¡Spoiler Warning for the original Final Fantasy VII and Remake! To avoid writing spoilerific things right at the top, let me start with a slight tangent. When I was in elementary school, I asked my mother to buy me a three-book set of How to Draw books from the Scholastic catalog. While I don't remember …
Category: Art

Quatrefoil Patterns from Scratch
I became interested in Arabic geometry and zilij around the same time that the "Moroccan trellis" type of quatrefoil pattern started showing up everywhere. I've got a camera case, computer screen wipes box, and even a kitty litter mat with variations of this pattern on them. I'm both delighted by the availability of this design, …

Ille Iterium Veniet
With this year being the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII, I used one of my projects in printmaking last spring to pay homage to Mr. Lash Blast by Covergirl Jenova. The assignment was drypoint etching. We had to work the plate gradually, pulling prints as we went. I didn't really make good use of …

Candle in the Dark
It's time to slowly reveal the products of this spring's adventures in printmaking. Woo! I'd shown my warm-up linocut letterforms before, but I hadn't finished the J at that point. When I did, I hand-printed these letters again to practice registration (aligning the paper to the plate properly) because I figured that would be a …

Fall to Pieces
In late November, with only two of four sculpture projects completed, I struggled to make a semi-autobiographical portrait bust in clay. I've gotten better at thinking in three dimensions, and despite being quite familiar with my own face, this was quite the toughie until I rolled out a slab of clay and literally draped it …

The Alchemist In Situ
When I first introduced my project to make an unusual bookshelf, I mentioned that it ultimately was to go in a particular corner of my room. While I've already unveiled the finished product in the post about my program's exhibit this past June, I wanted to show what it looks like in situ. I also …

Draw It Again Challenge: Sailor Moon 20 Years Later
Over twenty years ago, Sailor Moon began airing on TV in the US. I was curious about the show for two reasons. 1. Although I liked American cartoons like The Simpsons and Animaniacs, I was fascinated that there could be a show for children where the characters were drawn so beautifully they actually had elbows …
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2016 WSU Art Education & Therapy Show
Last Thursday was the opening of this year's Art Education & Art Therapy Student Show at Wayne State University. I've got five pieces in it (three of them for sale *wink & tooth sparkle*), including the completed bookshelf I had introduced in this post. I want to do a post showing the rest of the …

Work in Progress: The Alchemist
I started off the term in my Collage & Assemblage class by telling my professor straight out that I don't like my 3D pieces so I wanted to make something functional, specifically a bookcase to go into a particular corner of my room. He laughed but let me do it. Of course, I still had …

Vanity’s Progress
The fall term has begun, signaling the start of my second year as a part-time Art Education grad student. Last fall I had one painting class, but the first painting I set out to do ended up taking nearly the whole entire term to paint. Mostly because I picked a difficult subject and restarted several …