30x30

newest painting, a transcription assignment for class. copied from Lisa Yuskavage's "Day". critiqued today, but i think i might go back and work on some of it.

the skull sets

skulls have been cropping up in my work more and more and i think they are becoming a permanent thing.

this is one of a four piece set of prints i just handed in on tuesday (soft-ground and stencil).

and these are my two most recent paintings, handed in last week. the assignment was that the objects in the still life had to represent you/interests and the first painting uses yellow, and the second painting uses yellow and red (we've been gradually adding colors to our palettes).

more & less

first print of the semester, handed in this past thursday. linocut and drypoint. it's a little wonky, but it's a start.

sorry my pictures aren't so great, i can't find my proper camera.

a puzzler.

just thought i should share this. i came across it on jess fink's blog, but it's originally from unreasonable faith.

patches!

only three so far, but i'm also working on a beet one to go with the carrot. also, my friend melissa just gave me the awesome idea to make day of the dead patches and hair clips (currently i just make flower clips). all these things will be sold at the student run store on campus, Mixed Nuts. sweetness!

MOCA

i'm taking advanced drawing this semester, and today the whole class went over to Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). it was fantastic! the museum is in a restored mill building and it's redone really nicely; industrial but chic at the same time. it took some time to weave through the layout that expands through all kinds of curtained doorways, brick hallways and metal stairwells. it can get confusing, but it's nice feeling to be a bit lost and finding hidden rooms in a museum of interesting art. one of my favorite things was a crazy swaying tree projected on a huge wall that changed through all four seasons. there was also a room with hanging clear plastic houses with ferns, moss, etc growing inside them. i didn't realize it at first (not until i saw step stools around the room) but you could get under the house and stand on a stool to put your head through the bottom of the house and be in the little forests inside. 

the purpose of our trip today was to see the huge Sol LeWitt exhibit on display on 3 floors of the museum. the exhibit itself was walls and walls of early to late instructional works of LeWitt, and all the patterns and colors were fun to get lost in. like the rest of the building, the rooms went on and out past what you originally expect and it's great fun to wander through. i'm not a huge fan of Sol LeWitt, but the sheer scale and execution of the work was very impressive and i enjoyed it.

lastly, i found what i had been looking for the whole time we were at the museum. at the entrance was a funny little building that had cardboard 'scales' and a fancy pasted cutout on it that looked really familiar. i went to check it out and my professor said that it was by the artist Swoon, who was in an exhibit inside. i had seen Swoon street art before in my various books so i was instantly excited to find her stuff in person. i didn't realize until 10 minutes before closing time that you had to go through a crazy hallway or a separate set of stairs to get to where her work was. and when i got there... oh man it was awesome! built by a whole group of artists, it was a crazy structure of wood and furniture and cardboard and art that was like a ship, with walls covered in scales like the ones outside. and it was interactive with hidden rooms and trap doors in the floor with their own little displays inside. unfortunately i couldn't explore it as much as i would've liked, but i managed to be sneaky and get a couple photos of the awesome walls (with my phone, so they are a tad blurred, but still fun).

alright, i'm done rambling now. tootlepip!

self portrait

critiqued today in class. the face is a little too short and the eyes are a little too big, but overall i like how it turned out. first time using pen and ink!