My Summer in Projects

It's been such a busy summer!  Before I dive into all of the fun things Mike and I have done together, I have some photos of class assignments I've been working on in the past two semesters.  Between my History of Creativity and 2-Dimensional Design classes, I've accomplished a lot in a relatively small period of time.  I don't post this to bore you with my kindergarten hand-print paintings, but only to chronicle some of the artifacts created by my mind as a testament that I can do it. Veni vidi vici!


These are my homemade corn-husk and flour-paste hieroglyphs.  I made these for my history class when we were talking about early Mesopotamia and Egypt specifically.  They depict queen Hatshepsut and her son, who lusting after her throne claimed it and then had her name removed from all of her property after her death.  This was done not only to erase her from history, but because the Egyptians believed that she would be unable to enter the afterlife without written record of her name.

This is the first piece of art I've completed since middle school, and was an experiment in negative space.  That means that the white space is in the traditional shapes while the rest is inked in.   Here is me going over my original pencil drawing in pen

...And the "finished product"  When we turn in a large piece, our classmates get the chance to critique our work, which I honestly and openly dread every time.  It's humbling to see my work stacked against some incredibly talented people and to have them talk about my art.  This piece generated a lot of suggestions for improvement, so after a few (some thought the tree was floating before and the version I turned in originally was slightly larger)  so I cropped it just a bit and made some minor adjustments.  Someone suggested that I remove the couple in the center and leave just the tree, which I also seriously considered so my subjects wouldn't be competing for center stage (the tree and the couple, that is). 

Here's my second project.  It's a variation on a sketch I drew earlier in the class of (if you can believe it) a table.  It's done in black sharpie pen and is a series of tiny lines hard to see here in great detail.

Drawing 3:  I'm still modifying this one.  It was originally in colored pencil and was based on an assignment to create a visual piece based on semicircles.  I'm adding paint and ink to give it greater contrast and make it darker

We learned about the Greek system of proportions called the "Golden Ratio" which is based on multiplying a square configuration by 1.618.  Because this exact ratio has been observed in nature in everything from spiral shells and pine-cones to the human body and has been used by many famous artists and in buildings such as the Parthenon, we did a project based on these proportions (I've left my lines on the page for reference). This was a still life in pencil

This was also based on the Golden Ratio, and was done all in pen (the shading is done with small, thin lines) based on things I have around my home.  Mike made me those paper flowers, just to letcha know how great he is.

I'm pretty proud of this. This is a magazine I made last semester for my History of Creativity class final project.  It's based on everything Greek and was about 30 pages long.  I had to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator in order to make it, and because of all of the hours I've put in, I'm pretty much a pro now.  The title of the magazine is Arete which means virtue or "that which is good"

Here's a perfume ad I made.  You can't see it in this picture, but the perfume is called "Sophia" which in Greek means "Wisdom" and it says by Aphrodite in the corner.

The Magazine includes articles such as "20 Things You Didn't Know About the Olympics," "Getting to know Plato," "Book Reviews," "Hottest Greeks" and "Family Tree of the Gods"

Interview with Plato using some of his real quotes

Another ad and "the Perfect Man." Some of his attributes include hot muscular physique, intellect, courage, a philosophical mind, and of course, the ability to bear many sons.

I love the Spartans

I found pictures of each of the major Gods and Goddesses in Greek culture and wrote about their relationships and general mythology for this article.  Ya, this took FOREVER but I'm really happy with the finished product.  Disclaimer: if you think the world is all "immoral" now, just read some of their stories.  Zeus was a player!