A Final Look at School

This semester was a great end to six years of undergraduate work. I can't believe where I started and where I am now.

This is one of the first pieces I completed after graduating high school:

This is one of the last pieces I've completed as an undergraduate:

This is a good thing for every artist to remember: it really doesn't seem like you're improving in the day to day grind of being an artist. And in reality, maybe the improvements you make each day are pretty small, but the important thing is to continue working so that you can continue to make progress.

Anyway, what do my final projects look like? I've finished the first 50 pages of a screenplay (and I hope to finish it this summer) for one thing. I also...

Finished a portfolio for my printmaking class...

...made three rings out of bronze, one out of thread, pins and paperclips, a bell, and a brace...

And spent the entire semester trying to learn and enjoy where I'm at as much as I can. This is definitely not where I set out to be when I graduated high school with dreams of working at Pixar, yet I don't think I would trade where I am and where I'm going (even though I'm still not quite sure where that is...) I hope I continue to grow as an artist throughout my life.

I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who's been reading my blog! I've reached my 35th post since starting this blog back in 2011 and I've really enjoyed sharing my work with you! It's great to have an audience and I hope that my art has been bringing you joy. Please share my blog with others, I love showing people what my work means to me!

Creating 3D Outside of the Computer - Part 2

This week I've been working on the time consuming task of cleaning up my bronze pieces. This usually consists of sawing off sprues (which I absolutely loathe...you would not believe how many times I break saw blades), polishing, assembling and applying patinas.

This final project was the most challenging one I've done this year. I think I tend to think bigger than my abilities, which isn't a bad thing, but it can definitely end up challenging my current abilities. In this case, I decided to make a brace that I could wear, which involved more fabrication than I've ever done (though considering I've never really done any, that's not saying much.

After I sawed off the sprues and polished, I got to do two things that secretly terrify me: brazing and drilling. Thankfully I had a lot of really invaluable help from the awesome people in my class. As much as I would have liked to avoid those tasks, they were vital to getting the finished product I wanted.

Here's some close up shots of the work.

A huge, huge, HUGE thank you to everyone who helped me undertake this pretty ambitious task. Thanks to Yvonne, Shanna, Andrew, Justine, and Laurel for all your help!

Printmaking with Watercolors

Although I've been working with oils and inks while I create my own prints, I've also had the opportunity to experiment with using watercolors in printmaking. I also wanted to experiment with printmaking without a huge printing press.

Here's a demo that I'm hoping to teach my students someday:

Making Up for Lost Time

I guess not making artwork or posting on my blog as often as I'd like to have done this year has sort of lit a fire under me. Thanks to my brand new smart phone (I've finally entered the 21st century...) I've been able to catalog my artwork right as I'm finishing it. Here's some more of the prints I've been making:


After I finished my series on my cultural heritage, I got kind of stuck for new ideas. I ended up making something that has the look of parchment...

 This one ended up looking like a microscope slide.

 I tried to go deeper into the histories of each country, but there is so much history, especially in certain countries, I didn't know where to begin. This represented the all reaching power of Rome, including the Italian word for almighty, "Altissimo"

 After that, I went back to my specific family names and crest, and let the design elements of my family crests inspire me.

 I wanted to take that idea and abstract it more.

And now for something completely different. I was listening to a song by Rend Collective and let the words inspire this piece.  I'm also excited about this piece because it was my first opportunity to work with actual tyesetting. May I say, thank goodness for computers!