Eric Fischl at SCAD

"...Eric Fischl, a painter, printmaker and sculptor, emerged in the 1980s as one of the most important figurative painters in the United States. He compels viewers to participate in a world of middle-class, suburban ambiguity and drama. Narration, sexuality and psychology are prominent in Fischl's engaging and distinctly American canvases."
-from scad.edu 30th Anniversary Lecture Series

glass cup

figuring out caustics in Mental Ray

Day 1 of Filming "Have A Nice Day"

Bosch of Chocolates Development

Life Drawing

(Click it to see it bigger!)

Life Drawing class with Professor Payne!

This is my life drawing class! Professor Jesse Payne is our instructor. (go see his drawings!) I love this class so much because I've learned a lot about drawing from the human figure and have been able to refine my life drawing skills- I was frustrated at first because I had already taken Life drawing at Winthrop and it didn't transfer over to SCAD, but I've grown to love and look forward to this class every week. I have seen a huge jump between my drawings from last year and this year.
Plus, the people in my class are very talented... We've been pushing each other since day 1 and I think a lot of people have improved their sighting skills.
The drawing we've been working on most recently is our second big project for the class.

In this photo were having a mid-way critique of our drawings in the style of Seurat. My drawing is hiding in the middle behind the easel. Here are some references that I would look at before class to get an idea and refresh my memory of Seurat's style.

Coraline Field Trip!

I had a chance to see Coraline with some of my friends, and all in all, I thought it was beautifully made. I would love to work on a project like Coraline someday. I'm still forming opinions about the storyline- I really enjoyed the fact that they didn't just hand information to the audience on a silver platter, (minus the video game-esque sequence at the end with the search for eyeballs.) I would see it again if I had the chance. The 3d was beautiful. I really hope that becomes a standard with animations... Over time I think they will be able to pull back a little and save drastic uses of 3d because there were several times that my eyes started hurting- maybe a touch less would be a perfect balance.

As for the story, woah creepy! Be careful what you wish for is their tagline- I think there's also a theme that things just aren't perfect here, and when they seem like they are- they could quite possibly are lies. We live in a fallen world. It's just a fact.

Perfect IS coming though. Probably not through a hole in the wall and sans buttons for eyes.... but when Perfect does come back, it will be Good and Pure and Holy and everything we've been waiting for.

This is a video about rigger Oliver Jones and animating Coraline.



Some Coraline Art by Chris Appelhans:





And this link is Animation World Network talking about the 3d in Coraline, other animations, and what it means for films made in the future.

Visual Effects are fun!

Arielle and Rose! I'm learning how to use a green screen, and these are my friends! Rose put me in one of her projects a few weeks ago, and I'm eager to see how it turned out. I'll be hiking through a forest! We also made one that is going to be Disneyland, but I think that one was mostly a joke. Though, it could be forserious. We'll see if she sends me any stills :)

Study of Goob- the original was done by a talented artist named Robh Ruppel. My rendering doesn't really look much like Goob... but I'm excited to do more- play with lighting.. etc.

It’s not about us… It’s not about us being a part of a Christian bubble… It’s about us being a part of the real world. It’s about us reclaiming the arts, and leading in creativity…
Rob Bell

Michael's Birthday

We went out for Michael's birthday at VinnieVanGoGo's Sunday afternoon. We had some very yummy pizza!

My roomate bought him the most AWESOME card!

We made him wear one of the stickers. This is my point of view of Michael's face. He is a tall man.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Ringling Bros. Circus came to SCAD

James came with us too, but you don't see him because he's taking the picture.
Silly sequential artists.

When I graduate, it'll be this exact same picture, minus the elephants. But on that same floor and everything. It doesn't much look like the Trustees Theatre, but it is. I promise!
Sketches to come.

I am liking my Life Drawing book more every time I read it

"Familiarity with the face and our dependence on it as a communicaion tool can block objectivity in drawing.
As artists, our goal is to enter a naive visual state in order to see the world not as we think it is, but as it truly is.
It takes a lot of courage for someone to forget what he knows and observe what is really there."

Amelie and Apple Pie

Some New Models

These were super fun! I modeled, textured, and lit these guys- inspired by Hieronymus Bosch paintings- plus, they're made with Maya-chocolate!

Chaper Eigh: Capuring Life

"The Judeo-Christian worldview, which formed the early foundation for European and American artistic culture, explained that people are made in the image of God. The implication of that worldview is that people are not like the rest of nature. Human beings have a transcendent quality that imbues their live with consequence and their struggles and triumphs with eternal significance.

"In our postmodern era, the prevailing belief that human beings originated from the primordial soup rather than from the heavens makes it unsurprising that heroic figures seem outdated and that the focus of art has moved away from the figure. Nevertheless, the human figure will always have a place in art. The human being is unique in that it not only has an external reality, but an internal one- and this provides one of the most varied sources of interest imaginable.
...
[referring to now] "The marred disfigured, fragmented figure is commonplace in twentieth- century art. The figure is often shown as no more transcendent than a piece of clay."

-From Classical Drawing Atelier, by Juliette Aristides



Found this bit when I was doing a chapter outline for my super fun life drawing class.

In other news, my "T" key no longer works. I have to mash it down really hard for it to realize that it is being pushed. My outline is littered with sentences like, "he sudy of value gives he work a believable onal srucure. And an undersanding of form ensures ha he surface opography reads convincingly in relaion o a ligh source."