I’m Finally Done!

Hello all! As of 2pm today, Tuesday Dec 17th, I am done with this semester. May the grades roll in. Overall I think this semester went pretty well, and there was only the one class that I completed loathed (digital media). But I will take the positive outlook and say that I am so glad that there are people in the world who love doing that sort of stuff, and that I discovered I was not one of them. I like editing and doing MINOR touch ups to my own photos, but that’s about the extent of how I want to use those skills I learned in this class. So until late January, I am home free in terms of school.

Things may get quieter on this blog for a couple of reasons. First being that my Indiegogo Campgain has met goal! Thanks to my wonderful family I was able to reach my $500 goal. The campgain will still run throug mid-January, per Indiegogo’s regulations. So feel free to stop by and check it out for a bit. With the campgain being succesfull, I will be creating my own website on zenfoilio.com. I am in the works of using the trial time to set it up and get it exactly where I want it, but I will let you know when it is up and running. This hosting site for photographers has a pre-made blogging platform on it. I plan to use it for the professional side of my business.

Now it comes to this blog. I don’t know exactly where I want to take this as I am taking most, if not all of my photography stuff over there. I think what I will do is keep this one active at least through my remaining 2 semester to post projects I am working on at school, while keeping the other one competely professional. Let me know in the comments below whwat you think of this plan.

And while you are at it feel free to check out Facebook Page, Twitter and Indiegogo Campaign for the latest updates of what I am doing with my photography!

Related articles

• Indiegogo Campaign (picturelinephotography.wordpress.com)

Photography: Idea

So one class has ended, 3 more to go for the semester. And of course it’s the class that I never really wanted to end, Photography. Of course I will continue to shoot, but shooting with digital isn’t the same. I love both mediums, but there is something about film photography that makes everything feel right in my world (though only having a limited number of shots does not add to this feeling). You know how everyone has those scents that make them feel relaxed? Well, the smell of developer is one of mine. I know it’s not the most appealing smell in the world, but I have had the some of my best experiences as an artist come out of the darkroom, that my brain has just associated the smell with feeling good. This is not to say, however, that I always feel calm and relaxed in the darkroom either. But it definitely is a smell that can change my attitude for the day if I’m having one.

The good news is that I am taking the Advanced Photography class next semester! Yay! There is a lot more freedom within this class. I think the requirements are that we have 25 complete final prints by the end of the semester that have a story or idea behind them. I have been thinking about how I want to execute this assignment. Of course the obvious answer is: keep shooting dancers. But that’s not really a story now is it? Sure it’s a concept; however, it’s a very broad concept. I wanted a more narrow idea. Something that had a clear beginning, middle and end. I have been thinking about this since I started out calling for dancers to have me shoot their practices, which has been about a month. It wasn’t until last night that I came up with an idea that I think will work. My plan is to pick a 1-2 couples and shoot them exclusively throughout the semester. I want to be their shadow for an entire three months. Taking pictures of their practices, their prep hours before the competition, dancing during the competition, and the aftermath of the competition. I want to be able to document what it takes to get where you want to go, and what happens  if you achieve the goals or not.

I have no idea exactly how I want to do this, or who I want to track, but this is just the core idea. There is still a lot of fleshing out  that needs to be done. Let me know in the comments below what you think of this idea!

Class Update

Hello all!

So the semester is winding down (only one week to go before finals) and I though I would give you an overall update of what’s been going on.

In painting we have been working on our final two. The first is a 24x36in canvas and it could be whatever we wanted it to be. So I chose dancing (of course). It took me WEEKS to figure out what to paint. I probably went through 10(!) different sketches until finally my professor let me start working with my canvas. Here is the painting so far:

 

It’s an abstraction of a develope. It’s a high extended leg position that you develop (here’s your ooo moment) over a certain measure of beats. I still have a lot to work on. During critique the major issue was I need to be more loose and really let my paint brush dance across the canvas… We shall see how that goes.

Our second painting also could be whatever we wanted. In this past week, I’ve been working on a few sketches of it. Here are my two sketches:

 

The basic idea is dancers on a dance floor. The size of the canvas will be 36x48inchs! Crazy big but I think it will work well with this idea. The top sketch is the first one I painted. I just wanted to get my basic idea across. I did one other that I am not showing here that does not reach the boards of the paper (like the first one), but where the brushstrokes and colors are more defined, like the bottom one. Now my professor pulled me aside and said he really like the concept but wanted to show me how different the feel would be with clear boarders. The sketch became more than just the paint, and the experience of the paint. The layers of color became more defined and the boarders added more depth to the painting, which I enjoyed. This led me to my third and final sketch (the bottom image). I really do look forward to painting this next week.

In digital media we created a magazine of our artwork. We had to make a front cover, a back cover, and an interior. For the covers we had to use Illustrator.  We had to make the front and the back covers really pop, and show our use of Illustrator. They could not be basic. They also had to be cohesive with each other. For the interior we used InDesign. We came up with our own artist statements and added photographs of our work thus far. I used a lot of my photography, and a few pieces from my casting and painting class. This has been my favorite project thus far. Unfortunately I do not have any picutres of it. We also just completed our animation project, which I disliked even more than our photoshop projects. We are currently working on our websites using Dreamweaver. I’m not in love with this project either, but such is life.

In photography, I have been focusing my efforts on ballroom dancing. I photographed our comepition, DCDI, on a 3200 speed roll. Here are a few pictures from that:

 

As you maybe able to tell, this film has a lot more grain to it, which gives it an almost darker quality to the prints. I really like this feel and I think I’m going to use this speed film for all competitions from here on out. It also allows to shoot in lower light situations which is great for competitions.

I have also focused on getting some of the members of my club to let me take pictures of their practice and classes. I am still working on printing those, but I hope to have more completed next week.

That’s all I have for today! Until next time, check out my facebook page and indiegogo campaign to see more of my work and to learn about what I am currently working on!

 

Painting: Post Midterm

Ok, so you know how paint was going really well… Well now it’s not. We have now moved on from learning techniques, do using those techniques to come up with our own post-modern (as that’s the current era of art we are in) painting. I’m trying to do dancers, because that’s what I know… But every sketch I do just isn’t coming out right. My professor is trying to get me draw influence from the futurist painters. But I’m still having trouble. Every sketch I show him isn’t quite what he’s looking for. I tried going down to the art library to find a folio of futurist art, but guess what… It’s no where to be found. The catalog system says that it is shelved, but is it on the shelf? Nope. Is it on one of the reshelving carts? Nope. The clerk at the desk said she would have someone contact me once they find it, but right now I don’t have a lot of faith.

I completely understand why my teach is pushing me towards a more futurism approach to my painting. The futurists really focused on creating movement in their works. Futurism came out of the Cubist movement. The Cubists wanted to showcase every side of the image they were painting. Futurists, however, wanted to show that thing in motion. One of the more famous paintings is the dog walking on the leash. 

As you can see in this painting, the dog, the leash, and the feet all are in the various stages of walking. You can see the progression from one end of the canvas to the other. My professor wants me to lean towards this style of painting, but be even more abstract. He is especially pushing me this way since I am not the greatest drawer in the world. In fact, drawing is my weakest area of the art world. Thank goodness I love photography, right? Hopefully I can come up with something soon, as I have until the end of the semester to come up with 2 more paintings, including the current one I’m working on now.

The reason I’m spending so much time on my sketches is because he commented that was the weakest part of my Mid-Term Review. He stated that he wanted me to work more on my sketches so that I have a clearer and more precise map for the canvas itself. And he’s completely right. If you have a really good road map on the small scale, the larger scale will go so much faster, and will turn out better in the end. I hope I can come up with some really good final sketches soon so I don’t fall too far behind.

First Week of Classes

Hello everyone!

I hope your Septembers are going well so far. I just wanted to give you a new update of what is going on in my artistic/school life. I have now had my first day of class of all of my classes as of 3pm today. I have to say, I am super excited for this semester. All of my studio classes, though seem challenging, seem to have a great energy and seem like they will push all of us to further find out voice through different medias. As suspected, I am currently most excited for my Photography and Digital Media class. The digital media class seems so fart to be the most challenging out of the studio classes, as this will be an entirely new experience, even more so than painting. Hopefully by next week I will have some works-in-progress to post here. I will definately have something from my painting class so get excited for that!

I will also be teaching a newbie ballroom class this year in my club. I will be teaching our freash crop of newcomers the Latin style of dance. They will be learning Cha-Cha, Rumba, Jive, and may be introduced to Samba by the end of the semester. If anything interesting pops up in that class I’ll write about it here as well.

Until then, have a good week!

Hello Everyone

I am so sorry that I have disappeared for about two months. Since my class ended I haven’t produced much art. I did take some pretty cool photographs on the 4th of July, but I have yet to load them onto my computer. I cannot seem to find my card reader. As soon as I do I will pick a photo to upload and write about.

In other news, I should be posting on here a bit more regularly with school coming up. I will be taking 3 art classes this semester, Black and White Photography 1, Digital Media Fundamentals, and Painting. I will be posting some of my work here as well as describing what we are doing in the classes.

I am super excited for my Photography class. I took two photo classes back in high  school, and this will be my first time back in a dark room in about three-ish years. In high school, the dark room was my home away from home. It was my sanctuary where I could blast my music and tune out everything bad going on in my life. I hope this will be a similar experience. Lets just say I’ve already geeked out over the fact that my photography professor has already put most of our assignments, the syllabus, and materials list on our school’s online system, ELMS.

Hope to be posting soon and looking forward to connecting with more of you. Please let me know in the comments below if you want me to focus on one particular class or share the posts equally between the three classes, or have one main class while still posting tidbits from the other two.

Thanks!