Pussy and Cigarettes

this is a doodle I did for senior studio.

I WON SOMETHING!

I have not won an art contest since high school. Seriously. Back then, in little ole Newaygo county, I actually got rather spoiled off of winning things. But that was a long time ago, and in the intervening years I have entered a lot but been selected for nothing.
Until this morning, when I found out that I was selected this year as the first prize winner of CCS annual Hagopian rug design competition!
I am extremely pleased with this, because not only do I recieve a $1000 scholarship, but also Hagopian World of Rugs will be producing my design as a full scale rug, which will be on display at graduation and student exhibition this year.
The crazy part is that I almost didn't enter, because I thought I had too much classwork to get anything extra done. But, I found a couple of hours to produce a few simple designs, and they ended up choosing one of them.
I wish I could post an image but a) I'm not even sure which one of my entries was chosen, and b) I didn't have time to scan them in before the submission deadline (my apologies, I know that is very poor professional practice)
anyway, I'm just excited and wanted to share

The Goose Girl

For Mr Chuck Gillies Period Costume Illustration class (which is probably the most fun art class I ever took) our first assignment was something fairy-tale related and kid friendly for inclusion in the Michigan Society of Children's Book Illustrators annual student show.
I did an illustration for "The Goose Girl" by Brothers Grimm. It is the very sad tale of a princess who is forced, for a time, to do honest work.
The model was Jessica Newberry, and the geese i used as reference were a really interesting, exotic variety of goose called Egyptian Geese.

from the tail end of last semester

for my final image for my screenprinting studio I wanted to do something mixed-media, and I had the idea to screenprint decorative elements such as hair and jewelry, and then hand color faces inside of them.
I looked at a lot of classic childrens book stuff like Ivan Bilibin and then also got a little bit inspired by Mr Alphonse Mucha, from whom I borrowed the color scheme.
I used Christina el Haddad as a model, and I worked with several hand-colored facial expressions set inside the screenprinted hair and jewelry.
In the end, it was finals, I did a rush job on the hand coloring and ended up only being truly satisfied with one of the prints, but thats ok, it was a good experiment. Also, if I had it to do again I believe I would use ink for the hand linework, because the charcoal doesnt play as well texturally with the watercolor and screenprinting.
anyway, I hope you enjoy the piece

THE MEDUSA

for my final project for Mr Chuck Gillies, I made an image for the cover of a hypothetical book on Greek mythology

hot off the presses

For Cathy Gendron's Editorial Painting class we were assigned to create a cover for Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.
After executing the illustration we had to compose a cover that included the title, author's name, and original illustration. I apologize for the cover. I had wet paint right up until the last minute, so the if the graphic design is lackluster . . . I spent all of 5 minutes on it (don't tell Cathy that).
As for the painting, I'm pretty pleased with it. Hope you like it, too.

Merry Christmas, Sports Fans!

way back in October, I produced an entry for the annual NFL Detroit Lions holiday card contest. I was procluded from posting it until after the contest results were in, so you are seeing it now. I figure tis the season anyway.
The Detroit Lions are a nightmare client. Its very corporate and limiting. You cannot say Merry Christmas, only the more inclusive phrase "happy holidays." No references to anything even remotely Christian will be tolerated. My proposals that involved peace doves were axed because there was too much room for Christian interpretation. While Jesus is not allowed for fear of offending the heathens, Santa is also totally off limits because he could offend the Christians. All characters peripheral to Santa (reindeer and elves) are also not allowed. Any depictions of children become extremely risky unless you have minorities represented, and not just a bunch of happy white kids.
This is the second time I've entered, and both times the project became more about avoiding disqualification than about winning.
This time I settled upon a simple and tasteful monotype in 3 colors. I was very pleased with the results. I usually struggle with registration in multi-color prints, but i managed to totally ace the registration this time.
In the end I didn't win, but my homeboy Jesse Martin Kassel did, so all is well this holiday season.