Sculpture

So I noticed all of posts so far have been 2D pieces. As quite a few of the pieces that I've done are 3D, I thought I ought to post some sculptures that I've done.

Letters Chandelier (for Hannah)
Dimensions variable- approximately 18" x 18"
Plastic, magnets, wire, glue, wires, and lights

This is a chandelier I did for my friend Hannah in 2009. The idea began with hers and some of mine magnet letters (from our childhood, the letters you put on the fridge to help your alphabet and spelling kids). She had asked me to do something with the letters, and I decided that a chandelier would be the most interesting thing to do with them. I began with a wire armature and glued the letters around it, leaving a large enough hole at the top to put in lights and attach a hook with which to hang the chandelier. I filled the sculpture with clear christmas lights, as they would be the easiest to change if they burn out. I made a hook and attached it to the top so the sculpture could be hung. I am extremely extremely pleased with it and I believe she is too.

Untitled
approximately 24" x 24"
Wood, stain, and glue

This sculpture is a wood relief that I created in 2008. It began with a square wall relief that I had sketched out a while ago (which I still may do at some point in the future), and morphed into circles. They then acquired gaps, pegs, and holes to add more interest to the piece as a whole. The final shape was more chance than I like to put in my pieces. Since I couldn't lay the pieces exactly as I sketched them out, I put them in a general arrangement and they became what is shown as I glued them together. I am quite enamored with the piece and gave it to my brother, Rob.

Older Paintings

Here are a couple paintings I completed in 2008.

The first derived from a picture I took while on a family vacation in Hawaii in December of 2007. We went on a Mai Thai Cruise, drank, and boated around the island. I got a few okay pictures, but I thought this one was the most intriguing. As we were on a boat, none of the pictures were in focus, all were blurred to some extant. This blur was the most appealing to me. So I took the buildings as they were, simplified them even more, reflecting the shapes that had come through in the picture, and focused most of my attention on the sky. That took the most time to feel complete. I've found that when I work from pictures, I reach a point where the picture cannot reflect what I want to accomplish in the painting, so I got rid of the picture and painted the sky.

Hawaii at Night
Acrylic on Canvas
48" x 36"

This second one was taken from a Robert Mapplethorpe image of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Fountain is one of my favorite pieces of art. In order to show my admiration for Duchamp (as well as Warhol, as obviously seen in the repetition and even the color palette), I painted a portrait of his piece. It was extraordinarily fun to do, morphed gradually from my original intention to my end product, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

37 Fountains
Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 36"

Oceans Triptych

I finished my Oceans triptych today. Finished the framing, painting, etc. All I have left to do is attach some kind of hanging apparatus, but that's it. It's a really nice feeling finishing something. I'm excited to start something new now.

The paintings were based off the BBC and Discovery Channel Series Planet Earth. It is an awesome, awesome show, with some beautiful images. My brother Rob and I watched it and paused it to take pictures of images we thought particularly compelling. I then chose three from the 8 or so pictures we had taken that I felt could go together as a triptych as well as stand alone as individual paintings. I did the first two this past summer, but had to delay doing the final one until this most recent break. The Jellyfish was finished first, followed by the coral and seascape respectively. My wish for them to be hung is in the following order:

Oceans- Seascape
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 42"

Oceans- Coral
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 41"

Oceans- Jellyfish
Acrylic on Wood Panel
48" x 42"

Serigraphy

I guess I'll keep with my prints for now. These are the three Screen Prints I did this semester. They are in the ocean vein as my first two.

"Waterfall"
8" x 6"

This one is based off a waterfall picture that my brother took while he was in Hawaii. He spent this semester in Hawaii and took a bunch of beautiful pictures. I found one I liked of a waterfall, traced it, and reduced it to four colors: white, light green, evergreen, and cerulean blue. I then copied each color's outline onto a screen and painted each in with screen filler. It was pretty time consuming, but I really like the effect that the hand-done screen filler gave to the crab and wanted to repeat that. It was the fourth print that I did over the course of the semester.

"Crab"
7" x 5"

This is pretty much what's showing. A three color screen print, hand-done screen filler like the waterfall. It was fun to do, and turned out fairly well.

"Intergalactic Squid I"
9" x 14"

I tried something really different with this one in terms of my theme. Instead of visually depicting some ocean-related thing, I looked at a number of old movie posters and Japanese movie posters related to monsters. I collected images from the web and assembled them into my poster. I then deduced it down to 4 colors and the background and transferred those individually on my screen and printed them, in order, cerulean blue, yellow, evergreen, and red. It didn't turn out as perfect as I would have liked and would maybe try it again at some point with more detail, but I think it still works and recalls the posters that I used as inspiration.

Two Relief Prints

The first things I'm posting are going to be a couple of relief prints that I completed this past semester. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. And they match surprisingly well. So I guess that's good too.
But both are two color relief prints, the blue was printed first on both, followed by the oranges. Both also juxtapose my semester, the jellyfish was the first print I did this semester, and the whale was the last. When the semester began, I decided to do an ocean theme throughout all of prints. I kept up with it surprisingly well and I think it resulted in a couple really nice pieces.

"Moby Dick"
10" x 8"

This is obviously inspired by Moby Dick, I knew I had wanted to do one inspired by the book. It's on my extensive list of favorite books and there is inspirational imagery throughout.

"Jellyfish"
6" x 12"

Jellyfish is inspired by a tattoo I designed for a friend about three years ago. I redrew it and cropped it and printed the blue. It looked too plain after printing and decided to add the orange to add more depth, which I think I've accomplished.

The Start

So this is where I will (hopefully) periodically and (definitely) sporadically post things. They will probably range from my art to my writing to music to things in general that I'm enjoying at the moment. That's the hope at least, we'll see what ultimately becomes of this.

But I'll begin with posting some art, and we're just going to go from there.