Passed the review and moving forward!!

Hi! I passed the portfolio review. WOHOO! Now back to work. As Dori says "just keep swimming". This is only the beginning.

Here's some work that didn't make the cut for my portfolio for various reasons. As you can tell I love figure drawing and faces. :)

Hope you enjoy. Feedback is always welcome!

The portfolio I submitted is below this post, but apparently Blogspot has image auto-adjust that I haven't figured out how to turn off. So there's a strange grayish alteration to a few of the layouts that isn't suppose to be there.

Here are some caricatures I did the last day of Spring semester in Figure drawing:
Each of these drawings fill up the entire 18x24 newsprint paper and are of people in my class! After taking Chris's class I now LOVE drawing big. It was the best day of class last semester. Everyone had lot's of fun.

Here's a few more figure drawings: These were done at the figure drawing sessions where I get to play around with charcoal! :) I love the mess of that medium.

This gouache painting was the last painting in my sketchbook for Cameron Chun's painting class (last year). I remember being extremely proud that it actually looked like the object! haha I was having trouble with opacity, since I was so timid with paint. The day I painted, I remember feeling horrible about my work. So I painted. My mentality going in was "Grrr... I don't care I'm just going to paint!!!" Blobbed a ton of paint out of the tubes and went to town. In conclusion: I felt better afterward and realized I need to be more blunt with the amount of paint I apply! :)

My Program Portfolio!!

This is my portfolio for the A/I Program Review!! I'm not sure why some of the pages are darker than the others' here on blogspot...

This also the artist statement I wrote for it:

I’m an artist because I have something to say about who I am and how I see the world. These last 3 years in the major, I’ve learned so much about myself through speaking in a visual medium. It hasn’t been easy and that’s what I love about it. Challenges inspire me. I’m proud of how far I’ve come and am ready for the next step. I’m particularly excited to learn more about Visual Development. The process of designing innovative worlds and characters intrigue me. I aspire to work in the animation film industry because I want to tell stories that mean something to me. I’m inspired by music, dance, sports, food, theater, (and so much more)… all of which I draw from to create my art. Studying art doesn’t feel like I’m learning just one thing - it’s an accumulation of everything! The more I live and ask questions about the world around me, the more I become an informed artist. I put my best work forward and embrace constructive criticism, but most importantly, I am passionate for this art form and I love sharing it with others. This program is challenging and I would love the opportunity to be apart of it.

Work to be posted shortly!

Hello Blogspotters and the internet world.

Been busy drawing and painting and getting my portfolio together for the mid-program review. I'm stoked! After looking through all my work it's gotten me face to face with the progress I've made and am adding more to the great long list of things I need to work on. It's super inspirational. The work will be posted shortly!

In my digging of work to put in my portfolio, I found this portrait I forgot I did back in February of my boyfriend, Kevin Maier looking super serious. Thought I'd post it first since he's played such a big role in encouraging me to stick with my passion. He's also an animator and an amazing one at that. Kevin is the most hardworking and creative person I know! :)

Some Truth

For the past few days now I've been critically looking at my work and performance a little more than usual. I guess it's because of the looming April 4th deadline to submit for the program review. I know I have what it takes and am actually confident that I will pass through. But, I guess the reason I'm so hesitant is because I see this "review" as a moment to state I am good enough, that I understand the fundamentals and am on my way to advancement. But the truth is I am extremely aware of how much I need to learn. My work is acceptable but not at a standard where I can say a YES, I feel confident in using this in a creative way. I feel right now I'm getting really good at technical but really struggling with translating that knowledge creatively. Yesterday, I saw a guy's artwork, more specifically his figure drawings from Art Center that I know I can do given some time. So, what's the rush? I have people telling me, "Diana, you should submit this semester!" or questioning, "Diana, why aren't you submitting, you're good enough!" And it just occurred to me that I never want to be just good enough. I never want to slide by with my work. That to me is the worst feeling! I want to create meaningful work with the expectation that one day that work will get me somewhere. I'm taking that idea from Malcolm Gladwell, someone who's incredibly inspirational and insightful in his lectures and stories. So what will it be?? To submit or not to submit.... that is a question only I can answer and am having a pretty hard time doing so.

Anyway, just so this post isn't all text here's a figure drawing I did about 2 weeks ago that I really loved drawing. Charcoal is definitely my most favorite medium when it comes to figure drawing, something about the smooth, gliding feeling on the paper makes me forget about my worries! (of which are in the above paragraph)

Spring Semester Beginning

This was the first assignment from Ani112a (intro to illustration) class with Cameron Chun. This class will generally be focusing on understanding light to create believable and interesting illustrations. I'm super excited about this class- we're going to create human figure sculptures and do the pen/ink illustration project!!! Right now, we're working on academic drawing and rendering by copying cast drawings. It's a bit tedious, especially using graphite but then I think about the ambitious art students in the 18th century French academy having to copy these drawings in the same fashion 200+ times before finally getting approved to paint... and I stop complaining.

Why I want Kathy Altieri as a mentor?

I feel really proud of this essay I sent and feel like sharing it on this blog. I had a hard time expressing the feelings I had and it wasn't until John Clapp advised me to do a free-write that I finally said how I feel. This essentially was a reversal in writing form, and I learned a lot! :)

In a short essay please describe why you want to work with this specific mentor (500 words or less)?
Kathy Altieri represents who I want to be. Her professionalism and honesty is a quality I hope to have. Her online interview, made me want to start every project and go above and beyond to finish them. It was also because the way she spoke; so easy and articulate about having passion in the industry. There were so many times in school I wanted to throw down the pencil and give up because of my self-doubt and insecurity. I felt I was struggling with things that came natural to my classmates. Hearing her perspective made me feel not so alone with my struggles. That it was okay to feel the way I felt, and she has them too. She gave me hope and encouragement to keep moving. I want to make something of myself in the industry. I want to tell stories that mean something to me. And her words made me feel it is all possible. Just because I'm starting “late” in my pursuit, doesn't mean I can't be a great artist. I know that I want a career that will mean something to me. Mean something in a way that I feel confident and excited about the direction I'm going. I want to wake up in the future and think how lucky I am to be so proud of the work I'm doing and the people I'm with. I don't mean to sound naïve because I understand that every project has tough times. I want Kathy as a mentor because her words of advice play in my head during tough times. When she told me at CTN that “the way you feel about your work now will be the way you feel forever”, it made me ask myself: Why am I going through these tough times? It's because I love drawing, painting and expression, and I 'm never bored or tired of learning about it. When I see an interesting painting I don't think “I can't do that”... I wonder: “How did they do that? How can I do that”. Yet, when I try that new method, I run into those same tough times... and by “continuing to just show up”, I know I will get there. And I when I “get there” there's going to be another challenge waiting. And that's why I love it. So why do I want Kathy Altieri to be my mentor? Because I already see her as one.

My Portfolio :)

Today I finished my portfolio!!! WOHOO! I'm sending it to a mentor-ship program called Motivarti, more specifically to Kathy Altieri. Through doing this, I relearned why I enjoy using InDesign, it's a program where I can just listen to music and play with design. Thanks Kevin, Sparks, and everyone for helping me out! GOAL: posting my work more often- it kind of takes the nerves out of submitting it to programs like Motivarti since it's already out in the world.