On a break from job searching...

Still hunting for jobs. I really would like to find one soon, because I must say, this is a little disheartening. However, I've doing quite a lot of walking, so that's probably good for me, right? Also, I think I might enquire at a couple of local venues if I could show some of my art at them... we'll see if that gets me anywhere.
Today is a bit of a jump backward. I just documented a couple of older pieces I did near the end of grade 12, so today I think I'll post them. Right now. Here in this blog. Look at me go. There they are.



These three are part of a circus themed series that draws on Salvador Dali for inspiration. This was for the final project in grade 12, in which we were supposed to do a painting and a sculpture. Me being the bright one that I am, I decided to do three paintings and a sculpture... I spent a lot of extra out of class time on these. They are acrylic on canvas.


These are a couple more pieces from grade 12. The first is a drypoint intaglio print, and the second one is another acrylic painting with a monochromatic palette. I particularly enjoyed doing the print, it was a very interesting process. I've named my little gas-masked man Gregory. Not sure why, it just seems to work.

Ok, so this isn't art. It's just some pretty awesome veggies I made for dinner last night. I enjoyed them, anyways. Just thought I'd share that. Oh, and my dog bumped into the refrigerator last night. It was sad.

Snap.

Ok, so the order of the images in the post got a little messed up. The image with the 7 little pieces is the colour explorations project for the 7 colour contrasts. the digital prints are the flat colourful ones. The sketchbook stuff is rough work. I'm sure you can tell this stuff, but i just figured I'd clarify. anyways, sorry for the mix-up.

So it's been a while...

Sorry about the break in publication of this little blog. I've just moved back to Brantford this past weekend and our internet hasn't been cooperating. I'm currently sitting in the lovely Blue Dog Café sipping a tall cool glass of ice coffee and tapping into their wireless internet service. I've also been going from one end of the city to the other hunting for work, so I've been a bit on the busy side.
Today I think I'm going to try to post a lot of work from first semester, and hopefully soon I'll be able to post close to daily on what I'm currently working on. Without further ado, I give you some art stuff.

This is a project done for colour explorations. The images are relatively small, done in pen, gouache, and collage, and are examples of the seven colour contrasts. Originally, they were assembled in a book format (sort of) and they spell out the sentence "going about life like any other day." below is some of the rough work used to create them. Thanks to Alex Weatherbee and Emily Taylor for the use of their likenesses in the series.



These next couple of pieces are projects from my drawing class in first semester, taught by Fiona Smyth. Remember the Milk ad with the mummy? Yeah, that's her work.



These three images are digital prints done in photoshop, experimenting with different colour schemes. The building is the Massey Ferguson warehouse in Brantford, Ontario, and thanks to Jess Robertson for appearing in the photo.

To Business!

No time to ramble today, folks. I have an exam that needs studying for! And yes, I did just use the word folks. I am so sorry.
The series of paintings for Colour Explorations based on 28 Days Later. I posted the rough work a couple of days ago. These are just acrylic on 10X30 canvases. They were pretty fun to do, and I did each one in about a day. I'm not decided on whether or not I'm happy with them yet.

This project entailed creating a hybrid creature from several other different animals. I went with a lion/bat/octopus/stork combination, and chose to depict it as if they were sketches in some sort of explorer's journal of things he'd seen on his journeys. It was done in pen and ink, and took a long time. I was happy with it, right up until my roommate had the same assignment a week later and the product came out looking a lot like the concept for mine. Ah well. Here's some of the rough work that led up to this.

Who's ready to study?

Well, exams are coming up. Or rather, exam. I only have one (I know, we art kids are so spoiled). And instead of studying i've decided to update my blog instead. You might ask, 'but why, Alex? Isn't passing your first year really, like, important and stuff?'
Yes, it is like important and stuff. But I must confess, writing about not studying is much more interesting than actually studying.
good lord, sorry to interrupt that train of thought, but i'm bleeding! i'll be right back.
ok, bleeding seems to have stopped. Sorry about that.
Anyways, today I thought I might put up some work from first semester of this academic year.

While this one isn't really technically 'academic', it was done fairly early in September or October. It's graphite and pen on paper. The pen is actually nothing fancy, just a ordinary Bic ballpoint. They have terrible ink flow, which allows you to create shading with them without spending a whole lot of time on the mid tones. With respect to the pig-headed character, I do realize that the whole 'people-with-animal-heads' is getting a little cliché. Ah well.

This one is a picture of a colour explorations project at an unfinished stage. I actually preferred the piece in this unfinished state without the background distractions. After having the project marked, I cut off the background sections. I'm considering putting it back onto a plain white sheet of paper.

Rough work. I like rough work. I find it really improves the quality of the final project, and helps when making choices about colour and composition and all that jazz. Even on its own I find rough work to be visually interesting, especially when presented with an entire page of thumbnail sketches. Anyway, the rough work here is for a series of paintings I did for my Coloour Explorations class. I did three paintings of ships, based on the movie 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle. The colours used are taken from scenes in the movie, with the underlying themes mirroring some of those in the film. Oh, and if you haven't seen it I would recommend the movie. I don't think my girlfriend was a huge fan though.

Another relaxing saturday morning...

First things first, I feel like the clock on this whole 'Blog' thing is way off... I posted those pieces yesterday afternoon at 5:45, and it listed it as 2:16 or whatever. Now you're probably wondering why you should care about the computer clock being wrong? I'm not going to make any grand assumptions about coming apocalypse or any of that garbage. I just noticed it and figured I might as well mention the little random things that caught my attention.
Also, this morning while reading the paper over breakfast, I discovered that a wall on Younge street collapsed. Some friends and I went to see Clash of the Titans last night, and there were some police cars blocking off Younge. Definitely wouldn't have called the collapsing wall as the culprit. Toronto. Never a dull minute.
Anyways, enough news. Shall we get on with the art?



Shall we? you didn't answer the question.

I like crappy old run-down factories. I'm sorry, but it's true. They are fascinating. So i like taking pictures of them. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not it's actually 'art' or just a snapshot, but I enjoy them, and I really ought to show a broad example of work. This is a shot taken last summer of the old Massey-Ferguson factory in Brantford. I like how gross it is. Just lovely.

This one is a more recent shot. As i said, I enjoy old buildings. This is probably my favourite shot I took of the factory. 5 points to whoever can guess what building this is!
Anyways, hope you folks have an awesome weekend. All three of you.

Ok, so seeing as how this is primarily an 'artistic' blog, or at least a place for me to show some of my work, a first post with absolutely no artwork seems pretty silly, doesn't it?

SO.
I guess you folks can see some stuff. But not new stuff.
You get new stuff later.

This is a little old doodle i did. I'm something of a fan of doodling, and a lot doodles were products of boredom during high school chemistry classes. Please don't go thinking I didn't like them or anything. I did. I just already knew what I was doing.

This little fellow is some ex-rodent that provided the basis for a little drawing session in my grade 12 art class. All things considered, it's a piece I don't really mind. It is, however, only slightly bigger than a postcard. I think I tend to work better on a smaller scale.

For our third and final image today I give you... a weird little acrylic painting that was part of the first project assigned in grade 12. It's straight acrylics and water on poster paper. Nothing fancy here. Again, this piece is probably a bit larger than a postcard. I hope you know how big a postcard is, because I'm too lazy to get a ruler and measure for myself. Getting fine lines when the thinnest brush you have is a nice, chunky, and heavily mangled school brush was fairly challenging. This piece probably took me about 2-4 hours. I don't remember.

Here's the first post.

At the behest of my girlfriend, I created this here blog. And now that I realize it, this is probably a pretty handy place to show some work. People who are like, 'you're an artist? can i see your work?' I can simply direct to the webpage to my left.

I hope that people will actually look at it...

All sad little back-of-the-brain type doubts aside though, I hope you, the viewer, whoever you may be, can enjoy some fun little artsy things and stuff. Or whatever.