Pratt Draw-A-Thon 2010...

...best. Friday. Night. Ever.

For those unfamiliar with Pratt's Draw-A-Thon, the event is a 12 hour (7PM Friday to 7 AM Saturday) long figure drawing-fest.


There are several studios set up with anywhere between one and three models and poses lasting from a few seconds to 6 hours.


Free pizza halfway through. For the last hour or so, all 18 models gather into one room and have a continuously changing pose to live African drums. I went this past Friday with a group of people from school and had a blast.


I brought a lot of art supplies, but mostly ended up using pencils and a brush pen. They give out free supplies, too. I got a pastel pad, a set of pastels, and some charcoal. I missed out on a set of brush markers though, as well as a nice gesso board. Why did they give out all the cool stuff when I was in the bathroom?



This is what Louisa, one of the models we've been painting in Figureative Painting, looks like from the front. Well, a little bit different. She had a badass costume.


And this is what Evangeline, the other model we're painting, looks like with a dress, hat, and glasses! Many thanks to her for letting me know about this event in the first place.


There are a handful of other pages, but they're really uninteresting gestures. The event was really awesome, but looking back it's almost a bit disappointing how few drawings I have. My favorite room was the costume/fashion studio. We never draw or paint clothed models in Fine Arts, so it was really great to have that opportunity. Maybe next year, I'll bring some markers or paint.

Best Friday I've had in recent memory. Volunteer work the next morning was a bit of a pain, though.

Two blog posts in one day? Must be procrastinating or something...

-J

P.S. Oh, whaddaya know? This is my 100th post. Only took me...2.5 years to get here! And over 6,500 page views, too! Thanks to all you crazy people who like to drop by and look at my work and read my ramblings. Stay tuned for the next few years and see if I become a wildly successful toy designer or fail miserably and become the stereotypical starving artist!

End of the Semester

Look at me, I'm sheepish!

Whew!

I am SO tired right now. For the past week, I've been going to bed around 3 or 4 AM and waking up around 8 or 9 for class or to do work. Thankfully, with the passing of Thursday, the semester has officially ended for me. Unfortunately, I've been super-busy packing my stuff and moving it into my apartment! I haven't had much time to relax, but today I took it easy after moving a bunch of stuff in the morning.

Anyway, time for the interesting stuff:

Tuesday was the day of my class' Cluster Review. We gathered all of our work and had a critique in front of all of our professors. Naturally, it was a ridiculously long process: we went from 9:30 to almost 6 with an hour long break for lunch. Thankfully, my abstract painting teacher Jeff Way brought us bagels!

My critique went really well. I actually wish I heard more negative comments from my professors, but they didn't have much of that to say. The only thing I remember them saying is that I might think or plan too much. Here are some pictures of my work:


We had to display three paintings from each class, not including homework paintings from Figurative Painting class...

...In addition to both sculptures, our best few drawings, and a few prints. I need to photograph more of the latter two. And on the floor are some of my embossings. I'll photograph or scan those too, when I get the chance.
You can see two larger drawings we did in Life Drawing class here. They're pretty recent.
And here is a closeup of the last abstract painting of the semester. I rather like it, but the blue and yellow one is my my favorite.

All in all, an enjoyable (but long) day. It was really cool to see my classmates' work collected together.

***

Winter break has pretty much started and I'll be going home on Tuesday (assuming this crazy snow isn't going to delay the flight). Super-excited to see my nephew, but I'll probably need a flu shot before seeing him. I'm coming back to my apartment on the 10th and will spend the remainder of winter break cleaning up, organizing, and working on my Toy Design home test! Expect a few updates on that, but not too many! I don't want anyone to steal my ideas now, do I?

Anyway, updates might be a bit scarce over the next few weeks, so don't worry about checking on a regular basis! 'Though if you do want to stay updated on my latest blog posts, follow me on Twitter! You can reach my page over on the right side of the page.

I know we can make it if we take it slow,
-J

Metal and Me

Some quick shots of my sculpture. It has come along quite a way since last time, mostly because it's a very quick process.

The leg section is way out of proportion, so I'll be cutting that down and adding another leg next week.

I also added a three-piece shoulder section that I really love because of its layered armor look.
But the thing is, it's starting to look a little too much like armor, so I'm going to rough up a few edges with hand shears next week as well. I've got quite a bit of work left to do.

And here is the finished version of the self-portrait from two weeks ago. It's hanging in the hallway! Go me! ^o^

The Three Hour Self-Portrait...

...30 minutes in. I changed the angle. No, I haven't shaved, I'm just saving facial hair for later!

Heads

Further reinforcing my love for faces, we're focusing on the head in Life Drawing right now. Here are three classmates, followed by a quick practice self-portrait for homework. All were done in about 20 minutes, give or take a few.

These don't look a whole lot like my classmates, especially the last one, but I think I captured most of their look. The one on top is friend and roommate Marcel, the fellow I sculpted last semester.

I just noticed that my head looks like it's floating...I may or may not fix that. I'm working from a really small, round mirror, so getting anything below my chin is tricky. We have to make a face for this homework assignment and I rather like this one, though I might do a few more practice sketches before I commit to a 3-hour pose. I'm using compressed charcoal for these. Although we can use graphite or charcoal, I think I'm going to stick with charcoal because of the wide area of coverage and really, really wide range of value you can get from a single stick. I have long forgotten the joys of using a stick of compressed charcoal...

Happy thoughts,
-J