"Synchronicity"

I did Robot Love: 2010 at the Good Gallery in Portland last year and it was fantastic. Out of the 4 pieces I dropped off, two were sold. For wedding presents, to boot!
This year, I wasn't able to be as prolific with my work as I was last year, but am glad that I was able to submit some work at least. I decided to continue with my doll theme. The more practice for my thesis project, the better, right?

So here are several photos of the project in various angles. The dolls are about 1/4 inch above some decorative paper that I had. This gives them a bit of dimension inside the shadowbox. This thing that makes them interesting, also makes them hard to photograph!

Yes, conjoined robots.

It's hard to photograph something that is not quite three-dimensional so that someone who's not standing in front of it can see it's dimensionality. But you get the idea.

The final, framed in a shadowbox.

The title came to me in the shower and I think it's completely appropriate.

My morbid sense of humor

Morton Salt, just in case you live under a rock.

Part of my Sketchbook project (which is going to be very thin, because I was busy living life and school that I didn't get to do as many sketches in it as I'd like to have) is going to have some 3D elements in it. Like things you pull out or unfold. I'm going to use it to "bulk" up my book. I may not have it in time to make the tour, but at least it may get into the library, and I can say it's "done".

Original sketch

Anyway. If you know me, you know I'm a sick individual (at least if you talk to my mom). I can find humor in most situations.
The topic of my sketchbook is rain, basically. So why not a zombie Morton Salt girl?!

Process, and some of my hair.

I really like the 3D aspect, makes it interactive. You pull the poster out of the book, sort of like the Griffin and Sabine books, if you've ever read those.
So here's the process on the Morton Zombie girl.

Closed in all its bulky glory.

Opening...

The little rain girl doll is part of the book too,

I just have to figure out how to attach her.

Opening...

The lower right corner of the "poster"  is 

glued to the right page in the sketchbook.

While I'm not as pleased with the outcome, I have the original sketch. Why not make it bigger as a poster for myself?! YES! So that's what I'm going to do. Take what I don't like out of the final and fix it for me.

Progression

I'm a bad blog operator. I really should have a set schedule to post. I think that would also keep me motivated to continue drawing. This will be my faux-resolution.

I have a handful of projects started. I like it.
I also do not like it. But thus is my scatterbrained dilemma.

I just am starting to feel overwhelmed with the amount of work I'm doing, and it really isn't even that much. It's just that I haven't set aside time to complete it all.

This is where shopping will come in tomorrow. I'm going to pick up a dry-erase calendar that I'm going to keep above my desk with all of my pending projects on it. I'm going to give myself a set amount of time to work on each project and note what days/times I'm going to dedicate to working on each. I have to see them written in front of my face.  I struggle with depression and BPD. It effects how I work. I know I'm not the only person on the planet that struggles. But I feel like it is holding me back more than most.

I lack motivation and consistency to get my stuff done, and it's pissing me off. I let my mind wander off onto other projects and stupid time wasting stuff. Then the next thing I know, it's a month and I still haven't gotten anything finished.
Some of it is a fear of failure. My non-digital work doesn't have an "undo" button (as much as my brain tells me it should). I'm afraid of making mistakes, although, I'm often ok with admitting to them.

I started working on a tattoo commission for a friend. I'm excited about it because it 1.) is a pin up and I love creating new pin ups, 2.) Is for an awesome person and 3.) is starting to look better than most of my pin up work.
Although I'm not even 1/2 through it, I'm so excited about the project I've started taking some progression shots and I'm going to share them here.

I am also struggling with my Sketchbook Project book. We paid to participate and I lost my motivation as soon as I started school back up. I figured I'd have enough time to work on it in between class assignments. I didn't realize that my thesis proposal would take so much out of me. So now I'm scurrying to get stuff in my book. Luckily, I have some ideas, but now it's all about tactics. How am I going to assemble this book?

Anyhow, here's the progress porn. Er, photos.

Here's a quick shot of my progress on Alice. I'm not as far along as I want to be, but she's what I work on when I take breaks from other projects.

And a shot of my sketchbook project page. I'm so far behind on this I've lost interest. I'm not sure how I'm going to attach it to the page yet though.

I hope to be a little more motivated and caught up tomorrow, with my post-float glow. Pfft.

Alice, coming together

While I've been wracking my nerves preparing for thesis proposal, and watching my fellow creative students present, I've been doodling. No, more like taking brief moments to enlarge and piece apart the Alice doll I posted about a couple of weeks ago.
After enlarging her, I realized that she's going to be AWESOME in a large format. I haven't made many large-scale dolls aside from the mock-up I made of my thesis doll, and I have to admit that it's winning me over.
Large scale work is often daunting because details are blown up, which means possible mistakes are blown up. But it's very rewarding seeing something you've been working on it this large format.
Now, onto the art!

When constructing dolls, I do the sketches first, then enlarge/shrink them, and then lay out the body parts on tracing paper. I'll then transfer the parts onto watercolor paper and start the painting process.

I just love her nose! (My thesis doll mock-up is making an appearance)

Dolls dolls dolls

I'm cross posting from my thesis blog to this one, because I believe it relates. This is a mock up of one of the dolls I'm working on for my senior thesis.

To get a better idea of what I'm doing, check out the link above.

Process:

 

And final:

 

This is a photoshop mock up of how the doll is going to be assembled. Background image (which still needs a little tweaking because you can't see what's going on inside), and inside of a hand-made box. (I'm sure my dad and boyfriend are going to get a kick out of building these boxes)

New doll in the works

Here's a sketch of the doll I have in the works. I'm looking forward to plotting out her limbs and getting right to creating her.

A lot of paper doll artists have their dolls professionally printed and make them available to customers to cut and assemble themselves. I'm toying with that idea, but I really have a hard time with that.
I'm a big fan of the artifact. Seeing the hand of the artist in the work. If I had them professionally printed, that would save me time and stress by mass producing some of my work. But I think I would keep the aspect of the aritfact by assembling the dolls  myself and offering the finished product for sale.
Does that take too much of the artist out of the art? Would people be interested in the semi-mass produced doll?

I think I'll stick to one of a kind until it's feasible for me to print.

So here's Alice. Of my own imagination.

Alice in a steampunk-y incarnation

Baba Yaga

3 or 4 years ago at my previous college, we were given the task of drawing something that pertained to myths. I chose the Russian/Slavic myth of Baba Yaga.

While I won't go into detail about the story, because it's relatively simple to google it.

I liked what I came up with at that time. And since I'd never colored anything digitally, I decided to tackle that obstacle. Not my best work, but I think it came out better than I expected for someone who's never painted digitally.

Alright, I guess. It was fun testing the waters

I decided that I wanted to use this image again for my portfolio, and thought I'd redraw it. Although, I'm still attached to my original drawing, again, I like the way that this one came out. I was going to leave it in black and white, but it needs a little something to make it pop. So I'm currently adding some digital color to it. But this time I'm doing digital because I'm too afraid to touch it with gouache. I spent days drawing the original and I don't want to mess it up. But I guess that's the nature of traditional media. You're just going to have to bite the bullet and get in and do it.

Tightening up some linework and adding color digitally.