To begin with, my first Intermediate Lithography assignment. I believe I already explained how it worked, but I'll give a more detailed account of the project now that there's an image to account for all that time I spent in Alexander Hall, printing away! For this piece, I chose to create a book cover for a competition I found online during the summer. The winner actually gets their illustration printed on the new edition of "The Unfastened Heart" by Lane von Herzen, in addition to $1500 and the Icon Prize. How could I pass up the chance? I read the book during the remainder of those hot weeks before school started back up, and absolutely adored it. Lane has an incredible gift for descriptions, and as I was reading the novel, I had the most lovely pictures in my head. The characters will stay with me for a long, long time.
"The Unfastened Heart 1" I. 1/5 3 Run Lithography Print with Chine-colle, 2010.
"The Unfastened Heart 2" II. 1/5 3 Run Lithography Print, 2010.
Here's my explanation of the imagery from my artist's statement portion of my entry:
"The imagery I created for "The Unfastened Heart" is inspired by several important themes within the book. Most obvious is the bird subject matter. I found the birds who lived in the cages of Anna de la Senda's home to be very symbolic of many events in the story. They were reflections of freedom, beauty, and love. This imagery, I knew from the start, was what I wanted to use for the cover. I chose to have them flying in a round pattern because of the cyclic nature of the story. The message I was left with at the end of the book was one of hope-- although they may never be exactly the same again, things in one's life can be mended. Not everything happens the same way when it comes around again, but the events with each step of growing follow a similar circular pattern. After having come to this conclusion, and after drawing out my sketch as well, I realized that my image is also symbolic of the gathering of loved ones. The Cordojo Women circled around the people they cared for most, in an effort to protect them. I almost view my little birds as those colorful characters."
So, the printmaking assignment. For this project we had to use all the different techniques to lithography we learned in our intro class. It was hard enough just doing one of them! We had to do a stone run (the bird linework), a aluminum ball-grain plate run (my flat green), and a photo-litho plate run (the lettering). It sucked the life out of me, but I am so glad I did it, and I not only survived, but got a pretty good piece out of it too! I had two versions, one with chine-colle, and one without it. I love the paper pattern, but I thought it would be wise to have variation in case I was alone in that opinion. Thoughts, anyone?
Next! My second assignment in my Advertising Illustration class was for a theater show poster. I chose to illustrate "Promises, Promises," a Broadway musical comedy that is set in the 1960s. The time period was my main factor in that decision, being that my work is pretty retro as of late. The concept is pretty basic-- the main characters are constantly attempting to maintain balance and wobble through their lives, and sometimes fall down. I did the parts of the work in gouache, traditionally, and then arranged it in Photoshop. I was having some difficulties with the composition, and ended up needing to remove some of my hand-lettering to avoid awkward tangents. This was my final piece:
"Promises, Promises 1" Gouache and Digital, 2010.
But here's with the text:
"Promises, Promises 2" Gouache and Digital, 2010.
What do you think? Which layout works best? And here's just that abandoned lettering, because I feel so guilty for leaving it out:
"Play Text" Gouache, 2010.
Next up! I did a piece for the SCAD Illustration Club (formerly Society of Illustrators). We are having a show called "Urban Legends" coming up soon. I'll update you with more info on whether or not my work gets accepted, and when the show is. But if you are a Savannahian, you should come check it out!
"Donkey Lady Meets Goat Man," Gouache, 2010.
This is based off two different urban legends (both much scarier than I depicted here.) My mother's friends growing up made her fear a strange lady in town who was said to be part donkey. (Not sure what's so scary about donkeys, actually). And by a strange coincidence, my father made up his own local legend about a crazy, deformed "goat man" in his hometown. I thought it would be funny if these hybrid monsters met instead of my parents. What would their children look like? Hopefully the parallel wouldn't include those kids looking like me... although, my brother and I did resemble chipmunks growing up.
Last but not least! The beginning of my next printmaking assignment: The Exquisite Corpse. This is a game played by artists world wide, where one person is assigned the monster's "head," another its "body" and the third its "feet." Basically, it is just a fun collaboration of styles to create a work impossibly unique. For my first part, I printed the head. This scan unfortunately doesn't do my color scheme justice, making part of the lettering just fade away into the paper. This is a two-run photo-litho print with chine-colle (the umbrella). I really liked how it turned out, so I wanted to give you a sneak peak, since who knows what the monster will look like when it's all over!
"Exquisite Corpse, Part 1" 2 Run Lithograph, 2010.
That's all I have for now. The only other fun news is that we got to see the art director from Rolling Stone magazine speak last night. It was really interesting to find out some of the quirks of editorial. For example, a whole lot more pieces get killed (never put in the magazine) than I thought, and for some strange reasons, like the owner of the magazine not liking a depiction of a person he might be friends with, or that an article is postponed, but for some reason the illustration can't be. It was pretty intriguing!
But I'll stop boring you to death now! Goodnight.
adios
caitlin
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