Tag: art

Fiber Fridays #9

rissaw Leave a comment

Hello everyone!

Due to technical difficulties, I am posting this a few days late, but nonetheless, I have fibers for you!!
This week I worked on crocheting a opossum. I am working on crocheting things for myself, as I usually make my crafts for someone else. I thought it would be cuter and silly to work on a crochet opossum. I didn’t follow a pattern for this one, I have just been free handing him as I go. I am stuffing him with fluff from an old pillow that I don’t wan to use anymore. I think that when it is finished it will be super cute. I will upload the results next week!

I started off this little guy with ch 4 (starting at the nose) , joining with sl st to make a ring. I then crocheted 6 sc and then kind of just kept increasing whenever I felt like he needed to get larger around. When I got to the spot where his tail will begin, I started to decrease my stitches until I get a decently opossum tail sized hole. I then front loop crocheted once around, and then went back to single crocheting the rest of his tail. I stopped when I felt it was long enough. I stuffed him so much he’s extremely stiff. Stay tuned for the rest of his transformation this upcoming Friday! I have been working on some really cool fibers projects that I am super excited to show everyone when they are finished.

See you next week!!
Marissa

Industrious Illustrating #56 – Botanical Gardens

Robin Leave a comment

Hey guys! This week I visited the Matthaei Botanical Gardens with my classmates for ARTDES 364 – Visualizing Science and took a lot of notes on the guided tour. We’re working on a project to revamp the Botanical Gardens’s map, so I made sketches of the general layout and where the different plants of interest are located.

I also took note of some botanical facts that made me imagine sci-fi speculative evolution worldbuilding for my own projects, especially the Indian banyan tree’s ever-encroaching roots that try to suffocate any plants in their path. In my own imagining they become the inspiration for giant biomechanical tendrils slowly engulfing ruins and wreckage from a bygone era.

All in all, I’m really glad that I got the opportunity to learn more about the botanical gardens for various creative projects that I’m gradually working on! Next week I’ll be selling in the Artist Alley at Katsucon in National Harbor, Maryland, so my weekly post will likely come later in the weekend than usual! Have a great week!

Fiber Fridays #8 Sewing Exploration

rissaw Leave a comment

Hello everyone,

This week I have been working on exploring sewing through by fiber structures course. I have learned so many new techniques and find the course exciting. Our current assignment, we have been tasked to explore muslin as a material with the machine. I am not the greatest at sewing as I have just learned how, but I am excited about the different possibilities it might bring to my practice.

In my explorations, I decided to work with different techniques such as quilting and creating patches. I plan on completing the rest of my explorations this weekend, including techniques I have discussed in my prior blog posts such as fiber slashing. I really enjoy how the fabric can be dyed to whichever colors I want. I found dying the fabric very time consuming. It takes over an hour all together to measure out the dye formula, and soak the fiber in the dye. It then needs to be hung to dry completely before use. I think that I personally enjoy the way just the plain muslin looks when layered on itself, but I do intend to dye more of my fiber work in the future.

Here are some of my explorations below !

See you next week!

-Marissa

Industrious Illustrating #55 – Study Step-by-step

Robin Leave a comment

Hello and welcome back to another week of Industrious Illustrating! This week I’m doing a quick breakdown of how I do digital painting studies to brush up on my fundamentals and improve my mental visual library for my drawing and design work.
It’s generally better to do studies from life rather than from photographs because cameras distort reality and also you can understand the subject from more angles if you see it in real life. However, for this exercise I’m using a Shutterstock stock photograph because trying to find and draw an excavator on-site during the winter months is too much hassle for me personally.

My first step is to draw color blocks to get down the idea of the subject matter while not worrying too much about complete accuracy. It’s way easier to work with a drawing that already exists than with a blank canvas.

My next step is to tweak the proportions and start adding in details to represent what I see in front of me.

As I work on details, I realize that some of the proportions aren’t correct and fix them. This is also how I work on my regular art pieces — mistakes are just a natural part of the process and can be overcome!

The finished study now looks like this! It’s not a fully refined drawing, but I feel like I’ve done enough work to better understand how the different parts of an excavator work together, which was the goal of my study session anyway.

I even draw shapes over my study to solidify my understanding of what the basic building block shapes in an excavator are.

Of course, this is only one way to do studies, and there may be a way to learn that makes more sense to you! I just hope that talking through my process like this helps you discover what might work best for you in the future. See you next week!

MediaScape Musings # 10 : All In Your Head 🧠

dsuart Leave a comment

Today, I’m excited to unveil a groundbreaking project I’m currently immersed in, titled “All in Your Head.” This innovative endeavor brings together dancers, musicians, artists, and neuroresearchers in a captivating exploration of the trial-and-error landscape of mental health treatment, the scientific intricacies of depression, and the intricate inner workings of the brain.

“All in Your Head” unfolds as a four-movement multimodal masterpiece, seamlessly integrating visual art, dance, and live improvisation and composition. By challenging the conventional notion that mental illness is merely “all in your head,” this project invites a profound shift in perspective. Instead, it prompts us to direct our focus precisely where it needs to be—into the individual’s unique brain chemistry, circuitry, and holistic life experience. This distinctive world demands equally unique and tailored treatment approaches.

Join us on this transformative journey by following our Instagram account @neuroartsprod for updates on upcoming events and a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process. Together, let’s delve into the realms of art, science, and human experience to redefine the narrative surrounding mental health! 🧠 🤯 🎆

Industrious Illustrating #54 – Progress Pictures

Robin Leave a comment

This week’s column is a day late because I’ve been tabling at Isshocon, a new 3-day anime convention located near us in Novi Michigan! So far it’s been going fairly well considering that it only has fewer than two thousand attendees — I’ve made more money than at Motor City Comic Con Fall for a much less expensive table, though my work is much better geared to anime conventions. Here’s a picture of my table:

The main topic of this week’s column is going over some work-in-progress pictures from my recent drawings, which has been on my mind because the application for Fanime Con (a large anime convention that happens in San Jose, CA on Memorial Day weekend) required a signed work-in-progress picture to weed out AI “artists” and art thieves. I’m in a group chat with a bunch of other artists who sell at conventions and seeing everyone else’s progress pictures was really interesting for seeing how other artists work. I won’t use the work-in-progress images I used for my Fanime application to keep it private, so I’ll instead go over a chibi mecha design I drew last year with WIP screenshots I took during the process.

My typical digital working process starts with “blocking” out the drawing as a color sketch, working more on getting the general idea down rather than having perfect proportions or coloring.

As I work on this base colors sketch, I freely use the lasso tool and eraser to resize and edit parts I don’t like in addition to working more with the default oil paint brush tool I use for my work.

Once I have a baseline I’m happy with, I start doing lineart from the top to the bottom on another layer, working more on the rendering and polish as the lineart solidifies what I want the drawing to look like.

Compare with my finished drawing:

Would you guys like to see me do more breakdowns/work-in-progress sequences of my drawings in the future? I’d love to know if you do!