Fragment #10

It's 9am. I just finished this piece. Anticlimactic? Definitely. But I'm happy to have 10 pieces in my series, regardless. I'm not really capable of writing coherent sentences right now, so expect a post about the series as a whole some time in the near future.

I ran out of energy right in the middle of this one so I resorted to symbols. Fragment #10 is 100% acrylic paint.

Fragment #9

One left.

This one is acrylic, wintergreen transfers, ballpoint pen.

Fragment #8

I had to rush this one a bit. This time used acrylic wash, then used wintergreen oil transfers, then painted on top. PROCESS PROCESS PROCESS.

Fragment #5

Not extremely psyched on this one, but my professor liked it the best out of what I've done so far. Not sure what that means...

Fragment #5. 12.5"x10", acrylic & ink

Working hard or hardly working?

Too many colour charts.

The Question Arises: Will I ever post something other than illustration?

This week's prompt: depict fear, anger, or joy using only figures and abstract elements. Naturally, I chose to show a peaceful zombie scene.

Approx 13"x15"

Ink on Bristol

Moar Illustration

This week's illustration project: convey sadness, anger, or joy through an illustration devoid of figures, animals, or clothing with a monotone palette. I decided to try and tell a story in my image to accomplish this, perhaps of a man receiving a letter with devastating news (a break up, a death, etc) who drowns his sadness in alcohol. Or something like that. It's open to interpretation.

Note to parents: Fear not, I do not own the bottle depicted in my painting. I extrapolated from this image I found on google.

Gouache on Bristol, approximately 14"x15.5"

Back at the Rhodes School of Island Design

Well, here I am back at RISD, into my second week of classes. Feels like home. Anyway, here's my first assignment completed this year for my illustration class. Prompt was to evoke a single word with any type of illustration.

Spoiler: My word was "lost"

HL Fanart + Foot study + Photoshop practice

That's all there is to say...

Ink, 14x17

Ink, 14"x17"

Sketchbook, ink & pencil

Photoshop, 1200 x 2700 pixels

WSA Web Refresh

More stuff from my internship! I was assigned to create a new background (+header and footer) for my high school's web page for the new school year. The design isn't live yet, but hopefully once we have some time we can work out the details and put it up...

Stompbox Business Card Design

A month or so ago I designed the business cards for Stompbox Creative (where I'm interning). For anyone interested, here's what both sides look like:

Senior Citizens 2011

This year I was again invited to design the senior sweatshirt for my alma mater, West Sound Academy. As with the previous years, the most difficult part of the design process was getting everyone to agree on an idea. Which actually didn't happen this year, so the seniors now have a choice between a normal hooded sweatshirt with a design inspired by Macklemore's My City's Filthy shirt and a zip up hoody with a simple (BORING!) logo. Here's what I came up with:

(Made in Adobe Illustrator CS4 & Photoshop CS4)

Wait, I actually finished something?!

I felt extremely guilty about not finishing my second page yet and had some excess energy so I finally inked my last panel! Woo! Unfortunately my scanner is far too small to be of use and the lighting is terrible right now so the image is pretty low quality, but I'll fix that later. SO PLZ ENJOY PAGE TWO OF MY UNNAMED COMIC!

First Comics Camp!

This week was my first session of comics camp/class at West Sound Academy. I had a small group (only three) but everyone was enthusiastic and psyched about the class so it went pretty well. I do another session the week after next, with a generally younger set of kids. Hopefully we'll have a lot of fun and the kids will come out with a set of creative comics to show their parents and friends :)

Second Semester Drawing

Here I am back at home, eating delicious food and sleeping in a comfortable bed. I have dogs to pet, a car to drive, and life is good. Though I can't shake the feeling that a pile of work is waiting somewhere for me, ready to be discovered. Guess that's what RISD does to you. Anyway, I thought I'd put up some images from my drawing crit for second semester. I was given an entire studio space to put up enough work to represent the entire span of the class.
Part one of my crit space


Part two of my crit space. You actually can't see it but the wall continues for several feet on the right. I also brought three sketchbooks and several other loose drawings that I didn't put up on the wall.


John Galt
Charcoal, White-out, and Newsprint

My first drawing assignment for the Spring semester. The assignment was to take a nature lab object and create a spacial composition using several instances of the object at varying scales. I chose some sort of spiky and delicate brown seedpod. I took my inspiration from Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism as demonstrated in her Atlas Shrugged. The large seedpod is an expression of the glorification of the heroic individual, while the smaller newsprint-seedpods are the "looters" and "leeches" feeding off the success of another.


Studio Composition With Figure
Vine Charcoal

One day in-studio drawing of an elaborate setup including two skeletons, a flayed man, and a nude model.



Flight
Ink and Charcoal

I already posted this, but it was a major assignment for us (our "journey" composition) so I decided to include it here as well.


The Offering
Charcoal, Chalk on Cardboard

This was my "Animal Movement" composition. We visited a nearby zoo and sketched animals during an afternoon. I chose the cotton-top tamarinds!


Cliff Dream (Working Title...)
Vine and Compressed Charcoal

This was my last assignment for drawing class. We had two classes to create a unique spatial composition using reference from the two nude models posing for us all day. I decided to go for a surrealist feel to my drawing, looking to Dali and de Chirico. There's no real meaning here, it is just an exploration in placing objects (such as the Joshua Tree) where, logically, they do not belong.

I have more pictures from my semester in drawing, but those are for another post!

And That's a Wrap!

I have finished my freshman foundations year at RISD. I survived. The year has gone by so fast it's really insane. Hopefully pretty soon I can start putting up stuff from my studio classes as I edit the pictures and finish up packing. For now, though, enjoy this video......And that was Robbie's last performance at RISD for three months. But seriously, people are streaming out of RISD at an alarming rate. At least two or three people have already vacated my hall! It hasn't really sunk in that the year is over yet, but I guess as I see more and more people leave it'll hit me. Now back to the boxes I go.

Guide to the Hides

30" x 40" Mixed media on illustration board

A narrative map for 2D class about the thrill of finding hidden or overlooked spots and exploring their potential.

Flight

Flight
Black and Brown Ink, Gesso, and Pencil on Paper (33"x33") and Illustration Board (Two pieces, approximately 18"x24")



This assignment for my drawing class was based on the concept of "journey" and our personal interpretations of the word. I chose to create a triptych depicting a physical and psychological journey of the changes in myself I've experienced while at RISD. The two flanking pieces show my figure in first a coniferous forest (home in the Pac-NW) and later in my dorm room. The middle piece is an aerial view of Providence, from photographic reference, sketches, and invention. The bat is a sort of personal iconography for me - symbolizing the tension of duality as well as my self.

I may go back and work on this piece if I have the time (Hah!) to integrate the influence of Max Beckmann, as suggested by my professor. Also, it is hard to tell with this poorly lit studio photo, but the wing on the left protrudes slightly from the wall.

Modular Wearable Design

I just finished yesterday an assignment for 3D: A modular, wearable design. I chose to use guitar picks in bulk, intending to connect them like scales to form a hat. Unfortunately, I realized halfway through that 144 guitar picks is not quite enough to make a full hat. So instead I made this large necklace from 75 guitar picks. They are connected by segments mono-filament fishing line. Each joint was created by burning one end of the line to form a bulb, threading it through small holes drilled in the picks, and burning the other end to satisfaction.



Wearing the necklace





I may or may not have accidentally flung molten plastic around my room/onto my hand at least thirty times.

Computer Animation Final

I realized today that I hadn't posted anything from my computer animation wintersession course. That's partially because I'm very underwhelmed with the work I produced in the class and partially because I haven't put all the videos up on youtube. In any case, here is my final from the class. A disclaimer: I basically put this together in three nights (we only got a week to animate and I had my other course to worry about). So between the shortness, the poor narration (I had half an hour to record), and some awkward animation, I'm not too happy with it. But enough complaints, here's the video: