Flores

Here is the preliminary final version of my Guatemala inspired snowboard for my Visual Continuity class. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. In the process of doing this I also learned how much of a black hole the computer can be. I sat messing around with it and then looked at the clock and had lost 4 hours of my life without making much progress. I had to pull myself away from it and draw out a battle plan before jumping back in. I need to make a few tweaks here and there, including redesigning the bottom (can it be called a redesign if the first one was just thrown together?), but none of it should take more than an hour or so and it'll be ready to go out.

I was pretty worried yesterday with the whole State of the Union address that we wouldn't get to see American Gladiators, but faith came through and I wasn't left disappointed (except for the cheerleader that couldn't get over the wall on the Eliminator).

DONE

I ran my edition this morning, so this is the final product. Hope you like it. Now I've got to work on my Guatemala-inspired snowboard.

almost done

While there is plenty more I could do with it I'm thinking it's about done. I've really got to concentrate on some of my other assignments.

Anorexic?

Here are some changes I made last night and this morning. I felt like I needed to change the shape of the face a little but now I'm worried that it hollowed me out too much and I look anorexic. Oops.

"MacKay told me to call this There's a Knot in My Neck"

Ok, here is my work so far on my self portrait for my relief prints class. It's just a basic black and white print to get us back into the swing of working with wood. We don't have a due date for it yet but I'll try to post an updated print a couple days a week (Thursdays for sure) until it's finished.

We also talked today about the print exchange that we will be doing this semester. The idea we're probably going to be running with is redesigning a record cover from the year we were born. It should be pretty fun once I find an album that was released in 82.

Nothing to Update

I don't really have anything to update on here. I'm back to school but haven't gotten any of my assignments far enough along to show any progress on them. Maybe tomorrow. I've got a couple self-portraits and a snowboard to design, so I should have some good stuff up in the near future. I've been busy trying to figure out the specifics of screen printing on Plexiglas for my project in Advanced Printmaking, but without much luck.

Anywho, Whit's home from aerobics so I better head.

MOS. 5:15

"...as we become more spiritually mature and increasingly steadfast and immovable, we are less prone to zealous and exaggerated spurts of spirituality followed by extended periods of slackness. Recall the tortoise in Aesop’s fable to whom I referred earlier as an example of steadiness and persistence. The hare, on the other hand, is a classic example of a “spurter”- one who is given to short bursts of spectacular effort followed by frequent and lengthy periods of rest.

"A spurt may appear to be impressive in the short run, but steadiness over time is far more effective, far less dangerous, and produces far better results. Three consecutive days of fasting ultimately may not be as spiritually effective as three successive months of appropriate fasting and worship on the designated fast Sunday. An attempt to pray one time for five hours likely will not produce the spiritual results of meaningful morning and evening prayer offered consistently over five weeks. And a single scripture-reading marathon cannot produce the spiritual impact of steady scripture study across many months. (David A. Bednar, Steadfast and Immovable.)"

So I'm sitting in Elder's Quorum yesterday but my mind's not there. I'm thinking about some recent changes and things I've got coming up and overall not doing a good job of paying attention when something catches my attention and brings me back in the middle of this quote being read. It's been a while since I've had one of those "is this specifically for me?" moments. Nothing that I've heard had really hit home until I heard this quote.
Lately I've been going through some introspection trying to figure out the details for a project for my printmaking class that will deal with a personal revelation, tearing down some of the facades that we may put up in public and finding out what lies beneath. It's been an ongoing inner discussion I've had trying to determine what it means to "live your life" and "be true to yourself." So when I heard this quote it struck a chord and made me feel like this is a big part of what I've been looking for.
Anywho, school's back in, and truthfully I'm somewhat relieved. I've cut back on my hours at work so hopefully I'll not be so strapped for time on my projects at school, though I can already tell that I'm spending too much time thinking about the time we'll spend in Switzerland this summer.

Threadless

My friend Jason showed me this site yesterday. It's called threadless, and designers can upload their designs onto the website where people will vote on them. If the design gets enough votes, they do a run of tshirts and the designer gets $2500. All the tshirts are about 15 bucks, so it's not a bad price to buy either. The style of the shirts is a lot like shirts you may find at Urban Outfitters, and I like that there is such a concentration of different artists and cool designs.

Heroes

It's been another great Christmas. We got so much more than we wanted, except Whit still doesn't have a kitty or a puppy. I had to promise her that after we get back from Switzerland she could get one.

Heroes was on sale at Best Buy this week. Neither of us had really seen beyond the first episode but had heard great things about the show so we bought it and that has been our life for the past couple days. Even last night after going to bed we ended up getting up and watching one more.

Also, I recently added a sidebar that I'll keep posted with what I'm currently reading. Over the break it will probably get updated every few days, during school probably only once a month or so. Right now I've got a list of 4 or 5 books that I'm trying to get through before school starts.

The Book Thief

In celebration of having finished my finals I was finally able to finish the book I've been reading every spare minute I've had since Thanksgiving. I'd recommend it to anyone, it was a great read. It's been a while since I've had a book that has captured my attention like this. It deals with Liesel Meminger, a young girl living with her foster parents in Nazi Germany. She starts to learn the power words have and finds herself stealing books since her family is too poor to buy them. The whole story is told from Death's perspective who becomes aware of Liesel early on when he comes to collect her little brother's soul.

Well, I'm off to work.

1942

What a relief. Finals are over and for the most part I'm happy with where I went with them. Pictured above is my Printmaking final. It used two plates (one for each color) and was a fun experience. I still need to go in and put some highlights on the airplane but overall I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Healthy Energy

Our final assignment in my Brand Identity class was to do a logo and packaging for an all-natural energy drink. We had to choose the name, write a positioning statement (how the brand wants to be perceived), create a mark of identity and design 3 bottles of the product. Turns out the application is really a pain in the butt. It really opened my eyes to how much goes into all of this. I was surprised to see just how much baggage there is with the shape of a bottle. Anywho, this was my mark of identity. I liked the irony of it being called "Verde" but having a multicolored logo. Overall it has been a great class that I've learned a lot from but I'm very glad it's over.

Aunt Fanny and Marco Riviera

Here are the two prints I sold at the print sale. The top one titled "Aunt Fanny" and the other "Marco Riviera."

Also, I was on Ikea's website this morning looking at frames for some of the stuff we bought when I noticed a red link that said IKEA Madness. Curiosity got the best of me and soon I found myself entertained by dancing lightning bolts and screws. Check it out if you are entertained by fun flash animations. It tells the story of how some of their designers came up with their stuff, but it's done in a fun way. It reminded us of the Blur music video Coffee & TV, with the little milk carton.

USU Print Sale

The past two days the "Printmaking Guild" has had a print sale. I wasn't planning on entering anything originally, but after some convincing by my teacher and a couple friends I entered in 3 pieces to be sold. Ultimately I assumed that only one print would sell, the one I posted here below. But, as of 4ish this afternoon two of the three were sold and the one left was the only one I expected to sell. Turns out my face must be the moneymaker since both prints sold were self-portraits. It felt pretty cool to sell them, being the first prints I've ever sold. Tomorrow I'll post some images of them.

Another cool thing about selling the prints is that one of them was actually sold to the USU housing... something, to put into some of the on-campus housing. So technically I have a piece in the University collection.

Whit and I are both pretty stoked about our purchases, though not about the money we spent (more than we should have). We have such talented people in the program up here. Now we just need to have it framed so we can proudly display it all.

More digital assignments

This is the section of the blog where I practice my graphic design skills. That's why it looks so great. So, these are some pictures from my latest digital photo assignment. There's one more but I'm going to do a cyanotype with it so it'll be a little while before it gets posted.


The End.

Jen Stark

This is an artist I came across a couple months ago but every time I see her work it blows me away again. Her work is uh-mazing. It seems like such a simple concept using construction paper like this, but the sculptures are so intricate and intriguing that you can't stop looking at them. Check out her work at www.jenstark.com.

Writer's Strike

Well, now I'm all up in arms about this whole writers strike thing. I haven't really read up on the details of what's going on but since I can no longer watch new episodes of The Office I'm pretty upset. And understandably so. Just how long will this last?

Just wanted to get that off my chest before I go make some salsa.

Magic Black

I guess this is a "large" picture. The real prints are 6x14" so these are looking pretty small. Here is the work I've done on my latest assignment for my Intaglio class. It's a reductive print, or faux-mezzotint, which means that I etch a texture on the whole plate so it's all black (like the middle print), and then use a burnisher to lighten up the areas that I don't want to keep black. I did one step before putting the texture on, I etched some linework into the plate so I would have a guide while burnishing. It's pretty close to done, I just need to clean some areas up and I can do my edition.

Birthday

Ok, here is the logo I did as an assignment in my Brand Identity class. The art department at USU is celebrating its 100 year "birthday" next year so our class got the opportunity to design the logo. We still haven't heard back to see who won. Hope you like it though.

Putting First Things First

At the request of some friends I have now entered the 21st century and created a blog. As part of the millennial generation it must be my duty to do so. As it is titled, this will surely be something of a waste of time but hopefully someone somewhere will get something out of it. So, I'll throw on here some of my assignments from school as they are being worked on so anyone who's interested can keep track of what I'm up to. And who knows? Maybe I'll be able to get Whit to post on here as well.

So first off, if anyone hasn't tried these Candy Cane Kisses, you should. I'm addicted.