Posted by Melanie on May 30, 2010 – 10:49 pm
Finally updated The Self-Sufficient Life with the miracle of natural growth. It’s been awhile since I last tinkered with The SSL, but I have more things to post about since the sentiment to become more independent of corporations has not ceased.
Upcoming posts will include my experiences with giving up my clothes dryer in a teeny apartment, attempts at balcony gardening (which will begin in approx. August), and hopefully building an easel.
If you have any projects that you’d like to see me attempt and then blog about, let me know.
Posted by Melanie on May 24, 2010 – 6:38 am
I have a problem: when I draw, I take too long. Each line must be perfect, each measurement accurate, each shaded curve smooth. When I can’t match the composition on my paper to what is in my head or in the studio arrangement, it’s frustrating.
I’m learning though that it is not always essential for an illustration to be entirely accurate, and that actually, the drawings with the most charm and personality tend to be the ones with thrown proportions or shaky lines or generalized forms. Drawings that are created to look exactly realistic are amazing, but can sometimes read as cold or clinical, and don’t hold my attention for very long.
To that end, I took the time to doodle something tonight that would be neither accurate nor realistic. I did not edit out any erasures or stray marks. I scribbled it and posted it here, and it feels good to relinquish control and just make.
Posted by Melanie on May 8, 2010 – 10:52 pm
“Phrases That Would Not Exist Without Gym Class”
An awesome team of people are putting together a little magazine called 48hr mag. They put up a call for submissions lasting only 48 hours, and will put together a magazine based on the entries they receive. Currently there are about 10 minutes remaining to submit!
The above is my submission, an illustration of quotes from my elementary school gym teacher. Colors are way brighter than they were in Photoshop, argh.
The Process
This took me about an hour and a half to complete. I first sketched this in pencil, went over the design in a black Prismacolor 05 pen, and scanned it. I removed the background using Select > Color Range, selecting the white portion, and then deleting the selection. The color was then applied using the basic brush tool. To add the dots, I created another image in Black and White mode. I brushed about in that file, then used Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. I copy and pasted the results into the original image, and voila! Finished.
Posted by Melanie on April 21, 2010 – 4:06 pm
The Virgin Mary may be one of the most explored subjects in the history of Art; she is rendered in many different styles and plays many different roles. She is old, young, fat, slender, canonically white, racially accurate. For a long time standing, my favorite Mary is the girl in Henry Ossawa Tanner’s “Annunciation.”
Painted by an African-American painter around the turn of the 20th Century, this version is my favorite because of its intense warmth and the obsessive rendering of the flowing folds in Mary’s dress. Besides her ethnicity, this Mary seems to be pretty historically accurate; she looks no older than 14, a small, timid figure faced with an enormous, life-changing task. The Virgin feels real in this image.
However, I added Fernando Botero‘s “Our Lady of Cajita” to my favorites today for vastly different reasons.
After a semester of wafish, European Virgins in my Colonial Andean art course, this gem came up on the projector. This Mary is unlike any other that I have seen; she is huge. Her epic proportions, and the repetition of friendly curves, make a nice contrast to the endless march of weaker specimens.
Posted by Melanie on April 4, 2010 – 10:51 pm
Filed under Art, Exhibitions
My Art in Ecology course’s group show this Friday was a lot of fun; thank you to all who showed up! We showed at Wild Iris and nearly had too much work for the space, so there was a lot to see (and delicious, locally-grown organic carrots to eat).
More images of the show under the jump »
Posted by Melanie on March 30, 2010 – 8:56 pm
Flyer credit: Paul Pino
If you’re in Gainesville, FL this Friday, make sure to stop by Wild Iris on University Ave for my Art in Ecology course’s group show. My work will be of the book arts/communal art variety, but there will be quite the variety as my classmates span the Fine Arts majors here at the University of Florida.
Can’t wait to see you there!
Posted by Melanie on March 29, 2010 – 7:52 pm
I forgot to mention that I am in Issue 4 of Underground Art School, a magazine created by Racheal Anilyse and her SWAT (read: really awesome and on the ball) team of creativity. UAS is an informal, bright publication that seeks to help fellow artists in their personal work via interviews, inspiring work (including responses to calls for entry), and contributors’ thoughts on making art.
The issue Racheal interviewed me for centers around simplicity, & I’m honored to be a part of this awesome magazine. Congrats to Racheal and co. for producing yet another awesome issue; if you’re interested in Underground Art School, you can buy a print copy of Issue 4 or if PDFs are more your speed, there’s a $4 version here.
Posted by Melanie on January 16, 2010 – 7:27 pm
My friend Matt Convente just started a new blog called Pen Pencil Paper, and it’s entirely devoted to handwriting. Love the idea of bringing the analog back to the digital! The best part is the breadth of the posts: Matt is posting addressed letters, signatures from encounters with the famous, found samples, and submissions from readers. If you’d like to contribute your handwriting to the database, send an email to writeme[at]penpencilpaper.com
Oh, and that’s my handwriting above.