Thursday, May 29, 2014

Coffee stained pillows and paint stained sheets

Currently going through a phase where I only make art in my bed... Comfy, but it's ruining my mint green sheets.


Working on some watercolor patterns of cacti and saguaros to represent my home town!

Excited. 

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

That Post-Grad Life!

I'm living that post grad life now, guys! It's like an endless summer. Kind of! After all the ceremonies and my grad party, I finally had a chance to clean up my house and relax! And by relax, I mean write a billion thank you cards!

I actually love thank you cards. I love handwriting notes to people and always have! I especially enjoy writing thank you cards because I made the cards I'm sending out!
Before I left school, I took the time to letterpress a bunch of thank you cards! I just made a polymer plate with a little heart pattern I drew, printed it in light pink, magenta and gold and then printed on top with black "You are lovely." I also did a bunch that have a really bold THANK YOU!  on them (not pictured though, sorry!)

Some are on a florescent white paper, others on a cream and some on chipboard (my favorite!)

Anyways, it's always fun to make cards for people! And these go perfectly with the four piece letterpress graduation invites I had sent out in March! I had too much fun and now I wish I had blogged about those (there is a video of them on my instagram!) I basically treated graduation like my wedding.

Anyways, in between thank you cards and catching up on sleep, I'm making sure to keep drawing and creating! I know if I don't push myself to make something everyday I will get lazy about it. I never want to get out of practice.

Here are a few quick things I have made lately!


I keep seeing peonies everywhere online so I wanted to quickly gouache a pattern of them! Here is a little sneak peak of the painting part. I want to print it on fabric and make little tanks or tees out of it!

 

This is just a little watercolor warm up in my sketchbook of some citrus fruit. I've been dreaming of some lemonade and limeade after all these 105 degree afternoons here in Tucson! So unbearably hot.
 
 

These little cards are my favorite pass time. Every time I watch Netflix, I try to make a couple more! I love writing quotes on cards and leaving them on tables at restaurants, in stores, in books at the library... etc. These ones have little simple gouache doodles on the front too. I hope the people who find these relate to the quotes as much as I do! The left and the right are quotes by Cheryl Strayed and the middle one is from the movie, The Heathers.

Off to doodle some more and watch some bad 90's tv show. xoxo

College Graduate!

I'm a college graduate! I'm a college graduate!! I keep saying that because it still feels SO unreal. I've worked so hard in college the past five years and dreamt of the day I'd finally be done and now it has come and passed and... wow! I'm a college graduate!

As I mentioned, after NY I had one last final project to finish up! My independent study project was the only thing left and I work on it with my best friend/art inspiration, Emily Orzel. She's my art soul-mate and we love the same things and we work SO SO SO well together. Last semester, we created our dream project that we have been talking about for years. It's a zine called "Washed Out" and it features lots of illustrations of things we love. We had two issues done that were based on snacks and music and this semester we made two more! On the left is our Television issue and the right is our Threads/Apparel/Clothes issue! Underneath are the goodies that we send out with the zines! We shrinky dinked our illustrations and made them into badges/pins and earrings! The TV issue has a lot of Netflix badge and the clothes issue has a lot of birkenstocks and diamonds and glasses!

Here is an example of how one of my spreads looks:
It's Louis CK! I just finished watching Louie on Netflix and I'm so excited for all the new episodes! He is a very smart comedian and this quote makes me laugh a lot. Quick, grumpy watercolor sketch.

If you want to learn more about our collaborative project check out our blog here! And if you are interested in buying an issue, please click here! :)


Anyways, after finishing up that project and presenting it to my art mentor, Emily and I were done with art school! Well... we still had to decorate our mortar boards! It took us forever, but Emily finally came up with the perfect phrase for us to put on our boards...


Critique this! It's so sassy and perfect. Gold glitter was a must we decided but otherwise, we made our designs on our own at home! I cut out fabric and glued it on and Emily used puffy paint. They both turned out so cool and our classmates loved them. Surprisingly a lot of art students didn't decorate their hats! You'd think us creatively minded would be excited to but I guess a lot of us were burnt out. Totally understandable! I was for sure too!


Here's a little picture of my grandmother and I! She came down from Iowa just to see me graduate. So sweet.

  
A shot right before we entered Centennial hall! Emily, Spencer, and I! They are truly the reason I made it through school. Extremely talented/funny/nice.


Emily took this photo so all compliments should be directed at her but this is from our second ceremony with our entire graduating class! Seven thousand students! Insane! The ceremony was unbearable hot and kind of terrible (six kids passed out from the heat/dehydration and EMTs had to be brought in...) but the fireworks at the end were mind blowing.

Ah! It still feels so weird. In the best way! :) xoxo

New Yorker

This is a little bit late because this month has been SO insanely busy! I feel like I can finally breathe and I wanted to give an update about New York since a lot of people (my parent's friends, mostly haha) have been asking about it! I included a lot of pictures and rambled a little so bear with me!

New York. Was. SO FUN. It was the perfect little mini trip right before all the hustle and bustle of graduation and family visits and grad party madness!
The city itself smelled less like urine than I previously remembered, and although it was busy, it seemed less intimidating than my 10 year old self had first felt. I really liked it.

Everywhere I went, the food was SO GOOD. I'm not super picky about food, but I like eating it a lot so being surrounded by the best restaurants, food trucks...etc was my dream world.

Before I left for the city, I spent a lot of my time printing out little prints of my work and making lots of stickers! So much fun. Seriously. I made little packets with my name and website and I ended up handing them out to people at the Society of Illustrators show, as well as leaving them around the city. In Tucson, I leave little prints and written notes around for people to find because I love being able to brighten someone's day with my words or my art! I thought I'd do the same in New York. I hope people who like my art found them! Or passed them on! :)

 
Took a picture of how they were left/how they would be found. This one was in front of a NYC Blick's Art Supply!
Anyways, my trip was filled with the brim with things I wanted to do/needed to do! I have three friends that live out in the city so I wanted to see them, I had my art show,  I had tickets to "Of Mice and Men" with James Franco/Chris O'Dowd and I NEEDED to see the MoMA (and shop! And eat!)

Shirt from BurgerAndFriends on etsy. Click here to be my twin!

This is the outfit I traveled in the first day. My best friend hates this shirt because she says it's completely untrue, but I think it's funny and it's from etsy and I love supporting fellow etsy artists! (It's so comfy too.)

The hotel let us have a patio too, so I got to look out on the city. I loved it! Minus all the rain made patio relaxing hard, but still!

The Society of Illustrators show was on Friday night and it was so overwhelmingly beautiful... I was in the company of some extremely talented young artists. It was amazing.

I didn't win a scholarship, but I was the only student from Arizona who got accepted. Pretty insane!! I'm still in shock that I got this opportunity!
The show is up until May 31st if you are in New York and want to see everything in person!

There were three floors of the exhibition, mine was on the bottom floor. I'm really happy with how I chose to frame and mat the piece. That teal, man!

The artists wore little name tags identifying ourselves and then we got a program with all the pieces published in them and a certificate. Pretty special!

The show was packed! And it was so fun to be part of the NY art scene, if only for a little bit! Especially since I got to meet some of my art idols that I see online and I got to drool over their pieces in real life, haha.

The rest of my trip was so fun too. I walked a bunch of the city and ended up having a bizillion blisters, but it was so worth it! The play was EXCELLENT. Shopping there was so fun and seeing friends always reminds you how lucky you are to know such talented, sweet people.

Taking pictures next to mountains of trash seemed like the touristy thing to do. But seriously, how is this normal?

This is a beautiful window at the High Line park! That place was so AMAZING. It was really crowded but who doesn't love a park in the sky?

The MoMA was kind of the perfect place to end my BFA degree. I learned about all these wonderful artists in art school and finally being in the presence of their work was astonishing. I'm a huge Mark Rothko fan and I have heard about people passing out or crying when seeing his pieces in person so I was stoked on this! I took a million little pictures of the museum but I'll spare you of all those! Basically it was amazing and I loved every second I was there. I was so inspired to go and paint!


This is just a silly little collection of gold things I found in NY. The left and right images are the beautiful wallpaper I found in our hotel and the middle lamp is something I bought at the MoMA design store for my mom for mother's day!

Left some stickers of mine behind in the airport because I was stuck there for four more hours than I was supposed to be! It took me a total of 16 hours to get home. I was not happy, but other than that, my trip was super amazing.

Sometimes you need to take a minute and realize how lucky you are and I've definitely been thinking about that since I've gotten back. I'm so happy I got to go and I can't wait for future opportunities to travel and experience more of the art world! xoxo


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Done! Kind of...

Today I had my exit interview! I was so stressed about it the past couple days that I couldn't move my shoulders. Now that it's over, I feel SO incredibly good. I can't believe I'm basically done with school! I have one last small, fun project to turn in after I get back from NYC next week but otherwise, I just have graduation! 
The exit interview wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It was just me talking with my professors that I had the pleasure of working with the past 3-4 years. They all know me and my work so it was very comfortable and not worth the stress I put on myself. They were all really supportive and sweet and I'm glad I got to know them all. 

I letterpressed some business cards and I made a bunch so I'll bring those up to New York with me! Tomorrow is dedicated to laundry and packing and making some small pieces of art to stick around the city! Now: sleep. I haven't had much of that lately. 

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Final College Art Show

So weird that last night was my last college art show. Honestly, I was kind of bummed out about it... I learned a lot about myself and my art the past five years, and it all kind of hit me at the reception. But on a happier note, it was amazing seeing all my fellow graduating student's art! Some that I have grown with as artists and some that I have never really met! A room full of talent is always overwhelming, in the best way.
My rack before the show when I first turned it into the gallery.

My senior project was designing textiles, something I have never done before! It was fun but surprisingly very expensive. I made a dress, skirt, tote bags, a clothespin bag, a hamper bag and a bunch of swatches (plus a swatch book.) The purpose wasn't fashion/style, it was about the application of illustrations and being able to directly interact/appreciate/utilize art on a daily basis. But I guess in a stylish way... So. Fashion too a little. The hardest part was finding a way to display it successfully, the second-hand store rack was a savior and with a couple coats of champagne gold spray paint, it was as good as new! My line was called "Over & Over."

Me cheesing in front of my rack.

Despite my bad mood blues, I was really appreciative of the feedback and the friends/family that did show up! Wish everyone was able to come and see our hard work but... oh well!
Everything is coming to a close but I have so much to do before I finally graduate! Off to work on the finishing touches! xoxo


Pssst. Here are some in progress/up close pictures of my project!
Left: Ended up with so many pins in the sleeve of my shirt while I was sewing. Right: In progress shot of the bodice of the clothespin dress.
The cloth tags that I safety pinned onto my dress, skirt, totes... etc.
After I cut my 76 page sample book at the guillotine at school, I was very excited.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

BFA Show Postcard

So, the embroidery I did a little while ago got chosen as the postcard design for this year's BFA show! The process of was sort of tedious, but in the end, worth it. I scanned in my piece, edited it (the cloth was fairly thin, so the backside with the loose ends kind of showed in the scan,) added the "2014" and "BFA" digitally and made a back with all the details. They printed out so nicely and are a nice 5.5x7.5 size and are just really beautiful. I am so happy to represent my graduating class. 

Anyways, the show is tomorrow night! I am excited to see all my classmate's work and see how they organized the gallery! There are so many students graduating this semester, it must have been a nightmare getting it all put together.
Last week was filled with stress and scrambling to get all the last minute things done for my senior project so it will be rewarding to see it all displayed.
My last art school show... so bittersweet. I'm excited and nervous for what will come next.