I suppose that’s evidence that I’m doing this whole art thing right.  Even in a medium completely polar to my medium of choice (charcoal and paper vs. tablet and Photoshop) there is still the sense that I’m telling a story.

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This set of time-lapse images was my final project for my film photography class.

These four images are time-lapse photographs of the music visualizer in iTunes, Apple’s music player.  It displays random images and distortions of images based upon the waveform of the song playing, so these images got a very ghost-like softness to them as the film exposed.  Exposure time varied from 5 to 25 seconds.

These two are Windowsscreensavers; Bezier and Windows XP Default, respectively.  Exposure times varied from 25 seconds and up.

This was a 1-second exposure done by pointing an LED keychain flashlight at the camera.  Though the light is out of focus, I enjoyed the softness that resulted.

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The prompt for this assignment was similar to that of iCouch; combine an organic object with an inorganic object. Thinking along the lines of the previous combination of computer and couch, I decided to combine furniture with flowers, and the result was the Flower Chair.

I later used the Flower Chair in an animation flipbook along with other flower furniture, and did the following two Sketch N’ Toon renders to figure out how I wanted the end product to look.

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Stickman, or So I Was Walking…, was the final project in my animation course.  I’m a huge fan of Randall Munroe’s xkcd, and wanted to pay homage to a webcomic that has become so influential in such a short time, so this animation is heavily inspired by the themes of the comic.

Xkcd comic #150 and the recurring character of the girl with black hair, in particular, are what I drew upon in the creation of this animation.

I emailed Munroe a link to the video shortly after finishing it, but unfortunately didn’t get a response.  On the bright side, since I mentioned xkcd in the video’s comments, it’s the most watched of my videos on YouTube.

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Garanos first came about as part of a group project in high school.  As happens with people at that age, the various members drifted off in their respective directions, and I am no exception to that.  Still, I walked away with the character who would become my creative focus to this very day.  I was bound and determined to tell Garanos’ story, whether others joined her or not.

As a senior in high school, I took a composition class, in which one assignment was to write a short story in the Gothic style, as we were reading Dracula at the time.  Many many hours later, I went to class with a ream of 37 pages; needless to say, my short story was the longest in the entire class.

Nonetheless, during my first year of college, I attended panel about self-publishing one’s own comics on a very low budget.  It amazed me how easy it could be, so for the next two weeks, I spent all my free time drawing Garanos from beginning to end, with intent to digitally color and finish the pages for printing.  As is life, one thing led to another, and I wasn’t able to work on them again for a span of several months. The following year, I took my first Art & Tech class, Digital Manipulation.  For my final project, I took three spreads of two pages each from my Garanos pencils, produced them in full color, and had the set of three spreads framed for the Art & Tech Show.

Seeing those pages in full color inspired me to take a fresh look at Garanos the following summer.  Considering both my style of drawing and digitally coloring my artwork had improved immensely in the time since the pencils were first drawn, the task of going back and repairing 160 pages of old drawings was daunting, to say the least.

Instead, I started over from scratch.  I began redrawing everything in a full-page, 8.5×11 format (I had previously been working at 5.5×8.5, half-sheet format) and used Photoshop to digitally color everything in my emergent style, almost completely lineless and vector-like.  I started publishing the pages online in July of 2006, with any new pages I completed going up three days a week.

Since the Art & Tech program helped me to further visualize and improve Garanos with just one class, I wanted to see what three dimensions could do for her.

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Apple Computer has skyrocketed into the spotlight during the past several years.  Ever since Steve Jobs took back his place as CEO, things are nothing but up, up, and even higher up for this company.  Being a PC user since 1998, I had only a vague awareness of Apple and their amazing machines until entering college, when I suddenly needed to learn the OS X interface and become familiar with their products, as I would be using them constantly as an Art Major.  Since the launch of the iPod, the trend used by Apple’s marketing has been all but “in-your-face,” making us want their slick white and titanium iPods and laptops without knowing why.  Apple is determined to become a household name even moreso with the advent of TV shows becoming available for purchase in the iTunes Music Store, the companion AppleTV, and the iPhone.  Apple is determined to burrow out a place in everyone’s lives and stick a shiny, glowing Apple logo there, especially in the world of consumer electronics.

Ever since the success of the iPod and iTunes Music Store, Apple seems bound and determined to expand that success to the living room.  Since integrating Front Row and the Apple Remote into all their desktops, they’ve managed to make it at least a bit easier for the average Joe to enjoy his music and movies.  The next step beyond that is the recently announced AppleTV, which hooks up to your TV and wirelessly grabs whatever’s in your iTunes library so you can watch it from the comfort of your couch.

But then, why waste time with a seperate piece of hardware?  Here and now, I believe, is the next big thing from Apple: the iCouch.

iCouch is a fully functional lounge piece with Apple’s innovative computer system built right in.  You can do ANYTHING with iCouch:

• Surf the web on a brilliant, high-definition screen
• Listen to music with iCouch’s front-mounted hi-fi speakers
• Enjoy the liberation from tiny, hard to use keyboards with iCouch’s simple, easy to use keypads
• iCouch comes in five colors; titanium white, pink, blue, green, and slick black; so you can find the iCouch to fit your lifestyle

With such an innovative integration of technology into your everyday lifestyle, Apple is confident that you will find the iCouch a true testament to the possibilities of home electronics.

Concept Sketches and Progress Images

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The form of the spider has always rather fascinated me, so I decided to think about what applications the spider, or a spider-like form, could have in the world of nanomachines.  Like many, my first thought on the subject of spiders is the web; a criss-crossing network of threads, supported by a delicate balance of tension and elasticity.   There are many networks within the body that could be thought of as webs– the circulatory system, musculature, the skeleton, the nervous system. With the precision and delicacy that a spider is capable of, I believe the nervous system is an excellent landscape for the skills of an arachnid-like nanomachine.

My diatom follows the basic form of the spider, but with a few key differences from the original, awe-inspiring creature.  My diatom’s body is mostly hollow and vacuous so as to relieve weight when it tenderly crawls across nerve tissue.  It has only six legs, which I believe to be the most efficient number when dealing with sensitive nerve endings; with all six legs touching a surface, the diatom’s weight is very evenly spread, and when engaged in repairing nerve damage, up to three legs can be put to use while still retaining a stable, three-point stance.  On the diatom’s rear, a long, threadlike flagella extends, which is used for extremely detailed, meticulous, or sensitive work.

The all-over function of the arachnid diatom is to search the nervous system for dead or damaged nerve endings, repairing them and restoring the health of the host.  The lightness and agility of the diatom enables it to operate both at the nerve endings throughout the body, and the nerve center of the brain.  With so many people in the world afflicted with paralyzed limbs, this diatom gives them the chance to live a normal life again, and stroke victims can have their damaged cells renewed and resume the lives they did before, no longer causing grief for those around them.  Millions of lives can be improved by this little spider diatom.

Concept Sketches

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These images are all from my Intermediate Drawing class. The class was rather unchallenging, as the point of it all was to manipulate our fine art drawings using Photoshop or whatever other tools we wanted, and I already did such things daily in my free time.

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This a series of 3 images created for a Digital Imaging II project, to create a distorted reality, or a reality more real than real, using digital images. My concept for the project was to take the subjects of historically famous paintings and either transport or translate the content into a modern reality.

The source for this image is the Arnolfini Portrait by van Eyck.

The painting depicts a couple in their finery, and while there is much debate over the subtle imagery and symbolism in the painting, I essentially took it at face value for my interpretation of this project’s prompt.

These days, we all by deify celebrities, so for my Arnolfinis, I drew them as a starlet couple on the red carpet. I used the same basic color pallets for the clothing, made the lady pregnant (which she may or may not be in the original) and added the dog in a purse.

The source work for this image is The Swing by Fragonard, a painting that is considered characteristic of the Rococco period. The lolita fashion culture of Japan, as I’m sure many already know, is based on Rococco and Edwardian period fashions, so I thought it would be amusing to put a lolita girl in one of the paintings that inspired the fashion movement.

For this image, I took Olympia by Manet, and the various depictions of Venus by artists throughout the times (specifically, Botticelli’s Venus) and put them together.

The female figure has been the subject of art pretty much ever since art was created, and women’s bodies are still glamorized today in the form of models, strippers, and sex workers.

I took Olympia and Venus and put them together. This piece is a little ambiguous on what excatly Venus and Olympia are doing, and I prefer it that way. Some people might see beautiful lingerie models and others might see high-class exotic dancers or prostitutes. Either way, these two iconic paintings are examples of how the female figure was glamorized in the past, and my piece brings up ways that we do so today.

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These are all just random images I did throughout the quarter that I took Digital Imaging I.  They were mostly made so I could have nice desktop backgrounds on the Macs in the computer lab where my class was held.

I was just playing with filters and distortion when I made this one, but I rather like the motion of the colorful swirl.

This is actually a product of the gradient tool, since it has that weird stripey option for the gradient.  Make it a radial gradient, and you have bullseyes.  Then I did some smudging on a duplicated layer and added my favorite filter, Dust & Scratches, over the whole thing.

A quick painting of Garanos I did with a tablet in the lab.  I actually started out with a black canvas and painted with white, which is why it’s very rough and almost impressionistic.

Another tablet painting I did of Garanos and Styx kissing.  If I recall correctly, I was listening to a particularly emotive song and wanted to paint something that matched the mood as I listened to it.

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