Humor: Toothpaste for Dinner

Some comics just make my day :D toothpastefordinner.com

Quote of the Day: Anthony Robbins

I say: "Live with passion and without regret! What we do makes us who we are."

"The label you put on your life experiences, becomes your life experience."

Random Quote of the Day: Groucho Marx

"I intend to live forever, or die trying."

My Future Project

A Decaying Society (my bestie came up the title, it rocks ;). A society in the future that is and isn't literally decaying. Think of the movie Wall-E, it's similar in the fact that people wouldn't be seeing the world around them let alone each other. Same idea in my pictures. People are so consumed with this newspeak and by communicating through texting (entire conversations mainly, rather than what it used to be for, just short informative messages like "we're here," so that someone wouldn't have to waste their minutes for a couple second phone call). To go a bit further with my idea, in this very digital world, people communicate more without hearing the other person's voice or even seeing them face to face, and I could go on and on...

So I decided to do a series, and when I printed them, I printed them as shown below, from smallest to greatest to emphasize the escalation of this situation in the possible future (another great idea from my lovely). I mounted each picture approximately an inch apart with borders on a black foam board. One thing I learned is that I'm not cutting the board with a utility knife again, I ended up butchering the edges, it's just gonna be super sharp exacto knives from now on. Anyways, I did enjoy doing this project, it was a lot of cutting and pasting, and I went through several ideas about the detail of the pictures, but I like the final product and am glad I had an idea I stuck with.



I wanted to stick with the pictures looking like they are documentary type photos, like I'm documenting the world and people at the time. I made it black and white, and normally I like very contrasty pictures, so I had to try and refrain from doing that too much because I wanted the photos to look dull and flat, like the bland text message blobs as each person's head. Things aren't as interesting or as lively. I do think I should have blurred the background a bit more, to obscure the scenery because it's not important to the people in the photos. In the ad (I contemplated how to go about this) I decided that I would make him faceless, because as a picture (within my picture) he is not communicating with others, but it goes to show that people don't see people anymore, they don't see details, etc, etc. So those are just some things about my project, hope you enjoy and I do appreciate feedback :)

The Jist of Steampunk...

...yeah, pretty much.

Portfolio: Carbon Made

I discovered a great website that helps you create your online portfolio. The design is elegant, professional, and clean. This excites me! It's also very easy to setup and use. It lets you put down what clients you may have had, your skills, areas of expertise, and more. The free portfolio has a limited amount of space of course, but it's reasonable. If you get the pro package, it's only $12 a month which is not too bad either. Here's the website if you want to make your own. I've created mine here.

Artist: Kmye Chan

If you're wondering how to pronounce the nickname of this French illustrator, it's Ka-mee-ye. Don't worry, I would have never guessed, closest I got was Cammy or Kimmy...Anyways, born in France, Kmye finds inspiration from comics and surrealist artists among others, and I too find inspiration from her. She creates this dreamy, dark, but strangely beautiful world that I'm addicted to. Many of her characters also seem to be influenced from the world of lolita goth that also provokes other artists such as Nicole West who recently created a sculpture, using polymer clay. Kmye Chan's Artwork.

Nicole's piece is called: The Keeper of Broken Hearts. To view more of her work, click here.

Food for Thought: Albert Einstein

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."
-Albert Einstein

I Love Creative Crafty Humor

Larry is such a Hot Head!
Click here if you want to see more of this artist's (just Nic) work.

Fashion: Steampunk

Last semester, in my 3D class my good friend (who usually ends up in the same art classes as me somehow...) would find out about different artists or groups and tell me about ones she thought I would like. I remember that one fateful day she told me about Steampunk. It was love at first sight and I became hooked on this fantastical steam-powered sub-culture.

Steampunk, the mashup between technology and romance, science-fiction and the victorian era intersected, industrialism and fantasy...It's just beautiful.

Think along the lines of Around the World In 80 Days by Jules Verne, or the movies Howl's Moving Castle, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Which is what Steampunk could be; the world of tomorrow. Where we have high tech fashion and gadgets combined with a nostalgic edge, an added complicatedness just for the beauty of it despite the lack of necessity.

Steampunk originated around the late 1980s, or at least the sub-genre culture term does. A science fiction author by the name of K.W. Jeter, was searching for a general term for one of his works. He ended up writing this letter to Locus, a science fiction magazine in the spring of 1987:

Dear Locus,

Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night; I'd appreciate your being so good as to route it Faren Miller, as it's a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in "the Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate" was writing in the "gonzo-historical manner" first. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering.

Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like "steampunks", perhaps...

—K.W. Jeter

Steampunk is certainly getting attention and has gained popularity over the past year. I hope it doesn't go over the top and become mass popularized though. It would lose that uniqueness that had first attracted me to it. Anyways, some cool happenings with Steampunk are...
a) Blizzard's new RPG (role playing game for non-nerds out there ;) is supposedly Steampunk themed and is to be released in approximately four years.
b) Last month, Knott's Berry Farm released information that the Halloween Haunt this year would be "Victorian Steampunk Vampire" themed. Even though I've lost interest in Knott's Halloween Haunt as it seems to have gone downhill over the past couple years, I must say I'm going to have to attend it this year.
c) The United Kingdom holds a Steampunk Festival each year in September known as "Weekend at the Asylum" which is actually held in a former Victorian Lunatic Asylum. Just typing this is giving me the chills I want to go to that festival so badly!

Back to fashion, one of my favorite Steampunk fashion sites that I've found is called Clockwork Couture where some beautiful Steampunk pieces can be bought. There is also some great steampunk jewelry that can be found on Etsy (it's like Ebay but for handcrafted items). Many things, people build and create themselves. Such as the steampunk computer with a typewriter keyboard I've displayed. I've posted some pictures below that were created to help piece together a Steampunk outfit or to give someone ideas. There's so many possibilities and point of views on steampunk which is another reason
why I love it so much. It's a rich and lively take on the future, one that's not minimal and cold, but most certainly intriguing and inviting.

Photo: Some experimenting at night

I went to Disneyland recently with one of my lovlies for her birthday at night, and decided to play around with a setting her aunt told me a little about when we were up in Big Bear end of December.

I mainly used the Twilight Portrait setting on a Sony point and shoot I borrowed (I prefer Canon by the way), and what this does is it basically attempts to capture the person/thing in the foreground with flash, while not entirely eliminating the background, which is done with a longer exposure.

I did not have a tripod with me, but was still able to get some interesting shots. I was just mainly experimenting and having a good time that night. So if you're ever just hanging out at night and want some fun shots or just to experiment (and you only happen to have a point and shoot) play around with the settings. :)

My Life Drawing Class

In my class, we're always looking for shapes and negative shapes in the figure and in the interior around the figure. Using architecture around the model is very helpful in seeing where and how he or she is positioned. Many of our gestures are done in 2-5 minutes, with an occasional generous 10 minutes to check, recheck, and observe.

At the beginning of the semester, there was a basic formula my class was taught and followed.
1. Draw a center line (following the body, from base of neck to usually an ankle, depending on the pose)
2. Draw a platform line (establishes width of pose/distance between feet)
3. Draw a skirt (of legs) up to pelvic line
4. Draw a triangle from pelvic line to base of neck
5. Draw the shoulder line (usually at base of neck, if drawing the back, it would be lower, you'd draw the triangle to 7th cervical)
6. Draw the center line through the head
7. Draw the orbital line

In my class we want to stick to traveling along the center line (which can be changed or shifted if needed). It's like Main Street for us. After understanding the torso (establishing where navel is and nipples, etc) and breaking everything into shapes, we want to break at the joints (knees, ankles, elbows, wrists, etc). I've learned so much from this class and am starting to draw and notice things in a different way than before.
Front and back gesture of the same pose.

First drawing my class completed of the model laying down, using the platform to help.

The last drawing I worked on.
In my class we're starting to look at muscle groupings and planes of the body. The human body is so fascinating! I'm feeling better and more confident in drawing the figure, something I did not think I could do before, well at least not very detailed or as accurately.