Now Updating Once a Year

With work and recently moving and everything I've been neglecting parts of the Internet which were not webcomics or The Daily Show/Colbert Report (which I must watch on the Internets as I'm now too old to stay up for them). So Square Foot 2009 has come around and here I am with a new post when the last one is Square Foot 2008, ah well. I've just ordered a new scanner and I'll have far few excuses (the main one being, "my scanner is too old and doesn't work with my mac..) At any rate, due to a poorly timed White Water Rafting vacation I was only able to complete one piece for Square Foot this year. I'm not as happy with it as I would like, but I've promised myself to work harder next year. Rafting was really fun though... Square Foot is on until Sept. 6, go see it! I actually have yet to go myself... This weekend for sure! I have updated my website more recently then my blog though, so check that out too.

Spirited Monet

This was an oil painting done for life drawing. It's a visual collage, and a tribute to a Monet.

Oil on Canvas. 18" x 24"

Kelsey: The Movie

This was a large format self portrait done in water-mixable oils. It's on a 30" X 48" Maronite board. I wanted to approach this self portrait in a more illustrative way. It's inspired by movie posters like the kind done by Drew Struzan. Rather than imitate his style, however, I opted to make each aspect of myself in a different style. I think I turned out pretty well especially under the short 3 day time frame.

Nigerian E-mail Scams

These three were done for a narrative project on Nigerian e-mail scams, you can read the scam I picked here. It has an embattled president, blood diamonds and secret identities. The woman in the e-mail asks you hold the money in trust for her until she and her sons (husband apparently gets left for dead) can join you in your country. It was an interesting project and I chose to put a sort of humourist spin on the situation, casting the characters of the story as cold and calculating, rich and hardly in need of help. All three are acrylic on illustration board. They didn't scan very well so I may post better versions later.

Photoshop Painting

More photoshop painting today. The first is an album cover for Carley Simon's You're so Vain. The background is scanned in acrylic on masonite, but the rest is Photoshop.

The smaller pieces are spots for some strange facts. The facts are the following, in order of the illustrations they go with:

1. Minimum # of shopping carts that went missing from LA area stores last year: 6 220 000
   
2. Pounds of radioactive produce grown near Chernobyl that were confiscated in Moscow markets last year: 1820
   
3. Chances that an unprotected PC will become infected with a virus within 10 mins of being on the Internet: 1:4

Little Paintings

Today, some small paintings done for a life drawing last semester. I was happy with the way the turned out, especially the laundry one. Laundry is done in coloured inks and watercolours on illustration board. The second is in oils on illustration board. The creepy drawing manikin is oils on Masonite.

Experimental Grounds

Works from last year again today. Some little paintings with different textured grounds. The first one is an owl in acrylics on gesso mixed with flour to thicken it (on a Masonite board). The second one is in memory of my Chinchilla, Loki. It's acrylics on a ground of wood shavings mixed with gesso and glue on a Masonite board. His whiskers are pine needles. The two different pictures show the texture. The last is my Zodiac sign, Capricorn in acrylics on a 3D ground of sculpted Supersculpy. The background it also Supersculpy and the whole thing is glued to a Masonite board.

The Toastosaurus

This was done for a project last year where we had to paint on a found object ground. I had a toaster that didn't work very well and it always burnt the toast. So, I threw in its last two pieces of bread and then it went extinct. Toastosaurus is a herbivore and has two rows of toasted enriched white bread slices on his back for protection from preditory appliances like the stove.