Special thanks to my cousin who told me to get back in gear and update you on post-graduation life. I mean, I only waited X amount of years for this moment, and now I’m slacking on simple blog posts. ;) You see, I started this blog as an assignment for a class back in 2010. A few of my classmates have been great at keeping their’s going. I try, but I guess I still need to receive points for it to stay motivated. So here I go again, my friends. April and May were the busiest, craziest, and most exciting months. My group exhibition, “Curio” was amazing, and soon after came the event I have been waiting years for… graduation. It’s crazy how slow the last few weeks can go, and then all of the sudden you have this diploma in your hand wondering what just happened. I can finally say I have a “Bachelor’s in Fine Art.” Now the objective is to figure out what to do with this shiny, new degree!
April:
Yours truly with the goods @ my exhibition. A proud moment! And a rare one: I’m not covered in charcoal smears.
The swan piece (far right) was something I finished during the semester while working independently with a professor. If you remember a few posts back, I was doing some wing sketches in preparation for the piece. Back then, the idea was in its very beginning stages. I wasn’t exactly sure which direction I was going; I just knew I loved wings. As I talked about it more with my professor, we started talking about the story of Swan Lake. Although the idea of doing Swan Lake-inspired work excited me, I was afraid that it might seem kitschy as Black Swan was running its course in theaters around the same time. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that I love Black Swan, but I didn’t want to make fan art. My prof just assured me that with Swan Lake being such a classic story, it shouldn’t be an issue… so I went with it. I’m glad he gave me that encouragement because I ended up making a diptych I’m in love with. Sure, there are a lot of things I would change about them, but they’re the first big pieces I did with little instruction or influence. Although I really wanted to finish both in time for my exhibition, time only allowed for one, which is the white swan piece you see in the exhibition. After the chaos of Curio passed, I was able to focus on my black swan. I’ll cut to the chase… here’s the Swan Lake diptych. :)
“Odette” and “Odile” 2011, charcoal and pastel on paper.
During the process of these two, and through out my overall drawing program experience, I definitely learned a lot about my overall drawing style. In “Odette”, I ended up incorporating some of the abstract elements I had been influenced to do from certain professors. Although not an original fan of abstraction at the beginning, it became something that I would regularly use in my art. As I progressed into “Odile”, the urge to do a complete narrative scene took over. With my life-long interest in illustration, comics and animation, those are what come more natural to me and will be something I’m going to try to do more of in my post-grad life. Like a lot of illustrators, movies from Disney or Don Bluth were obvious inspirations growing up, and I won’t deny my fantasy of working in that environment someday.
Post-grad life has been pretty close to what I’ve expected. No, I haven’t found that dream job yet, but my full-time job right now is searching for it, even if it does include the common dream job of Disney/Pixar. In addition to that, I’ve also taken up the hobby of cake decoration. I haven’t taken any formal classes yet; just self teaching, and it’s been interesting. That’s a post for later though, so stay tuned… I mean, if you like that sort of thing.
Well, as I wrap up my rambling, I’ll leave you with two photos of a moment I’ve worked/struggled/waited forever for:
I did it!
