"RAW" art show

This is a one night only event that I got accepted into in Minneapolis - August 25 at 8:00 PM at the Fine Line Music Cafe. The image is a promotional image that a designer from the RAW organization made for me based on a short bio and some images I sent them. The art involves me bringing whatever pieces of my art that I want, but I have to provide all the means to display it - whether that means tables, easels, makeshift walls, lighting... And before all that, preparing the work itself. I really have no work that is in a state to present in a show, so that's what I've been working on doing a lot recently (learning to cut mat boards/frames for art, mounting the art). I am buying a few pre-made frames and going to have a frame service do the installing of glass and backboards.

And here is a link the site for the event itself:

http://www.rawartists.org/minneapolis/fusion

Ancient Relief Style Project and my first ART SHOWS

Here is a project I've been working on the past month.

I'm still not sure how to describe some aspects of this and why I made it/what parts of it mean, but it's basically a comic strip made in a style influenced by ancient reliefs (Egyptian and Sumerian maybe?). When I was doing preliminary sketches I was thinking of art history classes and how I learned what different elements in pieces of art meant a long time ago - things we would never know now but that people back then would understand right away. So I was sort of making fun of that in a way. The car in the story is based off of this car in a photo I took in Florence, Italy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15978133@N00/5720454606/in/set-72157626583212207

I don't really have a particular reason for choosing that car.

If the story isn't clear: it's basically just a tale of some king and his subjects being given a gift from the heavens (or maybe just thinking that the heavens gave them this gift), and how they get too careless and waste their gift. The way the characters look is influenced by the way people were depicted in ancient reliefs - all sideways and sometimes had exaggerated-looking poses.

One thing I'll say about the border elements is that they usually represent, in some way, the surroundings or environment that I imagine to be around the characters in each panel. Sometimes its a representation of the scene from a different angle. The top and bottom (horizontal) borders in each one are kind of like top-down views of a town.

I'm not sure if I want to ever color it - the original, at least. I am definitely going to experiment with color on the digital file, after I scan it. Might make some prints. We'll see. Glad to have made a more "complete" piece of art this summer. I am going to be in my first art shows outside of school soon, and won't have much time between now and the end of the summer to make anything else (also a road trip to go on before the end too).

And, about the art shows I'm going to be in. Here is a link to the website and the Facebook page for the one night only RAW: Natural Born Artists event:

http://www.rawartists.org/minneapolis/fusion

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=195012467223789

And here is the website and Facebook page for the month long exhibit that I will have one piece in (I'll post a picture of the piece here too):

http://www.alteredesthetics.com/events/92/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=176312479101694

"Turtle"

Here is what I made for the idea I got from the final person I talked to on Omegle chat. They said "Turtles" and that it was for their friend Casey, who likes turtles. In addition to the colored doodle, I included two other doodles I made as well.

Omegle Stranger Idea Number 5

Here is what I came up with for the idea of "Stapler Orgy". I made some different crops on it and I'm just including four of the different crops here. As with my other illustrations for this project it's pretty rough and simple but it gives me some ideas for things I could do in the future (like either expanding and working more on this sketch specifically, or taking style/color choices and applying it to other illustrations I do).

Haven't forgotten about Omegle Stranger project

I haven't forgotten about the last two people I talked to for the Omegle illustration project. The second-to-last person wished to go by "Molality Party" and suggested the idea "Stapler orgy" or if I had too much trouble with that, "Hitler intensely observing the atomic number of Hydrogen" (the atomic number is 1). Two very strange ideas, and the guy also had a great sense of humor when I talked to him further.

The last person I talked to suggested "turtles", and said to just mention the name Casey, because it was their friend Casey who likes turtles.

I'm sorry this project has taken so long (I told the people I got the ideas from on Omegle that I would try to have each of their pieces up by the end of the week, and that was about two and a half weeks ago now). It was a bad time to start the project, when I was just about to move, and I've been trying to apply for jobs and also hang out with a friend who is going to be going to Denmark for six weeks soon. But, enough explanation/excuses. I am working on sketches for "stapler orgy" right now.

"A flower with different color petals to show we are all different no matter what color."

That was the idea offered to me by the next anonymous Omegle user I talked to for this project. Like I said before, they disconnected without giving a name. I was also a little confused about the "to show we are all different" part, but oh well. It's what they told me.

The illustration as it is now is not that bold in terms of how I did the color, but I saw some potential to experiment more with that while I was making it, and I included some examples of it with and without the outline. I plan to go back and play around with it more. Also, the flower in the photo I was referencing was actually split at that top part, so that's why it is split in my drawing. I thought it was kind of interesting. Also also, credit to my mom because the flower was one from her garden.

Illustration "Monster Eating Pizza..."

Ok, here is some sort of final version for the illustration "A monster eating pizza made of eifle towers [sic], on Neptune's ring. But Neptune is painted in the style of mondrian." As I mentioned in the previous post, this idea from a random Omegle user who asked to be called "A Daiquiri named Bishop".

There was a brush in Photoshop that I randomly chose that had an interesting-looking effect. I noticed that some of that frayed effect on the right side is not present as much on the left, but when I went to look for the brush again I couldn't find it (or maybe my brush settings had changed - either way, not sure how to get back to that effect again). There are also other various qualities about the piece that I know are not as good as they could be. There are some things about it that I like too. I'm already sort of behind on this project, though, so I'm going to keep moving on, and go back to this piece later to add/refine things.

Also, as a side note, I made the Mondrian-style ring from scratch (well, looked at some of his paintings for reference, but I made my own I mean) - that part took a little while to make.