The girl from rosewood lane

Summer. What more can I say? I haven’t been posting as much work because I’m too busy enjoying the sunshine. My bad. Last summer I didn’t do nearly as much art work as I had hoped to, so this year I’m trying to stay motivated. Lately I’ve been tearing pages out of old books and doing drawings on them, I’ll probably start posting a few pictures of them from time to time pretty soon. I really like the way the images look on the old deteriorating paper with all of the text behind them. In the meantime for your viewing pleasure, enjoy my final print of last semester.

“Dear Jesus, Are You Listening?” Color Reduction Print on Rives Lightweight 8″x12″

Color reduction prints are so cool to do, but its scary because it’s a multiple stage process and if you make a mistake you have to start all over again from scratch. I also decided to do a black and white print of the final layer…

“Dear Jesus, Are You Listening?” Woodcut Print on Rice Paper 8″x12″

I really like the way this black and white turned out, it has a totally different feeling to it compared to the color version. I hope to get some more prints done over the next couple months in my garage, but I have many great plans that may not come to fruition for the summer.

Memorial day this Sunday, time to grill out and have a few cold ones. Enjoy yourselves and stay safe.

As life gets longer…

Yeah, I know, I haven’t put anything new on here in awhile…

I’m busy okay? Get off my back, jeez. The end of the semester always turns into a waking nightmare for studio majors. Countly hours and tears are shed in dark rooms spilling on to a canvas, alright, thats kind of dramatic, but it can be stressful. Even though I’ve been lax lately in posting work, I’ll have an absolutely awesome one within the next week or two. I’m doing a color reduction print and I’m taking pictures at every stage of the process… it’ll be worth checking out, trust me. In the meantime, enjoy this print I finished recently…

“A Prayer For Justin”  Aquatint Etching on Arches Paper  16″x10″

It may be awhile before I put anything else up, mainly because I’m freaking out trying to finish all of my final projects for the semester, but once the craziness is over I’ll have some good work posted.

Cheers.

Side effects may include: Being eaten

Yes, I mentioned it before, and here it is. The cyclops print. Probably going to be a dissapointment after all the hype, sorry about that. This was an etching project for my printmaking class, I’m not a huge fan of etching, it’s just too tedious. For the first print I had to do a recreation of a masters print, I chose to do Goya’s “How Brave!”

“How Brave”!  Zinc Etching on Arches Paper 8″x12″

After I finished this one I had to do a modern interpretation of this print that somehow related to it. I couldn’t think of anything with deep philosophical meaning, so naturally, I made a giant cyclops eating colonial soldiers.

“How Hungry?”  Zinc Etching on Arches Paper 8″x12″

I guess this is what happens when you run out of ideas. Sometimes I enjoy more lighthearted art, I think a lot of artists right now are taking themselves too seriously,  so I think it’s nice to see silly stuff every once in awhile instead of images about the war in Iraq or anti-big business propaganda, I couldn’t even tell you how much art I see now about those subjects.

I’m about to start my last painting of the semester, my professor wants me to work a little smaller than what I normally do so I can focus more on color, which I need to do. I usually have a really good sense of how to get the paint to move around the way I want it and make interesting marks, but I dont spend enough time worrying about color mixing.  One artist I really admire is Jenny Saville, her colors are usually pretty neutral, but her paintings are absolutely amazing.

She has a book of her works out right now, but its hard to find. It’s on my amazon wishlist right now if you’re feeling generous though…

Reassurance in the multitudes

I realized today I haven’t posted anything in awhile. It’s getting to be that time in the semester when everything starts piling up no matter how hard you try to keep ahead of everything, plus I’m starting to get stressed about my finances. I’ve got a lot of bills to pay, and not enough hours available at my job, so if you’re looking for any art for your house… I’ll work on commission, paint whatever you want…

Anyways, we’re finally at the point in my printmaking class where we’re doing wood cut and linoleum prints. These are my favorites, the marks you can make are so visceral and powerful. I just finished my first one today.

“The Architect”  12″x12″  Woodcut Print on Rice Paper

I’ve got to do one more of these next week, our concepts are supposed to be based on dreams and nightmares. I’ve never had a dream about a wolf-headed figure, but it looks cool, and I have had dreams about levitation. So I’ve got to figure out another design kind of along that same concept.  If you’ve had any cool dreams or nightmares lately you should tell me, who knows, maybe I’ll use the idea and you’ll see it on here later in the week.

Until then, Armacost out.

ps… don’t forget… Redhawkradio.com Thursdays at 11pm.

And then I fell in a trench

Right. So In my last post I mentioned a print that I did involving a cyclops… well I haven’t taken a picture of it yet, so you’ll have to wait. My bad.  But in the meantime, you can enjoy the printmaking series I did on the decline of Catholicism.  Before you look at these let me say, I am in no way opposed to Catholicism or Christianity, these works were intended to convey the point that religion has become trite in our current culture, and lost almost all meaning and value.  So get offended if you want, I don’t care, I don’t answer to you for the art I do.

“Blessed Redeemer?”  11″x17″ Monotype Print On Arches Paper

“Bloody Mary”  11″x17″ Monotype Print On Arches Paper

“Come All Ye Faithful”  11″x17″ Monotype Print On Arches Paper

This was actually the first series I did in printmaking this year. I love monotypes, it lends itself better to those inclined to painting, the only downside is that it’s a one shot deal. So this series is one of a kind, I’ll never be able to duplicate them, which is kind of sad but it makes them unique, which is cool I guess. Make me an offer for the whole series if you’re interested.

I’m hoping to experiment with monotype more over the summer, I’ve got some ideas for series that might turn out nice. I’d also like to try to do some portraits of people in monotype, there’s so much room for experimentation with this process, I want to try a lot of different stuff. Anyways, hopefully next time I’ll have that cyclops picture posted, we’ll see how it goes.

Stay classy