Line Shading Extravaganza!

Owl. 2009. Ink on paper. 14" x 18".

 Detail.

Detail.

I will just start off saying that I love my owl. A lot.

Alright. To do this piece, I started by spending about an hour with an art instructor. I then spent what felt like a thousand hours on my own shading and hatching and crosshatching and scribbling and dotting and on and on and on. In the end, though, I came away with a piece that I am very satisfied with because of the wide variety of textures and values.

Shelf Portrait. 2010. Ink on paper. 18" x 24".

Detail.

Detail.

This one nearly killed me. All of those little lines were done individually with a ruler over the course of about two months. It is still hard not to get a headache when I look closely at it. Thankfully, my obsessiveness paid off and landed me with a depth-filled portrait of myself (or myshelf?) using symbols of the meaningful things in my life.

That's Amore...

Amore Est Defacile. 2009. Nail polish on paper. 5" x 7".

Amore Est Defacile (Love Is Difficult) is one of the only abstract works that I have ever done. Back when I knew some French, I liked to have my language skills play a cameo in my art...most were phrases of broken and jumbled French with little or no meaning. However, this reminds me of a Matisse work, titled right on the painting "Les Betes de la Mer" and I love the assemblage of busy, metallic colors and the way that they seem to move across the page and then melt.

Cover Art #2: Mae

Happily Ever After?. 2009. Colored pencil and ink on paper. 5" x 7".

This drawing was inspired by Mae's album cover for The Everglow, but I added a more somber theme to it. It symbolizes the immense disappointment of being let down by a person or by a promise that fell through. I recognize that it is a very naive and cartoonish work, but it was a symbol for the emotion I felt during the late nights I stayed up making it.

The Phase to Trump All Phases

Untitled. 2009 Ink on vinyl. 11" x 11.5". 

Goodbye Juliet. 2009. Ink on paper. 24" x 36".

British Studies Notebook Cover. 2009. Ink and colored pencil on paper. 7" x 9".

In the Winter and Spring of 2009, I went through a phase...an intense phase. This somewhat creepy design was all over everything, from binders (top), school projects (middle), and journal pages (bottom). I can't really explain it; I guess it just appealed to me at the time? All I can say is that those swirls are probably the reason that I have less-than perfect eyesight...

Cover Art: My Chemical Romance

MCR. 2008. Watercolor on paper. 12" x 12".

Back in the day...I loved My Chemical Romance. But more so, I LOVED the album cover for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. The original cover was done by the frontman of the band, Gerard Way, and I recreated and enlarged it for a class I was taking. The visible emotion and use of red paint to convey the emotion fascinated me. The heart on the guy's forehead--could he be thinking and not feeling? And the use of red on the faces--why was there more red on him? Could he be casting his problems on her? This album began my interest in cover art and the meanings behind it.  

Inspired by Japan

Sumo. 2008. Watercolor on paper. 11" x 18".

My mom always had Japanese kitsch decorating our house when I was growing up, so the art of Japan interested me. This is a re-creation of a painting that I saw in an art textbook that reminded me of a fan my mom had.

 

Double Happiness. 2010. Ceramic box. 9" x 5" x 5".

Inspired by the blue and white Japanese pottery that my mom loves, this box's lid is decorated with a repeating double-happiness symbol and the entire box is scattered with fan designs. This was my first, and as of now, the only slab box that I have made, probably because of the frustration that I encountered while glazing the box. At one point, I ended up scrubbing off and completely re-glazing the lid! 

The First Rose

Rose. 2008. Chalk on paper. 11" x 18".

There's a first for everything, and this was my first rose of many to come. Done under the guidance of an art instructor, my rose was my pride and joy for months. I loved how the subject filled the paper and had vivid, fiery colors. The practice of letting some of my subject slip outside the frame for an in-your-face look would become more common as my art progressed.

Early Seascapes

Lighthouse. 2007. Charcoal on paper. 11" x 8.5".

When I sketched this, I was very proud of myself for achieving the shadows on the water and the correct proportions for the lighthouse. Looking back, though, I see how naive and unfinished it looks. However, it provided a good starting point for other landscapes.  

Second Beach. 2009. Watercolor and ink on paper. 20" x 8".

While this painting still lacks much depth and has very amature-ish foliage, I had improved on changing values and blending colors. It was inspired by Chinese scrolls and was supposed to show humans' insignificance compared to nature.

Beginnings

 

New Gate. 2008. Pen and colored pencil on paper. 18" x 11".

 This was an art assignment in seventh grade. It was the first very structured and design-oriented work i had ever done and its clean simplicity and blocked colors served as a gateway for future projects.