I made a Grizzly Bear WALK!!!

It's true!!! I can't believe it either. This is the first walk I've ever done... and it was a quadruped... YIKES!!!!!!!!! My brain pretty much exploded into a million bits, but luckily it was restored with some new-found knowledge! YAY!!!

I thought I'd show the process...

(I'm not sure how to loop these videos so if you're able to that would be the best way to watch them)

This was my very first attempt I did at the beginning of class- As you can I'm very confused:

With a lot of help from Jeff Jackson (my teacher), this is what I ended up at the end of class.... I had a huge Ah-Ha moment at the end of this class when I learned about Contact-Hit/Down-Pass-Lift/Up-Contact...

Then I went home and kept working and working and this is the final Bear Walk I turned in:

While I still see many places to improve... I'm really proud of the way this came out. I can honestly say I never thought I could do it and it feels awesome to prove myself wrong :)

It goes to show.... if I can do it... ANYONE can!

More to come!

Still not in love with digital painting... but I'm getting there. I miss the tactile quality of traditional painting. Something cool about digital painting though is that it's so easy to start... just open the program and BOOM you're ready.

 Lately, I've been feeling pretty burnt out so looking at pinterest for inspiration helps. I save photos/artwork I love and do master copy's in photoshop. Doing these are cool ways to try out brushes.

Moving toward Digital!

I have another NEW blog!!! It's my 113B class sketch blog. I will mainly have a bunch of digital speed paintings, but there will also be some traditional stuff too! It will probably be updated a lot more often than this blog. Here's the link: http://dianamartinez113b.blogspot.com/ Feel free to check it out, comment, critique, etc!

This feels empty without some artwork attached soooo here's a speed paint I did for practice... I love portraits so I decided... what better way to learn photoshop than by also painting portraits! I found this image on Pinterest and loved the emotion and values, so I decided to attempt at replicating! It was very fun! :)

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)