Talking like a zombie is a lot more complicated than you think, so if you want to fine tune your zombie language skills, I recommend, the Zombie Lexicon guides. From nouns to propositions, and other random stuff, you'll be covered for that zombie walk later tonight.
Pumpkin Artist: Ray Villafane
First off, I must say what an amazing last name...Villafane! Sounds so devious, and eeeevil mwahahaha. This sculptor, Ray Villafane, started to carve pumpkins for his art students, and I suppose he finally realized he was really good because then it turned into something more than just a hobby. I've seen some really good pumpkin carvings before, but I think he has got some pretty ridiculously detailed insane ones. Yay for pumpkin sculptures, especially the ones that look like they're gonna eat you, I like those the best because they're very unnerving and ones you probably don't really want in your house...To see Ray's process and the tools he uses, click here. I should try this intense carving sometime, pumpkins are such a fleshy medium...
Blog: A Rebel Beauty
I've finally started to get my poetry blog running, still figuring out the tabs in the html format, since some of my poems have crazy indents and what not. It is still in an unfinished stage, but feel free to check out some of the work I have. I posted some of the new poems I have written for my poetry class this semester. It's a love and passion I have along with art and I'm glad I've been getting back into it.
things that once were things that lack propriety things that don't make sense things that desire, hope, dream things that don't conform things that cut and bruise things that twirl and dance things that are deceivingly pretty things that teeter the edge of psychoticness things that are A Rebel Beauty.
Photographer: Duane Michals
One of my favorite photographers of all time. How I love the mind of Duane Michals.
This one is titled "The Bogeyman" I thought it was just in time for Halloween ;)
Organizer
After creating my AP Studio Art portfolio in my senior year of high school, I was asked by my teacher to create the following school year's planner. Of course I agreed, it was exciting I would get to design something the whole school would use! Mwahahaha! I photoshopped some pics and put it all together in photoshop. Here it is. :)
Abandoned Places: My Photos (part 1)
"I love taking pictures of old abandoned places. There's that lost mystery, that story it holds, and I want to recapture the essence of the life it once had. I find it to be abnormally beautiful and deathly intriguing. but then again, that's just me."
Here's a collection of pics that I have taken from some of the places I've been. Lately I've been out of the scene, but I have my next place in mind already, and will hopefully be able to make time for it in my busy schedule soon. There's a sort of peace I find in these places of things once remembered, like that of being in a cemetery, or maybe like things that were to be put away and forgotten forever, oh how I could explore explore explore these mysterious notions...
Abandoned Lego House: Mike Doyle
Just found a fantastic abandoned house model created with Legos (one of my favorite toys when I was a kid). It was created by Mike Doyle and I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this sort of thing, what a great idea!
My Graphic Pieces and Process
A while after I had learned to use Photoshop, the fun part was and is to experiment. I really liked working with the filters, such as cutout, film grain, etc. My process when I create my graphic pieces is I first of all use all of my own photos 97% of the time, then I cut them, use the gradient, put them together and layer them playing with various filters for each layer. For example, layer 1 could be cutout, then on top of that I'll put layer 2 using film grain on another picture. I'll also play around with opacity (how transparent I want the layer to be), then mess around with what setting I want the layer to be on such as: normal, hard light, dissolve, saturation, soft light, etc. I'll basically play around with all these effects and the order of layers until I get the picture I desire or want. Of course, I will probably have saved 10 different versions of the same picture where the layering may be different or one effect may be, but I like both. After I pick a final one I like, I'll probably tweak it if need be with adjustment layers if I hadn't already. So that's the jist of how I enjoy creating my own work. It started about my senior year of high school 2007 or so and I created many of my works with this method and love doing so. The piece below is my most recent one, done in early 2009 I believe, so I need to jump back into that, I've been mainly working with straight photos lately. I created this on my own time, not for a class or anything. I believe this piece has at least 6 or 7 different pictures, all ones I took. If you have any questions about this just ask! :)
Mondo Celluloid: Zombie Walk
So if you don't really have anything to do end of this month, or just really have a thing for zombies and blood, then you should head over to 4th Street in Long Beach October 30th for Mondo Celluloid's third Zombie Walk!!!! Oddly enough, 4th street will with lively with undead folks, where during the day you can get your makeup done or go through stores partaking in the zombie fun. At 8pm, everyone's meeting up at Porfolio Coffee House, then walking, trudging, crawling, whatevering down 4th street to the Art Theatre where at 9:30pm, Shaun of the Dead will be playing. I'm certainly excited! There's going to be zombie flash mobbing (dancing in human terms) and plenty of undead fun I can't wait for.
TV: Ghost Adventures
To kick off this fabulous month of October (which by the way if you didn't realize or know, has 5 Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and won't happen for another 823 years, crazy I know) one of my best friends introduced me to what is now one of my favorite shows. Unlike Ghost Hunters, the cast of Ghost Adventures actually believe in the paranormal, and give you results then and there. Believer or not, the show is still intense, at points humorous (well, duh, it's 3 guys provoking ghosts, shit's bound to happen...) and of course entertaining. The cast consists of Zak, Nick, and Aaron, and the first part of the show is them interviewing eyewitnesses and historians of the place they are at. I like that they give you a detailed background and history of the places they go to. Also they don't pick boring places really, they go for the ones with the reputations of being very haunted with lots of activity. After they interview everyone, they mark the spots they are going to visit, then have themselves locked in the building from dusk til dawn (who does that? Guys that are crazy, that's who, and that's a reason why this show is awesome). The first episode I saw was when they went to Rolling Hills Asylum in New York, and after that I was hooked. They go to places most others don't, such as Poveglia Island in Italy (another intense episode), and Waverly Hills, etc. You can find this show on the Travel Channel. Check them out here.
Photo Project: Assingment 1 Anti-Cliche
I'm already working on my second project now, but earlier this semester, for my intermediate photo class, our first assignment was to photograph things not normally seen, things that are anti-cliche. Everyone first presented what was seen as cliche today, such as: the myspace type profile picture we've all made, the large flowers with bees, family portraits, swirling staircases, sunsets, that sun glare everyone seems to include in their photos too, waterfalls, beaches and palm trees, tree lined walkways, etc etc. I've taken all these photos too I admit, much of my beginning works dealt with bees and flowers close-up. I was so fascinated with close-up and that I could be next to a bee and catch it on camera! I'll have to post those pics sometime. But it is fascinating because what we see as cliche now was not considered so at one point, also, what we see as new and inventive now, will at some point become cliche because everyone will be wanting to make those pictures.
Anyways, I started just going out and taking pictures at Disneyland, then inside my house. We have a giant (I'm sure almost every asian family has this) family portrait by our front door. I played around with this idea of blurring out the faces in the picture. You can still see the blurred silhouettes, but no detail, like that family portrait means nothing, it could be anybody's family, no one would know.
Another picture I used a cup and had my sister hold it against the kitchen light, it looks more like a graphic piece, I was just playing around with different things to create various effects in a picture. Note: these are scans from my negatives, not scans from the actual prints themselves.
My Sketches: My Dead Dahlias
So it started senior year of high school, in my AP studio art class, I was doodling in my sketchbook and started drawing a girl with a big head, crazy wavy hair, and a ridiculously long elegant neck. I kept it simple with focus on the big eyes and hair.
So I decided to develop the idea more, it has been coming along slowly and I more doodle the idea of a character here and there in random places, but I perhaps plan on making a series, I don't know yet if I want to paint them or leave them as sketches. I thought about the name of this series of twisted doll like shaped ladies, and am deciding to stick with the name Dead Dahlias. The last picture shown is the most recent one done beginning of this year, so enjoy or lemme know what you think :)
Movies in a Cemetery: Cinespia
September 18th was the last cemetery showing of the season for Cinespia, but me and my friends first showing. We watched Night of the Living Dead projected onto the wall of a mausoleum, I believe, with blankets, snacks, and each other. It is held at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, and it is almost pitch black walking on the way to our spots, this only made me more excited. If you ever decide to go if you haven't, mind you, it is gonna be frickin crowded, and the website doesn't tell you this, but it is also $10, kinda pricey, but I enjoyed it and plan to do it again. There is also a dj that plays before and after the movie. When I went DJ Nobody played and he's got some good stuff, a mix of techno and jazzy classics. Anyways, check it out here.
Incredibly Sexy Poster
I had to buy it, I couldn't say no to this picture, it is so sexy! While I'm procrastinating right now and on a blog craze as of yesterday, I decided I have to post this picture. I was at ConRev last month (for kicks ;), and they have mostly mediocre art pictures, but good ones every once in a while, and when I saw this one, it was like YES. Big boobies, unspoken eroticness and naughtiness, and a Betty Page lookin chick?! I think yes.
Ideas: Photo Project - Fabrications
For my second photo project this semester, I'm at a loss as what to do. We are supposed to in some way incorporate ourselves into the picture, not necessarily our physical self, but show that we've manipulated the subject somehow, not just a scene of nature for example. We could build or create something. Some ideas I have in mind are either too expensive, or are going to take up too much time that I don't have at the moment. Plus I feel I'm at an artist's block right now, which sucks. It also doesn't help that my mom is starting to complain again that I'm doing nothing with my life, but that's another topic.
I was in the halloween store with my sister yesterday and came across this raven mask. It was supposedly going to be in a movie, but got rejected. Well for some reason, I have a strange attachment and attraction to this mask, don't ask me why, it's weird and creepy and I love it. But it's a little out of my budget of broke-ness to get it for my photo assignment. So maybe that will be another project, maybe a series. Well, I guess time to go back to the sketchbook and brainstorm some more...
My Photos: Digital Camera Beginnings
I've been feeling a sense of nostalgia lately, so I've decided I will probably be going back and forth between work I'm doing now and work I've done in the past. For my digital background, it mainly started about my sophomore year of high school. I took an ROP class for digital design, where I self taught myself to use Photoshop. Shortly after, before my junior year of high school, my mom bought me my first really nice Sony digital camera that I still use on occasion now. It has lasted me such a long time and been so good to me.
I'm more of a Canon and Nikon fan now, but I loved my first camera. I was going to take a photo class that spring, so I started playing around and messing with my camera. What was me messing around with close-ups and whatnot started to become more serious for me as I started to think about my pictures more and observe what I could take.
I really loved taking pictures of nature (flowers especially), dead things, or old rusted things. I also had some ideas of these simple pictures and my first models were my brother and sister oddly enough. Anyways, here are some of my first pieces. When I got into my photo class, and shortly after learning how to use illustrator, I created my signature I would put on my photos. I remember it took me about 2 hours, but I was pleased with it and still am.
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