Just stars and stuff

Well, as you can see by my lack of posts, I AM BUSY. Life is hard. I had to drop my first class ever. Sad day. Tears.................but, then my parents came for a surprise visit!!!!!!!! My dad drove all the way to see me on his birthday and said that his present was getting to see me! What a perfect and wonderful father I have! Plus he bought me greek yogurt, icecream, and cinnamon rolls, so you know he is just the best ever.

Happy day, I found a textile artist that I absolutely adore! She studied printmaking in school, but then decided to use that talent to create her own textiles, and now she has her own line of fabric and designs all this cool stuff and travels all over the world. Her name is Elizabeth House so go check her out! Here is her blog: http://lizzyhouse.typepad.com/lizzyhouse/ Plus, she has the most amazing fabric that has constellations all over it and I want it so bad. I am literally drooling just thinking about it.

Speaking of constellations, they are pretty much on my mind all the time. I am really into stars and Greek mythology and stuff right now. My dream is to find a globe that is painted with the different constellations on it! I found this one on Pinterest, but I have no idea where I could find that in real life.

Instead I have had to settle for two other things(I really shouldn't call it settling because both of these things are really really cool): homemade stitched needlework and a large printable constellation poster that is soon to be hanging on my very wall. I would show you a picture of the poster, but right now my computer is being a bum and not working right, so you will just have to wait until it is actually on my wall and I can take a picture:)

Anyways, this week is going good. My parent's surprise visit has left me happy and re-energized. Nothing to complain about! I have done some really fun paintings this last week that I want to show you, so as soon as I can get pictures taken I will share them with you. Well, off to look at more star stuff...k loves bye!!!

Half of my heart belongs to a wizard

Do the words butterbeer, Honeydukes, Fluffy, or snitch ring a bell? If not then I feel sorry for ya son because those words have filled up over half of my life. In first grade I was sitting on the ground in the assembly hall listening to our principal talk about a fundraiser. At the end of the presentation he held up a book I had never seen before and said that the student who raised the most money would receive that book as a prize...and you know what, people got excited. So I went home and looked up that book and we bought it and I started reading it and from that moment I have been a different person! Harry Potter took over my life and engulfed me in a magical world of spells, mythical creatures, and good vs. evil. Thank you Harry for making my days happier!

So, while on Pinterest I realized I had a lot of Harry Potter fan art, and being the fan that I am I want to share it with you! It also makes me want to pull out The Deathly Hallows, but unfortunately I left it at home for this semester:( Bad Jenika! So enjoy some of my favorite HP art and be amazed at the talent these fans have!

Character designs! My personal favorites:

The trio! So perfect! (the hipster one makes me happy:)

And everybody loves some Hermione/Ron lovin and some Harry/Ginny cuteness

I hope you love fan art as much as I do! I know I can be a total nerd, but at least I am a happy nerd:) Oh, one last thing before I go! My friend walked into Krispy Kremes and lo and behold she found Vernon Dursley in the flesh-well not in the flesh, but this man could be his clone-and because I love you so much here is the picture she snapped! Enjoy!

Perfection isn't it! klovesbye...go read some Harry Potter!

My Motivation Quilt

Ok so here's the deal. This semester is gonna kill me, especially my grades, and this makes me unhappy. I am not one to rejoice in a B+ when A is an option. Plus, my next scholarship depends entirely on how amazing I do this semester...so I'm in a stressful situation. Do I give up my sleep and sanity for hopefully half-decent grades, or do I let myself have some free time and watch my grades slowly go down the toilet? It's a difficult decision. I decided on giving up sleep and sanity. My motivation? This quilt:

If I manage to get a B or higher in Every. Single. Class. then I will reward myself with this quilt (and by that I mean that I will have my mom help me make it, because there is no way I could do that by myself and she could probably whip it out in an hour.) I think it's a pretty good deal. My theory: when school stinks reward yourself for going. This is just another version of that! 3.85 GPA here I come!

Art and stuff

So my life is a living heck right now and there's really nothing I can do about it. I am up until 3 or 4am every single night, and with classes starting at 8am I am starting to go crazy. So, that is why you haven't heard from me in a while...sorry. #Collegegirlproblems. Something good that is coming from this lack of sleep and social life is some pretty fun artwork though. Behold my latest projects:

My first oil painting! Pretty good I must say. Although, this is a horrible picture because I hadn't even varnished it yet, or matted it. Oh well. I would love to try photo rendering again, but it might have to wait until this summer when I will actually have a life and maybe some free afternoons.

An oil liftout of my roommate Diana. Yes, she is Mexican and gorgeous and totally has the best profile ever even though she hates it! This painting is totally overworked, but you know that's okay because it was my first one and I kind of lost control of the upper right hand corner when I started pouring Gamsol on it hahaha. Pretty fun!

A texture study for my advanced watercolor class in preparation for this assignment I am about to show you. I tried to stick to the limited palette I would be using just so that I could get used to the colors.

 Took a little trip to the Wildlife Exhibit in the Benson building to get some photo references of baby foxes. I am a sucker for foxes, and doing a texture painting of them was just waaayyyyy too tempting.

Started off with the fallen branches.

I used multiple natural sponges and salt for the texture of the log and the base of the fur. 

Almost done! I decided to add some more branches just to add a little more shape and variation.

The finished product. I went in with Q-tips and cotton balls to soften things up, then used some more sponges and water droplets to get that blue smoke texture in the background. Overall I think it came out pretty good and looks really nice. The limited palette I used was Yellow Ochre, Indian Red, Cerulean Blue, and a hint of Burnt Sienna. It's amazing the amount of variation in color you can get with just four different pigments!
So yep, those would be my main accomplishments so far. Figure drawing is going well and computer arts is kicking my butt, no surprise there. Muse is on repeat every day of my life( Madness anyone??? Favorite song ever!) and cookies have become a staple. What more can I say, my life is boring. Until next time I guess. klovesbye

Bobby Chiu

In my Computer Arts class we talked about a man whose work is so unique I couldn't help sharing! His name is Bobby Chiu, and he is big in the digital art world right now. His fame came from his work on the newest Alice in Wonderland movie which I am sure you have all seen and loved because really, it was great! He did a lot of the character design and finished paintings for the movie and his quirkiness and whimsical style just caught my heart. Take a look!

Can you believe that is all digital? Oh gosh I can't! He is soooooo good! I love seeing styles like this because they inspire me to add a little bit more creativity into my own work. If you want to see more of his work you can visit Imaginism Studios, or Schoolism.com.

A quick color study and some sketches

Well hi there! After a crazy weekend and three painfully long school days this girl is ready for a break! All I want to do is curl up with my jamba juice and watch White Collar because, yes, that show is back on! This man is once again a part of my life!

I have been watching old episodes in preparation and let me tell you there is nothing sexier than a man who knows his art!

On a completely random note I watched the new King and Lionheart music video for Of Monsters and Men and although the artwork and character design was AMAZING...I was disappointed. Ok go ahead and hate me, but really how was that a good ending? I was so excited for that girl and who I can only assume is her brother to be reunited, but oh no he ends up crying in some weird spaceship and she is being hunted down by those creepy men. Sad day! I do not like the ending! What do you think? (here's a link because the video player is too small to post here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76a_LNIYwE)

So, I have some sketches to show FINALLY! I admit to being the worst at showing you my stuff. First up some basic sketches for figure drawing. This class is amazing and I love every second, even if I'm not very good yet. We start off with gestures:

Then move on to blocking in the figure (pardon the smaller body shapes on the bottom-I took these photos from above and so they all look a little top heavy haha).

And for the last hour we work on a detailed line drawing.

Obviously I haven't nailed down proportion yet, but you know what that's why I'm in this class! By the end of it I am gonna be whippin out figures like nobody's business! We also do daily sketchbook assignments and this is one I am a bit proud of:

So there you have it! My progression so far is small, but I can feel the changes in my work and I am sure as the months go on I will get better and better. I also did a quick color study in watercolor today and thought I would share!

This was about a 45 min. painting; the drawing we did together as a class, each of us doing the same thing, then we were allowed to finish the project in our preferred palette. I used Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, and for that plum color a mix of Indian Red and Cerulean Blue. I think I really like how the colors worked and mixed together.

My final portfolio!

Hello there! How is everyone today? I am dandy, mostly due to the fact that the snow outside is so perfect it takes my breath away. I can see every. single. snowflake. And all of the pretty patterns that you only ever see on fake snowflakes is totally real and they are all so different and it's just so pretty! I have never seen snow this beautiful in my whole life! Also, the Les Mis soundtrack is blasting and I am singing along and everything is good right now.

So, let's talk about my media experimentation class. In this first week I have learned that I don't like paint. Not even a little bit. Hand me a pen and ink and I can do anything...give me a paintbrush and I am just hopeless. I sit for hours mixing little patches of color and trying to blend and end up with a half decent circle of color. It's exhausting! Please, someone help me!

Ok, so I know I was going to share my final head drawing portfolio like weeks ago, but this girl is busy and sometimes I forget about promises I made. So here it is!

My final line drawing. The model was tired so I got to draw her almost sleeping and I kinda liked it.

My final charcoal lift out. This is by far my favorite, and it totally made the gallery wall! Whut up!

My final charcoal build up with white highlights. There were two done because I was trying to get my grade up at this point and I needed options haha.

My final charcoal build up. This is also a pretty good piece and also made the wall! Double Whut up!!!

The two that made the wall both had corrections made on them, so as soon as I get them back I will take pictures to compare the two. For instance in the image above I got rid of that awkward ear on the side. She is a human not some weird creature from the Dark Crystal...or at least that is what Bro. Parson told me.

Anyways, not much else to talk about today. I am gonna do some homework and maybe watch some White Collar so yep. K loves bye!

Because sometimes I like cute little animals, confetti, and pretty colors

Well, let's just say that this semester is gonna kill me dead. Last Sunday feels like a month ago, and I already feel like I am in finals week. If only I could just pack up and leave and spend my days up in the mountains with a sketchbook, some colored pencils, and maybe some warmer weather. Nobody likes it when their nose hairs freeze including me.

I bought photoshop CS6 Design Standard this week, as well as a tablet! Oh yeah baby digital art here I come! jk this girl can't even open up a word document without having problems...but I am hoping that my intro to computer arts class will help me out a little:)

Because I am already so brain dead I will share some of my inspiration from this last week. I wish I had some artwork to share, but over Christmas break I did nothing so there's nothing but old sketchbook work to show and that is just boring. So let's look at other people's cool stuff and be jealous k?

Julia Pott. I read about her on my favorite blog All Things Lovely and have since become a huge fan. This is one of my favorite animations!

She also has some amazing illustrations including these two:

This music video by The Paper Kites. Perfection if you ask me.

This picture.

And this photoshoot.

That awkward moment when my computer decides to hate me.

Well hi! Do you even remember me? I'm that girl who took a kind of unexpected and looooong break from the internet. Believe me it wasn't my choice! My computer got an unfriendly little virus and decided it didn't want me to use google anymore...so I let it be mean for a while, and then decided enough was enough and got that bad boy taken care of.

So, Christmas break was fun! Four weeks of pure heaven if you ask me! Because it's been so long I will just give you the quick run down of what went on in the Palmer house over the break.

• Started things off bad with a horrible drive down from Rexburg which included falling asleep while driving, being pulled over by a cop, hydroplaning, trying to get gas in Salt Lake in the middle of a storm and bad traffic, and driving through fog so thick I couldn't see the cars in front of me. Bad bad drive!
• Recovery from said drive after a long nap and a quick read of the Hobbit.
• Going to see the Hobbit!!! Twice!!! And Les Mis!!! So good!!!
• Wasting my days away with books, sleep, and a lot of friend time.
• Waking up on Christmas morning to snow and presents and family!
• Bird watching in the backyard with my dad-at one time there were 12 doves under the feeder!
• Many many Christmas parties with food and old friends and grandma!
• Partying it up on New Year's with sparkling cider and board games.
• Starting the new year off right with my 20th birthday!!!!!!!!!! 20 guys. 20!
• And the food. Ohhhhh the food! Homemade caramel, peanut brittle, See's chocolates, homemade bread, pinoche, fudge, soup, chicken bacon wraps, pie, cheeseball, spring rolls, wontons, Cafe Rio, peppermint popcorn, and everything else that was so amazingly delicious!
• Finishing the break off strong with a sledding trip with Caitlin and a midnight Wendy's run with Audrey-our specialty.

As you can see the days were packed, and I feel almost fully recovered from last semester. Almost ready for this new crazy one coming up...but not quite ready. I want to explain how my head drawing class all worked out tomorrow, because some things came out good and some bad. I also took a lot of pictures so enjoy my horrible photography skills:)

Packing to head home...obviously I love my neutrals.

I had to take a picture of my mom's sewing room because it is so cute and I got to live in it for four weeks!

Peanut Brittle Bowls!!!!!!!!

The snow began to fall...

...until everything was covered and covered good! More snow than I saw all of last year combined!

Doves are my favorite, and it made me terribly happy to see so many of them in our backyard at one time.

I turned 20 and my daddy made me a cake! He is so cool!

Well that's it for the break. Off to classes and cold morning hikes up to campus and long hours of homework and hot chocolate. 2012 you were a beauty!