Gold Crown Portfolio Night

Back in February I volunteered to be part of a panel of professional, Denver-based artists to present portfolios and give critique to young artists at the Gold Crown Enrichment organization in Lakewood. I was very happy to be a part of the panel, especially since I not only got to offer advice to the students, but also meet some very talented artists in different fields. Gold Crown put together a little video of highlights from the night. You can see a couple of shots of me in the stills.



In addition to the portfolio night, I have also been volunteering at Gold Crown as an art mentor. I've mainly been working with middle-school aged girls during Gold Crown's "Girl's Night". When I first started the girls were putting together anti-bullying videos using scripts that they had written. They also edited the video on their own. I wanted to share the fruits of their efforts, as I'm really impressed with not only the amount of work the girls put in, but also the messages and insight that they share on bullying in schools.



I actually got to help film the first part of the "Fake Crush" skit that the girls wrote. It's kind of funny to watch since Grace and Maria, who play the bullies in the film, are actually the polar opposite of the characters; they are always willing to help and listen to the younger members at Gold Crown.

Fin

So, I have a bit of a fascination with sharks. I think it all started when I was about 8 or 9 and saw Jaws for the first time. Ever since I've loved them, in all of their various shapes and sizes (in fact, it was a tiger shark tooth that sealed my decision to attend SCAD, but that's another story for another day).

Unfortunately the world shark population has been on the decline, much like many species of large fish, due to overfishing...specifically the shark finning trade. While limitations have been instigated by many countries, they are nearly impossible to regulate, leaving many sharks to be caught, finned, and then thrown back into the water only to sink to the bottom and die. The demand for fins comes mainly from China, where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy.

Tags

Just as an FYI, I've redone the tags for the blog. Now instead of monotonous tags like "acrylics" (since pretty much everything on this blog, unless otherwise stated, is done in acrylics) I've opted to tag works by the subject matter (politics, social commentary, etc.). Hopefully this will make things easier to find!

Drawings from Life at the Science Museum

Today I decided to take a page from the great Paul Hostetler's book and venture out into the world for a bit of life drawing. Unlike Paul, however, I opted for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science rather than a coffee shop...and a pencil instead of a brush pen, meaning the work is far less spectacular. My excuse was to try out a new travel sketchbook: a Hand Book artist journal (I have the square one). They may be a bit small for some people, but I quite liked it. The paper has a good tooth, it's small enough to fit in my purse, and supposedly it takes light watercolor washes (though I have yet to try that out).

Gannets!

A perturbed guanaco!

Lolruses (lolri?) in search of their long lost bukkit!

And my personal favorite, an entelodont: a prehistoric pig-like creature about the size of a rhino.

Hold on to your butts...

My submission for this week's Illustration Friday topic, "layer".

Plasticity

Alright, first piece of the new year...

This piece was directly inspired by VBS TV's "Garbage Island" documentary from their TOXIC series on environmental issues. It definitely deserves a watch, though be warned that by the end of it you will feel guilty and disgusting for ever having used anything made out of plastic. For those of you that don't have an hour to kill, imagine tons of bits of unbiodegradable plastic culminating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as a result of our over reliance on plastic.

P.S. Should you watch "Garbage Island" (and you should), I also highly recommend the "Vice Guide to North Korea" and "Swansea Love Story" (heads up: graphic content).

I can't believe I never posted these...

So there has been decidedly not enough art being posted here lately, and for that I apologize. The main culprit has been my day job which, while giving me 3 days off per week, also leaves me absolutely exhausted the majority of the time, and that ends up having a negative effect on my art making (enough that I sadly did not work on my Sketchbook Project, and as such will not be participating in the exhibition). I am attempting to rectify the problem, but in the mean time I'm posting a couple of pieces I completed for Escape Artists some time ago, but completely forgot to post.

The piece was meant for their Interstellar site, specifically the site banner and newsletter. The general concept was Syd Barrett and mental health, which you think would be an absolute breeze for me to illustrate, but I got off to a rough start (I supposed I just wanted it too bad). However, after watching many an MST3K and flipping through several Storm Thorgerson books, I managed to get it together and paint this...

...as well as crop it for the newsletter format.

In the end it happened that some of the administration at EA found it "too dark" to use on the site (though it has been used for the newsletter). While I think most people would be upset that their work wasn't going to be used, I was so happy that my work was seen as "too dark" that I didn't mind it not being used on the site. I did end up doing one final image with a bit of a happier edge to it a bit along the lines of the illustrations I did for The Day Goes By.

That's it for now, but I am hoping to get new pieces completed soon.