Exploring Charcoal Art

For this lesson we studied the human limbs and learned how to use charcoal to outline things and then blend and smudge to create shadows and hair strands etc-

I love drawing and traditional art. I had never used charcoal before though but I enjoyed the assignments tremendously! 

What an alien skull could look like

A foot that is tan

Saint Clare of Assisi

The Skeleton of a giraffe

My self portrait

The Gestalt Principles in Design

    Gestaltism was founded in the early 20th century by a group of psychologists. The Gestalt Principles describes how humans group similar objects, recognize patterns, and simplify complex images. These principles are divided up into five categories: proximity, similarity, continuity, connectedness, and closure. Artists and Designers of all types use it to organize content and make it appealing. It's also great for building logos.

    For this topic's assignment I had to take an object and simplify it. Breaking it down to abstract lines and shapes. This project was fun and stimulating! I will definitely use this method in the future to make logos and banners in business cards and websites.

    I stuck with my ladderback chair image and deconstructed it:

The Final image illustration of the Chair Story

    Design Assignment 1, Personality Personification of a man-made object. My story is about "The cycle of life from the perspective of a chair." This is the scene I chose to illustrate in greater detail: The senior couple living happily together in their home, watching TV still utilizing the man's childhood chairs that his father made. 3 artworks. 2 digital collages.

The rough draft

Storyboarding, The Story of a Chair

    Design Assignment 1, Personality Personification of a man-made object. I chose to draw a chair. The cycle of life from the perspective of a chair. The storyboard has 20 thumbnails. 5 strips.

    I wanted to create a cute love story. And this is what materialized.

Here's a quick summary of the story beginning with the first row: The chair is being made in a workshop by a man who then brings it home to another chair.

Second row: The chairs like each other. The man's family consist of a young child who grows into a man.

Row three and four: The son who is now a man, falls in love with a woman. They sit and live their lives by utilizing the chairs who are also in love with one another. Time goes by and the adults become senior citizens, then the old lady passes away. The lady's chair eventually breaks too and is used as fodder for a fire. The other chair is sad, and daydreams about past memories.

Final row: Eventually the old man passes away and relatives drive the furniture, possessions, and chair to a consignment store that sells furniture. The old man's chair is surrounded by new chairs and furniture. Eventually someone buys the chair and it is recycled to a new home. Life continues.

The last drawing page is a detailed rough draft that highlights moments that could be in the story.

Click on picture to enlarge it

The Halloween Alien girl design was put on clothing!

    My Halloween alien girl design was chosen to be applied to clothing via Amazon's print on demand. A few products have already been sold. To view my items you have to be on the USA Amazon website, so please change the address to a USA zip code, you can use the popular 90210 zip code. To view most of the items with my design, click this sentence. All proceeds go to funding our class Halloween party.

    Below are also pictures of some of the products available with my design. The last picture showcases a model wearing a T-shirt with the brown shirt option so you can see what it looks like in the real world. 🍂😄

Vector boat on the lake edition

     I really love building vector objects. I love the Adobe Illustrator vector art style. I decided to build a boat on the lake scenery I made recently because I wanted to create something practical. I drew the main shape on paper and then traced it in Illustrator. I thought a gray and green boat color theme would suit the overall image well. I made the boat into a fishing vessel. It has an emergency canoe, and a lifebuoy, and at the front of the boat is the fishing net mechanism. I like the simplistic defined color shapes but I was encouraged to add shadow shapes of darker colors to the boat to add more depth and I also like how it looks with that technique too. 

Vector Scenery and a 3 headed Swan

     I really love the simplistic vector sceneries with bold colors and shapes. I created a mountain landscape with a forest and still lake water. Awhile ago I had a conversation about swans with a friend, and their graceful, beautiful, long necks made me want to draw one...But as I thought about it, I couldn't help but think how cool it would be if I made my swan unique...A 3 headed swan would be a cool art project to work on. So I created a 3 headed swan, each head with it's own personality and icon. I drew the swan on paper first and then I traced it and built its shape in Adobe Illustrator. I feel better now that it is completed. Like pieces of me, come to life for everyone to gaze at. 🦢

I learned how to make and utilize symbols. Mine looks like a logo.

    I made a stylized letter J for my Adobe Illustrator's make symbols and utilize them assignment. I really like how clean the letter J looks. I love the chunky, new age line look. I also love maple leaves, and it's gradient fits nicely. Now, who wants to hire me to make them a business card logo? 😁

In honor of all the Saint Germaine Cousins out there in the world

    At night I listen to the Daily TV Mass, it calms me and informs me. I love listening to the prayers and sermons. The music is great too. One day when I was tuning in, the priest of the day was talking about a young lady Saint called Germaine Cousin. Her story is very sad but it moved me. I decided to make an image of her for my 8th assignment in Adobe Illustrator. I could write a lot about her but instead just click on this sentence to read about her online. She inspired me. The image of her depicts how she was born with one of her hand deformed. The stained glass and halo helps to give her that saintly vibe.

Assignment 9, Making Text Effects

    I decided to use a variety of text effect techniques to achieve a cool look for the idiom " In the twinkling of an eye." The sentence sounds a bit magical and cool. It inspired me to use the font called Wizardry and to make my own font for the rest of the sentence. I tried to use colors that can be found in eyes. I am proud that I got the hang of this style of effect. I recommend this tutorial. Click the word tutorial to go to the video that helped me.

Lesson 6, Making a coffee cup logo

    In Lesson 6 of Adobe Illustrator CC Classroom in a Book (2018 release) I learned how to use a variety of tools in Illustrator to make a coffee cup, the logo on it, a spoon, and a coffee bean icon. First I drew the coffee cup with the pen tool and the curvature tool. Then for the spoon I drew half of it and then reflected that half to complete the shape. I used the pencil tool to draw the coffee bean. For the steam, I learned how to erase unwanted edges with the Joint tool, and I also connected paths that were wide open. 

Adobe Illustrator lesson 1, basic logo symbols

 I am now dipping my toes and learning Adobe Illustrator. I followed the first lesson in the digital book called Adobe Illustrator CC classroom in a book (2018) and made a logo and a few symbols from scratch. I really like the simplicity and elegance of the flyer so I decided to post it on my blog. Now I can make logos and professional looking flyer ads 💬🤠

Movie Poster creating is a fun learning experience

    I recently watched the last Matrix movie, number 4 and I thought it was super interesting. I love the story and concept of The Matrix and it's rebels. When I was younger I would have picked the red pill in a heartbeat, or so I think. Now that I am older, a happy life with purpose is what I am aiming for and thus I don't mind the blue pill. As long as the robots are being good to me-What is there to complain about? LOL 

I had to make a movie poster for my Photoshop class final. I quickly gravitated towards The Matrix and made a faux movie poster for The Matrix 5, Reincarnation. I really like the tagline I invented, "A new generation." I went all out creating a cool computer screen with html code on it and my boyfriend popping out of the bottom with a materializing cockatoo on his shoulder. Everything has a digital flare that goes along with The Matrix's theme. I also learned how to use gradients and change a regular portrait picture into something cool. I added a pill bottle with the red and blue pill near a VR headset- because we all know The Metaverse is going to be a lot like The Matrix, hehehe...For good or for worse. 

I read an article online that made me feel a bit better about the future. The article talked about how people with disabilities and/or illnesses could benefit a lot from an online world where they can customize their avatar and then go to places like virtual museums or homes or planets. That's how they can do things like able bodies can. Everyone deserves a way to interact with other people. Human beings need friends and a community. Maybe some people will befriend robots too, as long as it's not hurting anyone then I think The Metaverse could be benevolent. Hopefully some people will prefer the real world and keep fighting to keep it as green and as healthy as possible...Without the Earth, we can't live or have a lifestyle.

My professor liked my first movie poster version but he thought that I could put my talent to good use and watch a few more online tutorials on how to make a classic The Matrix style poster. He was right. I can do something more Hollywood poster-ish. I am happy that he kindly pushed me in the right direction. Both posters were fun to work on.

My first art booth at an art festival

 I was so excited and a bit nervous being part of Wolseley’s Envision Festival of the Arts. It took place in the community center of Wolseley. I was all smiles the first day. But it gets harder and harder to sit in my booth and not do anything except talk to strangers interested in my paintings. But I managed! I completed the two day festival without anyone buying anything but I did give out a lot of business cards. After the festival was over I did receive inquiries about animal and human portraits. I am really happy I got to be a part of this event.