Kristen Cruz

Post graduation work

2011-11-17T23:25:00.019-05:00

OH HEY!! A lot has happened since I last updated. I finished an internship with American Greetings in the Alternative Humor Department and it was such an eye-opening and awesome experience. I got to work with some of funniest illustrators I've ever met all while learning the process of creating funny greeting cards. Illustrating silly characters/handwritten type everyday that fit a joke was more than I could ask for. I even got pied in the face for a video! I miss the Alternative team so much!!

Anyway, since I created up to 15 cards for them and we can't let competitors see our work before it's published, I can't show you the work I did there. I can show you all the silly doodles and weird things from my sketchbook while I was there though. So enjoy that. Another update: I recently got a job in Miami at a printing and engraving company as a graphic artist/ promotional products manager. It's going really well so far. Hope you enjoy these sketchbook pages! Click on them for a larger view ;)

I forgot how to spell creepy apparently

on the plane ride to chicago lol

I can't stop drawing these girls with bitchy expressions. aw yeah

I'd hang out with this girl..

my friend antonio being a mojon

my attempts at fashion illustration

Senior Thesis Project at Ringling

2011-08-05T16:19:00.015-04:00

So it took a while for me to find the time to upload this, but I can finally show you my Illustration Senior Thesis!

my display

me hanging out with my thesis

To quote my artist statement, "For my senior thesis project, I created editorial illustrations based on articles that dealt with psychological issues such as interpersonal relationships, personality, happiness, confidence and willpower. I took the main idea of the article and created a simple image for the viewer to think about and possibly reflect on how it relates to them. Psychology is an important subject because everyone is on a path of self-discovery, and understanding why I am the way I am or why people act the way they do is an enriching part of life."

It was such a great/grueling learning experience. Since I put this update off for about 2 months and I'm looking at my thesis with fresh eyes; I'm truly proud of what I did. Enjoy.

“Together Alone”
Original Dimensions-13 x 15 in
Acrylic and Photoshop

This image is about how technology has negatively affected relationships and how we are losing the desire to interact with others in real life because we are hooked to the internet.

“Food Addiction: Ice Cream”
Original Dimensions-13 x 17 in
Acrylic and Photoshop

This image is about how food addiction is just as bad as drug addiction.

“Food Addiction: Donuts”
Original Dimensions-13 x 17 in
Acrylic and Photoshop

This image is about how food addiction is just as bad as drug addiction.

"How Optimists and Pessimists View Their Worlds”
Photoshop

This image is about the different viewpoints an optimist and pessimist have when overcoming an obstacle. The pessimist can only see the roadblock while the optimist sees the potential after.

“Spreading Happiness”
Photoshop

This image is about how easy it is to spread happiness. A mundane commute becomes a great start to the morning all because of a clown nose.

“How Failure Makes You Stronger”
Photoshop

This image is about how a person who dealt with the weight of failed relationships is able to be strong in her new relationship.

Synergism projects

2011-06-27T22:57:00.011-04:00

I took a class called "Synergism" which was basically a class where you combine more than one thing together to make your concept stronger. We did different assignments, a lot that didn't make sense at first but challenged us to brainstorm and think thoroughly to come up with a piece that was compelling! Here's my work.

Porcu-Sheep. We had to combine animals together that had a function. I figured a sheep could use protection from wolves by having porcupine quills. It also didn't hurt to put in an old lady using the wool and quills to knit. Needed that cute factor!

Kiwi dude.

This assignment was fun because we had to take a dictionary page and combine the words on that page into an illustration that made sense (kind of). So I wanted to have a flightless kiwi, and a flying kiwi. I also had words like kite, and kitchen that helped with the setting, and flying kite kiwi concept.

This was a sketch for an open assignment called "Connections".

I chose to illustrate the love connections that happen over the internet.

The assignment was to create an "Awesome Thingy" that would better the world. I chose to create machines that would help the economy and the environment, all in one go! The machines were supposed to resemble moneybags (kind of) and I researched the processes for making paper, coins, and plastic and simplified it inside the machines. The machines recycle paper for cash, cans for coins, and plastic for credit cards. It would be a great incentive for people to go green to get green.

Paper/Cash Machine

Metal/Coin Machine

Plastic/Credit Card Machine

This piece was a quick one. I chose to illustrate the possibility of cellphones giving you cancer. A month after I did this, new studies came out that it's actually TRUE! not that anyone will give up their cellphones, but whatever. Oh well! I'll be updating my thesis soon so watch out for that... and be careful with your cellphones!

Printmaking work

2011-06-12T11:06:00.013-04:00

So I took a printmaking elective in the fall and I wanted to show some of the work I did. It was a really nice class to keep my creativity flowing since you could do whatever you wanted and didn't have to worry about it looking pretty. Printmaking would be fun to continue if it wasn't such a hassle to have a good facility available out of school. Oh well, at least I have this work. Enjoy!

Color print - Sheep

Etching- Pensativa Blue (Pensive girl)

Etching- Pensativa Black

Aquatint/Etching - Brick wall

Sketches of flowers for my monotypes

Sketch of chica for my monotypes. I did the same image of the girl but with different flowers in her hair. Wanted it to be feminine and latin ;)

Chica Bonita Oleander - monotype

Chica Bonita Jacob's ladder flower - monotype

Chica Bonita Sunflower - monotype

Chica Bonita Orchid - monotype

Chica Bonita Magnolia - monotype

Chica Bonita flower series

sketch for woodcut!

Woodcut- Femme Fatale

sketch for last piece

Linoleum cut- Hedgehog . This eventually became my business card image :)

Intro to Web Work- CSS, Coding, and Cool sites

2011-04-04T22:08:00.008-04:00

So last semester I took Intro to Web which is an open elective GIC class. It was really fun learning Dreamweaver and coding because it reminded me of my old myspace days and learning what code to put in to change my background color. I made 5 sites and we had to compile them in a final site which is http://webspace.ringling.edu/~kcruz/ if you're interested in seeing them online and in action!! My first few sites suck but it was fun once I got the hang of it.

This is the main page with the highlighted hover action.

My first site! ughh so bad lol.

My second site! so bad yet so cute because of my cat Sushi.

This is 3rd site, a mock music site.

This my portfolio site, the final site I made.

My favorite site was an informative site about an simple object that we picked. I chose glasses but wanted to explore them in a fashion timeline. I made all the icons/patterns and picked colors that reflected each time period. Here are some screen caps it.

Glasses vectors

Objects from the different eras.

Main page

Bifocal page

Cat Eye page

Hipster page

All 9 pages together

Hope you enjoy!!

Cappuccino Pillow

2011-03-19T18:09:00.002-04:00

So after doing two editorials, I decided I wanted to have work for my "cutesy" portfolio. I wanted to do a pillow design and make it by hand with a cute image on one side, and a pattern on the other side. I found out that Michael's has fabric paper that can be printed on so I printed them in the labs, and tried sewing them the night before my critique at the 3d labs where there are sewing machines. OF COURSE they weren't working and I ended up going to a friend's house to sew it together by hand. Then I slightly ironed it to flatten the top but the ink mushed away. I don't have a picture of the pillow but it was 5 inch by 5 inches and it was too cute for words.

My teacher was confused because he thought with the coloring and style that this pillow was for kids, but kids don't drink coffee. I told him it was for Urban Outfitter type store where grown ass people drool over cute plushies (me being one of them). I changed the colors from pastels to more vibrant ones which is what is here now. So enjoy! and maybe I'll make the pillow again one day!

Double Talk

2011-03-11T04:02:00.004-05:00

This piece was from last semester and it's an editorial about Bilingualism! The article was about how people who speak two languages are awesome and that being bilingual benefits them in many ways. I wanted to show language without letters so I thought about shapes or as my teacher suggested "word turds". I thought about how German sounds very structured and rigid when spoken, hence the shapes on the left. When someone speaks French, it is fluid and pretty, which are the shapes on the right. The person can speak both so having two mouths and the language intertwining seemed fun! Here's the process. Enjoy!

2010 work- First Project

2011-02-03T02:23:00.015-05:00

Heyyyyyy,

So I guess I've been hiatus. Last semester we had a bunch of open assignments and I varied them to tailor different styles/portfolios. I realized that I couldn't decide on one style (not because I'm indecisive, I just don't want to limit myself) so I pinned down my styles to Editorial, Cutesy, and Creative. I'll be updating this with last semester stuff in the next few days... I PROMISE!

My first project was an editorial based on an article in Psychology Today. It was about how introverts aren't necessarily antisocial, but like to reflect and organize their thoughts. A nice quote from it was "Introverts are collectors of thoughts and solitude is where the collection is curated and rearranged to make sense of the present and future." Here is some process work.

Thumbnails

More thumbnails

Revised thumbs

Tight line

Value studies

Color studies

Final!!

I was really happy with how this turned out. Even though some people mention it looks like her guts, I wanted to convey her brain and how she "organizes" her thoughts into brain-like containers. Puzzle pieces would have been to obvious. Hooray for conceptual thinking!

MUPALIA

2010-11-23T00:42:00.004-05:00

Deaf Poets - All Your Lies from Mupalia Pictures on Vimeo.

This summer I asked my cousin if he needed help with a logo for his film production company, Mupalia Pictures. They had a few things under their belt and had just released this video by the Deaf Poets who are an up and coming band from Miami that are really great performers.

I wanted to see what it was like to do a piece without the help of a teacher. His team said they wanted to have something iconic, and involving a cool guy with a beard. It's funny because my cousin usually wears wayfarers with his an Al-Queda looking beard so it matched haha. The first one is the one they went with, and the second is something I came up with tonight after not seeing it for a while. I figured the black beard makes the words easier to read.

THEY ARE SUPER SO CHECK OUT THEIR WORK! Vimeo and Mupalia.com
Also, check out The Deaf Poets!

(Judging from my header, can you tell I like drawing Wayfarer sunglasses? lol)

Throwback Junior year Illustration

2010-11-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

This is some work from Junior year. I realize I like primary color schemes a little too much lol. It was a busy year and I was able to get some great work for my portfolio.

Remember this first doodle? Well she turned into the next two pieces!

My pretentious girl character sheet. Her name is Michéle and she is a recent NYU drop out who first came here from France. She felt she was too good for school. She's was inspired by all the cool hip art students I've come across.

Her favorite spot to judge people who pass by.

This assignment was to create a poster for a job. My job was sheep shearing and my teacher suggested I have the text sheared into him.

Sheep Shearer final. During critique classmates thought he was in a bubble bath lol. I was having a pattern/ texture phase last year so I spent about 1 hour drawing those swirly circles. The piece is about 20 in by 30 in so my hand was tired. Acrylic and color pencil.

This was an assignment to create a series where our pieces had to be develop from monochromatic to complementary to triad. The subject matter was self consciousness among women and their body image. I wanted to focus on those parts they try to hide and use color to glorify them because women are beautiful yo! Acrylic on 16 by 16 in canvases.

This was a sketch about a femme fatale and her relationship with her loser dancing partner.They are using each other to get something they want. She uses her boobs to get to his wallet. Ain't that the truth. The final wasn't great, but the line drawing is cool.

This was in advanced media and the theme was fantasy/ folktale. This cute satyr is just chilling with other kids during lunch and no one cares that he's different. yay!

Portrait I did of my friend Lindsay. Oil is awesome.

Throwback sophomore year

2010-10-27T22:55:00.005-04:00

This was a repackage project I did for Intro to GIC sophomore ear. I recently did a hands on project with sewing so it's funny to look back on the other things I've constructed. Wouldn't you prefer this on the grocery shelves?!

Throwback post

2010-10-24T01:22:00.004-04:00

oh hey blogger!

Senior year has been busy! I've been in the labs almost every night and my bed times are ridiculous. It's all good though. Anyway, I feel like I have to update last year's stuff before I can update new work. I am running on Cuban time so I apologize for the lateness. I'll start with figure paintings from junior year. I had the class for a whole year with Hodges Soileau who was an amazing teacher. He would point out things I didn't see, and really helped me understand shapes, value and color, even though I still have value issues. It was a fun class. These are pretty much in chronological order so enjoy :)

my stylized face

I thought this would be safer in case children were around... but watch out for the next one!

mr. boner has a tendency to stare down girls in the class with an erection. I was unfortunate enough to get a spot right in front -_-

my favorite part of this piece is her booty.

this chick played a guitar with no strings! It's not like I forgot to paint them in or anything...

this guy was in a weird position that he couldn't hold for more then 5 minutes at a time before shaking and having to rest. I felt bad, but it was a cool pose.

I was taking art history at the time, so maybe I was influenced by the baroque period? Old school chick.

Anyway, I had fun in painting class and hope to continue with oil when I have time.

Long time no see

2010-09-01T01:56:00.007-04:00

Hey everyone!
I'm not going to acknowledge the fact that I haven't posted in forever. I feel like junior year was great and I'm going to miss Advanced Media and Figure Painting because I learned a lot. Summer was fun in Miami- taking summer classes, working for a month as an office assistant and getting a CAR FINALLY!! Went to LA for a week and loved it. I also had my fair share of TV with Man vs. Food, Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Cupcake Wars, and DC Cupcakes. You know, a variety of things. I'm so excited for this year! Enjoy some stuff from last semester I finally updated :)

Balloon Boy Hoax editorial. This was a double page spread about how the parents wanted publicity and their own reality show and could care less about how they were exploiting their kids.

Song Reader Book Cover. The story is about this therapist in a small town who asks people what their favorite songs are. From there she can tell how they are truly feeling and can give them life advice based on that.

Open Assignment Editorial about a girl's reading preference. This is about a girl who is surrounded by superficial beauty and fashion magazines, but decides that she prefers to read the newspaper. It was a bitch cutting out all this stuff but the collage look is really cool.

This was for children's book illustration class last year! My story from creative writing in high school was the basis for the Lucy Mckay adventure. I was going through a phase of patterns and textures if you couldn't tell lol.

Man Pet Machine pen and ink. This is what I came up with for the infamous Advanced Illustration project Brandes gives out. I went the cutesy- children's book-Shel Silverstein route.

Linoleum cut of MIA. I had so much fun with this and we started the project the day before MIA's video for "Born Free" came out. Good thing Ron Weasley wasn't in town!

Linoleum cut of MIA with color. This took me forever to wipe the color out correctly. Printmaking is still awesome though.

Some computer Illustrations

2010-04-29T00:33:00.001-04:00

Computer Illustration stuff I've wanted to fix and finally had time to. Illustrator is such a nice program!! I don't want to go completely digital but it's doesn't hurt to know your stuff.

Fixed this old piece. We had to do 3 vector icons with a common theme and I chose Fatty Foods. My teacher thought they should have something to sit on so I made plate shaped circles.

Vector portrait of my sister! The shadows were more blue before but I sorta fixed it. I took away some weird shapes too. I'm content with it now!

Corel Painter Project!! We had to take a picture of a still-life, draw it, scan it in and paint on top. This was the beginning stage of my thread themed piece.

This was what I turned in and my teacher thought I should incorporate more color into the other objects to unify the piece.

This was the final where I "unified" the piece by putting color into the other objects. I think I like the original better.

So I work at the Office of Development and they asked me to design an Annual Giving postcard for faculty. My boss Heather sketched out what she wanted, I refined it and finished it up in Illustrator. She wanted something cutesy for spring and I tried my best.

Final postcard design. I had a small taste of freelance? It wasn't that scary...

Enjoy!

any way

2010-04-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

Double exposure mess up from cvs.

I can't wait for summer so I can do all the things I've been meaning to do but had no time for. I feel weird and it's probably my sleeping schedule that's messing it up. ughh I want to take pictures again.

OMG IT'S FEBRUARY!!

2010-02-09T21:55:00.000-05:00

Here's something to tide you all over.

pen and ink self-portrait shouting

tevi

first doodle for character design of "Pretentious Girl".

I hope I update more soon!

-Kristen

And I turned ’round and there you go

2009-12-15T01:57:00.001-05:00

Been doodling more. I'll put finished illustrations up soon I promise! Now that I'm on break I'm not sure what to do. I feel like I may have split personalities (artistically anyway) because I love sketching fast quick drawings but when I'm using pen I feel I need to draw slow, graphic shapes which is still fun. There is this underlying pressure to find a style and I'm still trying to figure it out. Cartoons or realism? OR A COMBO? maybe a combo would be my best bet to make both sides happy.

Kids in my ill class.

Kids in my Arts in Context class

Sleepers in Computer ill

my sister driving to miami for her birthday

my sister driving back

doodle man

Grace eyes

I drew Rachel a year ago in figure drawing class.

beach house

sketchy figure dancing

head studies from anatomy book

hands

figures

kids for a fake business card

see you soon.

-Kristen

no one does it like you

2009-10-27T14:01:00.001-04:00

Junior year is coooool. I love my classes and I've been volunteering for things that take up most of my free time and yet there's always time for Farmville. Here's some sketchbook stuff. I've been trying charcoal again since it lets me get different values in. Lately I've been inspired by blogs that focus on patterns and textures. Printmaking and silkscreening would be great to take one day. I need more time!!

debbie

single ladies

michelle

after finding a spider on my ceiling corner

painting class critique

chicka

what tevi looks like over skype when he's reading

charcoal stuff

charcoal nude 1

charcoal nude 2

attempt at drawing melissa

i didn't end up doing this for the occupation illustration but it was still funny lol

Sheep shearing occupation thumbnail. I made thousands of little circle squiggles all around on my final and moved the type so it was horizontal.

the first page of my children's book for class! Her name is Lucy Mckay.

current project thumbnail for an editoral illustration. Balloon boy hoax!

-Kristen

im really happy for you and imma let you finish

2009-09-22T17:51:00.001-04:00

So summer was nice. It seems that I indulge in my friendships in the summer but during the school year we're all too busy to stay connected. I miss them anyway. I'm enjoying school more this year.. maybe because I'm comfortable with people now and I feel more prepared almost? It helps that I like all my classes too. The pictures I took of second semester work came out really grainy and I plan on retaking them if I go down to Miami. Some stuff from last year.

Plants, Oil, Mrs. Cooper's class

"Running out of steam" figure of speech assignment. hell yeah.

12 piece series for Mrs. Cooper's class. I painted things I've broken in my life. It was interesting enough that I didn't mind painting them last minute.

close up of my broken glassses

Junior year
Computer Illustration assignment to create three icons that go together. I chose heart attack foods or overindulgent foods. Yumm

Made two stickers for Illest of Ill 09 sale.

number 2 sticker

I'll try and keep up with posting this year lol.

leaving soon

2009-07-12T17:54:00.000-04:00

I'm leaving Miami in one month to be an OL at Ringling so maybe I should start painting. After going to the Wynwood Artwalk last night, I was inspired by the seemingly effortless pieces and sculptures that were showcased and being sold for thousands of dollars. Oh, to be a contemporary artist these days.

I realized I'd like to be an art teacher/ illustrator in the future. My elementary school teacher Mrs. Burris noticed I was excelling in art class and told me I had potential to go to a visual arts program in middle school. At that point I had no idea what I was doing, but she lead me in the right direction and I think that would be cool to do too. I'd like to show kids how to express themselves with art despite the fact that art programs in elementary and middle schools (at least in Miami-Dade county) are closing but football is getting more funding. Assuming there will still be a demand for art teachers, I'm going for it.

Also found a cheap anatomy book at barnes and nobles so whoever reads this should check them out :)

summer lovingg

2009-06-22T14:35:00.002-04:00

vasup? i've applied to lots of places but no one is hiring. i caught up on sleep in may and have been recently waking up at 9 or 10 instead of 1 or 2. i've read, cleaned, worked out, eaten healthy, practiced driving and more. i need a 21 year old to drive with me as a practice, but all the ones i know want to nap until dark so i'm kinda screwed. i made a list of goals for the summer and i'm slowly checking them off. selling shit on ebay ain't easy. i've seen some friends and i want to see more. being alone at home is letting me grow a lot. i want to get out and not be such a lazy lazy. my second cousin wants me to illustrate her children's books which is cool since i'm taking the class in fall now. watched singing in the rain, rocky 1 and 2 and i can't believe i've been missing out. gotta watch more classics! i also need a new sketchbook really badly since i finished my yellow one already.

anyways here's some stuff i should have posted months ago! some stuff is missing/ someone gessoed over it/ haven't been able to photograph.

from illustration media:
had to draw any fish of our choice in pen and ink. i chose an veiltail fish and combined two photos.

scratchboard of a ram.

oil rub technique of amy winehouse. we had to chose any famous person and put something in the illustration that summed up their accomplishments. i thought the old jazz microphone was classier than a crack pipe.

watercolor portrait of our classmate.

watercolor still life of an umbrella

watercolor still life of mr. brandes' scooter.

had to make up a cacaroach off the top of our head.

href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GhWnTW6pK1s/Sj_UZ9hJMRI/AAAAAAAAAV0/n1Q6QWjk3Ic/s1600-h/trees2.jpg"> watercolor treez

watercolor of my favorite candy, m&ms

acrylic paint of "every hair on the dog" technique, i chose a fox.

illustration 1:

extreme realism assignment of an object with a box that would fit the object. i call this one.. flashlight.

spring break graphic advertisement for fun in the sun! using 3 classmates and crazy foliage.

tattoo assignment where we had to use symbols and research to convey the meaning of our word. Mine was wisdom.

self portrait opposite assignment. I had to use medium, color, objects, layout, etc. to convey "comfortable"

self portrait opposite assignment. had to convey the opposite of "comfortable" which was "stingy".

sketchbook update

2009-05-19T12:49:00.001-04:00

Summer is here and I'm in Miami and went to Atlanta with Tevi and loved it. All the hills and abundance of trees make it so appealing to live there. It's raining now and my cat Sushi is catnapping next to me and has his paw on my chapstick. Time for sketchbook update.

natalie

miss cooper

figure drawing sheman?

rachel paying attention in history of ill.

rachel again. i wanted to draw her awesome shoes.

doodles in history

someone said this in a southern accent so i drew it.

more doodles in class

vanessa during shawn barber demo

i'm preferring normal pencils over mechanical to get more line variety.

norman rockwell / egon schiele man

shira

pastel man

even more doodles

chicka

fasshiioon passiionn

-kristen

pieces of pieces

2009-04-18T22:37:00.001-04:00

I recently completed a 12 piece series for Ms. Cooper's painting class, and I chose to paint things I have broken in my lifetime. It was funny looking back and it kept me interested (I'll put pics up later). This was a continuation of what I focused on senior year of high school..

I've had this concept of feeling incomplete and breaking away into pieces since sophomore year of high school. It started with my "Alzheimer's triptych" showing some old guy(Lou Reed) losing his mind/memory, literally. I liked showing the physical pieces representing as emotional pieces.

Alzheimer's Triptych - 22 x 38 in Acrylic on Paper

That continued to these "Self confidence" pieces where a girl rips away the ugliness to shine through her inner beauty. It's sorta gruesome to think of, but representing them without blood, gore and METAL keep them somewhat sophisticated.

Ripped 1 - 20 x 26 in Charcoal and White Conte

Ripped 2 - 20 x 26 in Charcoal and White Conte

Over the summer going onto senior year, all the seniors went for a month back to school to produce work for college auditions, like a head start. I chose to continue with the concept and came up with 3 self portraits. I felt really boring and wanted to be more open and confident. I wanted to break free of my self conciousness and just be myself. SOO I produced 3 portraits of me letting go of my inhabitions and bad feelings. Doing them made me feel a lot better. I also got to explore color! woo

Breaking Free Self-Portrait/ 22 x 24 inches Acrylic on Canvas

Letting Go Self-Portrait/22 x 24 inches Acrylic on Canvas

Falling Apart Self-Portrait/ 22 x 24 inches Acrylic on Canvas

I feel like the self-portraits are my strongest pieces. I had to continue though, so I did portraits of my friends breaking apart too! They had fun.

Blowing Away- 22 x 26 inches Acrylic on paper

Falling Apart 2- 26 x 32 inches Acrylic on canvas

Facing your pieces - 26 x 32 inches Acrylic on canvas

Pick up the pieces- 22 x 28 inches Acrylic on Canvas

I took traditional photo senior year, and to coincide with making my portfolio for college, I did more! This was supposed to be for a show called Progressions. I got the idea to make a story of peacefulness, to oH SHIT IM BREAKING APART. It has some of my quirkiness that isn't seen in the other ones

Progression- 12 x 22 inches Photo Installation

After seeing a Dash (another design school in Miami) senior show, I was inspired to do more installation work and have things coming out and displayed 3D.

Change of Scenery - 36 x 6 Digital Photo Installation.

To continue, I thought it would be cool to have photos of someone doing something, and then the photo being manipulated. Melissa has a lighter and the photo has been burnt With Jacob, he is cutting with scissors and look at that there are pieces where he cut! I miss being such a smart ass.

Burn away- 8 x 10 inches Digital Photo Installation

Cut Away- 8 x 10 inches Digital Installation

I'm really proud of my work in senior year of high school. It was a big part in helping me express myself. The Ringling guy who interviewed me saw my work and said I should go into Fine Arts. I want to minor in it because I don't want to lose that side of me. Part of me feels like I've improved in certain things here but I should really push myself to keep thinking and not just do technically good work. I want to have awesome concepts and keep going though I'm not sure which teachers can help me do that. I have time .

-Kristen

PS. I'll put up my college work soon! :P

Old Artwork from high school

2009-03-25T00:49:00.001-04:00

As some of you may know, I transfered in as a sophomore even though it's my first year of college. This was mostly because of dual enrollment credits since my high school (New World School of the Arts) was right next to a college, but I'm assuming it's also because they thought I was capable of the workload. At the time I didn't realize how awesome going to a magnet art school was. Now I can see how I was prepared and having experience in stuff like figure drawing and acrylic paint has been helpful.

So here is some old artwork I did from high school. This is mostly stuff for my portfolio that I used when applying to all the kewl art schools. enjoy :)

Mixed media

Acrylic

double self portrait in charcoal. the shy side, and outgoing side.

figure drawing in oil pastel

charcoal

Acrylic self portrait

acrylic toilet painting that won me an honorable mention in scholastics! lol

cartooon

my friend cat with her power animal the dragonfly.

I really loved traditional black and white photo class. I did a lot of sky pictures that ended up being part of my portfolio. I thought of it as more conceptual which I'll get into eventually.

lol

double exposure of crazy flock of birds

near my house

on the road

my stomach has a mind of it's own

woah fisheye

endless

junior class caricatures

piece called satisfaction. she's unsatisfied with the plain ribbon, so she takes it upon herself to fix it and is finally satisfied.

I'll post more soon. I have more conceptual stuff that would have made this post too long.

-Kristen

inspired

2009-03-04T22:26:00.001-05:00

I'm have so much inspiration right now, but I don't know what to do with it. I feel like there's not enough time to explore what I want to because of the hassle of homework. I've absorbed what friends, teachers, and artists say and want to jump right into things. I want to make the most of this break by working. If not on assignments for school, then on personal assignments.

On a side note, maybe I should drink tea more often.

On another side note, I wish I knew how to speak more eloquently like when I write. My history of illustration paper on Jessie Willcox Smith sounded so good! Big words and thought out sentences. If I were to talk about her in person, my nerves would get the best of me; I wouldn't know what to describe or where to begin, and I would stumble, forget words and UHH about 50 times. I want to work on that, to catch all the "likes" and learn more vocabulary.

I'm excited!

i feel weirdd

2009-02-18T22:55:00.001-05:00

It could be the new pill I'm taking, but I've been feeling sorta off (more than before). Slight mood swings, dissatisfaction with things, skin feeling numb, blah blah. Then again, it could just be that I'm a woman! and those are things we are known for. I've been going out to sushi a lot, which is hurting my bank account. It's not my fault the food at school is sucky. Mexican and Tampa rolls are my favorite. Eel sauce is tasty. Tevi came over for vday weekend and it was comforting having him here. Cuddling and getting crumbs of food on my bed were some of the highlights.

I checked my mail and got my absentee ballot!! I requested it about 4 months ago, but now I can finally vote!!!! ugh. On my way out of the mail room, I glanced at the garbage and saw a thick set of pages. I pulled it out and it was a perfectly, untrashy issue of Elle magazine. wtf?! at least recycle it-shit. ANYWAY, I'm reading the watchmen for inspiration to come up with a comic idea for the comic/graphic novel club DIP. We'll see what happens.

Here are some stuff from my yellow sketchbook:

rub on letters.

rachel

intro to ill notes

leaf plus yarmelke

i had stained the page with tea sort of. history of ill. i'm sure everyone will have a sketch like this by the end of the year lol.

hay grace ;)

and this was great...

ps. I'm seeing Dr. dog tomorrow in tampa and I drew this thinking I was seeing the one in orlando.

:)
-kristen

Figure work

2009-01-21T01:47:00.001-05:00

I've been horrible in updating this. For the longest time I've been wanting to put my old artwork up here to show what I was doing before, but it's all formatted 4 by 6 with black borders and I need to crop them. They'll be up eventually. This new spring semester is promising! My classes are all benefiting me in one way or the other, and history of illustration reminds me of ap art history with lutness (but not as fun necessarily). I feel overly prepared for Intro to Illustration...I have to take it to graduate eventhough I've been taking Illustration 1 last semester and this semester lol. Greenberg shows us different contemporary illustrators like Marcos Chin, Sam Weber and Anita Kunz and asks who's familiar with their work. Barely any of the freshman raise their hands but I guess thats how it is at first. Familiarizing yourself comes later.

Here's some figure work to tide you people over. I think I work best with vine charcoal which is funny because everyone hated it in high school and preferred charcoal pencils. I was so ignant.

P.S. I hate it when people look at your sketchbook, give it back with a half smile and say nothing. WHAT IS THAT?

543210

2008-12-10T14:08:00.001-05:00

IT'S ALMOST BREAK!!!
ps. i love national geographic books.

batman bakery

2008-12-04T22:05:00.002-05:00

So I did this like a month ago in French's class. Natalie and I were talking about how ugly Maggie Gyllenhaal was in the new batman movie so I drew her and some other characters (Batman and Two-Face if it wasn't obvious lol). Two- Face was also like
"WHERE'S RACHEL YOU GUYZZ?" for most of the movie so I drew that too.

Thanksgiving break was awesome. Seeing family, Tevi and turkey was what I needed to sustain me for the next week and a half till Winter break. AGHOISDGHSODK i want it nowww. I'm scrambling just like everyone else so I'm going to finish an essay and French stuff. Laterz

figure stuff

2008-11-06T21:43:00.001-05:00

I've been really busy balancing class and for the past 3 weeks, 2 jobs (Alumni Relations and Development office assistant and Phonathon caller). With the phonathon, a group of students and I called up old alumni to update their contact info, see what was up with their life, and ask for a donation for the school. It was a great experience since I'm not afraid of answering/ talking on the phone with strangers and I got some good advice from Illustration alumss. Gotta keep truckin. I need to rent a camera from IT and take pictures of my work so far lol. So this is some stuff I posted to my figure classes blog. Here you go!

p.s i just killed a bunch of ants that were feasting over a hersheys kiss on the floor with FEBREEZE! mmmmmm

One of my first drawings in conte, learning the half lights and half darks.

Charcoal, but using mostly shapes.

Watercolor. I really enjoyed doing these.

Quick sketchy gestures which are pretty fun.

Eyes from my sketchbook. I had lots of different reference, and it was cool drawing all of them :)

me and you having a barbeque

2008-10-12T19:18:00.002-04:00

This past week was alright. Watercolor has been fun and we're using it in figure class too. I worked on my submission for Illest which didn't get in but I'm glad I painted it. It was based on a drawing I did that looked like Karen O.

I did a gibson girl hairdo to match the theme of the Illest of Ill theme gallery show on Friday.

My girl Vanessa got in! ^^woo

People were dressed to impress and it was pretty bangin.

Oh and my boyfriend Tevi came all dressed too :] The show was great overall and seeing him this weekend cheered me up a lot. I'll post some more stuff later.

-Kristen

First entry

2008-10-06T22:25:00.000-04:00

I'm testing this out since I've never had a blog before. I have an lj but I updated it a loooong time ago, when I used to be cool. Hellll yeahhhh