this? School is over, and here I am? Yes, indeed. I will continue to post designs and illustrations for your viewing pleasure. Here's to summer freedom!

Kiss and Make-Up

The aforementioned compilation, in the style of the eerily prophetic Andy Warhol.

Mucha Mucha

After an insane amount of hours, my self-portrait is finito at last. It's rendered after the image beside it by Alphonse Mucha. I will be posting some lengthy comments on the piece tomorrow as well as the source images. As always, click to enlarge. Good night!

UPDATE: Some thoughts...

I’ll begin with some comments on why I was drawn to Alhponse Mucha’s work to begin with. Quite simply, I think it’s beautiful. It’s illustrative, colourful and romantic. I think it struck a chord with me because it looks like the doodles and sketches I do outside of school or work or anything. Like my sketches, his works are girlie and wistful, and have this kind of Parisian elegance to them. I regards to the style, there are things Mucha does that I do myself – the heavy stroke around the dress and body, the exaggerated drapery, the soft but dramatic shading. The final reason for choosing Mucha is because he was an artist, but a commercial one. He avoids the line between high and low art by simply makes lovely images regardless of whether he’s drawing for himself or for a client. A lot of his work is advertising, but it’s all art.

I chose to imitate this particular image because I love the panel composition and the autumnal palette; it’s rich and very pleasing. Now that I’m looking at the completed image, I’ll be honest – nothing about the woman portrayed is very “Julie”, the face being the only exception. I certainly don’t find myself standing on pedestals robbed in silk and surrounded by floating leaves and flowers that came right out of a 60’s drug-induced vision. This portrait is not a gritty representation of personal emotional turmoil or a realistic portrayal of the spots and speckles in my complexion and the flyways in my hair. This portrait is a representation of some ideal Julie, that can really only exist on a screen. But I’m an idealist at heart, and I think it’s okay for artists to get lost once and a while.

That said, I’m still not completely comfortable with this piece. In a way, it’s ironic that the reason I chose to recreate a Mucha piece was because it was beautiful advertising. As it stands now, I’m almost uncomfortable with applying his rules of beauty and style to a picture of myself – it doesn’t quite fit. I’m not completely at ease with the image of myself as some foreign flower goddess. With that said, the second piece I created for my computer art final, “Kiss and Make-Up” makes perfect sense. It is a Warholian homage that became a commentary on the modern view of women in our air-brushed, celebrity saturated age.

It’s really quite nice when connections create themselves, isn’t it? I’ll post that video in just a moment.

(Shameless Plug)

It's getting closer...

This is the story of your red right ankle...

We were asked to play primarily with text last class. We chose a lyric, poem, or phrase that we particularly liked, I chose this song, and created the text-interpretations below.

Wine and Cheese

A layer assignment from a few weeks ago. Nothing too extraordinary.

500 Years in 2:52 Minutes

A friend of mine shared this video with me a few months ago, and yesterday we watched it again as a class in Computer Art. One of our final assignments is to pick a portrait, and then use Photoshop to create a self-portrait of ourselves in that likeness. Well, even though we didn't have to choose from the video, immediately upon viewing it yesterday there was one image I knew I wanted to imitate. I failed myself as an art major because couldn't place the image with an artist. So, did a little poking around online and discovered that the images that appear 2:26 minutes into the video are by Alphonse Maria Mucha. His work is absolutely incredible, and I've been pouring over it all morning. I only need to choose a particular work to model my portrait after, and I'll be on my way. As for now, I'm off to the Print Studio.

Jersey Kids

More photo-restores. This time, I worked with a photo of my dad, my grandpa, my uncle Will, and my aunt Ellen. Notice, though, I had to sculpt my uncle Will's face out of my my dads, using the clone brush primarily. Quite the challenge! I'm not a big fan of the colourization on this one, but it's a neat look I suppose.

Story Time

Apologies for the lack of new content as of late. Though my blog doesn't suggest it, things are running along quite smoothly in regards to my Senior Exhibition. Expect a catch-up post next week.
In the meantime, here is a photo-restoration I've been working on as of late. Uncle Jerry, Mother Dearest, and Aunt Milly. Cute eh?

Hi Mom

For the sheer fun of it:
My mom (on the right)

And, the Back to the Future edition.