Downtown Photography

I've got at least an hour of free time at college every day and I've been taking photography walks around downtown during my breaks. It's been really fun. Here are some of my best shots from my latest semester!

Wreck This Journal: Part #1

I've fallen back out of the habit of art journaling again (we have a history of on-again-off-again relationships). I decided I missed it so I picked up a copy of "Wreck This Journal" by Kerri Smith to try to get back in the habit/play around with different methods.

I've been working in this journal since November and do a page whenever inspiration strikes. If you follow me on instagram, I post pictures of the pages whenever I finish a good one. I'd say I have 1/5 of the pages done and I wanted to share some of my favorites so far with you below.

School Art Check In #1

One of my favorite collages from my 2D Design class

Whoo hoo! I am officially half way done with my school semester! (Spring break is still so far away though! C'mon April!) I thought today I would take the opportunity to show you what Ive been working on in my 2D and 3D design classes.

Comission: Eevee Evolution Chain Shoes

Hey everyone! I took off last week due to burnout. Basically there were these commission projects that I took on and underestimated the amount of time/work they'd require. Don't you hate that? Do you do this with crafts/projects and mess up your schedule too??

I digress, recently I decided to start advertising my work online a little more. Nothing huge, just local Facebook trade/buy/sell groups and the like. It worked though! One lovely lady commissioned me to paint all nine of the Pokemon Eevee's evolutions onto these Converse. See how they turned out below!

Pokemon Art Academy: Game Review

So many firsts already this year and we're only in the first month! This is my first video game review on the blog, but I've reviewed books...well one book, but more are on the way! I promise! Anyway, unless you're new here you know I love Pokemon! it as a series/conglomeration is probably at my top slot in the best video game list that I mention in this post. Therefore it's fitting that the first game I discuss is from the Pokemon family (plus it's artsy...its like both sides of my personality combined in a game)

I reluctantly asked for this game for my birthday for two reasons. 1. The Sapphire and Ruby remakes were coming out less than a week after my birthday, that was tempting...But 2. I was skeptical if this would even be a fun game. I've always done my best to resist the siren call of  "art games" because in my mind I've always relegated drawing/painting to a different sort of entertainment than video games and didn't think that the two should be mixed.

Watercolor Marbles Notebook DIY @DALB

I survived my first week back to school ladies and gents. It was sort of killer...I'm a wimp though. I've been privileged my whole college career and only ever had classes that were just on Tuesday and Thursday. This semester a combination of signing up late, some classes just being offered exclusively MWF, and time constraints led me to having class every day...something I haven't done in 3 years...

The good news is that my TuThu classes are 2-D design in the morning and 3-D design during the afternoon. I love having two days completely devoted to studio art.

Getting to be creative at school inspired me to create a notebook for those classes where I can jot down the few notes we take. (You know I love to DIY notebooks) Play with color and shape in this tutorial and make yourself a beautiful notebook in the process!

If you want a colorful, artsy-fartsy notebook check out the tutorial here at Dream A Little Bigger!

Til Next Time!

Art Adventure Time: #5 Spring Back

Today's Adventure is brought to you by forgetfulness! I was cleaning out and generally organizing my computer files the other day and I found a whole cache of photos from a spring adventure I had taken with Venture to the arboretum.

I got to go back and visit my favorite dragon statue in Wilmington, Gideon! His enclosure was in full bloom as was the rest of the acreage, and boy was it beautiful! Come take a little trip back in time with me to a warm spring day- isn't that the prefect cure for these freezing temperatures?

Watercolor Postcards Pt.1

My Christmas rocked! It was very relaxing and my friends and family spoiled me with awesome goodies. I got lots of Batman memorabilia and art stuff, so basically everything I wanted. Although I am grateful for all of my gifts, the one I have been utilizing most is a kit I got from my sister.

I've been wanting to get a more "serious" watercolor set for a while now. (aka one that doesn't have the word student or crayola on the outside) Luckily my sister is amazing and got me a wonderful watercolor field sketch box, a pack of watercolor paper postcards, and some aqua brushes. I have had a blast painting, find out more below!

Shared Roll of Film with Carly from Zauberbear

If you didn't already know, I have a passion for film photography. It was incubated in a class I took during my first year of college, Black and White Photography 1. It was a magical experience of having 3 hours every Tuesday and Thursday to listen to music and create photos in the dark room. I wish I could go back, I might even this upcoming semester if it could miraculously fit into my schedule.

 Since there isn't a local darkroom and my college only allows you to use ours if you're currently paying for a photography class, my camera has sat collecting dust until my friend Carly from Zauberbear emailed me with an idea.

Art Adventure Time #4: Castles in the Sand

This adventure is from the distant past, mid-July I believe. I'm not sure why I haven't gotten it up before but it's here now. It was part mini-vacation, part architecture-undertaking, all fun!

Thats right, I went to the beach. Me. Oh, and Venture of course!

Office and Workspace Tour

I cannot believe it has taken me this long to show you guys my office! ...Well thats not exactly true, I did rearrange my office/general downstairs at least 2-3 times before I was really happy with it.

Here it is: the place where all my cwafty magic happens. Hopefully these photos will one day serve as the  "before" shots for my dream office makeover. That's sure to be a big endeavor somewhere in the near (next year or so?) future but in the meantime, let me show you around!

Art Adventure Time 3: Here Thar Be Dragons!

 Due to me forgetting I had a deadline to meet this week (duh RaChil, tighten up) I did not finish a tutorial for today but will have something extra special in store for you on Thursday, so stay tuned! Regularly scheduled programing will return next week. 

I finally got around to editing the pictures/finishing my art journaling for this A.A.T., so I figured it would be perfect to hold you until Thursday! Enjoy

What a beautiful specimen of Japanese water dragon! I believe I shall call this beauty Gideon. I spotted Gideon swimming around a murky pond surrounded by sun bleached cat tales and sun-warmed rocks!

He was not what I expected going to see a place I thought would just be filled with trees and plants, my local Arboretum!

1 Year of Ceramics

In my senior year of high school I took an AP year long english class, art 1, art 2, sci vis 1 (scientific and technical visualization), game art 2, and ceramics (both semesters). It was a really fun year and I didn't have any more credits to fill after powering through the first three years, so I learned some handy-in-my-field-skills.

Ceramics might have been my favorite just because of the freedom of the curriculum, plus I got to make whatever I wanted when I took it the second time, I just had to regularly turn pieces in. There were a lot of ups and downs in ceramics, its both where I finished some of my favorite pieces of work ever and broke projects I'd spent weeks working on before I could get them in the kiln. I wanted to show you guys the pieces I still have and use on a pretty regular basis.

March Art Challenge Week 4

These are the last bit of the month's art challenge drawings!

March Art Challenge Week 3

I am late, like I was supposed to be done with this set of seven drawings a week ago, but life got in the way this week and my art challenge fell to the wayside. I'm still determined to finish though!

March Art Challenge Week 2

Last week I posted my first set of drawings from Clover and Dot's March Art Challenge. These were my creations for this week

March Art Challenge Week 1

 

As I mentioned in last thursdays post, I challenged myself to complete Clover and Dot's March Art Challenge. These were my creations for the week!

Photography 1 Portfolio

I know my blog has still been sort of silent except for Tuesday posts, but I am making that change this week!

Today I thought I would share my best photos overall with you from my Photography 1 class.

The Marble, Watercolor on Photo paper

It was a black and white class but I did get to alter a few photos, this is one of my absolute favorites.

Art Adventure Time 2: Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Maybe we got a little lost...But sometimes it's really refreshing to get lost in nature for a little while, especially when you are majorly stressed.

This A.A.T trip actually took place about a month ago, at the peak of moving stress when I wasn't sure we were going to be able to get a place without a cosigner, but we managed! Actually after this adventure I got a call from the apartment people telling me that we could move forward, we would just have to pay a lot more.

I felt about 1000x better after my wandering.

Nature Photos

Since I've been trying to get better at photography, so the pictures on this blog will be better, I've been practicing a lot. One of my favorite things to do is just go outside and shoot what I find, or wait til I see something out a window that grabs my attention and I grab my camera.