Large Pickles

possibly unfinished.

47.5"x36"

I need a tripod so that I don't take pictures that make me look drunk.

New Selected Paintings

Pickle Jar
Pickle Jar detail
Beets

Spoon on striped fabric
Spoon detail

Bike

An Unripened Papaya

Grit and Beauty

Mission: Create an image using found textures to reflect a feeling of grit and beauty within in the city of Philadelphia.

So naturally, I made a godzilla. RAWR.

My original concept was to make him out of garbage to make a statement on the total grossness of this place, but there were too many other kinds of textures that were too perfect to make a godzilla.

He's gonna meet some friends at Parc for a late brunch and then go play his guitar in Rittenhouse because he hopes that someone will start a conversation with him. Maybe meet a nice girl? He's shy. Unfortunately, all he knows how to play is Death Cab covers.

And a bit of a late post, but here is my screen print design. I haven't gotten a chance to upload the prints, but they should be around soon.



Tapirs! And baby tapirs!! Hoorah!

Tuesday Lecture

I thought this lecture was pretty interesting. Rob is always telling me about how Tyler's curriculum is based off the Bauhaus school and I usually just nod and say, "Ok" without really knowing what it meant. How rad would it have been to have been taught by Vassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee? Hint: very.

That said, I really don't like Bauhaus architecture. It's so cold and almost Orwellian to the point of being practically unlivable. I do like the chessboard, though.

The second part of the lecture dealt with connecting your art to the surrounding community. The idea of involving my art with Temple as a whole, or even the entire city of Philadelphia is very exciting. I was thinking that perhaps since Tyler and Presser share a building, yet we never make any real contact, we could collaborate with the music students more often in some sort of multimedia whatchamacallit. Neato!!

Tuesday Lecture and Photoshop Painting

It was really nice to hear some upperclassmen giving us advice. I won't be a sophomore until Spring 2011, but the "10 Things I Wish I Knew as a Sophomore" presentation is still helpful as a freshman. I think the biggest bit of advice that I want to use is to get a bike. I still don't know how to ride one (auuugh embarrassing) but I'm making it my mission this spring to learn how. I can't stand sitting around North Philly as it is, and SEPTA is just about the worst thing in the world, so a bike would definitely help me out a lot. And this way I can be some sort of arty hipster with a fixie and a tight hoodie and I can talk about "bike culture" and typefaces in the most insufferable way possible.

And now the part that everyone (mostly just my mom) has been waiting for, my photoshop painting:



I still hate painting in photoshop, btw. Mostly what a did is smooth out the colors on the dragon and the fawn and clone stamped some messy spots in the grass. I wanted to keep a lot of the original texture of the watercolor because I think it works well with the oriental style of the dragon.

And now I'm going to go to my midterm critique and then try to shove as many naked juices and bagels down my gullet as I possibly can.

Some nerdy arty youtube videos

Robert and I have been showing each other a bunch of arty videos on youtube lately, so I figured I'd post some of my faves.

Rococo Puffs!

Neutra Face
Neutra Face: An Ode to a Typeface! Robert's a nerdy graphic designer and I want to be Lady Gaga, so he was all psyched to show me this.

70 Million
The members of this band just dress up as various famous art works throughout this video. Rob and I kept on just shouting out the artist or the title while watching this. He was quicker than me =(

Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd presents Form and Content. Baby hamsters <3

Luke Jerran
HIV Sculpture
Luke Jerram makes glass blown viruses. They're really bizarrely beautiful.

Sweaterman
We're starting our super hero costumes in Nichola Kinch's class and Mark Newport aka Sweaterman was one of the artists we looked at.

what

Ok, two lectures to go over!

First is last week's Philographica lecture! I'm kind of glad that we went to this one, even though it was a lil bit boring. I'm really hoping that I'll be able to get to some of the exhibitions. I'd especially like to go to the one with the toilet seat so I can get "Abandon Hope All ye Who Enter Here" printed on my bottom. That would be my favorite thing ever. I'm going to try to make a point of going to the PMA this weekend to see Oscar Munoz's work.

And then this week Lynda Barry came to speak! I want to be her when I grow up. Not only was she absolutely hilarious, she also had some really insightful and interesting things to say, especially those about images. I think most of them went right over my head because I was exhausted, but that probably just means that what she said was really smart and probably very important, right? Right. She gave me a lot of really neat ideas for my folios; I love her style. Furthermore, HOLY BALLS she sang Hey Jude without moving her lips! Lynda Barry, please adopt me. Sincerely, Maureen O'Dwyer

Hopefully I'll get the photos of my 3D projects from Nichola Kinch soon. I've been getting some pretty positive feedback on them so I figure I'll post them here and be all, "I don't wanna toot my own horn or anything BUUUUUT CHECK ME OUT!"

I also need to get my texture pictures off of Robert's camera so I can finally get them uploaded.

PS. I still don't like painting in photoshop. Real paint is messy and sexy