In my free time...

...I made Darren Criss as Blaine Anderson from Glee! I've recently become really interested in everything Darren Criss... I blame *cough, cough* Leslie, because she first showed me "A Very Potter Musical" and "A Very Potter Sequel" first- so that's the real reason why I've started watching Glee, and what lead me to draw this. ***And if you guys haven't watched  of "A Very Potter Musical/Sequel" YOU TOTALLY NEED TO- GO ON YOUTUBE, LOOK IT UP, AND WATCH IT RIGHT NOW! IT'S TOTALLY AWESOME :D:)<3

No Title

I STILL HAVE "SANTA BABY" STUCK IN MY HEAD. D:

In other news, I'm actually working on my doll. :)

Have a fabulous weekend everybody! :D

Concentration #2

Yay! Done with one more concentration! Still one to go before finals... eek!
So this one is a faerie. I used the same medium's as before-- this time, highlighting the wings with sparkly paint. The wings went through many transformations, but I'm happy with the ending result. I hope you guys like the mushrooms. I was inspired by Mario ;) With the sky, grass, and tree's I was trying to create an enchanting whimsical effect. Hope y'all like it! :)

Concentration #1

I should have posted this a lot sooner... but since I'm going to start working on my 2nd concentration I thought it would be a good time to post this. 

So first of all, the idea of my concentrations are overall fantasy animals and people. 6 of my concentrations are going to be (somewhat) human, and the other 6 mainly animals-like creatures. This is what I'm planning on doing: (f- female, m-male)

(Humans): Mermaid (f), Faerie (f), Wizard (m), Witch (f), Elf (m), Dwarf (m)
(Creatures): Dragon (m), Unicorn (f), Phoenix (f), Centaur (m)*, Griffin (f), Basilisk (m)

*Yes, a Centaur is half-man, half-horse. I feel like I would be incomplete w/o a Centaur and I am planning on interpreting the Centaur with more horse qualities in him. (For example I may use horse ears, and have more horse hair on his torso and arms, rather than common views were only the lower half of the body is really the horse).*
 
So here is my first concentration "Majestic Mermaid" finished!
(I used acrylic and tempera paints w/ black felt pen as the border lines)

Next up, I'll be working on the Faerie! :)

....dOts....

Finished dot project!
I used watercolor for the background. I was thinking about making the spiky dot background just white, but it ended up looking odd and unfinished so I did a multicolor effect by painting it with white watercolor and smearing the other colors in with it. I overall really like it. The colors remind me of Toys 'R Us. haha. It's also really fun to touch the dots, because I used a crazy amount of matte gel and such. (So as long as people don't mess it up, I'm cool with people touching it...)

On another note, this 3 day weekend has been awesome and low key. Went to grandparents, hung around home, saw "Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein" for the first time (pretty funny), and going swimming later today. Been listening to lots of country music- got 3 albums this month! For some reason it seems like my favorites decided to release their albums all around the same time! Super happy. :) 

Anxious for next weekend! The Halloween spirit will be kicking into high gear! Going to Fright Town Haunted Houses with an awesome group of friends! <3 ;) 
Ready to work on my concentration soon too!

DONE- W/ 30 MINI'S

Goodness. I am so happy to be done with my 30 mini's... SO HAPPY. I honestly don't love them and I don't know if I hate some of them... I realize that a few if them are unintentionally pretty creepy, so don't be afraid to critic all of that type of stuff... From the combo of drawing myself a twice and huge in drawing 1 last year, and also drawing more of myself for this project, I have come to the conclusion I DO NOT want to draw myself for a REALLY REALLY long time. :D So here's the 30: (Left - Right)

 1. inked little kid me, 2. mosaic/colors of my bedroom, 3. pencil/realistic, 4. charcoal, 5. pen/brown colored pencil eye, 6. 'looking at a mirror and not my hand drawing procedure'

 7. Pablo Picasso, 8. markers, 9. colored pencil, 10. water colors, 11. acrylic harry potter, 12. Vincent Van Gogh

 13. scribbly fine-tip sharpie, 14. finger painted tree, 15. calligraphy, 16. pastel, 17. pink- colored pencil, 18. little cartoon- pencil

 19. stick figure- sharpie and colored pencil, 20. collage- magazine and paint, 21. painted wolf, 22. little circle gel pens, 23. hobbies in cursive, 24. Mona Lisa- Leonardo Da Vinci

 ^Okay, the above 6 above I decide to be lame and go for quick things to finish up.^
25. harry potter trio #3, 26. when I was little tulip contest entree, 27. green on green X, 28. graffiti 'Jen', 29. chibi, 30. friends and I in photo booth dealio

So there they are! Excited to work on my dot project tomorrow. :)

 

Black and White 6x6

Birrrdddiiess!!! 
I used black and white acrylic paint and mixed matte gel with the black paint to give the bird silhouette's a nice texture. The jumping off point for the idea of birds started with the hummingbird and crow which are my favorites. We have a bunch of hummingbirds at home that fly up to our hummingbird feeder year round so I thought that was a nice personal touch to add one in. Also something interesting, is that one of the meanings of my first name is "small bird." Here they are in different positions- I don't remember for sure, but when I presented, I think we agreed that the penguin and swan didn't really fit in, and once I figure out for sure what is going to be in the portfolio, I may post another pic or something. So here they are, hope you like them because I spent a long time working on them:)

Surrealist Self Portrait

Finally I decided not to be lazy and actually make a new post- but school has started, so I kinda have the right to be lazy ;). So I'm gonna post my surrealist self portrait:

(^Full piece- for some reason when I took this with my camera the background came up as blue, but it's really supposed to be purple >:|)

Snnnaaakkkeeeessszzzzzzz...... O_o

I was actually really freaking out about what medium to use on this piece. At first I was gonna use watercolor pencil, then that didn't show up bright enough for my taste. I was tired of using paint at the time to. So I ended up using dry pastels even though I was really worried because I'm pretty used to things working out well, and when the skin colored pastel was making marks all over I didn't know what to do. Eventually I think I got over the "perfect, crisp" look and I remembered it's surreal- so I decided to go for it and put oranges and pinks in my skin. Overall, I'm super proud of this piece- and the fact that it's on display right now is awesome and one of my friends (who isn't in this class and didn't know what I was making) said, "whoa, that portrait totally looks like you- creepy..." then I laughed saying, "because it is me, and I made it!" haha. 

(So now I'll mention some background info about this piece): 
Most of you probably remember learning about Greek Mythology at some point, and how Medusa had snakes as hair. Well, since my giant fluffy fizzy hair is kinda "a focal point" and since my family has actually joked that when I wake up my hair "look's like Medusa" I decide to take that idea, and create something surreal about it. First of all, I knew that I was going to have my hair slowly transforming into snakes because "transformation" is a characteristic of surrealism. Secondly, the fact that there are snakes in my hair creates another characteristic- "dislocation." And, finally- the snakes are also somewhat "levitating" which is another characteristic. At first, I felt like it would look really interesting to have another eye in the upper right hand corner and have the yellow snake coiled around it and squeezing tears out of it. Then once I tried sketching out the floating eye, it bugged me a lot and there was too much extra space that was awkward to me. I ended up coming up with something relating to the symbolism of the snake- which also went well with my love for nature.

This is a great website for looking up symbolism and it mentions more about why I specifically chose the Sun, Earth, and Moon as the upper right focal point. 
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/snake-symbolic-meaning.html

So that was that. Now Imma post about my 6x6. :)

HiGuys!!!

Hiiii my fellow classmates (and teacher) of the awesome blog world; I will be seeing y'all tomorrow! (I don't know why I enjoy saying "y'all," I'm not southern, it's just fun to say...) Anyway- I FINISHED MY SURREALIST SELF-PORTRAIT!!! WOOHOO! Haha, did anyone procrastinate and finish something as late as me? Yup, it's 11:06 pm, and I just finished... and I had the whole day to work on it, and what did my smart self do- watch TV, go on the computer, and eat food most of the day away. Wow, our lives are going to be less lazy tomorrow... painful... :P Ughhh, it's a little depressing how early 6 am really is... I'm gonna be so dang loopy and tired. Oh well, we'll survive somehow right? So, back on topic (If you couldn't tell, I'm in a very random ranting mood). Ok, so I actually I am completely done with my final summer homework dealio. I would post it right now, but that will just cause me to waste time taking pics and such, besides, I don't know if anyone would actually be seeing it tonight anyway, you'll probably all see it tomorrow. I was thinking about just writing about it, but what the heck, that's just wasting more time. I'll talk about it tomorrow on this blog whenever I decide to get a pic of it and such. So basically, this longish post is kinda pointless, and the only real information that is somewhat necessary to chat about is that I finished my portrait and I literally could have put this long paragraph into one sentence, but I'm oddly enjoying this... Thanks for dealing with me if one of you pupils are actually reading this... see y'all! :) :D <3

Kinda Interesting Stuff

YAY! Half-way done with my surrealist self-portrait! Should be finished with it in a couple days. Then I'll be off camping with the whole family, then school! Felt like sharing some of my favorite quotes:

"It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which... you may find really marvellous ideas." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. . . The feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures." (Vincent Van Gogh)

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create." (Albert Einstein)

'Ello :)

Hi peoples of the awesome art world! I got my schedule and for first try I have Ap Art second period. Looking forward to the class with y'all!

"Two Twelves, Two Nines"

I'm FINALLY finished with my Shoe Project!!! Yay!!! :) I put a bunch of time and detail into this project; It was 1 am when I actually finished it last night. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering I named the piece, "Two Twelves, Two Nines" because my brother and my Dad both wear size 12 shoes, and my Mom and I both wear size 9. So here it is (Left to Right- Brother, Dad, Me, Mom):

I don't have much to say about these shoes. I'm just very happy how they turned out and that I'm done with them. Had a great day today and saw "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in 3D with Leslie. :):D<3 I have a clear idea of my surrealism self-portrait and I'm excited to start it and eventually finish.

Pencil Drawings

These are the type of drawings I generally do on a more regular basis. Both of these drawings I drew this summer and stayed up til 3 am making them. I'm very much a night-owl, and whenever I get started drawing, it's very difficult to stop me. ;)

So these two drawings are of Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Harry Potter in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" movie. I picked a kinda sad scene to draw out (Hermione is crying), and I would explain what happened, but it would kinda be a spoiler, and most people have probably seen the third movie by now, but just in case I won't explain the scene. Besides, I think if people have seen the movie, you'll know what scene I'm showing. 

I'm kinda disappointed how the color didn't show up that well... :P Hermione's face is kinda messed up too; I was looking at a picture while drawing this, and her face was kinda hard to see- but I did the best I could have. I personally like Ron the best in my drawing- it really captures the way his face actually was. I was trying to find the picture I was looking at, but for some reason I've had trouble relocating it- I had to search a good deal to find it in the first place too. 

 Above is the same picture obviously, but I edited it to be a gray scale.

 Lastly, I was inspired by Rihanna's "California King Bed" to draw this piece. The lyrics on the lower right hand side is from her song. I based the position of the girl on the line mentioning "reaching out my finger." The lyrics in the upper left corner is from Christina Perri's song called "Distance." Since both of these songs where involving Distance, it seemed only proper to name the drawing that. As I was drawing the girl I realized her dress reminded me of fairies, more specifically the fairy godmother in "Pinocchio," but I wasn't looking at anything while making this. My only issue with this is her feet, and her shoes that remind me of ballet slippers. It kinda looks like she is standing on her tiptoes like ballerina's would and I wasn't originally going for that, but I guess it's good enough. And finally, I thought I should add that the whole scenery with the stars and sky also represent Distance in a different way. 

And one more thing! Really REALLY close to finishing my shoe project, just need to do some last finishing touches and the background!

Oh, Happiness:)

#1 Thing that I'm happy about right now is that I finished my Mystery Bag Project! So, here it is! :D

^This was before I glued anything down by the way. Right when I saw the circular lego knew that it was going to be my focal point right away. The colored squares that you see in the middle of the cardboard is a bunch of erasers that I cut up into little pieces. The plastic container in the upper right corner is melted crayons and below it is there wrappers I ripped up. On the lower right corner is an eye glass holder, which I also tore apart. Lastly I folded and cut the pink foam into leaf like shapes.

 ^So this is the final product! As you can see I changed the direction of the erasers and I think it highlighted the focal point better. (Also this was taken with a flash and the picture below it wasn't). I was inspired by elements when I was making this piece. You can probably guess how I pictured the elements, but I'll point them out anyway. The blue area is water, on the whole left side is earth or plants, the giant circle lego surrounded by red, orange and yellow is fire or like the sun, the melted crayons in the upper right corner could be ice or clouds, and below it is the brown area which also could be earth (like sand or dirt).

 oh ya, I just added some numbers and letters to the middle blue section with a blue colored pencil because I honestly forgot about that guideline until now.

#2 Reason why I'm happy is that I just went to Target and got a green lap desk (that matches my bed) that I can use on my bed to draw or do homework because I don't like sitting on the actual desk right next to my bed. And, I also got blue curtains that match parts of my bedspread. My bedroom was remolded a summer or two ago and it went from a twin bed and a pink themed room, to two different shades of purple on the walls, and a leafy and flowery bright lime green (with a little blue an purple) bedspread on a full sized bed. My room finally feels complete. Now I just need to bug my parents to let me design more rooms... :)


#3 Reason why I'm happy is that I'm almost finished with my AP Lang summer book dealio; I have a whole list of books I'm super excited to read next, and lastly I'm eating my favorite cereal for dinner and I think I'm gonna watch Harry Potter sometime soonish. Aren't blogs great? They let you rant about everything you feel like, and people don't even have to read them, but the process of typing all this stuff just makes me happy too. :) :D

A Little Update

To anyone who cares- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was amazing, so go see it!!! :) :D

I've been working on my Mystery Bag project like a crazy person today. Now that I'm done arranging giant lego's, melting crayons, and cutting up erasers, I actually have to glue everything on! I've noticed that whenever I make abstract art I try to make it secretly look like something. This time I'm going to use all my large pieces to make a nature like theme -- I have foam that kinda looks like leaves, some fabric that will be water, the erasers and ripped up papers could be sand. I'm really excited to see what the end product will be with all the paint and everything finished. I'll post pics as soon as I finish!

Harry Potter!!!

If you all didn't know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan girl, so since I'm super duper excited to go the midnight premiere of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2," I decided to make this as a little remembrance of this enormous finale. (Personally I think the texture isn't showing up that well on the computer. I have a Harry Potter Calendar so I got the general picture of Harry from that, but I tried to make it my own a bit...)

 Yes, I will dress up with my Ron Weasley t-shirt, I'll have my crazy Hermione-like hair down; I'll be wearing my key chain golden snitches on either a belt or purse strap; I may have a lightning bolt scar on my forehead too, but oh well- I will be accompanied by one of my friends as Dumbledore, and my brother will be wearing a small Gryffindor robe. Can't wait for the exciting night! 

And I desperately need to start on some art homework... :P

P.S.- Thank you again Leslie for getting me pretty much every piece of Harry Potter merchandise I just mentioned above! :)

Shaded Self Portrait

So here it is! I finally got around to posting it! :)

 (The first one is scanned, the second one is taken from my camera.)

Drawing 1 is over :( But Ap is starting! :)

Oh my goodness! One more day we have to survive! :O *gasp!*

Today in Drawing I got some stuff back, and turned some things in. I decided to scan my eye drawing- so here it is:

I have always really loved drawing eyes. Hair and eyes are my favorite features to draw. Since I'm used to realistic things, decided I would change it up and make a surrealist self-portrait. I think it will be pretty fun. Once I take a decent picture of my shaded-self portrait I will post that too. Very happy that it may be able to count as a project in Ap as well!

The Sunday without sun

So what have I been doing on this coldish (doesn't feel like summer at all) type of day? 

Drawing of course! :)

Been working on my shaded self-portrait for Drawing 1-- which means I have basically shut myself in my room, while also listening to music non-stop. No matter what art class I take, I always manage to get behind. I'm hoping that will change soon. 

Actually somewhat excited for school tomorrow. Four more days, four more days!

Hello World...

So I am finally done editing my official art blog after working on it for about 3 hours. Wow. No exaggeration people. 

I actually was inspired to make a blog a long time ago because I watched the movie "Julie & Julia," but of course that went no where because I didn't have a clear vision of what to write about, and I'm no cook like the movie characters. The fact that we had to do this for school just made it super easy! 

Super excited to get right into my summer art projects, no matter how stressful it may be to get things done perfectly. So happy that the class I have always wanted to take is here. :)