Gouged Ink

I intend to print some today and I find this awaiting me.
Who do these punk kids think they are? Gouging up all the community ink.
I swear.

This is the second can of ink I have thrown away in as many weeks.
I haven't even checked all of them.

I swear.

I printed another layer of my reductive linocut today, but it was terrible.
I'll probably post it sometime later, but... It is not good.

In Progress/Studio Shot

Just some in progress studio shots.



















I'm working on this collage/painting right now. Really like it.
Enough to be worried if I mess it up or not.
haha

<3

Hello Again.

I'm going to recommit myself to posting in this blog again. (as well as being an actual contributor to Mostly Roses)
I need to try to keep myself artistically accountable.

It has been a long time since I have posted here, so I will give you an abbrevaited rundown of the better of the pieces I have done in the time since I posted here regularly. (OMG LIKE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO.)


Tracks and Shadows.
Print/Drawing.
Included in The ASA's art show for 2009



Reaching out with horns.
Drypoint intaglio print.



Snowstorms in April and Dictionary Pages
Linocut, Woodcut, found paper, watercolor.
Used for the central michigan print exchange.


Hold On Now
Drypoint Intaglio.


Untitled.
Drypoint Intaglio with watercolor, graphite and embrodiery thread.
In the 2009 International Small Engraving Salon
(If you would like to see my other pieces that got in that show, click the link then find Riley, Lindsay)

So. There is that.

Hello again!
I'll be back soon,
Lindsay

Some Prints.

I'm posting some prints I made this semester.


<-- "We Were Trying Too Hard" Photo transfer and lino cut.













"Expect Changes In the Wallpaper"

Wood grain print under lino cut.















Adventures in Incelism


Wood grain Print under Lino cut.














Those Old Wise Silly Things

Lino cuts





"Taking Polaroids and Catching UFOS"

Wood grain and Lino cut.

----

Sorry for such a long hiatus.
I've been busy?

I got that work study scholarship to Penland like I wanted.
I'm leaving this Friday afternoon.
I'm very excited.
It's about 'Exploring Bookness', we'll be making some book inspired objects. It'll be fun.

Somehow Podcasts segway into storytelling.

I love podcasts.
I would say it is because I love getting information, and I like the ease podcasts provide.
I can listen to This American Life for free every week, get movie reviews from Filmspotting, etc.
But I've been thinking about what I like so much about them.

When I was little my mom got me this tape with the best storytellers from some kind of oral storytelling festival, and I listened to it religiously.
And the best memories I have from my family and friends tends to be the stories that they tell/told. Or the stories we create together, I guess.

I've been writing in my paper journal lately, I'm trying to find out what I want my art to be about. I keep coming back to the same things, or at least simular ones.
Communication, Memory, Collective Memory, Storytelling, Myth...
or at least I'm interested in these things. I just still haven't figured out how to make my art meet up with what I'm interested in exploring.

The only one of those I believe I work with at all right now is Storytelling, any of the paintings I do that actually mean anything, instead of being a still life or something done stricktly for the grade, has always been somewhat about telling a story. In critiques on those paintings I'll talk about what the painting is about, and tend to get into some big long story about the painting.

So I want narrative, I want storytelling.
I'll figure it out. Just letting it out into the internet ether.

The Human Form.

I've been thinking about his lately.
I'm in figure painting now and I am painting (generally) nude models.
I had be really wanting to post my paintings and some of my drawings from this class, but really don't want someone to accidently stumble on nudity that they might not have wanted to see.

It's nothing terrible, it's just the nude human form, but I don't want to offend. Personally I don't think there is anything offensive about it, but I want to be polite. Even if this is the internet.

So I'm going to link into my nude drawings and paintings, I think that's the best solution.

First of all, to the left is my first painting from figure painting and she is obviously clothed. So, there you go.

The nude studies I wanted to post are here and here. It's frontal nudity, so there are breasts. If you don't want to see them, don't click.

The nude painting I wanted to post is here. It's from the back, so you see her butt and hips.

My excuses are just babies of snow...

Happy Sunday everyone! 

The Carrot Revolution was kind enough to link to me the other day. Thanks again for the shout out and the nice words.

 

I sent out a  scholarship application to Penland School of Craft this week. I hope I get it. I want to do this summer program on lithography. (Well, the program also includes stuff on intaglio and relief, but I know those processes, so I hope that they'll let me focus more on the lithography, since I know nothing about it.)

But anyway, when I sent my scholarship application to Penland, I had to take pictures of some of my art. Those arts happened to be the paintings I've not yet posted here, so here we go. 

Okay, paintings. Uhm. This one is kind of dumb, but my painting teacher likes it. We had to do our paintings about something, and I kind of picked communication, or the lack of. 

Essentially, It's a wasteland. 

Okay, so this was my final for painting 2, I painted a painting for my roommate, because I owe her some money... No, just kidding, She wanted one of my paintings, so I made her one. She needs to quit smoking, but, smoke is compositionally really really wonderful. I like swirls. Her hair is really not that color. I made it much too blonde, but she says she doesn't mind... sketches of it here. 

This painting is really personal. It's the biggest painting I've ever done. It's about 4 x 5 feet. I'm happy with it. People tend to like it before they know it's about death, and then they're like, "oh, i see. uhmmm." Oh well. 

It's what I was talking about here. 

Anyway. It's snowing outside. It's the pretty big clumps of snow.... or at least it was. It's calmed down now. 

Anyway. There are about 12 things I should be doing that aren't blogging so... 

A Little Birdhouse

Happy Valentine's day.

...Remember to leave the night light on in the birdhouse in your soul...

Owl Dreams

Lookit!

These are my owls, an etching I did based on a drawing I posted up here a few months ago.

It's from an intaglio series about dreams I'm doing right now in Printmaking. woo.

Crazy Ears

I'm some kind of officer in my school's chapter of the Art Student Association. We need to vote again now that about half of our officers graduated, so that's why I'm not really anything yet. I was once the Treasuer. 

Anyway, I made this poster for our meeting.

It's pretty dope.

I thought you'd want to see. yes. 

Nashville and thoughts on cities

I went to Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday with my friend Ann and saw a lovely art show at Vanderbuilt by Xiao Xin Lu. It w

as a series of monoprints that had been drawn back on, sometimes  collaged, sown back in, anything that you could name. She had a very lovely control of mixed media. 

It was fantastic and has inspired me to try more things with my own printmaking, and maybe stray from the edition-able print. I know that i'm not a 'printmaker', I know I'm a drawer/printmaker who is influenced by form of printmaking. I am really excited about trying to explore this direction that my artistic vision wants to take. I've been thinking about it a long time, b

ut it wasn't until I saw Xiao Xin Lu's show that I realized how beautifully mixed media informed by the printmaking process could work. 

I just need to find a way to make it work well for me.

...and I'm pretty excited. 

Ann and I talked about how sometimes unexpected things are the best.  For example: not expecting a birthday present and getting one makes it so much better than if you were expecting something, no matter really what the gift was. 

I can't remember how it came up, but it made me think of

 New York. Which brings us to my second 'things I just like looking at' 

 

This photo was taken in Chinatown when I was in New York a few weeks ago. It's not just Chinatown that I visually enjoy, even tho I picked this photo for this topic

 (because of the colors and is one of my more favorite pictures I took on my New York trip). It's the hustle of cities that I like and am kind of uncomfortable with. You can be around so many people and be totally alone, and there is some appeal in that to me. At the sam

e time I really love random happenings you'll find more often in city places, which brings me back to my talk with Ann about unexpected things. While I was in New York one of my favorite experiences was getting off a subway with a friend and seeing some people breakdancing one direction, and a guy who played a mean guitar/foot drums (He was playing Tom Petty's 'You got Lucky', actually. I remember because I really like that song.) in another. All while lots of people are streaming around me going about their business. 

There was just something just visually great about it. (While leaving Grand Central Station we saw a squash tourney, too. This was not as visually awesome or moving etc., but was pretty out of the blue and cool too.) 

Maybe it was because I'm sheltered and just didn't expect something like that. 

I'm sure if I lived there, those kind of thing would quickly become old hat to me.

but just that the experience of all these people going about their own lives all around me and how I got to experience some things they enjoyed doing (playing music, dancing, playing squash) filled me with a wonder and a calm for the people who are around me. 

I think I like cities for the same reason I like living in the dorm. It's comforting to be around people, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't like them. I'm not a huge people person, and will openly admit to really not liking most people I've met in my life, but the fact they are around going on with their lives and having their own adventures and stories around me that I  will never know fills me with warm fuzzies in my stomach. It's just full of so much potential. 

2008

Sometimes there really feels like nothing to draw,
but in reality you've got a lot of things you'd like to draw
and you sit and think about it.
Then give up and do a self portrait.
and find you drew those things anyway.


2008, you will be good. That's an order.

The New Year's party I went to was really fun, so that's a good start.

I saw Juno today. I liked it. Belle and Sebastian were in the soundtrack, which probably made me forget it's shortcomings.


Happy New Year.

But I think I got some linseed oil in my ear...

It's kind of disturbing how much I miss my sketchbook.
I've just left it at a friend's house, but I'm already frustrated and missing it.
I actually want to draw.
It's feels weird that it's not here with me. It's existence is comforting.

I painted for about 6 hours or so today. It was (generally) good times.

I gesso-ed the back of a painting because I didn't put enough gesso on it the first time around, and the back looked stupid with the paint showing thru. (I think this will also eventually destory the canvas) Little white spots showed up on the painted side, and I had to match colors for several hours trying to fix my painting. It actually turned out better than it was before I had to rework it, so I'm pleased.

The RA (I assume) put up signs in the bathroom stalls with names of funny cities.
I wanna live in Chicken, Alaska.

and because I hate putting up entires with no pictures...



I drew that for-freaking-ever ago. Like, at the beginning of the semester. It's kind of like this weird thing my roommate, her boyfriend, and I were talking about one day at the Mellow Mushroom.

Finals and Whatnot.

Well, it's getting about that time again.
Last week was dead week, the week before finals.
I've got two paintings to finish by the 12th as well as bits and pieces of metals and ceramics I need to finish by the 11th.
This is one of the first semesters I've had where teachers have opted to have our final critique actually during finals. Usually art teachers will just make final critique the last regular class day.
I am so happy this isn't the case. I need all the time I can get with three studios. (two of the three being 3D art studios, which I lack skills in.)
But I'm really not that stressed, which is nice. The most work I have to do is painting, and since I love it, it doesn't really feel like work. Right now I'm stalling more to let my Ipod charge than anything else.

Here's what I'm working on.













Hope everyone else who has finals does well.
Yay for a break soon.

This semester has really flown by for me.

Groovy

I did this little drawing this afternoon.

If I had a website, I'd have something like that in flash for the homepage. With actual links instead of random sayings...

Hope the Thanksgiving holiday was nice for everyone.

Things I'm thankful for at this second:

• The RA on our floor has really good candy in the bowl in front of her door. (she sets it out there for us. Mini Butterfingers and Mini Crunch bars.)
• Lifetime shows Frasier late at night.
• Holiday Breaks.
• House shoes
• People who I can talk to anything about
• The cheap pack of markers I bought
• My yellow hat
• My family
• Being able to see my high school friends over break. and it not feeling like we've been far away too long to be able to talk.
• Walking in the dark down my street
• Yellow Ginko leaves on the ground from the tree next to my window.
• Nachos

I braved the cruel day called Black Friday this year with my friend Emily.

The dark grip of capitalism filled the air...

I bought some stuff. I kind of wished I could have made everything for Christmas this year, but it's hard to do that. Some people hate scarves, and really like DVDs and video games. oh well.

Yep.

Whispering your secrets to the goat.

"Whoever wants to know something about me... ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do."
--Gustav Klimt











This is my sketch for a painting I'm working on. We had to take elements of a still life and compose/change/add/whatever to them to make something interesting to us. Maybe tell a story, I can't remember....
Mines about death and grief.

It's been a rough semester for me.
I can't wait for it to be over.

BFA and paintings.

I was accepted into my school's Bachelors of Fine Arts program in Painting and Printmaking a few weeks ago. I only get the one degree, but they'll let you explore two concentrations.
You have to apply and they make a bit of a thing over it. Application and deadlines and whatnot.



The painting above is of my friend Morgan and a victorla. And swirly things. It's better in real life. That's an awful photograph.


My letter says

"During the portfolio review the committe made the following observations and suggestions:

...use of color is interesting. However, she needs to venture out of 'tube' colors...
...exhibits nice compositional skills...
...needs to 'lock down' her vision -- her work goes in too many directions...
...shouldn't rely on outline so much -- this needs to be discussed with her painting instructors."

We had to paint a still life with colors different from what they are in reality. It's my elephant statue, my crab toy and my flute.

I asked my painting teacher about that last one. He thought for a second before he shrugged told me it was something I shouldn't worry about. He makes me smile.
I'm happy he doesn't mind.
The strong outline around figures comes from my learning to draw from comic books, and my undying love for the form.
Superheroes don't really interest me, but I like the form a lot.
What can I say? I'm a comic book snob, although I've not had time or the resources to read as much as I would like to. Comic books or otherwise.
I've not even made my own lately.
I think that needs to change.

Hat Comic

I like my hat. :)
Click on it to make it bigger and to read it.

Sketch Pages

Jokers and Owls.
The fortune says"Birds are entangled by their feet and Men by their tongues."







Some sketch pages.
I'm gonna post art here more.

Happy Father's Day

This is what is going to be part of a postcard printmaking project. I am doing seasons, and this is fall. It is also a father's day card.

Happy day for fathers, grandfathers, would-be-fathers, men who inspire people like fathers, uncles, nice boys. Anyone who is deserving. I know it's a hallmark made holiday, but it doesn't mean we don't love you.