Thanksgiving = Magic!

What else to do on Thanksgiving but to do a MtG draft? After dinner, of course. ;)

Diner Drawing

Some drawings of Amanda and AJ while we were at the diner playing some MtG this fine evening.

Doodle/Movie Night

Allo, allo! Some sketches I did of John while we lazed around and watched Deathly Hallows parts 1 & 2. Cassie also makes a brief appearance, as well!

What's Cookin'

An owl, that's what! Just thought I would pop in and post a teaser for a new painting, and then run... into the sunset...
Stay tuned!

Tattoo

Got tattooed today! Continued upon the palette and brushes I already had on my wrists and added words, filigree and shading. Took 3 hours and my wrists are actually very swollen right now but I'm not too surprised, they took a beating.
Edwin was the man behind the needle over at Regeneration in Allston and since I was the only client a majority of the afternoon he, Dan and Brian (the two other artists there), Felisia and I talked Tim & Eric, power ballads and sodomy used in performance art... It was a good day! I highly recommend the studio, fantastic place.
I'll get a better, healed, clearer, un-medicated shot of these when they're done flaking. In the meantime here's a little something I spotted at the Kenmore subway entrance this morning:
Yeesh...

Come See!!

If you're in the Boston area next weekend you should come and see...

I... You... We... ROBOT!
@ Space 242

I have a piece in a the show and will be there at the opening as well. Remember: Friday the 29th from 6-8!

90% Robot

Space 242 is soon having a show featuring robots and today was the deadline for submissions. I've framed the Rust piece I did for Edlund a year ago and will be submitting that, as well as a new painting.
There's something about the Rust piece I still enjoy, and it's a robot so I thought I might as well. I bought a floating frame--love 'em!--and covered the frame in copper and oxidized it. It's pretty ballin'.

This painting has been in planning for a month, and of course I didn't finalize composition and details until Saturday. So I started this yesterday, and got it about 90%, enough so that when I fix it up later this week when it's dry it won't be dramatically different, just better ;)
I hate not having access to a photo set-up when I need it most. Ah well...

Hello, Chelsea

So, had a fun day romping around Chelsea with Lou today! Our first stop was to the Levine Gallery to see Audrey Kawasaki's show--which was wonderful by the way, to see some of her work in person (magazine prints just don't cut it). Following we meandered around to the other galleries in the area and met up with a sleepy fat tabby cat and a trio of happy pugs. To top it all off, it was a beautiful day :)
After we got our art fix we headed down to St. Mark's to window shop Toy Tokyo and eat at the most flamboyant Indian restaurant I have ever seen:
Again, infamous cell phone picture, but the motion blur sort of puts this place in perspective... If you are taller than me (a modest 5'2" and change) you would have to duck to walk underneath the smörgåsbord of Christmas lights, pepper lights, balloons, foil decorations, streamers and beach balls hanging from the ceiling. The walls were lined with the most garish floral upholstery fabric, which was further accented by multi-colored holographic sheets of paper, topped off with a myriad of metallic banners celebrating Christmas, New Years, Halloween, and, if it is, your birthday. The final touch? Bollywood techno. The food was damn good.
Afterwards I introduced Lou to bubble tea (lots of people I've talked to lately who have never even heard of the stuff, amazing) and called it a night, took the 6 uptown, and parted ways.

I have been rendered fat and happy :)

Still Doing

The frames for the color studies are finished: assembled, stained, just need to pop the paintings in. Apologies for the blurry pictures, I have a horrible habit of getting lazy and using my camera phone. Got the large frames assembled as well, just need to stain those.

Had a pleasant 3 day snowfall this past weekend. Read and watched the birds outside chase each other around and actually picked up a small case of cabin fever, which was cured today by going out and having a lovely lunch out on the beach with my mum! Again, watched the crows and seagulls chase each other around while munching on my foodstuffs.
I've been steadily sussing out summer plans, and I have decided I will be flying down to Brazil to stay with Vlad for a while in July! Not sure how long, exactly, but I am very excited nonetheless. Rio will be hella fun :)

Adventures in Home Depot

Went to Home Depot today to get molding to frame my DP pieces. Oooh, so many choices...
Decided upon one type of molding for the color studies and another, larger, but somewhat similar molding for the larger pieces. Home Depot didn't sell the stain I wanted (custom "classic black") in pints, only in quarts... So I am on a mission to go see what I can find tomorrow.Played with the saw for a while and am sussing things out. Will continue tomorrow with a fresh mind.

Feliz Navidad!

Aye, hell of a long day, but was thrilled to be with my mom's family. Big bro loved the Flapjack shirt I made him and I got more books than you could shake a stick at (do people not believe in libraries?).
Now tomorrow would be perfect to stay in and read said books, what with the inclement weather coming and all, however, I'll have to drive in the snow to spend time with my dad's family... Maybe I'll pop in to see cousins Zach and Mary (baby in the oven!) and their SOs and leave, or settle for my backup plan: mas vino.

Got pics of the shirt:

AJ kind of reminds me of Andy Samberg in this pic...

Stay classy folks and Merry Christmas!

Life Drawing Sketch Dump

Finally got to scanning the life drawings I've done from over the semester. These are from the sketchbook that got into the Sketchbook Show. All drawings are with ballpoint pen.

And here are some familiar faces:

La Fin du Folie

I promised myself I wouldn't make a post about being done until I was actually done. I just finished my 4 essays just now and so, here's my review space!
It's an indescribable feeling looking at all my work on the wall. I was proud of nearly every piece I did this semester in some way or another, and nothing on the wall was really placed there as a space-taker. Well, except this fine portrait I did of myself for the reviewers:
I got good reviews from all three people, and the only suggestion given was to experiment with different people types, and not just focus on the ideal female figure, and to focus on a little more than the head. But hey, I got some attractive friends and models, what can I say! ;)
I got two pieces into the upcoming sketchbook show: my tiny white sketchbook of figure drawings and my Shaken Baby piece and its process work. I kind of wanted to do a little more to the Shaken Baby piece over the break, but I suppose I can always ask for it back at the beginning of the Spring semester, especially to temporarily varnish it.
After our reviews we kept our Degree Project pieces out for the jury. I was thrilled to find I got 6 pieces in! My Orange and Green pieces got in and all color studies got in, but the red one. Yeah, that was the color study I spent less than 5 minutes on so it's not without good reason... However, Margot wants me to just "finish" that color study and it will get into the show without question. Woot!
After the jury was done we celebrated at Stefan's place, dancing and singing to Mariah Carey as we always do...

It's good to be done. Now I can focus on personal pieces and competitions for a while.

Snow!

So, not going to post stuff from the review until I'm done writing these papers... So here's snow!
Didn't realize the window screen would show up. It's artsy...
Saw a broad last night on the way to Bradley Liquors spew all over the sidewalk.
On my 4th cup of tea.
Need to pick up my laundry.

Dr. Sketchy's

Finally got to scanning some of the stuff from the Dr. Sketchy's event that was hosted here at MassArt last month. T'was a circus theme!

Fly Kicks

Finally got to drawing on the shoes I got for free at the Black Friday event. Did this while watching 2 episodes of Glee. Also, Felisia got me a goddamn BEDAZZLER for Christmas and I totally christened it on these sweet babies.

Missy Elliot's got nothin' on these kicks.

Wow, it's Wednesday.

Debacle

So today, to make a long story short, Danielle's purse was stolen while we were at Starbucks. Paid for her prints, helped her out and got her to a state of normalcy. She called me an angel.
So I got to the studio at like... 5 and am working to get DP done. Yellow is virtually finished aside from one glaze, and Red needs some simple linework painted in. Green is the only one that needs a little more attention, but I will be here late and all I will need to do is take pictures of those 3 tomorrow and print those suckers out.

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Oh! Lookit! A sidebar!
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Finished SBS

So here is my submitted final for the SBS pieces. Of course I want to revisit them but I will do that later on when I have free time.
















So yesterday everything worked out. I was able to easily print everything out when I returned to the computer lab with no fuss and I got my $2 back. When I laid the five pieces out next to each other on the cutting board table I felt something I've been waiting for for a long time: I have COHESION! I'm really excited that there is finally defining features to my artwork. :D
The stress level is decreasing steadily now, I got a good deal done painting today and so now I'm going to spend time dicking around with my blog layout. I want to add another sidebar on the left to add links and such. I found a tutorial earlier but I don't think the script is really compatible with this particular blog layout because it really messed things up earlier... I'll figure it out. Success will be evident once my blog has another sidebar right over here.
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Night In (the studio)

Decided not to go to the 242 show because it is so cold out. So instead I had Indian food for dinner. So here's a pic of chana masala and onion bahji. Oh, and Tony on Felisia's back.

Red Sketch

Showed Margot this sketch for my 5th DP piece yesterday along with the shittiest color study I have ever done, and she's pleased with it.
I finished the paisley last night, and Orange early this morning. An hour ago I popped into the 2D studio to shoot the SBS paintings, Blue, and Orange so I could print them out. Alas, I went to the computer lab to do so but the network is screwed and I'm left with $2 less in my printing account and nothing to show for it. The monitor apologized, the same thing happened to some girl earlier, and asked me if I could return in an hour or so when some other dude comes back and he will fix it. I'm not too concerned.
So, I'm just waiting for AJ to arrive so I could remedy this empty stomach and head to my TA class at 1:30, and leave there within a half hour to commence battle with the printer again! Crossing my phalanges...

SBS Almost There

Almost done with these, just need to finish the paisley tonight and tweak some things here and there with the face and hands.
Tonight I need to finish these, finish my Orange DP painting, and within the next hour finish the composition for Red and finish the color study. Fuck, shouldn't be here.

"Beneath the Dragon"

Took photos of all the paintings done for Scott today so here be a nicer, fixed postpartum painting. Tank is running low on sleep. Waddap.

Home Stretch

Hi school internet. Working on those two SBS paintings and just need a good break. I'm strangely relieved right now in spite of all the chaos of the last two weeks of semester. On my plate I still have to do:

• SBS main and spot illustrations
• Photograph my work
• Finish the 4 DP paintings in progress and start/finish the 5th
  
• Construct my DP book
• Write 4 essays

I suppose the relief stems from my brain being 3 steps ahead, so I subconsciously know that hey, this will all be done sooner than I think. Just need a few more 5AM nights.

Sorry, no images. Tomorrow.