I've been working.

So it's been quite a busy summer. Time to sit around and be bored doesn't seem to exist (and I won't allow it). My July was certainly full of various activities that needed to be preformed in an inadequate amount of time. Between a figure drawing class Sarah Robinson and I took at FIT, homework, birthdays, working at the bakery, an obscene amount of concerts, family gatherings and a wee bit of a social life, I've had no time to breathe. Now that August has rolled around I have much more free time but I won't let it go to waste. I have a few months to put together a portfolio before applying to college and I'm making the most of my time.

I've decided that I need some opinions and now that I don't have the convenience of being in a community of artists everyday in STAC I decided to try and get some on here.

My Experience at FIT:

Now my time at FIT was odd. Being in a college environment and commuting to the city everyday is a huge difference than going to high school. Now it's nice to say that STAC did in fact prepare me for the class. The class was 3 hours long, and we mostly drew in 20 minute intervals with 5 minute breaks in between and one 15 minute break. So a similar time period to STAC but much more breaks. I'm used to working on something for 3 periods straight, not 20 minutes at a time. Now one thing that I did notice that might surprise you is that I was a lot faster than most people in my class. Luke is usually telling me I need to speed up, work faster and not obsess as much, but in this case I had my professor telling me to slow down. I'd finish each drawing with at least 5 minutes left and run out of things to improve upon. Some of the talent in my class was ridiculous, so it was definitely a lot harder to make your art stand out, but I guess that's how it's going to be in college. I know Sarah has some wonderful pieces that I'm in love with.

These are the pieces I'm most proud of from my 3 weeks at FIT

I like to call this one the terminator
because our model had a strong resemblance to a cyborg.
(may I add that he fell asleep during this pose and continually during breaks)
We working with planes and were trying to section off the
various planes on the body. I wasn't too good at it, and I'm
pretty sure I didn't do it quite right but I like how it ultimately
turned out. Done in 20 min. with pencil.

I'm not a huge fan of this one because I feel as if
it resembles a man with a quite large chest when
it is in fact a women and just drawn poorly.
Done with compressed charcoal in 20 min.

I believe this was my first try at shading during this class and
I think it turned out quite alright. There might be a few proportion
problems but I kind of like it.
Done with compressed charcoal in 20 minutes.

This one was popular with all my classmates.
Some cleaning up needs to be done in certain spots
but I'm pretty proud of this one.
Done with vine and compressed charcoal in 30 minutes.

This was a quick drawing I did on the last day of class.
Not much time or effort was put into it because I really
just was wasting time, but I think it came out alright
I think it was a 30 minute set but I only used 15 minutes
of it because the rest was spent discussing my portfolio
with my professor. Done with compressed charcoal and
red conte crayon

This was my final project in the figure drawing class
and I'm not sure if I like it or not yet.
it's strong in some aspects, but I'm not a huge fan of how
different the background is to how the figure is.
Done with compressed charcoal and red conte crayon.
I think I mustve spent almost 2 hours on it.

 Working on my own:

It's much harder to find inspiration when you're on your own so I've been looking to some pictures from my trip to Europe last summer. I've been trying to create quick portfolio pieces that I can just knock out in time for applications.I've started painting again which is nice! I kind of missed it. I think I've become much more of a painter than a sketcher. My passion lies in color and I can't just draw something with pencil and have it come out as something I'm proud of. I'm still playing around with various mediums though and trying different things. I started working on my own Wednesday and none of these are quite done yet, but this is what I've got:

I started by painting a black background with acrylic
on a white canvas and then using oil paints on top.
unfortunately I can't finish it until the oil paint dries but until
this point I really like it. I think I did this in about 2 1/2 hours.

Not my strongest painting, but it still has a lot of work to be done.
This is inspired by one of my favorite music videos Nine in
the Afternoon by Panic! at the Disco, and apart from the obvious
cleaning up that needs to be done, I want to increase the contrast
in the persons clothing an smoothen out the background.
Done with oil paints.

Now this one is my most recent pieces and what
I'm currently working on. A lot needs to be done
and I can't even begin to point out the problems,
but I think in the end this is going to be one of my
favorite pieces. Done with white conte crayon on black paper.

My Plans for the upcoming future:

DO MORE. I really need to keep up this mentality of getting something done and then getting something else done. I can't be lazy and put off working on my art because I really need this to get me into college. All the money I make at work has been going toward buying supplies and all my time has been going towards creating something. In fact today I went and made some very large purchases that I hope to make some use out of soon. Good idea or bad? We'll soon find out.

Not sure whats going to go on them yet, but I'm bound to find something.
Buy one get one free, hell yeah.