A Ink

I designed a logo for myself a little while ago. When I was little I would always sign my artwork/cards with A inc. As I grew older I saw the interesting plan on words in using ink, as a graphic designer using ink and all. I wanted to create a basic form that I could edit and make special for certain occasions. For example, I added a holly wreath for a Christmas card I sent out, or I added a graduation cap to put on the back of my graduation announcements. 

Design. Discover. Create.

AMB

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

This was an entree for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival cover contest. 

I took inspiration from my favorite "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" book illustrated by Jan Brett. 

Design. Discover. Create.

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Poise

This was another part of my figure drawing class. I was working on depicting expressionism through the use of sporadic and abnormal colors. This was an interesting experiment...I used cool colors to represent shadows and warm colors to represent highlights and normal body colors. 

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Unlock What Lies Beneath

I was working on combining 2D and 3D. The hand was drawn on black paper, and the key is a 3D piece coming out of the page. The theme of this was to convey getting to know someone better, learning their secrets and unlocking their real personality. 

The reason I especially like this piece is, 1) that I really love keys, and 2) it is actually my brother's hand. Every time I look at it I can see his hand, in my family we have very distinct features on our hands. For example, we can bend our thumb back to about a 90 degree angle without touching them... yea its weird, don't judge.

Design. Discover. Create.

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Ticked Off

This has an interesting back story, so prepare thyself... 

This piece was originally inspired by the feeling of frustration when everything is going in circles and all you want is to get out and be productive, but you are trapped under someone else’s stipulation.

I had an art teacher try to pare a junior with a senior in order to help the senior for their senior art show, which is fine... except she also expected us to produce work while we were helping the other people. In short after a very long frustrating day I came back to the art room, (mind you, I am probably one of the most sane people in there) and I grab a sheet of paper and an xacto-knife and start going at it with the knife. It developed over time into a scratch pattern, so I took a sculpting medium and created a hand that would be scrapping at the paper. After meticulously covering it with tape I grabbed concentrated watercolor and started flinging the paint at the paper. It may have also gotten all over everything else in the vicinity ... and stained a chair ... but that is besides the point. 

I throughly enjoyed myself, scared the living daylights out of my classmates and had a first time experience being one of "those crazy art students that always try to express their feelings".

Design. Discover. Create.

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Stress Cup

The project was to create a cup that exemplified an emotion. At this point in the semester I was tired of trying to continuously come up with new and original ideas and I was stressed out about my classes. i felt the emotion I could best demonstrate was stress, since I was very familiar with the feeling. 

The cup itself represents life, the cracks- which were specifically craved into the clay, they did not just "happen"- are all of the problems that come up in life that we try to deal with. The finger prints that were sculpted / pressed in represent the remanence of someone who was trying so hard to keep their life together they were crushing, almost suffocating, themselves to try to keep it together. 

Its interesting how old art projects change in meaning as you mature as a person. I recently just started college. It all started ok. And then home life took several turns I was not expecting. I spent two months trying to stuff my emotions to get through the semester and just chose to pretend that everything was ok. No one knew me enough to know that I was acting unusual, honestly not that anyone cared. It is interesting to look back at what I thought was difficult and know what I know now. It is useless to hold onto what is cracking at the seams.

Design. Discover. Create.

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Relationship Between Bone - Skin - Muscle

This was a part of my figure drawing class. We started by learning the proportions of the bones and how they were positioned. This helped grasp the idea of proportions and their size relation to each other. We then added muscles to the bone, this was to understand the odd shapes and how the shape of an arm, for example, would change shape if it moved forward opposed to backwards. The last final step was to add skin.

I tried to draw them in the same position next to each adding one component at a time so 

I could fully understand the relationship of bone to skin to muscles. 

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Of Heart and Home

This was one of my first sculptures. This was to represent a sort of spirit, I chose to create a representation of my own being. 

For example, they say the way a person draws/decorates their door shows how welcoming they are. A child for instance draws a giant door on their drawing of a house because they are welcoming to all, their are no fears of strangers that could hurt them. As they get older the door changes, and so forth. I wanted to represent my welcoming and trust personality with a complete lack of door in the shape of a pineapple, which are known for being a symbol of welcoming/house warming. 

The roof is made up of an entangle of vines and such to depict my complex and intermingling mind, I tend to change topics and everything connects to each other. The cut outs on the side of the structure are there to keep the composition light and airy. Plus it looks cool when you shine a light through it. 

The title of this sculpture is a combination of all of these factors, it also made me think of a Hobbit. Hobbits are known for being very hospitable, and friendly. They would care more for their friends than about the political things, such as wars, going on around them. Truly, I agree. I would rather have a real relationship and have true friends tat I know care for me than have knowledge about wars and politics. 

Design. Discover. Create.

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Forward Thinking, One More Day

I was privileged to experience an art class taught at the National Art Museum in Washington D.C. We focused on print making, and through much experimentation I discovered if I used my palette knife to scrape away some of the paint from the glass I was layering the paint on I could write a message. 

I like these two because of the ironical whimsy they create. As a dyslexic person I frequently deal with struggling to get all the right letters and words in the right order, I have also found I read backwards as well as I read forwards...its a gift I guess. The first print says "forward thinking" backwards as a play on words to illustrate my everyday struggles. 

The second print repeats the words "one more day" over and over again. A song my Diamond Rio titled, "One More Night". The lyrics are below,

Diamond Rio- One More Day

Last night I had a crazy dream

A wish was granted just for me it could be forever

I didn't ask for money or a mansion in Malibu

I simply wished for one more day with you

One more day, one more time

One more sunset, maybe I'd be satisfied

But then again, I know what it would do

Leave me wishing still for one more day with you, one more day

First thing I'd do is pray for time to crawl

I'd unplug the telephone and keep the TV off

I'd hold you every second, say a million I love you's

That's what I'd do with one more day with you

One more day, one more time

One more sunset maybe I'd be satisfied

But then again I know what it would do

Leave me wishing still for one more day with you

This song reminded me of my Grandfather, we shared a few special moments, and it's not the big things that get me. It the little things, like watching another sunset, or he goofy snow hat with a red poof on the top. Its those sweet moments that make life so interesting. 

Design. Discover. Create.

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Expression

This figure drawing was focusing on the style of impressionism. I wanted to capture the movement in the dancer's posture as well as hair to add to the emotion incorporated by the colors.

Design. Discover, Create.

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Cubism

Another one of the figure drawing studies. This one in particular focused on the style of cubism. For reference/inspiration i looked several of Pablo Picasso's figures. I found it interesting how he took the incredibly organic and soft lines of a woman's body and broke them down into hard edges and shapes to see how the public would react. 

Design. Discover. Create.

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Backwards, Inside out, and Upside down

This was one of the first projects I did using Illustrator. It was a self-portrait using the lyrics from the song "Silhouette" by Owl City. The song is a commentary on what happens inside your head when no one is around. 
I used an overlay of the songs full lyrics in the background to create an interesting texture and a word brush to create the hair. 
The title, "Backwards, Inside out, and Upside down" comes from a filipino words: opsalopsa...(which I cannot spell, so that is a phonetic spelling). My brain tends to work rather opsalopsa at times, I don't follow the normal pattern of doing things, my mother once described my mind as a labyrinth of ideas that any normal person would easily be overwhelmed by. 

Sometimes it is difficult to sort through all that is going on in there to find confidence in my idea or to find motivation to start a project. This is an illustration of what it feels like to be backwards, inside out, and upside down. 

Design. Discover. Create.

AMB