Author: rissaw

Marissa Woods is a third year college student at Penny W Stamps school of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. Her background is mainly in illustration and sculpture. A Day In Our Lives is meant to open up a variety of different subjects and perspectives for Marissa to portray about life in Ann Arbor. She hopes to gain practice in many different aspects of illustrating and have a public mapping of her progress. Her instagram/portfolio: https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_sugars/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D

A Day In Our Lives #26

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Hey guys!
With finals coming up, I thought I would talk about a class I have decided to take for an elective this semester. Intro to ceramics! Before transferring to Umich, I always wanted to take ceramics but couldn’t in my illustration program. I was fortunate enough to have room in my schedule this semester at Stamps to try it! I think that I learned a lot overall, I had no clue how to really build with clay despite the fact I used to literally work at a pottery studio. My favorite part of the semester was learning how to create dinnerware on the pottery wheel. I felt as if it was the easiest to pick up quickly. I also enjoyed how smooth the surfacing ended up being compared to some other items I worked on. I also worked on a large Greek-inspired amphora contemporary piece, reflecting my Greek heritage. I liked taking ceramics but I am unsure if I would ever take it again. I believe I will stick to textiles!

See you next time!

Marissa

A Day In Our Lives #25

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Hey guys,

This week I am showing some of the collage work that I have been working on! In my practice, I focus primarily on women and the female experience. I was recently tasked with creating a book multiple times over, cutting it apart, and putting it together to make a story. I love collage and think that it is really calming to do. I have lots of old graphic design books that were gifted to me that I use in my work. I like incorporating my poetry and writing in my collages as well as some of my illustrations. Collages can be a really expressive medium. I love thinking about color and how it will affect how the viewer perceives the text. I sewed this book together and love how it came out. I feel like it is a really good representation fo what I believe in.
See you next week!

Marissa


A Day In Our Lives #24

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Hey guys!
This week I thought I’d show you a different form of art that I am learning about here on campus. It is one of my passions and I spend hours of time at home every day working on my skills in it. It is fibers and textiles! At Stamps, I am in the pursuit of learning all about fibers and textiles in sculpture form. I create soft sculptures that mimic stuffed animals, and I create clothing from my fiber art. I like them to be brightly colored, funky, and sculptural in form. I have a lot of fun when I create my fiber arts. Weaving on the loom, pictured below, is the most time-consuming of the different skills I know. I know how to crochet, embroider, sew (on the machine and by hand) dye fabric and yarns, knit, tapestry, and many more. I hope you all like it!

See you next week

Marissa

A Day In Our Lives #23

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Hey guys,

This week I am posting a sketch I did when I took my friend to go try out Digipaint club here on campus. They have weekly meetings and normally do cute fun things that use digital painting. The week that we attended, the club hosted a workshop on how to draw birds, as well as how to create your own creatures. It was a fun experience but due to my extremely busy school schedule, I will not be able to attend weekly.

 

I decided to draw cows, which are one of my favorite animals. I think they are so cute! I am also generally better at drawing women in my cartoon style, which made drawing human-cows even easier. I picked some cute light blue and pink colors just to get them to stand out a bit. If I had more time I could have accessorized them a little more. Hope that you like it!

See you next week,

Marissa 

 

A Day In Our Lives #22

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Hey guys,

This week I wanted to talk a bit about my process and how I create a lot of my more complex digital drawings. I originally studied Illustration at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. During my time there, I spent a lot of time learning anatomy and perspective. In the illustration program, almost all of my work had to be on paper, they teach traditional art for the most part in that department.

With this, I usually start out my drawings on paper, and then take a photo of them. I then upload the image to procreate on my Ipad, where I color in the image. Sometimes I will include line work, but I really just love using value in my digital artwork. I like to think of it more as a digital painting than anything. It is a lot easier to digitally paint in the colors in my opinion. Then I am able to get exactly the right tones that I want, and if I mess up there is always the undo button.

I know this isn’t a good tutorial on digital drawing, but it is just my different way of going about most of my more complex artwork.

See you next week!

Marissa

A Day In Our Lives #21

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Hey guys,
This week I am posting some of my character sketches/studies. I really enjoy creating characters. One of my favorite things to draw is human anatomy. I really love boosting the color in people’s undertones in order to create my painting/coloring style. For lighter skin tones I start with a base of sage green, for darker skin tones I use an undertone of red or blue. I also created a new header image for this series. I feel like this frame from one of my comics fits the vibe better here. I like creating a variety of characters in order to push myself to stay away from “same face” syndrome, which is a really hard thing to overcome if you have a distinct art style. This just means that because of your style, you sort of accidentally draw the same face over and over.

See you guys next week!