Tag: art

Mixed on Campus #1 – Alice Conner

Alice Conner 4 Comments

 

Hi, my name is Alice Conner! The first post of this series is a self-portrait. I’m a 2nd-year undergraduate student majoring in Industrial & Operations Engineering. I racially identify as mixed (Japanese and White-American) and drawing is one of my hobbies! This series is called Mixed on Campus and was inspired by the Humans of New York project. The purpose of Mixed on Campus is to give a voice to this university’s mixed community and shed light on its members. Being mixed means to be multiracial, multiethnic, and/or a transnational adoptee. Through Mixed on Campus, mixed students have the opportunity to have their portrait drawn and share their experiences!

Being mixed has been a defining part of my life, even when I didn’t fully understand it myself. Growing up, I struggled to find a community that would accept my whole identity as it is without judgement or discrimination. Since coming to this university, I’ve been able to find a place within a supportive and inclusive community that has helped me understand my identity and uplift myself. I’m very grateful to the student organization Mixed@Michigan, whose purpose is to foster a community of mixed, multiracial, multiethnic, and transnational adoptee students at the university. I joined in the fall of 2022 and now serve as a board member for the org. This project would not be possible without Mixed@Michigan!

A Day In Our Lives #19

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey guys,
This week I’m uploading an illustration that I had started for a zine that was accepting submissions here on campus. With my busy schedule, it was really difficult to meet the deadline and I was unable to enter, however, I felt like it was a good opportunity to work on my digital illustration skills.  I think that it could have ended up as a pretty cool submission. It is important for an artist, especially a college student, to have good time management. I draw digitally on my iPad using procreate. I hope everyone is having a good spring break!!
See you next week,
Marissa 

Letters by Lydia: Faux Calligraphy

lydnas Leave a comment

Welcome back to another post! Today is all about faux calligraphy, so let’s start by explaining what that even is.

Faux calligraphy got its name by, as you might have guessed, being a sort of “fake” form of calligraphy.  Where traditional calligraphy uses a brush pen to get those thin upstrokes and thin downstrokes, faux calligraphy allows you to get the same technique with a regular old pen (or, really, any sort of pencil, marker, etc that creates a standard line).

In this example, the top version is regular calligraphy with a brush pen, while the bottom version is faux calligraphy using a marker with a bullet tip.

So how does this work? It’s actually pretty simple, which is why a lot of people, especially beginners, prefer it over traditional calligraphy.  A lot of beginners also use it as a gateway into traditional calligraphy, because it uses the same principles without requiring the technique involved in using a brush pen.

To start, you can just write whatever word/letter/phrase you have in mind.  This can be in cursive, or in print, whatever you prefer!  The next step is the key: you need to identify all the downstrokes. In the example below, I showed where the downstrokes are on the cursive letter “a”, but if you want a more comprehensive guide, I have a few other blog posts about handlettering basics that should help you out!  Once you identify where all the downstrokes are, you simply make those lines thicker, whether by drawing an outline and filling it in like I did, or by just adding a few extra lines around it.

Find the downstrokes, outline them, and fill them in 🙂
Here’s a little alphabet guide to help if you’re struggling with the downstrokes, too

Once you’ve got the basics down, this another style where there are a lot of fun variations to play around with. I included some of my favorites below, to show that you can do this with cursive or print, vary the thickness of the downstrokes, bring in color, etc. With the “lazy” and “hard” styles, the lazy one is just what you’ve been doing already (it isn’t lazy, it’s just easier than the hard version). The “hard” version is where you kind of map the downstrokes out in your mind ahead of time so that the lines don’t intersect and downstrokes remain solid white. This takes some practice to get the spacing right, which is why I called it the hard version, but it’s definitely not impossible and can be really fun to practice!

I hope you enjoy trying out a new style, or at least learning about it, and for all the umich students out there, have a great spring break!

A Day In Our Lives #17

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey guys,

This week I decided to draw Aphrodite for Valentine’s Day! This semester I have been added to the Arts Ambassadors here at Arts at Michigan and today we had a valentines day event! It was super fun. We make different crafts and had snacks. I love celebrating Valentine’s Day, it is one of my favorite holidays! I decided to draw Aphrodite in pink and red. I am Greek and have always thought that Aphrodite was one of the most interesting Gods or Goddesses. I love her celebration of love and beauty. She is a positive beauty standard for women today, as she is sculpted closer to the real female form, rather than the male gaze “ideal” one. Valentine’s day here on campus is really hard to navigate, especially at the last minute. My partner and I were lucky that we could get a reservation today, only two days prior. Very busy in Ann Arbor!!

See you next week,
Marissa 

A Day In Our Lives #16

rissaw Leave a comment

Hey Guys,
This week I wanted to talk about a bit of what I do on campus to pass my free time. I usually watch a lot of tv shows and cartoons while I crochet and make my artwork for school.  My favorite movie of all time is the Labyrinth starring David Bowie. these little creatures I have drawn are from that film. I think they’re super creepy and fun. I have a lot of fun drawing them. I usually don’t use a variety of bright colors but I really wanted to make them have dimension and look cool. I think that this decision really makes them pop. I usually spend a lot of time also hanging out with my friends and socializing here on campus. I am super excited for my upcoming show this week at the Stamps art Gallery. I have a sculpture going to the show, I hope you all check it out!
See you next week,
marissa 

TOLAROIDS: Favorite shoot

akilian Leave a comment

I’ve been sorting my photos recently and I stumbled across so many pictures from the past that I wanted to share, but this still probably remains my favorite creative shoot. It was for my own exhibition that I curated in 2019 and it featured dance in different transformations. The problem with capturing dance is that a photograph only captures a short snippet, freezes the dancer in one moment, while the entire idea of dance is that it’s continuous. That’s why I used long exposure to capture the continuum and to really show the act of dancing.

If you hover over the images you can see what settings I used, just if you’re curious 🙂 I am working on editing some new photos so there should be some new exciting content soon.

 

 

 

 

 

With any questions/comments/concerns you can find me at:

email: akilian@umich.edu

Instagram: akilian,jpg