Sorry it’s been a while since I last posted, this was my last semester of college and I had a lot to do. But now I promise I’ll be posting to this blog more regularly as well as polish up and update my webpage.
Anyways, I finally graduated!
It has been a long and crazy journey, and my art has changed drastically since I last posted. There was a lot of stuff I enjoyed about college, and a lot of struggles I went through since I started. But now I’m ready to move on to the next chapter in my life, whether or not that will consist of graduate school or something else only time will tell.
Anyways, one of the things I was working on that kept me from posting to this blog was my final BFA project, which consisted of us making a series of works to be presented in an exhibition with other students who were graduating this semester. It was a lot of work, and while there was a bunch of things I wish I knew then that I knew now, and a bunch of things I wish I did differently, I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out and how much everyone enjoyed it.
My exhibition, The Daily Lives of Beck, Gabe, and Michelle.
For my final exhibition I did a bunch of digital art pieces as well as an animation. I had the digital artworks printed as posters and had the animation play on a projector screen. My project consisted of the glimpses of the daily lives of three characters I designed with the hopes of giving the viewers an idea of their relationships between each other, how they live, and their personalities and interests.
This is Gabe. He shares an apartment with his boyfriend Beck and his roommate Michelle. He also dyes his hair frequently. When making the bedrooms I wanted them to look lived in order for them to feel more personal to the viewers.
Michelle is an aspiring sculptor who likes to tackle themes of girlhood and femininity in her work. She likes to work with found objects. As an artist myself I obviously wanted to have an artist character, even if I don’t do sculpture myself. (I honestly kinda suck at it, at least when working with found materials)
Gabe and Michelle also perform music together on the side. They perform under the name PRISMABOMB! and primarily make experimental dance-punk music with electronic elements. I imagine their music being a cross between Le Tigre and Guerilla Toss sound wise.
Here is Beck being affectionately embraced by Gabe. This piece is kinda self explanatory. I actually used a posing app for a lot of these as reference and it really paid off. I like making dynamic poses even if it is difficult at times.
Here is Gabe, Michelle, and Beck together in their apartment bathroom. I actually had a lot of fun picking different hair colors for Gabe so I thought it would just make sense to also include one depicting him dying his hair. It was such a small detail but I had a lot of fun playing with that along with giving everyone different outfits.
Another picture of the trio celebrating New Years. I didn’t want the picture to quickly date itself so I thought it would be a funny visual gag to have the numbers on the New Years glasses be two question marks. So if you’re somehow looking at this in the year 2100 or later, why? I mean I’ll probably be dead by then so you won’t be able to explain it but I hope you like my work.
Here’s Beck’s bedroom. Beck is an aspiring dancer, with that in mind I just had to make a piece involving those giant mirrors you see in dance floor practice spaces. While I’ve never taken a formal class I always loved dancing. It was really fun to play with the reflection and utilize my interests into a piece of artwork, also just seeing Michelle looking irritated in the reflection was just a funny thing to see.
Beck and Michelle chatting with each other on the curb outside of the bar and record store. I originally had a lot of trouble doing the bricks so I’m glad I was able to find a way to make them look nice.
Michelle has finished her sculpture At The End of Girlhood and is viewing it at the gallery. Honestly having a call back to a previous work in the exhibition was something I thought was really cute and helped make both artworks feel more personal.
Here is the animation I did for the exhibition. How it worked was that I had this played this on loop on a projector and people could stand in front of it and pose with them for photos. I think I had the most fun animating Michelle’s hair but it was all really fun to do. Even if it was a lot of work. I hope to make more animations as well as art in the future, and if you want to see photos of the exhibition itself they’re available to view on the link to my Instagram at the bottom of the page.
Woah... that was a lot.
So yeah, I had a lot of work to do between now and my last time posting. I’m hoping to make a career out of doing this at some point, I still have a lot to learn and I’m going to also make sure to take the time to practice and improve my art as well. Hopefully within a year or two I can have enough pieces of art to put together a decent portfolio. I’m going to try and post weekly for real this time and I hope you all enjoyed reading this! Thank you.