global chaos makes art?

This is the most current drawing I have done. The assignment was to draw something using ten hands. With everything that has been going on globally, I really wanted to try and do something that focused on the spirit of people fighting for freedom. All it takes is one person to stand up and do something or fight for what they believe in to start a revolution. The fist is that person. The hands trying to pull the fist down represent the number of troubles facing anyone who stands up for any purpose. Change is always faced with adversity, but help can always be found, even though there are probably fewer willing to stand up with you. Away from the message of what this drawing is, I am actually very happy with this drawing. I think it is a huge improvement from my earlier drawings and actually is starting to look like art. It is one of the few things I have done that aren’t just for skill improvement, but actually serves a purpose which feels….good.

and the award for least favorite style goes to.....CUBISM

Okay, I get that Pablo Picasso was the first to do what he did, and I respect that. I just have never liked his work, I feel as though the more he painted and simplified things, the less impressive his art became. Anyway, our assignment was to paint a cubistic painting using our own face, so naturally I made the most hideous face I could think of and tried to do the opposite of what Picasso did and tried to actually make it look sort of realistic. Well wouldn’t you know it but, I actually like this one. I think the colors go well together and I like the two sides of my face sort of pulling on one another.

draw a vehicle...

I know this is not a vehicle. The assignment was to draw a vehicle, and everyone in the class drew a car or a bike or a motorcycle. I wanted to try being an actual artist though and interpret the assignment differently. So I asked my art teacher to define a vehicle and she said, “anything that gets you from point A to point B.” After she said that I knew exactly what I wanted to draw….a portal. What else does as an efficient job of getting you from point A to point B? For the longest time I didn’t know where I wanted to have the portal leading to, then my twin, who usually never wants to talk about art or anything relative to art said, “make it going into that picture thing with all the stairs.” So I did just that.

Takin' on my boy Magritte

So there is this awesome artist…who happens to be my favorite. His name is Rene Magritte. He is a surrealist which is awesome, but unlike some abstract surrealists, he actually can skillfully paint, everything he does looks very realistic but is portrayed in an abstract way. His art is more than just blotches of colors with squiggly lines. It is just awesome. Anyway, a lot of his paintings have couples with cloth wrapped around their faces, which has always fascinated me. The reasoning behind it is because his mother drown herself in a river and was found with her dress wrapped around her head which obviously had a profound impact on him. So this assignment was to recreate a painting by a famous artist but to add a modern twist to it. So I took one of his paintings and changed the background to that of a middle school dance picture background. I really think this is the first painting I have done that shows a little bit of skill on my part…. I don’t know, everything still has a lot of developing but this is a nice bench mark for me.

1/2 an hour in a hallway....just me and the door

Okay so one day in drawing class my teacher took us out in the hallway and said, “just draw something.” So that’s what I did. I chose one of the corners of the doors that lead into the auditorium and just went at it. This was the first time that I realized that the more I worked and reworked an area giving it more contrast, the better things looked. I am pleased with this drawing although unless you see the door it is kind of hard to know what it is, but maybe that’s a good thing.

feet creep me out...

This assignment was to draw your toe as a person, well I don’t know about you but feet really creep me out so I figured why not draw one as a street creeper. I really like how the actual toe part turned out, the rest looks kind of like a cartoon but it sort of works.

first decent looking drawing assignment

It's my eye...not much more to say other than the fact that it was the first decent looking drawing I handed in this semester and it was the first of what I will refer to as my “I’m too lazy to complete this drawing but it actually kinda looks cool unfinished” style.

Things actally are looking decent .....sort of

This is the first piece I am actually proud to post. I spent my spring break in Fort Lauderdale this year, and while there myself and my best art buddy Karlie decided to go to some of the art galleries downtown. There was one artist in particular that impressed us both. I don’t remember her name but she focused on eyes and lips. Her art was awesome so I decided that branching off of her work would be the perfect starting point for trying my hand at more abstract art. Up until this point every drawing I had ever done had been created with the objective of trying to look realistic, this was the first time I was going to try something different…something, artistic……

Come to the dark side?....

So this is the most questioned piece I have ever made. No one really gets it the first time they look at it. The project was called, “I have Issues.” We were supposed to represent a current world or local issue in a painting. I chose oppression. I have a very strong interest in politics and the fact that the people truly don’t rule anymore. We are silenced and not heard by our politicians, hence the mouths sewn shut on the “faces.” The numbers are supposed to represent how our government views us, as numbers. The main guy in the painting is supposed to represent the small number of people who are finally standing up and taking a stance against the current oppressive nature of our government and governments around the world. I like to think this is a definite improvement from the African painting…thoughts?

And the paintings begin...in Africa....

So I realize that this is a weird painting to make my “first painting,” because I really have no connection to Africa. I would really like to travel there one day, and I have an obsession with their culture so I figured why not paint it? I had the canvases and was bored on super bowl Sunday and thought I would try painting instead of just drawing all the time. Trust me, they get better from here…..

Let's see what happens

Alright so this blog has been created because I have decided that it is time for me to actually start showing some of my art work to the world. I am very hesitant to do so because as the title of this blog suggests, I am definitely not a professional artists nor do I have near the amount of skill needed to be a pro. I do however think that for someone who has only been seriously taking art classes for a semester now, that I do have some ability if you choose to call it that. I started off focusing on drawing but as of late painting has become something I am really trying to progress with. For the most part I do see improvement with each painting and drawing. So my current motive for this page is to complete a project for journalism, but hopefully it can turn into an outlet for me to do two things I love: rambling about my life and art.