Bob's Art Blob

Clarity+Art Whatever No. 12

2011-09-27T01:36:00.003-05:00

So it's been a while since I posted. A lot has happened to me artwise in the past year. Before graduation, I received three scholarships, two for study at Birmingham-Southern and Memphis College of Art, and a private one from the Hoover Arts Alliance. Due to financial troubles, I was unable to go to either. In October, I was in my first outdoor art show. It was a great experience, but somewhat of a disaster. So I've just been livin' life and working lately. Which has caused me to not pay attention to my art as much. It's been a while since I've painted and my drawing skills aren't looking too hot. But I'm trying really hard to start back up. After posting this, I'm going to start on a piece, thanks to some new found inspiration. But as for the picture in this post, I have no idea. I took this in Helena, a town about ten minutes away from where I live. There's this lovely waterfall, that's apparently lit up at night, and I decided to take a motion-capture picture of it. Of the three shots I took, I like this one the best. The background lighting turned out great. I feel as if I captured the water perfectly. The trees in the background add to a great design. The composition is ok. Not something I would usually approve of. I know there's something more this picture needs but I've no idea what it is. Any suggestions?

Watchtower

2011-05-31T17:22:00.002-05:00

So this is a photo I took on my trip to Destin about two or three years ago. Walking down the beach near the base there, I saw this majestic bird silently peering over its domain. I took several pictures, being very careful not to disturb it, and parted ways. I edited the picture significantly on photoshop and like it a lot. It's such a soft contrasting picture with plenty of elements that make the eye move plenty around the photo. I put this up just now in memory of my photo teacher, Mr. Myers, who recently passed away. Without his guidance and inspiration, I would have never displayed such a picture and had the great summer with my camera. Though I wasn't his best student, I hope he knows he's the greatest man i've come across in life and will leave a mark on my life. Thanks Mr. Myers.

Art Whatever No. 11

2010-02-10T20:49:00.003-06:00

So I noticed that in my last post I had forgotten to post some other artworks that I had. I'll try to post them soon. Or eventually. I went to the BSC Scholarship Day this past Saturday and enjoyed that. Had a quick bite at breakfast and spent about two or three hours drawing a still life as part of the audition. There was a girl there all the way from Texas. I had an interview with the art teachers. Nice conversation. Really ready for college after that. I am now waiting on the response for that, as well as the response from Scholastic regarding my works. I hope they hurry up and tell me something. I need to get my works ready for District. I am currently working on a portrait of my little brother that's not going too well. The soft pastel doesn't fancy me anymore. I'm thinking about restarting it with oil. Getting some new ideas together for new pieces. Will post stuff later. Oh! And girls suck. They're so confusing and really hard to read, as well as grab their interest.

Art Whatever No. 10

2010-01-25T01:07:00.003-06:00

Been a long time since I posted but I finally got some of my pieces posted. I have some cool photography as well that I'll try to post sometime this week. Been a great year so far. Lots of Art Stuff. Had Bluff Park, then Winter Art Show, and now I'm in the process of fooling around with College, Scholarships, and Competitions. I placed as Award Winner in the BSC Competition, which I'll try to post pictures of soon. It always amazes me when I see other people's artwork. It makes me realize how much I suck. JK, there my friend. But it really is great to see how people are thinking and their level of commitment. At the BSC Show, this girl traveled all the way from Georgia to see the works. Cool kid, indeed. I recently submitted into Scholastic too. I hope it made it alright and I hope I hear from them...BSC Scholarship up next, along with Memphis(MCA) scholarships. Then to district and some other scholarship stuff as well. Til later.

White No. 8

2010-01-25T00:57:00.002-06:00

This is an 18x24 oil on canvas portrait of....yeah....Anyways, my favorite! I played a lot with color on this one, and lack of it as well...This was my first piece in which I've actually tightened my craftsmanship. The composition of it is great. Very resembling of the subject. Especially the mood. As with the rest of my concentration pieces, I left something blank. That something being the background. I added the yellow so it would flow better. But the reason for this being to show her completeness. Her definition. Her environment/atmosphere is not defined. Not good enough for her. She overpowers her surroundings. I am very fond to this piece. One of my masterpieces in my opinion. It won a 1st place in the Winter Art Show. As did every Senior. But this one also won me an Award Winner Status at the Birmingham-Southern Competition for High School Students. I submitted it into Scholastic as well. Thoughts?

Inverse

2010-01-25T00:44:00.009-06:00

I usually do tell the measurements of my artwork, but this one is oddly...shaped....It is a 19.75x20.5, I think, portrait of a boy. A random boy, might I add. Additionally, I am not quite sure whether it is a drawing or a painting, since I did technically draw the squiggles, but used turpentine and a brush to "paint" in the face. The hair consists of magazine clippings. This is also one of my favorites. When I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I was sure that I was using primary colors like in the other pieces. By the end, I noticed it looked a lot like an X-Ray or an Inversed photo, hence the title. The composition is great, as is the line quality and color. The piece in general resembles a boy looks for his now defined future, but has no way of developing it. Like my other pieces, I had to leave something blank, but this time it was black... Comment, no?

True Definition

2010-01-25T00:35:00.004-06:00

This is an 18x24 oil on canvas. They are "portraits" of some cool kids. I used plain oil out of the tube for this one and am somewhat satisfied with it. The composition is cool. The colors are cool. But there is no likeness!!! It bothers me and I don't know what to do. The tree in the background consists of newspaper scraps. The general background is of the school. I tried to mess around with line with this one, putting some here and there on the building, tree, and even the people. I left the sky and the tip of her hair blank. The white is starting to symbolize some sort of undefined status. I exposed the colors in their skins, a lot..!, and made the background common so as to communicate to the viewer that they live in a boring, common world. They're just cool like that. Tips, advice, comments, rebuttles?

Study on Color

2010-01-25T00:27:00.002-06:00

Haven't posted in forever so here's ma newbies. This is an 18x24, I believe, oil on canvas of myself. This was officially my first time using oil bars and I loved it. It is currently part of a diptych, though originally supposed to be a triptych. I brought out all the primary colors and used that to make a resemblance of my self. Evidently, I left the white of my hair to resemble a sort of emptiness. Or undefined material/being, if you will. One of my favorites. The colors are superior, but the composition is not all that bad either. Tell me what you think. I submitted this one for Scholastic recently.

Art Whatever No. 9

2009-10-22T09:38:00.002-05:00

Haven't posted one of these in forever and haven't really posted anything at all since July so I will attempt to post some of my new pieces up soon. Bluff Park was cool. If you have never been to the Bluff Park Art Show, then I highly recommend you go. It was my first time and I was so excited to see part of the Hoover that once was. Old time Hoover. The spirit that the Hoover kids who were there volunteering was cool. Coming up next will be some shows around town such as Art in Avondale Park and Moss Rock. I'll try to go to those. Also coming up is Portfolio Day. I'm trying to go to the one in Nashville on November 1st. Really need to get my portfolio together...Also looking at art colleges and right now on my list is Watkins College of Art, Montserrat, and MICA. Will be posting my new pieces today or tomorrow.

Untitled for now

2009-07-10T13:00:00.002-05:00

This 18x24 oil pastel is the second drawing that I did of the beach. I focused on color and line again, as well as perspective. Line was major in this piece and after doing this piece during my summer break, I found that my style had definitely changed. But I like it. Only thing I did not like was that the road was strange looking, especially on the left, for some reason. Other than that I feel as if I succeeded. If you disagree please comment.

Untitled for now

2009-07-10T00:26:00.003-05:00

While the rest of the girls in my art class were still occupying themselves with the foreshortening project, I decided to start this 18x24 oil pastel on paper. It is a shot I took of somewhere in Florida around Navarre Beach. The picture I took had great composition as one can see but the colors were a bit dry. Nevertheless, I replicated the picture and made it into a drawing that I think is awesome because of the color, composition, form, and line. A lot of experimentation was made with this project and I think the same techniques I found in it will be used in my future drawings. I wish it could be seen better but I had it wrapped in acetate and didn't want to unwrap it. Don't have a title for it yet but it might end up being part of a triptych.

Walking with Wolves

2009-07-09T00:56:00.004-05:00

While doing my foreshortening in art class, I was learning about some Rauschenberg techniques in Digital. I chose to take this assignment from a personal point of view and scanned images and copied/pasted images on stock exchange to make this collage of myself. There is a sketchbook page of mine with some real personal stuff. I have a photo of my grandparents when they were married, as well as my mom's plane ticket for when she came to the states(which I seemed to have replaced and when she finds out she will kill me). The wolves were unintentional, but still add a lot to the piece. The yellow ring was a scan of a coffee ring that another student submitted into the class images. All I have to say about this assignment is that Rauschenberg was a beast. Sadly this is my best piece in that class. It is currently at Board of Education office. Will try to replace the pic soon.

Escape

2009-07-09T00:42:00.003-05:00

This 18x24 oil on my very first handmade canvas is of me. We were focusing on foreshortening for this assignment and I thought it'd be cool to have my closet as the setting while showing, again, a very emotional view of myself. At that time I was feeling as if the world was caving in on me for some reason, so I used my bunch of clothes to portray that. I had been drawn away from color schemes a while back but thought it'd be artistic of me to face that challenge again. This was a real easy assignment and am proud to say I finished first because I obviously know my color tones, as defined by in class comments/whining of color tone. The use of texture was also touched on. This piece was in the Congressional Art Competition, but didn't win anything. I have had some weird comments on this so feel free to share.

Hands of God

2009-07-09T00:32:00.002-05:00

Hands of God is a 16x20 soft pastel on paper. It was inspired by my midyear art exam based on surrealism. It shows hands with a 'Made in China' brush on one hand and a drawing pencil on the other with a water filled leaf leaking water into a stream of blood, while towering over earth. This was a really hard project in that I had to use my own hands for it, but it was one of the first in which I did on by myself without the assignment given to me (sorta). I really liked doing this project though. The color was really great to play around with and the theme behind it is interesting, being that it shows how modernization is affecting old mother nature.

No Eye for Nature

2009-07-09T00:14:00.003-05:00

This is me. Actually, this is an 18x24 oil pastel of me with Saran Wrap around my head. Pretty cool project. First time where I played around with emotions rather than social commentary(though social commentary is still in this project). I focus on this line work that I had been messing around with for a couple of months at the time and made sure to play with color as well. I got stuck on the background but I decided to do the leaves so as to exhibit my commentary of how nature seems to be ignored quite often. The color was based on a previous color scheme that I had done in 8th grade but failed at. I gave it a second chance this time and succeeded. When I did this drawing it was during a real hard time for me and I was going through some emotional changes and the lines and color definitely show that. Overall, this piece rocked far more than I expected and I expected a lot. It shows a drastic change to my style. This piece actually was one of three (along with the Libertad and Nature Still Life piece that has been lost forever) that received honorable mention at the Regional Level of Scholastic Art and Writing. Comment if you will. I've been told it still needs more but I say to heck with that. Though input is appreciated.

The Forgotten

2009-07-08T14:12:00.002-05:00

My first assignment in my Digital Photo Class was this that you see before you. It is a montage of a street done on Photoshop using an assortment of internet images. My objective was to show how we tend to forget all that has come before us and focus on the future more than our past. Often times, it is important to remember the past because it contains information that computers do not hold. Tried to be perfect on the perspective but failed. It looks cooler on paper.

Italia

2009-07-08T14:04:00.004-05:00

This oil on canvas was done at an oil painting class taught last summer by an art teacher of mine. It was the first time that I started playing around with line. It was the first time that I actually loosened up with my art. Not much to say about it. Pretty self explanatory. Emphasis on line, shape, color, and perspective was applied. Took a photo of Venice and twisted it. A LOT.

Art Whatever No. 8

2009-07-08T01:44:00.002-05:00

It has been about 7 months since I last put up a post. SORRY! I've been preoccupied with school and work, as well as not having a camera to put pics up. But no longer! Just last week I bought a Nikon D60 and will be putting up my new work later on TODAY. As soon as I go to sleep, wake up, and eat. Then I will show you all my awesomeness and comment on a lot of ART stuff that has happened to me since then. Until later.

Art Whatever No. 7

2008-12-25T22:28:00.002-06:00

Hope everyone had a Happy Christmas today. It was pretty awesome for me. All I needed was to see the movie Love Actually. Best movie to watch for Christmas. Not much art stuff today besides having the honor of celebrating and admiring God's best piece of art that is Jesus Christ and His birth. I know that sounded wrong but tried to make art fit in with today's Christmas thing. Anyways, I got my camera back so I will be putting up some pics either tonight or tomorrow. Have to go now. Joyeux Noel!

Art Whatever No. 6

2008-12-17T10:17:00.002-06:00

Uber sorry that I have not posted lately. I have been kept busy with school as exams are this week. Actually today is my Math exam and I'm at school on blog. That's life. Anyways, let's get caught up. I did go to the art show. It was quite a hassle though. Fortunately I was not the only one at the door handing out the show programs. Either way the show was a bit bootleg, as I expected. I finished my portrait but I have not been able to post them because I have retrieved my camera to take the pics. Yesterday I took the Art exam and it was friggin sweet. Everyone was nervous but I was just thinking "Whatever". Anyways I annihilated it with a nice surrealist oil pastel piece and included all the elements necessary for the exam. I was very proud because I finished it in the appropriate time with a minute or two to spare. The Digital Phot exam was not as pleasing as I thought it would be. I almost bombed the Camera part of it and I got an 81 on the online part. The online part ticked me off because I knew the stuff but panicked. Anyways thats all the art highlights so far. For the Winter Break I plan on doing some more oil pastel and maybe a painting or two. Will post more tomorrow.

Art Whatever No. 5

2008-12-08T22:49:00.002-06:00

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I've been sick for almost a week now, but today I feel better. Let's see. Art stuff. Hmmm....OH! Tomorrow is the Spain Park High Winter Art Show. Anyone reading this from SP should come out and support the art and the artists. Also, there will be a lot of cookies present and cookies are always good to have. I do not believe that I placed this year, sadly :'( , but I will still go for a bit to get the grade and help out a bit. I will be at the door handing out programs (hopefully not by myself). Then I have to work. The show should be good though. Perhaps not like years in the past but still good. As for my projects now, I have a completed oil painting of a Venetian building thing. Quite nice in my opinion. My portrait is close to being finished. I might just stay up tonight to finish it for tomorrow's show. Unfortunately, I cannot post picture because I don't have my camera to take any. After these two projects, I am heading towards a metamorphasis project that will be done over my winter break. Also, I am thinking about doing another oil painting but I have no idea what to paint. Whatever it may be, it will probably be finger painting. Finger painting will be an experiment for my next painting project. Yup. I think that's all so good night.

Art Whatever No. 4

2008-12-03T23:05:00.002-06:00

I'm going to try to make this one fast and juicy as the last two posts have been quite long. Let's see. Today, I went to school early to get some stuff done. I happened to go in the library and started checking out the new work for the winter art show when I noticed my still life drawing was not up there. A bit disappointed I must admit but I at least lost first and second place opportunities to the two I knew were my competition for that category. After school, I went to help put finishing touches to the show til five. It was pretty cool but I was disappointed to see a small number of people at the meeting, especially with this show being a very frantic one with all the new changes and what not. Oh well. I'll try to put up a new post of my current project in a few minutes. Till tomorrow.

Art Whatever No.3

2008-12-02T23:43:00.002-06:00

So, HA! It is currently 11:43 and I am typing the post for today. I actually did a new post the next day and not the next year. By the way, what is up with Blogger time? It is way off. Maybe I need to do some kind of adjusting. Anyways, did not get to stay after school today to help with the art show but tomorrow seems like a swell day to stay after. In art today, I was filled with a sense of something today. My experiments were crappy failures but what I was informed of was better. The Scholastic Art Competition is in a sense, underway, in our class. Though only two or three will only participate, I believe it would be awesome to put my work in there. I need to check it out more but I am definitely going to give it a shot. I'm not sure about deadlines but from what I was told by my art teacher, it seems that I have months to prepare. I will most likely put in a whole ishload of stuff, that is if I can. Tomorrow I have Digital Photo as my first class and I am unsure about it. We have a second quarter exam that I need to be studying for tomorrow but somehow I ended up here. Also, I am creating an event poster on Photoshop that is weak right now but. if I implement a new idea for it, could turn into a beastly thing. So I'll be going now to study like half a minute for the exam. Oh, and please check out a problem that I need solved. It is in Art Whatever No. 2 and respond. Je demande une response. I don't even think that is correct French.

Art Whatever No. 2

2008-12-01T21:43:00.003-06:00

Hello. Sorry I haven't been on in a while but I've been totally swamped with school and work so I haven't had much time to post. Right now I'm working on a project that I am trying to bring back, as I haven't had the opportunity. I'll see if I can post a separate post so anyone can help me with it by critiqueing it. It is a self-portrait of myself using oil pastels. This has to be my favorite self-portrait ever and one of my favorite pieces. I'm kind of at a bump in the road with it because I'm not entirely sure about what I should do for my background but I haven't given up. Speaking of, I would like to ask anyone who uses color pencils as a medium for advice. A classmate of mine decided to use color pencils as her medium for her portrait. It looks way awesome and I have to give her a lot of credit, as I practically suck in that medium. Anyways, she has been uber frustrated lately (so much that it shows and being the great artist that she is, is surprising) because the paper that she used doesn't have enought tooth or something so she can't add more color to her piece. Too much waxy build up I believe. Our teacher helped her today but she doesn't look to optimistic. Anyways, all I ask for is advice for her so that she may work with that or around it or any methods to use. The Spain Park Winter Art Show is next week so it would be nice for her to be finished by then and better for me because I'll have some competition. Hopefully, I'll be able to go help out at the MANDATORY meeting and take a sneek peek at the scores on my pieces. For now, I have to get back to my current piece so til tomorrow night....Wait, scrap that. I can't even go to the meeting now that I think about it. Work. But I will post.

Be Advised, This is The First Art Whatever for My Blob

2008-11-17T19:39:00.003-06:00

So now that I have, for the most part, set up my blog, I will move forward and make an attempt to put in some kind of art news/chat/pics/whatever. For today's art whatever, I would like to mention to anyone living in the San Francisco Area, more specifically Lincoln Park (no not the band), to visit the Theaters of Men: Art and the Holocaust exhibit that opened on the ninth of this month at the Jewish Museum. According to what else I read on FineArtPublicity.com, it is running until February of next year. So even though the economy is crap right now and we're not going out as much, I highly recommend you to go for a visit. This exhibit is the first one I've heard of this year, Holocaust wise. Any Holocaust exhibit is sure to be a good one. Not that I've been to one, but just being apart of that would be great. Better if you're an artist(sort of) because artists are always getting their chops busted(I think that's the line) on Holocaust art so we should represent. But remember to also respect, please. So for tonight I bid you good night and until tomorrow so I might gain more might. (Bit Shakespearish if I do say so myself.)

My Completed Nature Still Life that, when compared to the other girl's pieces, is obviously something a guy drew and totally beats all but two.

2008-10-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

So this is my completed Nature Still Life from, of course, October 2008 and completed during my studies in Art IV. It is soft pastel on paper, measuring 18x24. Not much can be said of this, probably and depending on how long this post ends up being. It is the first drawing in where I have started to loosen up and be more abstract and expressionists with my lines. Before, I would be OCD about the whole piece needing to be blended and would spend hours on blending all the other different parts. Although it may not look like it because of the picture, it is more apparent in the contrast with, would you believe it, more use of just blacks and whites and not grays. This piece was also a challenger in that it was my first time drawing most of the items, especially the water bottle and pine cone. I had always wanted to draw something that had glass like qualities but had never come upon an assignment with glass in it until now, even if it is plastic. Also my first time to actually put words in my piece. Despite my enthusiasm towards this piece, I know there is more work to be done, especially with the glove. Also, the pine cone looks as if it is just floating. Should I put something under it? Appreciate hard core criticism.

Liberty...or some other title that fits this painting like Azteca Dos

2008-10-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

Ok so this is my oil and acrylic on masonite piece (18x24) from May 2008, when I was an Art III. It got second place in the Spring Art Show (not meaning to brag but I need to put as much info of this piece on my blog). This piece is a continuance, if you will, of my Azteca piece (see below). It has a social commentary and personal message behind it, with major focus on my Mexican culture and on American culture, and huge inspiration from Frida Kahlo and the 19th century Impressionists. I like the way the Aztec temple in the background changes value and the way some of the taxis, along with the moon, look three-dimensional. However, this contrasts with the way some of the other things look flat. The use of line is also something I wanted to emphasize. The color is something I especially like in this piece. If anything worries me, it is the blue background. Although it provides definite contrast with the whole painting, I'm still not sure about it. Also, the person, which is supposed to be the Statue of Liberty, is bothering me due to its flatness. There are other things that seem off that I'm not sure about but if you have any comments please post. :)

Nature Still Life (what a guy SHOULD draw in a class full of "girly girls")

2008-09-22T01:08:00.000-05:00

This soft chalk drawing of a self made nature still life is a work in progress this year in 11th grade Art IV. It is a drawing of a work glove reaching out to a set of leaves resting on crumpled newspaper, surrounded by a pine cone and a smashed up water bottle. Some insight and comments would be helpful on this one. Not quite sure about the composition.

Triptych

2008-09-22T00:46:00.001-05:00

This oil on canvas is actually my first. It was intro to oil painting in 10th grade Art III. This is a sea landscape (or seascape) with a focus on texture using value. All of them have in common the rocky surface and crashing waves, along with the greenish-blue color of the water. The top one of the triptych needs a bit of work. The rock could use a bit more of something. It doesn't quite look like a rock formation. The waves need a bit of work, as does the sky. The middle one is the one I enjoy the most. Could use a bit more work in the rocks and the water too. The last one is tricky too. It needs more work in the rocks but the water needs the most work. The sky in this one is neat.

Stringed Bass

2008-09-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

This is a soft chalk still life drawing of a stringed bass with drapery from tenth grade Art III. The overall piece has a good composition and use of value/contrast in my opinion. The drapery has use of sharp contrast and smooth value changes too. The only part I'm not too fond of is the left side of the piece, in particular, the bottom where the drapery is at. There is not enough contrast in that part to make it look like drapery but I didn't know how to make it look like drapery while at the same time adding a bit of darkness to it. My favorite part would have to be the big curve in the drapery.

Azteca

2008-09-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

This one is my first official collage from 9th grade Art II. I definitely like this one. With this one, I obviously used my Mexican culture and background as a center of focus and influence. It is an acrylic on masonite board. It is an Aztec temple surrounded by mountains in the background and taxi cabs in the front. I see that it needs a bit more work as well. The mountainous range in the back could use a more definite contrast. The top of the temple needs more color and value. I like how the repetition of the gray cutouts of an old building help to make the overall temple have some sort of value. The taxi cabs look cool in contrast to the gray behind them. The bottom was supposed to be grass but there are parts where the grass doesn't have enough contrast to make it look like grass. It looks flatter than it should be and seems to be under the whole piece.

Peaches

2008-09-22T00:05:00.000-05:00

This one is the earliest I have from 9th grade Art II. It is an acrylic on canvas of peaches in a bowl. This one I would like to continue to work on because I know there are lots of things wrong with it. Composition wise, I think it is ok. The colors are good too. The value definitely needs a bit more work, especially at the bottom. I definitely like the background and foreground in this piece. The simple brownish color of the background is essential for the values of the foreground.

2008-09-21T23:38:00.000-05:00

Okay so here is some of my artwork. These pieces range from the fields of drawing, painting, and mixed and as few as there may be, are some of my best projects. Also, they are chronologically listed from grade to grade, with the top being ninth grade and the bottom being the most recent, eleventh grade. I apologize in advance if the pictures aren't clear enough. :)

On the first day,...

2008-09-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

I created this blog. Just a simple art blog so others can stop in and hopefully do some intense critiques of my work, helping me in setting up an awesome portfolio for next year. Will post pics soon. Thanks for visiting.