Man Vrs Nature... Painter Style!

The other day in my painting we began the class with a critique of our still life paintings. When it came time for my painting I timidly explained I had painted the scene out the window of the pretty mountains and trees as my focal point. 

Then my teacher asked the question. My teacher asked why I didn't paint people, cars, signs and all the lamp posts that should have been littering my painting. 

My reply was simple, "I don't like people"

When I had said this, I had meant it as, "I don't like to paint people or man made stuff!" not as I hate people.... I think...  I do love landscapes and the beauty of nature. Well with my quick and witty reply we all kind of chuckled because we realized that none of us appreciate man made objects interfering with our art!That led us to add symbolism and double meanings to my painting like crazy! It made me feel like a real artist (chuckle)

I would like to note that I didn't consciously intend to have these meanings in my painting, but I'm starting to think subconsciously maybe I did! I do feel, that man is mucking up the wild and natural beautiful scenes around us. I'm sure glad I live in Montana that is still home to the free rolling plains and wide open sky you can see touch horizon to horizon.

Back to school! My piece was also called "creepy but in a good way"... "It seems almost to perfect, in a weird sublime way. The trees are whimsical, the tree on the left received the comment of trying to push its way into the painting. The painting was also compared to a film noir. In film noir's the women would look so beautiful and extravagant, but the lighting would not dance upon their eyes which would be completely black. This comparison was compared to that of the windows on the building. Windows usually allow you to look into something but not these all you get to see is a black abyss. Also by taking the people and excess of human objects out it personified control and emptiness. But then it shows the beauty in a mockery.

Today I showed my painting to my foundations 3D teacher from last year. She picked up on the eeriness but the perfect beauty right away! She said the mountains has a looming presence over the calm empty grass that was painted simplistic in contrast to the complexity of the mountains. She also made the comment of the emptiness suggesting presence. It was great to get her comments on it! 

My painting teacher suggested I should think about starting a body of work. I think that sounds like a very good plan on how to express my frustration in a calm manner! that I guess I didn't even know I had until now... Gotta love art!

Is It Nap Time Yet?

Wow does time fly! Even when your sleep deprived! But isn't that the purpose of college to teach us that sleep is not a necessity of life? Or that blogging takes priority over studying for french..... oh well!

Today I learned though that art is important and that the world pretty much depends on us. We had a very special guest today at the college, Don Colley! He is an artist from Chicago. He was really inspirational and really cool. He showed us some techniques on how he sketches and shared some really great advice. He said, "sketching is thinking out loud" I had never really thought of that before, but it makes perfect sense! He is a really neat guy! check out some of his work, or his video by faber-castell!

 So I have not posted in ages which means I have been hard at work on projects for school! Here are some of the cooler projects! My first graphic project was a success! We were to create bit-mat monograms in adobe illustrator, which was a piece of cake! We had to mount our designs on mat board and they had to be presented perfectly.

Up next on the update is my painting projects! Our first project was to do a grid painting with a specific color scheme. I had analogous colors, red, yellow, and orange. We are supposed to make our own black in my painting class so thats how I ended up with the green color, the black I make has a ton of blue in it. We were supposed to pick a silhouette and use a 12X12 to cube-ify it. soooooo ya ta-da! Pretty wheat! We were to show depth by using the varying colors shades. Darker colors stand out more while lighter colors recede to the back. 

And finally may I present my first still life. We were supposed to render a still life in gray scale to study lighting and how far we can push the contrast between dark and light. I used oil paint and my own black so it has a blue-ish hue. I also used a pallet knife so the painting is full of texture! It was a really fun study! 

Back Into the Swing of School

My how time flies! To bad I'm not having a marvelous time! It's college time once again! Break out the overpriced books, late nights, and coffee comas! A friend and I the other day at lunch decided college is really those days you can't get back because it takes 20 years off your life from stress!

But this year is fun if i use my optimistic attitude! I'm taking a painting studio and intro graphics studio! I'm also taking French, art history, and a human and life development class(FCS)!

The FCS class is pretty awesome! The purpose of the class is to learn about humans development from conception till death, so we do the whole flour baby kind of project, but its a computer game instead! This is the only time we will ever be allowed to leave our kids alone for two weeks. The other part of the class we create our own avatars and raise them from 18 to a ripe ol age when we kill em off. Oh this is gonna be fun!

I love my painting and graphics class because duh they're art classes! It's great hanging out in the studio till 3 am again.... oh the memories.... coffee....

french is french! Im not failing yet so thats a plus!

Well it will be a busy year! I'm almost half way there!

Let the Everyday Adventures Begin!

Returning To The Perils Of Dorm Life

On Sunday the dorms once again were open, we as students who pay a huge fee for staying in these things in the first place get kicked out during holidays.... arg. Anyway I moved in finally! It was nice to return to my cramped communal living quarters once again to look forward to a new semester of art and stress! Can you hear the excitement?

But to add some more character to my dorm room, I got this cute little piece of art for Christmas from my mom! It was so cute!

Another thing on the bright side of life was the fact we got sushi today at work!!! how awesome is that!!!! But on the flip side it was because it was my boss's going away party :(  We all got a tad emotional, we almost had to break out the tissue boxes! 

And next a fun fact from college life. The travel mugs we recive for living in the dorms aren't just swell for filling with liquids they are great for smuggling things out of the dinning halls! So what is orange all over and three can fit in my mug? ORANGES! The tiny ones that is! I was kinda proud of my discovery!

Merry Christmas Eve

WOW ok so I have been super busy and I have not gotten around to blogging in FOREVER! But its finally Christmas Eve so now I have some time!

I finally made it home on Saturday after my forever long car drive! But it was awesome cause I listened to the same play list over and over and over and over and over again! It was pretty epic! Good jams + loud stereo+ me, myself and I= AWESOME car ride!

So I get home with the expectation of my family joyously greeting me! cause seriously they haven't seen their favorite daughter/sister in like forever, but alas I must of hit my head or something! I was lucky enough to get a "hey" from my youngest sibling! sheesh talk about feeling the love! Good thing I plan on living in France someday!

But there are some things to be thankful for for Christmas....

1. JOSH GROBAN!!! (and not only his Christmas music, literally just him!)
2. Christmas trees!
3. My awesome friends! 
4. food LOTS of food
5. sleep
6. some more sleep
7. baking
8. snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9. some family tehe ;)
10. free time to snuggle with a good book!
11. sweaters!

So what r some things I don't like about Christmas?

1. Brett (my little brother asked to be on my other list so that automatically boots him to this one)
2. putting up the Christmas tree
3. not being aloud to sleep in past 8..... arg
4. not having the time to read :(
5. eating too much food
6. the cold brrrr
7. some family 
8. not being in France!!!!!
9. Dr. Oz (he is just super annoying) 

But it is nice to be for a little bit I guess we all have to deal with the crazy family during the holidays! 

So to update the past couple of weeks.....

For the De-stress fest I had designed the poster, which my boss loved! It ended up on the main college website, which was a big deal my boss informed me! For the event I also designed the T-shirts we gave away! 500 T-shirts were printed to give away!

A co-worker and I at the De-Stress Fest with Champ our mascot. 

I snuck a T-shirt for my brother! 

And so I was done with School the first day of finals but I stayed for another week to work but that allowed me time to hang out with my friends in Bozeman! I kept busy with two jobs so I didn't have anytime to get in trouble!  haha :) I barely had anytime to do Christmas shopping! 

And So Happy Holidays from the middle of nowhere up in Montana!