Banshee

I just got a job at the Creativity Art Studio in Orem by the University Mall movie theater. It was pretty amazing actually. Trent and I went there for a date and I brought my resume and the owner, Chris, hired me right there. Okay okay, so it's a second job...I don't get great hours so I'm still working in insurance, but Chris is having me teach some of the Kids Summer Camp classes...which is great!! I've taught my own classes the last two summers and thought about renting a space this summer, but decided against it with other stuff going on. (ps. here's their website http://creativityartstudio.com/ : I made the coolest milk and cookie cup btw! I'll post it when I get it back) Anyway, this first week for the summer camps is "Legendary Creatures"; so I was looking up different characters, researching what I wanted to teach when I came upon a banshee. I was interested because I always wondered what the difference was with a banshee and a witch besides a wailing scream and moan.
The definition I found described a Banshee as wailing (of course) mournfully at death but also described her as having silver white hair and carrying around a white comb which she'd use to stroke her locks. Anyway, I felt inspired so here:

I thought the one below was interesting. It just looked a lot different to me in black and white rather than toned.

So, I'm trying to not let myself slack off this summer. During the school semester's any free time I have is spent doing hours and hours of work on my projects, but then as soon as summer comes and I don't have actual deadlines I have a hard time staying productive. I'm currently working on a painting for an art show that's coming up in July. I have a piece that will be in the Covey Center for the Arts Summer Showcase, and am going to enter some in American Fork's Steel Days Art Show. But, while I'm working on the painting for this upcoming show, I still want to be doing some smaller pieces to show. So, here is a quick sketch I did. It hints at what this painting will be that's coming up....wait and see if you can guess the connection :)

Venus Fly Trap

My goal on this piece was to illustrate the deadly sin of "lust" conceptually. Concept Illustration has  been hard for me but I think this piece turned out nicely. (Not to mention that it could make a good children's book illustration about a fly too).

Boy Meets Girl

So here it is, the final from my acrylic painting class. The project was to do a city scape or landscape that was keyed with a cool color and something warm in the front. Of course that sounded a little boring to me so I decided I wanted to tell a story. Let me know what you think :)

Spring 2013 Semester

This semester is just getting over and it has been a fantastic one! I feel like I've been pushed so much in all of my studio classes and have done so much work that I have really improved within these last few months. I've been posting pieces from my Digital Painting class taught by Will Terry, but this other class has also pushed me hard. It's a lower division class: Media and Techniques 2 taught by the infamous Perry Stewart.

Perry gave us a ton of homework this semester (like he does every semester)-- 4 paintings a week, a minimum of 2 hours spent on each. Usually they were heads and took more than 2 hours. But you can definitely see my improvement. The semester before I took "Head Painting" and you can tell that my heads this semester are a lot better than the ones from last semester. You can see those here:http://www.kristylenderillustration.blogspot.com/2012/12/round-3.html and here:http://www.kristylenderillustration.blogspot.com/2012/12/end-of-school.html . The pieces in this post are all done in acrylic. I'll post my final for the class a little later when I have it completely finished.

I feel like these are my pivotal pieces; the pieces where I recognized I was getting better. So without further ado, here are my pieces: the older ones are at the end of the post and the more recent at the beginning:

High Key 

Low Key

Painting on a collage of materials

 This one isn't great, I know that, but everyone in the class decided to do a painting of Perry. It was pretty awesome so I decided to post mine :)

Anne Hathaway

Jaslene: Winner of ANTM Arbitrary Color

 Amanda Seyfried Caricature.

Mushrooms

Drybrush on Napthol Red background

Drybrush

Flat shapes with circles to soften edges

Ron Weasley, only painting the shadows

Flat value, hard edges

Happy Easter!

This is a little late for Easter, but hey Easter's the season too right? But we know (adults, or at least we think) that the Easter Bunny might not really be exactly what we think he is. Imagine, every time you ever sat on his lap or when you put your child on his lap...Is that really a bunny? Anyway, HAPPY EASTER!!!

So, I am really bad at updating my blog with all the work I'm doing. I get caught up in doing different assignments and my own things that the pieces I want to post get forgotten about. Here are some digital paintings I've done using Photoshop.

Abominable Snowman

Made with perfect circles and straight edges

Robot Saving Human in Desert:

This was a completely new technique for me. I started out with a good line drawing

Next, I transferred the drawing to watercolor paper, lightly just blocking in shapes with graphite. This next part is what was new. I'm not very familiar with watercolor, but I painted my piece quickly letting the natural watercolor texture show. 

Finally I put the piece into Photoshop and painted layers digitally in between my watercolor layer and my line layer.  You can see that I added mountains in the back, but you can still see some of the water color texture shine through the digital paint. Even though this was a new technique for me, it's one that I actually really like! It gives me a process to follow and allows me to add cool effects to my piece. Lemme know what you think!

P.S I have to say this because I'm pretty excited! I got into the BFA Program for Illustration! 

MORE NEW YORK

Beautiful piece we saw in a small gallery

Burt Silverman

Look! We're just like Wicked!

Marshall Harrison's Monkey

Donato's sketches

NYC

I went to New York City last week during Spring Break with some people from the art department at UVU. It was such a fun trip, not to mention inspiring. We visited with some amazing artists: Donato Giancola, Burton Silverman, Brad Holland, and Marshall Harrison. They were each so different and I learned a ton. Here are some photos of the trip. 

Burton Silverman- He's an 84 year old man who still paints. Most of his pieces are regular joes and portraits. 

Marshall Harrison-He had a ton of sculpted monkeys all around his studio. He also does oil crayon drawings that are inspired by cave paintings...drawings on top of drawings, with rainbows thrown in. I'll try to post some more when I get the pics with me.

Awesome street art!

Lord of the Rings-Donato Giancola

Donato's home. What I love about Donato (other than his artwork) is the fact that he has a family and still is a family man. It seems like so many artists are so married to their artwork that it consumes their lives. Donato had toys in corners at his house and drawings done by his children. He spoke in a lecture at BYU last year, and he told us that he treats his art as a regular job, which I really expect. He works from "9-5" but after 5pm he puts away his art and he spends time with his kids and wife. 

Dead Mermaid-Donato Giancola

Me and my friend Natalie in Donato's Studio.(PS that's Donato in the yellow)

Donato's workspace

This is the mural on the ceiling at the Rockefeller. I thought it was awesome because it's got men using the pillars as their stepping stones.

I have been wanting to do this painting forever! It's something just for myself. I did the sketch last summer and have been waiting to have time to work on it, and then finally time to finish it. I just submitted it along with 16 other pieces to the BFA program at UVU. Hopefully this piece will help me get in.