Tag: art

Industrious Illustrating #60 – Botanical Gardens 3

Robin Leave a comment

Hello, and welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! This week I’m going back to talking about my classwork for “Making Science Visible”. We recently finished our botanical illustration project where we each illustrated a plant at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens to be later compiled into a map for visitors to identify plants of interest in each biome with. Our first set of drawings are now printed out and on display at the MBG in the hallway leading up to the entrance of the indoor gardens! I personally did my painting first on paper with watercolors and inks and then digitally retouched the painting, but some of my classmates did their drawings entirely traditionally or entirely digitally. I’d definitely recommend taking a look in the near future to see how we all approached the subject matter!

My work is currently hanging in the hallway at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens alongside the work of my classmates!

Something else I did this week was stop by the UMich Natural History Museum to take reference pictures of their microscopes. Our next class project will be creating and redoing various illustrations for the Natural History Museum’s educational materials, and I volunteered to make illustrations for a revamped tutorial for using the microscope. While I was there, I also asked some of the student volunteers about the microscope’s specs and learned that the base model is a National 215 Microscope. I’m glad that I took time out of my day to gather reference materials in-person, and I’m sure that this will be a unique and challenging illustration project.

That’s all for this week! Next week I’ll be in Seattle to vend at Sakuracon, so I’ll probably be making my weekly arts ink blog post the week after. I just finished finalizing my last merch order last night for the con, so I definitely feel like taking a break from drawing for at least a couple of days (I have 2 orders of keychains and 1 order of prints on the way). To that end, I plan to spend more time with my friends and watch a movie or two this weekend. I hope every one of you guys will also have a restful weekend!

MediaScape Musings # 14 : Catch Me If You Can: A Weekend of Musical Marvel at UM

dsuart Leave a comment

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Musket’s production of “Catch Me If You Can” at the Power Center. It was my first time experiencing a musical in this venue and only my second musical at the University of Michigan. The audience size was astounding, making the experience feel even more special. Knowing that this turnout was just for one of the three showings filled me with pride for the level of interest in the arts here.

“Catch Me If You Can,” based on the thrilling cat-and-mouse film that a friend had once insisted I watch, claiming it as one of their favorites, did not disappoint. The adaptation captured the essence of the movie perfectly, delivering key plot points with a humorous and entertaining twist. It brought back the excitement I felt watching the film for the first time. The performance of “Fly, Fly Away” by the leading lady was particularly moving, and the closing songs “Goodbye” and “Stuck Together” added a delightful charm to the narrative. Watching the evolution of Frank and Carl’s relationship from tension and pursuit to a surprisingly touching embrace was emotional.

Although the musical didn’t cover Frank’s eventual role in the FBI, the ending felt fitting and left the audience on a high note. Musket, founded in 1908, continues to be an integral part of the University of Michigan experience, offering students various opportunities to engage, whether as actors, crew members, or audience members at the distinguished Power Center. This production of “Catch Me If You Can” was a testament to the vibrant and talented community at UM and a reminder of the power of live theatre to captivate and move us.

Industrious Illustrating #59 – AMKE and the Grindset

Robin 1 Comment

Hello, and welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! Honestly, I forgot to make a post last week because I was out of state for Anime Milwaukee and was focusing entirely on running my Artist Alley table to the best of my ability. I almost forgot again this week because I’ve been figuratively (and literally!) running around trying to make merch orders/re-orders before my next convention at the end of the month. Anyway, here’s what my AMKE table setup looked like this year:

Overall, I did pretty solidly — my revenue was on the higher end of the middle in terms of revenue I’ve made at conventions in the past — but Milwaukee is a fairly expensive city to visit and I’d bring more premade food with me next time to cut down on costs. Otherwise, I’m fairly happy with my profits and I’ll be back if this con accepts me again next year.

On other note, something I’ve been thinking about this week is that even though I do anime conventions instead of art fairs or other events because I specifically love fan culture and engaging with fellow nerds, turning my online shop and convention tables into nearly a full-time job on top of schoolwork is extremely exhausting. I’m almost grateful that I didn’t apply to any cons in April besides Con Ja Nai (Umich’s own one-day anime con!) and I haven’t gotten into any conventions in May (RIP Fanime, ACEN, and MomoCon) because otherwise my entire year would just be convention after convention interspersed with grinding out new merch designs. For one thing, even though I get a lot of merch design requests it’s not like I actually have to constantly make new designs — I’m only just starting to do out-of-state conventions this year and most attendees haven’t seen my work before! For another thing, if I just constantly work myself to the bone chasing higher revenue, would the extra money really be worth burning myself out and making me forget why I’m doing this as a gig instead of working a more “normal” job? Also, all of this is taking away energy, attention, and time I could be spending working on original projects or seeking out other potential jobs/careers, such as doing commercial illustration or user experience design/research. I definitely want to focus more on those during April and May.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy making new merch — I do this precisely because I love the process of researching and designing new merchandise and making them into reality — but I also can’t remember how to enjoy that process without giving myself space to decompress and relax. I think that this weekend I’ll focus on doing house chores and taking “me time” (probably playing video games and taking walks) so that I can remember what it feels like to be a human being and not an art-making machine.

All of this makes me wonder whether or not I should consider being a traveling freelance artist a viable job path in the future rather than a profitable hobby. I mean, what happens if there’s a year where I’m not accepted into any major conventions and my online sales aren’t enough to make up the difference? But also, another part of my brain reminds me that just about every industry is being shaken up by AI and other changes in the economy at the moment, and a regular salaried job would also place my livelihood at the whims of external forces. The best any of us can do is diversify our income streams and not place all our eggs in one basket, whether that basket is a corporate job or self-employed freelance. Maybe this isn’t as upbeat and hopeful as I wish I could be, but this is a column about my journey improving my art and trying to make it viable as a career, so I think it’s to everyone’s benefit that I’m candid and frank at least on occasion. I hope all of you have a great restful weekend, and see you next week!

Wakesleeping

Mattie Grace Levy Leave a comment

Awake with dread in a blue room wishing to 

Close my eyes knowing that with every passing 

Moment my mind, quenching tears creates time tombs.

Who knew that sorrow could cure happy living 

Water is healing when thinking how, or who

Gets to be, gets sleep, gets to keep succeeding. 

Loneliness feels best when striving for greatness

I wonder how I’ll sleep when there’s nothing less.

Make my bones like papier-mâché 

So that I may be whole while hollow

Create my mouth like calculator 

So that my speech may be accurate while calm

Humble my ears like honey 

So that I only see what is sweet

Witness the Small Life – Serenade on Comm South

Mia Lambert 4 Comments

Hi everyone! Welcome to my first post for my series Witness the Small Life. Through weekly doodles and photo-collages, I hope to encourage myself and you all to remember to stop, smell the roses, and appreciate the littlest parts of our lives that make them full.

A quick little introduction of me: My name is Mia and I’m currently a freshman studying Art and Design! I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota but I’m happy I get to call Ann Arbor home now too. Some of my favorite artists include: Basquiat, Norman Rockwell, Julie Mehretu, and Ricardo Levins Morales (also from Minneapolis!). I currently love illustration and printmaking, and I’m hoping to become a teaching artist (or something along those lines) when I graduate. Besides art, I also love to crochet, roller skate, watch really cheesy movies, and listen to pretty much every genre of music under the sun.

With every drawing I do, I’ll include a little blurb about it/the things that happened within my week. Consider these posts a kind of diary/word salad/thought catcher of sorts. This week was a little bit of a hard one. I’ve been getting super homesick and with a bunch of last minute work right before spring break, everything felt extremely overwhelming. But, I’m lucky to have friends here to pull me out of those difficult moments and spend time singing on buses in the middle of the night with me. This week, I also took time to draw for myself instead of just for class. Keeping a steady art practice is so important! I’m so neglectful of making art for me and not for the sake of others, so even if it’s just a doodle a day it really helps to just do it! Even if everything you make sucks (in theory!) or you feel the imposter syndrome coming on yet again, consistency is key.

I’m a person who has a lot of thoughts, so I hope to share these with you to start our new weeks refreshed and with some words to chew on. I’m a big list fan, so here’s a list of my ins and outs for our upcoming spring break week!

Ins: Singing MORE, taking time to just sit in silence and stare at things, patching up holes, watching more movies on DVD, napping midday with the curtains open, smiling at strangers even if they don’t smile back.

Outs: Letting dirty dishes pile up, wearing too-tight shoes at the wrong times (even if they look super cool), sleeping in my mascara, popping cough drops like they’re candy, forgetting to text people back even if it’s just liking a video they sent.

Have a fantastic spring break and enjoy the small life out there! <3

Industrious Illustrating #58 – Botanical Gardens 2 Electric Boogaloo

Robin Leave a comment

Hello and welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! This week I actually have some watercolor and ink sketches I made at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens for the aforementioned map project. I picked the Meyer Lemon plant from the Mediterranean/temperate biome because of its fragrant flowers and fruit providing interesting subjects to paint. It’s been a long time since I last used watercolors, but getting to work with them again reminded me of why I love them so much — there’s just something so charming and beautiful about the layered translucent shades and letting them settle into their own texture on the page.

One of these days I want to do watercolor painting more again — maybe with mechs, since I’ve only really drawn mechs digitally — and at that point I think I’ll have to buy another watercolor paint palette because my current one is at least six to eight years old now and shows every bit of its age! Anyway, I hope everyone will get to enjoy spring break next week and maybe even rekindle their love for an art medium they haven’t touched in ages!