pieces of me

i took my first photography class when i was a senior in high school. i used my dad's pentax camera who's shutter sounded beastly whenever you took a photo. i didn't really know anything about cameras or photos or light rooms, i just knew that photography made art easy. i didn't have to have above average drawing or painting skills to make things look realistic, i just needed to press a button.

having a DSLR and clicking a button doesn't make you a photographer, though. and as much as i would love to be a professional photographer, i'm just not. i still don't know enough about f stops and ISOs and apertures for which lighting scenarios are best. besides my one high school class a billion years ago, i'm mostly self taught. but being an art major helped significantly with my understanding of good design and composition, so i'd like to think i have some things under control.

anyway, i don't take enough pictures. i'm still figuring out how to see the beauty in the everyday. so i'm starting a series of pictures to photograph my everyday life. i took to my apartment today, photographing the space which i physically inhabit. you can tell a lot about a person by what they photograph and how. so here's me - in picture form.

Bird Brain

the latest

Sunset Over Lake Pend Oreille

Stone Lithography

Stone lithography is a process. A frustratingly long, drawn out process that takes three people in order to complete it properly. The artist (who is the printer), the sponger, and the clean hands person. We use limestone from Bavaria that are hundreds of years old and a press that's been around for decades.

This process is thousands of years old. It's one of the oldest types of printmaking that I've learned to do, but you definitely have to be a person who enjoys the process in order to enjoy stone lithography. There is loads of prep work to do even though the actual printing process goes fairly quickly.

These are my prints that I completed last week. My print work this semester is going to be themed around bird silhouettes. That may or may not have something to do with the recent ink I just got on my shoulder.

love!

some graphic design for you

I originally wanted to post all of my artwork to this blog in an attempt to show off what I can do and potentially sell some of my items. I haven't got the selling part down yet and lately I've only been showing off what I've painted, so I thought I would take this opportunity to display a little bit of my graphic design work.

Graphic design is somewhat foreign to me, being that I'm highly unfamiliar with the software that we are using in class. However, in a recent discussion I had with my professor, she believes that I am producing strong work. She also said I'm really quiet and that she doesn't know how far she can push me. Hmm.

Anyway, our third project was to design a poster, post card, and email that would potentially be sent out to announce an upcoming fictitious lecture by a designer of our choosing. Lately I have been obsessed with typography, so I picked Zuzana Licko and Rudy Vanderlans who are two designers out of California famous for starting Emigre - a typography website.

This is the poster I designed that would be something you might see plastered around hallways to get people's attention. I chose to use bold types and bright colors to imitate their website and visually support the ideas that they are all about. I don't know if they would like it or not, but I do.

Then I took the layout I had been using for the poster and I applied it to a 4 by 6 post card that would be sent out in the mail. I think the post card layout is my favorite from this project.

After I finished with the post card and poster I worked on the email design. I didn't really understand what exactly the email should look like because the description was suuuuuper vague. It turns out that everyone in my class was confused about the email, so I was in good company during the critique. Nonetheless, my professor did like my email design and said she would probably pay attention to it if it was in her inbox because it's so huge and bright.

It looks really similar to my poster design, but I changed the background from vertical to horizontal. I actually ended up liking this a lot better and I think if I had to do it over again I would make the poster horizontal as well.

the arboretum pond

PC and I went to the Arboretum on campus yesterday for a couple hours. We sat in front of this pond (which has huge freaking fish in it, by the way. and also frogs. lots of frogs) and he drew in his sketchbook and I painted with my watercolors.

We watched the geese meander up and down the hills and in and out of the water while we sat with our shirts off (and some of us in a swimsuit) on an old blanket in the warm sunshine.

I think it's kinda cute for a quick study of water (which I'm not at all good at painting yet, but maybe with some more practice?). But anyways, we both decided it was a good use of our time. We got to spend a couple hours in the sunshine flexing our artistic muscles. Even though we are both very different, we have some very neat similarities.

summer finals

Today was my last day of summer watercolor painting, so to celebrate we painted tractors. I know that just sounds super exciting, doesn't it? But well, really, it was a bunch of fun. This mostly stems from the fact that we got to turn the tractors into something they aren't and create a narrative with our painting.

My painting is a tractor gone horribly, horribly wrong. I took the idea of "Frank" from the movie "Cars" except that I made him into a zombie tractor who noms on people. I know - I spend too much time with video games and boys. But I think this picture is pretty freakin' hilarious.

And then Mr. Teacher Man let us out early to work on our final projects. I had absolutely positively no idea what to do. Nothing. I drew a complete blank. So instead of rushing right home to get on that whole idea of finishing my project, I kidnapped PC and we went to lay in the field. Because that's what you do when you're supposed to be doing homework.

We went to Ross and then to WinCo and then back home, where we played some Mortal Kombat and ate pepperoni pizza and I pretended to be thinking about something to do for my project. We finished the pizza, decided to be done with the video game, and I stared at my art supplies. Ugh.

I googled "white vase flowers spring" and combined two different pictures. One with pink and yellow flowers and one with blue. But once I sketched out the bouquet and painted the flowers in, I felt like it was a little empty. So I decided to add a little bee in my painting, just to give it some character.

Before I put him in the picture though, I had to practice because unlike oil painting, once you put something in a watercolor it's there forever.

some new stuff

The summer session is almost to an end. This is my last week of class! And we are rushing around getting everything finished!

Also, the weather finally (finally!) warmed up this week, so we are going to be outside! Outside!

This was outside at an abandoned pea factory on probably the coldest day of the "summer." I wore flip flops (that's right!) and my poor toes turned purple. Purple! I suppose I was asking for it with my questionable footwear? Oh well.

This painting took place in the middle of an alley way. I was questioned by two cops and asked to move out of the way multiple times. I embraced my inner rebel though, and I got the painting done. It was fun and now every time we see cops around the town my professor always says to me "Katie, I don't want you to sit in the middle of the road today."

That's funny for two reasons. The first being that my name is not Katie, that's just what he calls me. The second being that he always says it with a mischievous glint in his eye because really deep down inside he's five years old, too - just like me.

This painting is my master study for the semester. It's Winslow Homes' "The Green Dory" and I there are lots of things I like about this painting, but as with any piece of art there are also lots of things I hate about it. But I'll have you know that my aunt saw my post about it on Facebook and immediately laid claim. She's so spoiled! :)