The girl with the golden hair:

...And why she has a frog in her mouth.

For two months, this ghostly sculpture has been haunting my room.  It was a paper mache project I did in sculpture class, but I never got around to painting it.  Finally, Tuesday, I decided it was time.

The first coat was white (and gold hair).

Then I did some layering and splattering and detail...and it's done.  That feels good.

Introducing: "She Has Golden Hair"

So...Why does she have a frog in her mouth?!

If you didn't take time to read the little fairy tale, basically it is a story of two girls. One sister—because of her sweet disposition—was blessed with diamonds and jewels coming out of her mouth with each word she spoke, while the other—because of her rudeness and temper—was cursed with snakes and toads coming out of her mouth with each word. This is the story I had in mind when I created the sculpture. The assignment was to sculpt a bust out of paper mache that would mingle ideas of attractiveness and repulsion. Furthermore, a verse in the Bible says,"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Mat 15:11) Put the verse and the fairy tale together and you have a pretty girl with a repulsive bad temper who hurts others and sins by the words coming from her mouth (represented by the frog).

Stylistically, I went for contrast--especially around the frog and mouth. There is smooth/ rough, pale/bright, and red/green contrast, and all tie back to the concept that repulsive is noticeable contrast to a pretty face.

The gold hair? It puts emphasis on the value people place on beauty (blonde being often considered a mark of beauty). The green eyes also hint to an envious nature, which is often times a malicious girl's biggest problem.

Detail texture

Detail hair

Detail eyes

Blessings,

Alyssa

By the way, does anyone see the phantom eye in the background of one of these pictures?  Double points if you know who it belongs to.

Happy 4th!

Blessings,

Alyssa

Of Rain

Ahhh

The smell

The sound

The touch

Of rain!

(click to enlarge)

Huge reward for messing around on Photoshop to create this collage:  I discovered my mistake I made while making my blog header, and it only took 5 seconds to fix!  Supper excited girl right here!

Blessings,

Alyssa

How Do You Learn?

As you can see, I finally created a header for my blog to replace the boring text that has graced the top of my blog since it was born in September.  I made it completely from scratch today, and really enjoyed it.  However, it's not perfect.  I'm still not very acquainted with Photoshop and it is so much different from Illustrator in so many small ways that I end up making mistakes (such as pasting instead of placing).  I suppose, then, I have learn from my mistakes.  I always learn a lot more by just getting in a doing something.

How do you learn?  Have you done anything recently to stretch your knowledge and abilities?

Blessings,

Alyssa

Grandpa's Voice

I was sitting on my bed reading my Bible, and my mind must have wandered because in my head I heard grandpa's voice again--low and a little unsteady but still loving, joyful, and gentle.  I cherish the memories of Grandpa McMillian.

This picture of grandpa's roses were on a set of  slides we recently  converted to digital.

Blessings,

Alyssa

The Fruit Bowl

So, it has been a while since I have posted.  It has also been a long time since I promised a ceramics post to come.  This bowl was recently shown in the student show (that show will probably be my last for a while).

Photo Credit: Brianne Fulton

I call it the fruit bowl.

I'm not sure, but I think this is the first bowl I threw.

I carved a verse from the Bible about the fruit of the spirit :  "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galations 5:22-23

For glazing, I applied iron oxide with a brush and sprayed a clear glaze on the inside.  The iron oxide make a beautiful blue color where it was heavily applied.  It also made the words darker and more readable.

Photo Credit: Brianne Fulton

Blessings,

Alyssa

Rainbow Field Action

I am trying to learn Photoshop...It's going slowly, but progress is progress.  Yesterday I was so excited because I created my very own action!  I'm so excited that I decided to share it with you Photoshop-people (do I have any out there?) So here it is, along with a few samples.  The only problem is that the rainbow may be too dark depending on the photo you apply it to, so I would suggest adjusting the opacity of that layer (the very top layer) if you need to.  Oh, and on portrait oriented photos, the rainbow will have to be moved back into the picture.

Blessings,

Alyssa

Thoughts on Creation

     I find such pleasure in observing the world around me. I watch the changes of God’s wonderful creation.  The sun sets and rises; the earth circles round the sun; and the moon around the earth—what beautiful variations the movements bring! He did so much to make us happy, gave us everything we would need, and made it to fit us so perfectly. I wouldn’t change it if I could.

     Is it possible to even imagine a better texture for the expanse of sky above us. Perhaps a rougher appearance would suite it better than the gradients of color and soft accents and billowing contours of cloud. I think not! It is so perfect—a perfection that only God could create.

     The Oceans are majestic, but suppose a designer decided that it would be more pleasing to the eye—more awe-inspiring—if the waves were more opaque and did not catch and reflect the light as it does. What a sad change that would be to have the earth full of such dull masses!

     What of the flower—that flimsy creation! It should be a bit sturdier so that thousands of treading feet could not crush its beauty. In the sands of the dessert, so many colors are not needed. It would be more unified if each grain were the exact same hue. Now take the butterfly and get rid of it’s boring symmetry.

     While we are doing so well at changing the view, why not try our hand at changing the world too. Change the way we interact. Change the things we care about. Change what’s right, and change what’s wrong. Change the path that leads to Christ. Change what’s love, and change what’s hate. Change the laws of common kindness. Change the hard times—just get rid of those altogether. Don’t you think if we were God, this world would be so much better? I shudder, and I cringe. Never could a man make something as beautiful as God’s church, and his creations.

Blessings,

Alyssa

What's in the Studio

A very stressful day ended well.  After class, I was the last one left in the studio, and I felt the urge to unwind a little and look for things to photograph.  It’s always fun to find cool shots in a familiar setting.

Of course, I had to have a bit of fun editing some them when I got home…

This one looks a little like graffiti.

The slab roller

The wheel

And this is a shot of a little alley I get to drive by every day.  The red-buds are lovely right now.

Blessings,

Alyssa

Heart Bokeh

...playing around with heart bokeh--the cheating digital way, of course.  I blurred the pictures digitally too, but don't look too close to the first one because I had to manually try to create a gradual blur (the bottom is more in focus that the rest), and it turned out a little choppy.  But I shouldn't have told you that. :)

Blessings,

Alyssa

Study in Quadrants

This is the painting project I have been working on recently.  It is a study of the American Impressionist Frank Benson.  The original painting is called Summer Day, and I saw it in person at the Crystal Bridges Art Museum!  (I highly recommend a visit to that museum if you are in the area.)  As a study, we explored four different approaches to color.  The first view in the video is a four quadrants together, and then I fade it into monochrome sepia to show the values.  The first quadrant I show is the direct color painting.  It is the "normal" approach to color of mixing it on the palate and then applying it to the surface.  The second quad. shown is a black and white study of values.  The third (my favorite, but the most complexing) is indirect color.  As described in a previous post, indirect painting involves layering transparent colors until the desired color is optically blended.  Because the layers of paint allow some light to pass through, it creates a very different effect than that of the direct color mixing.  It is almost iridescent.  The last quadrant is Fauve (wild beast) color.  Unnatural and highly saturated colors are used, but values are kept the same.  I faded this quadrant into black and white to show the value relationship between the colors.  However, as the second picture in the video shows, the values of this quadrant are darker than what they should be.  I mainly did this because I didn't want to reduce the saturation of too many of the colors by adding white to all of them.  I suppose I'll stop blabbing about this awkward looking painting and just say that I learned a lot from doing this exercise.  I saw "awkward" because the quadrants aren't really supposed to look good next to each other.

Blessings,

Alyssa

My Little Font Phase

I don't know if it is just a phase, or if I am stuck with this obsession for fonts (yes I am talking about computer text fonts). One day, I happened to stumble upon a really cool font place called dafont.com.  I don't know how many fonts they have, but it must be over a thousand.  Today, I've downloaded my fair share, and I am so excited about them that I am going to share my favorites with you.  (The site appears to be safe, and I have been using these fonts for a few months and have had no problem.)

If you especially like one of these, you can search the font name at dafont.com and click on the link to download the zip file.  Enjoy!

Blessing,

Alyssa