Dreamboat Photography
 

Snow

Published
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chris
on November 18, 2008
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It snowed today, off and on for about half an hour. Someone came into the woodshop and said “It’s snowing outside!” and everyone went out and stood in it for about twenty seconds before they got cold.

I’m making a green sea turtle headdress out of wire and garbage for my final Design II project. We’re allowed to buy wire, but almost everything else has to be intercepted on its way to the trash or recycling. I’m using lots of flattened styrofoam packing peanuts (and other various styrofoam nuts) and bottle caps. Professor Reich let us take home mannequin heads to construct the basic structure of our projects on. I found out that no matter how many times you wash, and no matter how much soap you use or how hard you scrub, you will never get the salsa smell out of a Pace jar.

I glued the final piece to my thumb piano earlier tonight. It will be dry a little before midnight. After that I’ll sand it again, then rub tung oil all over it. Every twelve hours I’ll recoat it until it has at least three coats (six is ideal). After that I’ll cover it with paste wax. I still need to file down the keys. My Dremmel tool broke today, and I had to use the shop one to finish. I’m now down to filing by hand. Or filing with a file with my hands. My hands aren’t that rough. Yet. After I finish filing them, I’ll use a Dremmel tool to polish them with wax so they won’t tarnish or rust.

I’m drawing a portrait tonight. I need to decide what I’m going to do for the rest of the semester (three class meetings) for Figure Drawing. I can use any medium I want as long as the three resulting drawings are the best I’ve ever done.

Wood Work

Published
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chris
on November 15, 2008
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I’ve been spending almost all my free time during school hours in the wood shop. Either that or I’m in Professor Dorsey’s other Figure Drawing class. My third Figure Drawing portfolio is due Monday, and my thumb piano is due either next Thursday or the Tuesday after that. The final Design II project is a wire headdress, which the class has already begun.

Jenn started work at Michael’s yesterday. I went with her and bought some thumb piano supplies, and walked to a nearby paint store to buy oil and wax. I wanted tung oil, but the people I asked at Michael’s and the paint store didn’t know what it was. I found some today at Lowe’s.

My clay project is being displayed in the Foundations Gallery at school. It’s Open House this weekend, and the bureaucracy wants the best art to be on display. It’s fun to look at it all. I’m going to try to bring my camera to school and take a photo of my work in the display case. I would have done that before, but I’m usually carrying so much stuff that I can’t risk brining my camera.

I need to work. I’ll post photos when I’m finished.

Shake the Foundation Show Results

Published
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chris
on November 8, 2008
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The Shake the Foundation reception was yesterday at 6 PM. Everyone’s artworks were up, so I saw some I hadn’t seen before. When we showed up, the person in charge came over to us and told us she needed information from us so we could get our prizes. That’s all she said. She didn’t even tell us that we won.

My photo, The Photo Major won first place, a charcoal portrait by Ashley Thompson won second, and Jenn’s photo From Below won third. We’ll be getting gift certificates to University Book Exchange, which sells art supplies.

Figure Drawings

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chris
on November 5, 2008
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Some of my best Figure Drawings so far are now in a folder on my deviantART page. A deviantART account is required to view the nude drawings.

So far I’ve drawn three models: Sarah, John, and Crystal. I’m currently working on my third portfolio for the class, the theme of which is color. The first two were line and value, respectively.

I haven’t gone to the other Figure Drawing class the last two times because I’ve been in the forge hammering out keys for my thumb piano. I finished forging the fourteenth, and final key today. Now I need to clean them up, I think by filing them. They’re made out of steel.

Here are my three favorite finished drawings so far. Clicking on them will take you to their deviantART page.

Crystal\'s hands and feet.

This is a charcoal of Crystal on white Stonehenge paper. I turned it in with my value portfolio. It took about three hours to finish.

Crystal lying next to a shoe tree.

This is a watercolor of Crystal lying next to what my drawing professor called a “shoe tree.” I used lamp black watercolor and white Stonehenge paper. I turned it in with my value portfolio. It took about six hours to finish.

Crystal in color.

This is a chalk and oil pastel of Crystal on toned paper. It was my second color portfolio drawing. I haven’t turned it in, but I probably will. It took about three hours to finish.

I’m starting color watercolor this weekend. The color portfolio, and my thumb piano, are due the week after next. I’d like to write more about what I’m up to, but I’ll have to save that for later because I’m too busy right now.

Spam and Portfolios

Published
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chris
on October 23, 2008
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The blog has been getting lots of spam comments again, so I’ve resorted to blocking IP addresses. I used to get 20 spam comments per day, and they were almost all from the same person, so I blacklisted that person’s name, and the spam went away. About a week or two later, I started getting the most verbose, link-saturated spam I’ve ever encountered. I noticed today that they were all from the same two IP addresses.

Besides fighting spam, I’ve also been busy at school. Jenn’s and my prints are up in the Mendenhall Student Gallery. The show opened yesterday (Oct. 22). The person in charge of the show isn’t as organized as she should be, and has had us fill out redundant paperwork. In order for work to be shown in the Student Gallery, the artist has to sign a contract giving the gallery permission to display the work. Jenn and I did this, but some others didn’t. The stickers that have the title of their works, their names, and their mediums are on the walls, but the art objects themselves aren’t. It looks as if they’ve been stolen.

I finally went through all the photos I took over Fall Break. I want to post some, and write about our adventures, but I don’t have the time or the energy right now. I have school tomorrow, a drawing portfolio to finish this weekend, and a wood project to gather supplies for.

Spam, Shows, and Contests

Published
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chris
on October 16, 2008
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As of today, this blog has encountered 343 comments that were spam. For awhile, I was getting 20 spam comments per day. The good news is that the assault seems to have stopped.

Over Fall Break, Jenn and I went to Stone Mountain and Lazy 5 Ranch. We both took photos, but I haven’t had a chance to edit mine yet. I’m starting a new project in Design II that I have a lot of work to do for, and my second Figure Drawing portfolio is due the week after next.

In Design II I’ll be making an instrument, an idiophone, out of wood. Of course, because Professor Reich is teaching the class, there’s much more to the assignment than that, but I’ll spare everyone the details. For now. The class was introduced to the wood shop today. I’m excited to begin cutting things with loud machines.

In Figure Drawing I’m making drawings that I’m very happy with. One of them isn’t of nude people, so I may be able to post it online soon.

Jenn and I have been very busy. Today we entered an Gazette photo contest, and earlier this week we each entered two matted and framed prints in a school art show. We valued our work at $150 each. I’ll let everyone know if anything sells. Details about the show and the work we entered can be found on our newly updated Photo Logbook pages. Here’s mine, and here’s Jenn’s.

Our schoolwork has also been shown in the Foundations Gallery at school. I have my foam core sculpture and a watercolor wash up right now, and Jenn had three of her Design I projects up last week. Details are on our Logbook pages.

I haven’t posted about this at all, but Jenn and I have been taking and selling stock photography in the background all semester. iStockphoto has accepted 40 of my images, and 54 of Jenn’s, and I’ve sold 6 while Jenn has sold 31. When I say our images sold, I mean that they were downloaded by someone who paid iStock, and iStock gave us a percentage of the sale. If a client downloads a file at a large size, we get more money. It’s more complicated than that, but not much. We’re paid an average of about $1 per download, so we’re not making a living yet. My goal is to have 2000 images in the iStock database.

Fall Break

Published
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chris
on October 9, 2008
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Fall Break is this Monday and Tuesday. Jenn and I are going to stay in Mooresville and take photos in the mountains. We’ll be meeting up with Jenn’s sister on the way, and possibly taking photos of Chapel Hill with her.

I went to my drawing professor’s other class today. Today was the third time I’ve done that. It helps me improve my skills and build up a body of work more quickly than just going to my scheduled class. Not many students came because lots of them are taking Fall Break early. They’ll regret it soon because we have two weeks to produce a seven-drawing portfolio, and if they came to class every day including today, they’d only have two half-finished drawings. The model didn’t show up either, so we drew two skeletons instead. Professor Dorsey told us to think of The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Gericault.

I’m done carving my five stoneware sculptures. They’re drying on a rack in the art building. Professor Reich is going to fire them a week or two after Fall Break.

The only homework I have over Break is to draw, but I have a lot of it to do.

More Concerts and Stoneware

Published
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chris
on October 3, 2008
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Last Thursday, Jenn and I went to a performance in Wright Auditorium on campus by the ECU Symphonic Band and the Wind Ensemble. One of the flutists in the Wind Ensemble was Jamie Wilken, whose graduate recital we went to awhile back. The Symphonic Band’s performance was much shorter than the Ensemble’s even though they only played one fewer song. I’m glad I went, but I couldn’t relate to the music as much as I wished I could. I liked how the Wind Ensemble’s double bassist played.

Yesterday we saw the Klasinc&Loncar Guitar Duo in the A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall. They played nine songs on unamplified acoustic guitar, all of which I liked. There were more people at this performance than any of the others Jenn and I have been to in the Recital Hall, but it still wasn’t packed. After the first song, Miroslav Loncar told the audience they could move to the front of the hall so that he could better communicate with them. After he said that, everyone fell quiet and looked at each other for almost ten seconds, then all of a sudden a surprising number of people stood up and moved forward.

They were both virtuosic players. For one song, Natasa Klasinc used her guitar as a percussive instrument by tapping it and sliding her hand on the strings. I overheard a man sitting near me remark that he hadn’t seen that before.

For homework lately I’ve been drawing and sculpting. My sculptures won’t be finished for about a month, but I wanted to show everyone what I have so far.

This first one is an acrylic paint tube. It’s made out of stoneware.

Paint tube sculpture.

The second one is a ripped-open pepper. It looks a little funny because some parts of it are dryer than others (and therefore whiter).

Pepper sculpture.

I have three left to make. These first two are supposed to look like real objects, but the middle three will show a metamorphosis from one object to the other.

Adventures

Published
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chris
on September 26, 2008
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Lisa Orr’s presentation last Friday inspired me to keep an eye out for functional artwork that Jenn and I could use. We have a lot of commonplace, mass-produced Wal-Mart cups, bowls, mugs, etc. that more or less serve their primary purpose, but they aren’t very interesting as objects. Coincidentally, the Ceramics Guild at ECU had a sale on Wednesday. They called it a “Slushie Sale” because after they sold a cup, they offered to fill it with a slushie or hot chocolate. They sold not only cups, but also mugs and bowls. I found this one, which I photographed earlier today on our dining area table.

My cup.

The first thing I drank out of it was tea. It was hot to handle, but it survived being microwaved. Pluses and minuses. Jenn picked out a slightly larger, shorter cup that could also be a small bowl.

Jenn\'s bowl.

The profit from the sale is going towards a new environmentally-friendly kiln for the school.

On Thursday, Jenn and I went to an art sale at Emerge, a gallery Downtown. There were ceramics, paintings, photographs, and sculptures on sale. We found a large mug for tea. I wanted a big one because using small mugs wastes tea. More than twice as much tea can be made from a single bag in this mug than the ones I used to use, and it tastes the same. The artist who made it is Cindy Reed. I think she also made my cup, but I’m not sure.

My mug.

On Friday we went to Washington. First, Jenn took me to the North Carolina Estuarium. I’d never been to an estuarium before. Admission was $3 per person, and there wasn’t a student discount. After we paid, a volunteer took us into the lobby and explained to us a large sculpture composed of wood, wire, and glass bottles. She told us it represented the state of North Carolina, and the path of a drop of water. After she said this she flipped a switch, held out a rubber ball that she said represented one of these drops, and put it into a tube that sucked it up toward the ceiling and released it onto a wiry path. It rolled throughout the sculpture, and ended up near where it began. I asked the volunteer if it ever got stuck, and she said it did, but that they had a “secret weapon,” a stick, to help it along. She said it took the artist eighteen months to make sculpture.

Next we watched a video, and walked through some exhibits that we weren’t allowed to photograph. After that we went outside and took photos on the pier. There was something there called a “clean water preserve” that didn’t look clean.

Clean Water Preserve.

We saw tons of turtles in the water next to the pier. A couple people ahead of us were feeding them. When we got close to the turtles, they swam over to us, stuck their heads out of the water, and waited expectantly for us to toss them bread. Neither of us had ever seen so many turtles in one place.

Turtle.

This is the pier, looking back towards Downtown Washington. The estuarium is at the end of it on the right.

The pier.

Next Jenn took me to Goose Creek State Park. We didn’t stay long because we got there around dinner time and we were hungry. While we were walking along a trail in the woods, we came across this, a phone out of nowhere.

Phone out of nowhere.

Jenn’s going to a football game Saturday, and I’m finishing up my first Figure Drawing Portfolio, and sculpting a pepper and a paint tube out of clay.

Art Symposium at School

Published
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chris
on September 19, 2008
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Yesterday my Design II professor told the class about an art symposium on campus. There’s one every semester, and each focuses on a different medium. This time it’s ceramics.

Jenn and I have the same Design teacher, but are enrolled in different courses. Jenn is in Design I, and I’m in Design II. Our professor asked us both to go to at least one of the symposium events, and we chose to go to a presentation by Lisa Orr today.

I loved it. She did, however, occaisionally use ceramics jargon that I’d never heard before. She’s from Texas, and is heavily influenced by Mexican pottery. Two of her works are in the Gray Gallery, East Carolina University’s professional art gallery. They’re part of the largest collection of ceramics in the United States, much of which has been donated to ECU by a man named Dwight M. Holland for use by students. He wants students to be able to touch the artworks, and learn from them.

Jenn and I saw some of the exhibition before Lisa Orr’s presentation. The only artwork I stopped in front of and couldn’t stop looking at was by her, but at the time I didn’t realize she was the same woman we’d be listening to minutes later.

My foam core sculpture is finished, but I wasn’t able to photograph it before I turned it in. I will when I can. My next Design assignment is to make five clay sculptures. Two of them are of objects, and the other three are a morphing between those objects.

On another note, I’m sick. My throat’s been sore, and I have a runny nose. I would have stayed for more presentations today if I weren’t, but I can’t breathe if I sit still for longer than about twenty minutes.