Night Light

Some of the photos I took for the Night light project for Photography this year at tafe.

Thanks to Debs and Stuzz for all your help with this project.
 

Pardon the lack of updates, dealing with life and shit...

Charcoal Maiden

 Just an A2 sketch pad, some charcoal and Loreena McKennitt's "Book of Secrets".

End of a Year.

                                                         And so ends my first year of tafe.
Hand in for assessment was last Friday, and man was it hectic, but I think everything that needed to be handed in was. I thought I might show you all how that armadillo hard ground turned out. This was a bonus print I did, this one could have used a bit more ink on it but I had no time to do another one because the printmaking room wasn't open during Catch-Up week (Which makes no sense!)

My internet has been running incredible slow this past week and a half, but hopefully it will pick up and I'll be able to keep this blog more up to date with new artworks, events, reviews and whatever. I'll try to make these holidays as art productive as possible. 

Printmaking Final Project, Hard-ground Etchings

A quick iPhone photo of one of my four final animal copper hard-ground etchings for printmaking. This is what my armadillo etching looked like right after I took it out of the acid bath yesterday before printing. Looks like he's having an 'acid trip' *troll face*

Underneath you can also see part of my Bumblebee-Bat, Red Fox and Emperor Tamarin etchings. The final prints of them turned out really well. Once I get them back I'll upload them before assessment (fingers crossed).   

Review; "Print Me. Graphic Design and Printing"

Located on the corner of Bourke St and Russell St in Melbourne's CBD, 'Print Me' is by far the most impressive printing company I've been to. High quality prints, on the day service, and very, VERY affordable, which is a God-send for anyone on a budget, and any art student with a major project to complete.  

My former preferred printers was 'Toucan Digital" on St Georges Rd, but that closed down more than a year ago. So I had to put my Google skills to use and find myself a new printers. For the most part it looked like I was going to have to get my work printed at Officeworks. I can tell you that is the last thing I wanted to do; the last time I had a project printed at Officeworks the quality was mediocre, it took almost an hour of a few A6 sized photos to be printed, and I was not impressed with their "customer service"((I don't care how bad your whole 5 minutes at work have been, you give me that 'Bitch Please" Chris Crocker look again and I'm going to slap it right off your face)).

So amongst all the options I was given I clicked on 'Print Me' and was greeted by a most charming website full of bright colour and pretty much any and all information I'd need to know about their printing options. They print anything from business cards and letterheads to wedding invitations, posters, raffle tickets and many other options suited to your needs. However, they didn't have a list of prices, but they said they were very affordable. They do provide a 'request quote' online option, but I called up instead. I asked about price and on-the-day service and being very surprised by the quote given I headed down to Print Me to have my work printed. The office is quite small, and there was only one girl working there, but boy was she efficient.

Are you ready for this?
Four A3 posters, full colour, matte finish, 250gsm, beautiful quality, $6.
That's right! Something that anywhere else would have cost me $200 only cost me $6! And they were printed in 5 minutes. Holy Jesus! Best printing company ever!

If I had one negative point it's that you have to press an intercom button to enter the building and theirs was broken, so I had to call them so they could open the doors for me.

But seriously, if you have something you need printed, go to;

Print Me
3A, 190 Bourke St
Melbourne VIC 3000

Or  check out their website and order from there: Print Me website                
Happy Printing!

Quick Note

I swear new art will be coming soon, it's all just a bit hectic with school coming to the end of term and getting ready for assessment, and working personal work around all that is quite difficult, or maybe I'm just making excuses, maybe both.

Long Overdue

No excuses here really, long story short, I suck at time management and sadly my blog has had to suffer the consequences of my lack of organization. Well here are a few things to get you up to speed.
>School work has been a little hectic and I'm trying my hardest to not fall behind (it's not really working though) so hopefully buy the end of the year I'll have a tone of images to upload
>The artist book I last mentioned is coming along quite nicely.

I've begun the pages and the outer and inner covers of the book, soon all I'll need to do is stitch it together. The leather has been cut and embossed (turns out when you buy leather wholesale you have to buy half a god damn cow!) and the final embellishments are being added.
The bonus of this book being made is that with every new page I'm also completing a section of the comic that I hope will become a full published work in the next year (maybe year and a half..two years max). Character development is rather entertaining and rewarding when you finally draw that perfect hero or villain, like creating a real human, just less messy. I still struggle with landscape and buildings so that is another area I've been slowly progressing in. All the drawings for my artist book and comic are a mixture of pencil sketches and ink paintings. I've then been changing the tone of the the paper on photoshop to give it a sepia hue and make it appear more like a workbook of an inventor or engineer (Well I think it looks good, you'll all just have to wait and see.)

I do have some personal work that needs uploading, but like I said school has been and is my main priority right now. After this week there's only two weeks left of school, followed by catchup week and then I'll have completed my first year of tafe. This year has gone by too quickly. I'll be glad when it's summer and I can pay more attention to updating my blog with new art, and some pieces I've been meaning to upload for some time. I'll upload a little 'work in progress' photo of a piece I've been painting inspired by a poem in a game of the same name; 'Grim Fandango'

 

There you go, my oil painting in progress. I'm having a little trouble uploading pictures of my artist book (the start of it anyway) but hopefully I can get it working soon and I'll try harder to keep my blog updated more often. Cheers!

     

Mirrors and Shadows; Mongoose

IT'S ALIVE!!! 

Well, no, it's stuffed, very much dead. It just reminds me of an old B-Grade horror film. Does this Mongoose look familiar? Stage 1 print of my final dark room work for school. Black and white film.

Etchings

FINALLY! For a week now my internet has been lagging so much Blogspot wouldn't load, I waited of an hour at one point and not so much as a loading screen loaded. But at last my internet seems to be up and running again.

Back in May I uploaded my design for a mongoose hard ground copper etching , and it's only now I've found the time to scan the finished product. This is one out of six prints (6/6) and it is by far the best print.

As an extra, for my plastic dry-point etching, I've been obsessed with watching game play-through videos of 'SLENDER' on YouTube, and decided I had to do an etching of him...it..whatever Slender is.

Both are printed on Arches paper. (When I find the docket I can tell you the exact type.)

Recreate Emotion

It's been a busy past few days, and emotional. This morning my sister left with two of her friends to South America for a 4 month holiday. Well it might be more like 7 weeks, but it was still an emotional time for our little family. Before she left, I painted a small gift for her, just a bit of water colour to say thank you for being such an amazing person and sister. Click here if you want to see it...

It got me thinking about how art is one of the greatest ways to express yourself, display your emotions out in front of you in their truest form. Even though we or others may see it or understand it, the greatest way to express emotions, ideas, beliefs and whatever inner most workings may be going on in ones mind. I drew another little sketch that is exactly that. I'm not sure why I drew this, but I knew I had to. Still a work in progress but the basis of it is there.

 

Time to get Crafting!

I'm very bad with time management, and this can be shown by the fact I'm already getting ready to make my final project for Digital Media when I still have lots of printmaking and Photography to finish, but I just can't help myself! When we were told we had to make an book of our art I instantly knew I wanted to make a book of all the production art I've draw for a graphic novel I'm working on with a friend. Hand sewn, leather bound, and stained with sepia tones to look like an old engineer/inventors personal journal. I'll be using the tutorial I linked a while ago by TRANSiENTART in my post Art Journal Tutorial.
It's probably going to be the project I'm going to put the most effort into, even though I should really put equal effort into all my projects, I just love books! I'm going to research different techniques like leather embossing and DIY wax seals to add really effective elements to this project, I've already found a few good ones. Time to get crafting!
And while I'm doing so, I shall be listening to the melodic symphonies of Abney Park. Bring on the Steampunk!

Self portrait continue/Complete!

I forgot to take a photo last week of the self portrait progress so I took it today before continuing and completing my self portrait. Oil on canvas, Old masters palette; Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Payne's Grey and Titanium white. 80cm x 60cm. The iPhone photo kind of washed out the warmth of the colours.

 (before)

    (Complete)

((My signature got cut off in the photo and I didn't notice, but I guarantee I painted this! It's my own face for crying out loud.))

Update, yet again

My blog hasn't been feeling the love lately. True there has been much school work going on, more procrastination than progress but I assure you there is art being done, it's just lying in pieces at the moment. I'm trying to make sure I'm not falling behind in homework (yet I am) and also a new contest has popped up, hosted by one of my favourite YouTubers Hannah Hart aka MyHarto. The competition is to make a music video for her new comedy song "Cheese Pleasin' Me". The prizes aren't really clear but I just want to enter to show off my artistic skills to one of my favourite YouTube icons (hehehe). I hope to enter but not let myself get too far behind in school, and I know there are a couple of people in my class who are feeling that too. New art soon! Hopefully....

Setting Sun, Losing Time

Dad bought himself a new toy at the market today (Happy Father's Day). I love these kind of nicknacks and I'm not too sure if it's a sundial or what but it looks intriguing and cast a great shadow on the new marble table dad made.

Nikon D7000 

Photoshop CS5

Spring is Near

The blossoms on our apricot tree are finally in bloom.

Noobs on the Internet; Deviant Art

Someone, explain to me how I'm meant to take this, please.

Photography Noir

The first installment of black and white photography we're learning in school. Black and white film and an old Pentax camera. There were the 'practice' shots before the real project. No photoshop used (except to add copyright)

Self Portrait, Work in progress

Today's work in class. We started self portraits using 'The old masters palette'; Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Payne's Grey and Titanium White. Also, it was a requirement we wore a hat. Here's the process so far. iPhone saves the day again. (It's-a-me!)

  

Centenary Post

Seeing as this is my 100th post on my blog, I felt it only fitting I upload this (rather bad) photo of a poster I did for class to commemorate 100 years of NMIT (Northern Melbourne Institute of Tafe). Depicted is a calligraph portrait of Captain Thomas Thrupp and his family. Captain Thrupp, as well as being a hero lost to war, was a founder of the Preston NMIT campus where I study art. I've recreated this lovely family portrait using words I feel are relevant to NMIT's past, present and future. Please read more about T. Thrupp here.
I'm hoping that it is ok with the family and the school that I post this here, since it is part of an in-school contest, but if anything is said I'll remove this post.

MafiaBot

This was just a bit of a fun sketch for me to do. I've been getting a bit stressed from school (but then who from my class isn't stressed) and I just needed to draw something to unwind. This is a 1940's influenced female Mafia Robot, who has been stuck in my imagination for quite a while, and now here she is! I just adjusted the line colouring with Photoshop and gave it a border to try and give it a slightly darkish mood, rather than just being a flat 2D image.

Vintage Blossoms

Remains of Thornbury's history. iPhone photo, taken while out for a walk.

“A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.”
Leonardo da Vinci

Innovative Painting

  This was brought to my attention via Facebook by my cousin. TOOTHBRUSH PAINTING!

iPhone Photography

My poor blog, I've been so neglectful of you. I've been pretty busy with school work, and trying to organise my priorities, but last night i was out for dinner with some friends and I took a photo of the Northcote Town Hall to test out my iPhone. Not too bad I think, it has an interesting grain or noise to it, and I like the contrast of yellow/orange light with the bright blue lights. (It would have been nicer without the bin and tram stop pole, but what can you do.)

Automatonic Beauty

My original robot character nicknamed 'Beauty' (Created in January last year, I have yet to give her a proper name) in the same scene as the woman in Edward Hopper (1882-1967)'s oil painting 'Automat' 1927.

"Automatonic Beauty"
Watercolour and black pen on canvas

Inspiration

indulgy.com, it's addictive and full of inspiration
Take a look

Colour Theory, Oil Painting

Painting class current project, 4 weeks so far, only 24 hours in total, still have a bit to do next week. (So sick of this right now) Another iPhone photo! What a handy thing it is.

Colour Theory, 'Madam'

Todays work in drawing class, based on a Noir French photo from one of my art books.
A3, Faber Castell colour pencils, smudge stick. Photo taken with my new iPhone (hell yeah!)

Work Update

Lots of things going on, hope to upload soon. Including mixed media canvases and illustrations for some books.

"Little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same."

Flying High

NIKON D7000

Photoshop CS5

Model: Renee Giuliano <3

Loyalty, Update (WIP)

(Still working on this illustration, wanted to show the progress so far)

Loyalty, Work in Progress

Cardboard Etching; Mirror Geisha

Photoshop Fun

Rainbow Vortex

Just messing around with a bit of photoshop with one of my Photos of Melbourne.

Oishii Sushi Apron

Made use of the Sushi patterned fabric I purchased yesterday at the craft fair to make this cute apron. I used a light brown cotton fabric I had to provide a bit of a contrast for the lining and tie. 

Time to get cooking!

(Sorry for the overly girly display)

Crafting Endeavors; The Australian Craft and Quilt Fair

First let me start off by saying, old ladies look frail, but get them to a craft show and they'll fight you off and tackle you out of the way like a Quarterback Berserker!
(*Quarterback; position in American/Canadian Football [on the offensive team])
(*Berserker; Viking warrior on steroids/ancient Norse drug. Cut them and they don't feel any pain!)

Anyway it was a rather long but enjoyable day all round, it's just the fighting through the crowds that gets exhausting. I purchased a few stamps and some pretty sweet fabrics (yeah, quilting fabric is totally bad-ass). In total when I got home and added it all up, I spent around $95, which is pretty good for me considering I go nuts at a craft show with money, however a concerning fact is I'm $5 short of what I should have left over, I'm just hoping I didn't lose a stamp or something in all the hustle and bustle.

Well, moving on, I just made a quick grid in photoshop showing what I got, with a close-up of each fabric. I'm looking forward to sewing with them.

Suggestivism?

Check out what it's all about

Craft Adventure Time!

Tomorrow I'll be going to the an annual craft show which is held at Melbourne Exhibition Center, I'll be hoping to pick up some great fabrics and maybe some printing/stamp supplies. Update on the event will be posted. And maybe photos...but most stalls don't like you taking photos...

Attention!

News of a pretty cool looking art competition has just fallen into my hands. If you wish to know details, post a comment! (Yes I am just doing this to see if anyone actually reads these.)
((But seriously there is a art competition for $500))

Distractions

I keep getting distracted by YouTube, on the up side, more inspirational work from Mary Doodles

Another boring update

Time seems to keep escaping me. However I am working on a few canvases at the moment as well as school work so hope to have some more artwork uploaded soon. Also I should stop spending so much time watching YouTube videos...

Time Machine; Photomanipulation

Went on another adventure to practice some photography, this time in St Kilda. I wanted to make these photos look old so I played around on photoshop to give them texture and discolouration. I've provided a before and after of one of the photos. Still playing around with the others.