Been busy lately. Painting class is a bitch on time, so in conjunction with my other two art classes, i seem to be spending all my time in one studio or another. I've also learned something: I'm not a very gifted painter. I mean it's not like i'm completly inept, but i have no innate ability. I wish i did, perhaps i'd enjoy the class more, but instead i find myself getting frustrated. It's a strange kind of frustrated though, like i'm doing what i want to be doing, but the only reason i'm getting fed up is because i'm not doing it as well as i think i should. We've moved on from reality for a bit (i am so sick of that god damn licence plate) and are experimenting with abstracts. I'm afraid i think i like it. It's just too much fun, i love the freeness with which i can paint, the experimental and forgiving style, everything. Everything except the finished product. It seems like abstract is only fully appreciated by the artist, because they were the only ones who went through the process of actually painting it. The rest of it just seems like a lot of fluffy bullshit to me. But hey, as far as commercial art is concerned, abstract may be the way to go. Give the patients in the dentists office something to stare blankly at.

anywho, school is bummin me because it sometimes seems that deadlines are more important than the student actually improving their skill. I'll save the rant for another time.

An experiment with the inkblots again. The texture of the inkblot got lost when i used watercolor for the wings because, well like an idiot i used watercolor black for the inkblot part. The paper is tea-stained resume stock :)
butterfly

The last stage, with gradient color added. I just rolled the color on the paper before i pressed the image, but i'm going to experiment with using monotype backgrounds with turpentine effects on the paint.
wrench3

An idea i had originally for a whiteline woodcut print, but the block wasn't very good, so i ended up using the rubber Speedball plate, which i think is much better.
wrench1

In the second stage, with the texture cut out
wrench2

So far the best in the series and the one that i finished first. An abstract version of the celtic greenman
Greenman

This one was done all with prismacolor pencil. I was trying the idea of doing a four seasons theme, blue=winter, brown=fall, green=spring, and yellow=summer
Blueman

As I was doing the inkblots faces started to appear, so i decided to use that as my theme. This one is Prismacolor marker w/ watercolor
Brownman

I was testing out the idea of using inkblots as a printmaking technique. This one is just an abstract design with a watercolor background

Abstract

My painting professor last week shared with us the importance of sketchbooks, how they are an artists diary, a place for visual thoughts. Other people write down much of their feelings, put into words the way they perceive the world. Artists are visual people, they think in images, in flashes of inspiration and abstract compulsion. He showed us a few of his books, tattered and worn from years of handling and traveling, the latest of which was from his trip to Albania. Scribbled in the margins of strange abstractions and detailed recreations were fragments of thought, ideas, titles for peices or themes. "Poppies in a field of fire, church ruins, portait of a girl, ships in the harbor." All ideas and written accounts of the things he saw or invisioned in his mind. Some of them very personal, some so personal he wouldn't read them to us. It made me realize that this was the true use of a sketchbook, not as a way to show the teacher you're thinking about a project, but a way to hash out the ideas running around in your head into a real medium. Going from thought to reality. A very personal and amazing thing.

I already have about five or so sketchbooks, all of them half full and ripped apart, either because i was unhappy with what i did or that i simply became disinterested. But here i want to do the same thing as my books, except here maybe i can get feedback on them, learn what others think and incorporate that into the works. That's the hope anyway. We'll see if it works.

Beach Jenn 

Met Sculpture