A Good Year

I believe memories are like great wine, they get better as they age, and this summer, my friends, was a vintage harvest! I’m amazed that what feels like so much longer was in- fact only four months, but it was four months where I was living each and every single day.

The first two months of May and June were spent working on our first animated short film with some of my closest friends. A project we did outside of school, this was an incredible experience which turned out to be so much more than I think any of us could have predicted. The time spent with all the amazing artists working on this short alone I would consider to be a worthwhile summer, and then I have the added bonus of having something tangible at the end which we are all excited about. There still is a significant bit of work left on it, so keep an eye out for more news on that as the year goes on.

I spent the remaining months of July and August backpacking Europe. I backpacked solo (which I highly recommend you do if you feel you can handle it) and was not part of any tour or course (which I also recommend if you know what your interests are). Regarding my trip, I am speechless. Truly…I don’t think I can do justice summing it up...so I’m not going to try. I’m thrown in some artwork from the trip and snippets from my travel journal which would probably do a better job of that anyway.

My Journal(above) was more than two inches thick by the end of my trip. It's full of things I pasted into it and postcards which meant something to me. The text was all written in a stream of consciousness, so incase you read please forgive the unstructured ramblings and spelling and grammatical mistakes.Enjoy!

Scanned in and photoshoped some pages from the sketchbooks which accompanied me on my journey (filled one and went half way through another this trip). I used mostly pens and wax pencils. I also did some Charcol, marker and watercolor studies but nothing substantial. These were all done Plein Air.(another benefit of travelling alone...you can plonk yourself anywhere that catches your fancy and spend an hour sketching!)

I don’t know what in the past four months I would term as the “highlight”…really…it was all a highlight….The thrill being part of an incredible creative team, the heightened sense of being when you know you are doing something new and exciting, creating work which you never thought you could produce, discovering new music, cooking for friends, random guitar jams, learning about different cultures, friendly strangers… picking up on languages, the rolling hills of Tuscany, Riding the train into Venice as the sun broke over the water, watching shooting stars across the rooftops of Rome, getting lost, finding a hidden jewel in a city, going outside your comfort zone and so extending your comfort zone, Karaoke bars in Budapest, Parties in Prague filled with the green haze of Absynthe, Clubbing with Brazilians (OMG), The Lourve, authentic conversation, complete anonymity, jazz bars in the south of France, …..and so so so much more…what can I say… best summer of my life….so far anyway ;-)

Finally!

My apologies for the complete lack of posts in the last little while. It's been a busy past couple of months, and blogging kind of fell by the wayside. Thank you to everyone who continues to visit and comment. Your feedback means a lot to me.

Ok, so I haven't had much experience painting, but always wanted to pursue it. I think I'm finally feeling comfortable enough with the other elements of design to start exploring the world of color and painting! This is my second serious digital painting (amongst hopefully many more to come) and I think I honestly had a lot of fun doing it! Thanks goes out to my good friend Jo Kim, this painting could not have been done without you, bud!

PLEASE give me advice and crtis. It's the best part about blogging!

"I just wanna dance"

After finishing our last painting assignment for the semester, I was still feeling like painting (i know...crazy) So instead of cleaning up my palette the conventional way, I decided i'd do a quick gesture with the colours remaining. No new colours, no stopping and no judging. Had more fun doing this than i'v had painting in a while. Felt completely like a kid again! Just just me and the colours, not a care in the world, mucking around on the paper.
I think it ended up (completely unintentionally) beeing one of my better paintings! So yeah...there's something to be said about letting go of judgement and trying something intutively. Sure technique has it's own virtues, but every once in a while, let it all hang.. go to town with it...have some pure unadulterated fun! Isin't that how it all started anyway?;)

Field Trip! (Part 1)

Earlier this year our life drawing instructors organised a field trip to a nearby horse farm for the second years. Here's part one of the sketches I came up with. These studies range from 15 seconds to 5 mins. I'd do a really loose, really quick gestural rough in red trying to get the information, rhythm and thrusts, and then sculpt it out with black later. The last two pieces though still done from life, have been worked on later. Part two of the field trip post will consist of more of these experimental and worked out compositions.

Summer 08

These are some pen and inks (with bits of graphite thrown in here and there) I did in India over the summer after first year. I find I enjoy using pen a lot. I feel it has something to do with the finality of the line. Location sketching in particular is something which I feel i'm really taking to. I'm planing on spending the next summer backpacking through Europe, and am totally excited about the tremendous opportunities for pen and inks, pencil sketches and watercolours there.
Second year's coming along well, i'l probably put some stuff up from assignments we'v done in school sometime soon. Have actually also been quite busy with a lot of reading, research and exploration outside of our course content. Am currently trying to work out a few concepts i'v been experimenting with in design and life drawing. Hopefully i'l develop some of them to a stage where i can share it here. Looking forward:)

Cheers

Self Portrait

For my first post, I decided to use this 'narrative self portrait' assignment from a couple of years ago. The puzzle pieces are cut out pieces of foam board stuck on to hard board, so they actually stick out from the rest of the surface about half a centimeter. This was the first assignment I ever did in Art School and I throughly enjoyed conceptualizing and executing it. Would have explained how all the elements fit together to imply what I want to say...but then again...where's the fun in that;)

Namaste!

Hello World!

Namaste and welcome to my little chunk of real estate in cyberspace. I'v always been fascinated with the concept of art blogs...this imaginary Salon where the entire art community of the world can exchange their thoughts and works, and am very excited to add my own little display case. You can expect to see my art, thoughts & reviews here, and maybe even the odd bits of interesting news. Any and all feedback is extremely welcome, as is just dropping a line to say hi.

Welcome once again, and do keep stopping by for a visit!