Okay winter break is over so it's back to business. I'm going to try and keep these posts short. Sometimes I think I get into unnecessary detail and start to ramble about the same things I already said. So I'm getting back into the swing of things. Starting some knew paintings. I'm taking a portrait painting and drawing class this semester because I think I need to slow down and learn how to draw better. I'm in need of some sharpening. So I'm learning how to draw faces better. Our first assignment I'm creating a watercolor painting of my grandmother who passed away a year or so ago. She was so sweet. My family always spent Christmas and Easter over her house. One thing I remember we always had for desert was angel food cake with Kool Whip frosting and sprinkles on top. =P She always loved the song Edelweiss. So I'm illustrating her in her wedding dress and having a boarder of edelweiss around her. I looked up what edelweiss look like and I'm surprised...they are not all that pretty. haha I mean I thought that they would be more pretty then what they are. But I think it will look pretty. I'm just saying there are more prettier flowers. It's FINALLY coming along great! It took me about five attempts to draw her lace on her dress, and the face was a challenge but my professor helped me a bunch to get it drawn correctly and get her likeness. I'm excited. My grandma looks so pretty. the other illustration I'm in the progress of making is about an ostrich named, Jefferson. He loves to show off his plate spinning skills to his friends. And his friends...are not impressed. Jefferson's friends are Sally the Salamander and Howard the Cow. I'm recreating this illustration traditionally. I originally made it digitally for a calender...The original is posted on my Behance page which you can view here.
So this is just a color study for the traditional watercolor painting i'm in the process of creating. I'm excited for this one. It is so fun! I actually wonder how difficult it is to spin plates...it makes me want to join the circus. ...Maybe not.
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Things are getting crazy. Its my last week of school until Winter break. And I've just been trying to get stuff finished! And I have some other things I need to make for some friends and I want to work on it so bad but I have to finish my school stuff!! !hhhhhhhhh! Procrastination...I need to not do that.
That is why I haven't been posting my newest art pieces. I have the painting of the bluebrass farm animals finished and it looks. saweeeeet! Like it's pretty stellar. I have been working on it for a long time and it's finally finished. I had to go search for some plastic farm animals to shoot reference photos, make a little cardboard barn to figure out lighting issues for the painting. It was all fun though. The cashier at the dollar tree just said as I laid the plastic animals toys on the counter, "I'm not even going to ask..." haha this weekend was pretty great on account it was Noel Night in Detroit!! It's this huge night were students and former students sell their artwork or crafts, art demonstrations, ice carvers, the museums are open, there are carolers, and so much more! My friends and I sold homemade christmas cards, sketchbooks, ornaments, calenders, and I crocheted hats. We did pretty well! It was a long night, but we sang Christmas songs and laughed and had a blast together. =] So this December I've been wearing Christmas themed outfits. I call it, the 25 outfits of Christmas. And this one is the best so far. Its me, as a snowman. haha Hey people!
If you are all still with me I just want you to know that I'm still here. DON'T LEAVE YET! I still have so much to share. And I have to tell you more about my silly projects and other ideas. I want you all to be a part of my artist journey and for you to read about my challenges and accomplishments. You know? you know? anyways, I've been working on school projects and paintings but right now, I'm just have been making hats. Hats, hats, hats, hats....haaaaats. I've made quite a few hats and I still have a lot to go. I'm crocheting slouchy beanie hats to sell at an event in Detroit called, Noel Night. Its on December 7th. there are going to be other artists selling their art and crafts and a whole bunch of other fun stuff! Like caroling, I think sleigh rides, demonstrations, and other things. Fun Fun Fun!!! I am just so excited for winter. I know, you can hate me all you want, I love winter. (to an extent) I love snow and cold weather because I like sweaters and scarfs and hats. I don't like to be sweaty. I rather it be cold than reeeeeally hot. Lets just say Autumn and Fall are my favorite times of the year. (yes they are two different things) So, I don't have much else to say except hang in there. There will be more to come. Just making hats. Go make some cookies or something. Or go knit a sweater. Clean your house or wash your car in the mean time. haha I know I'm not that funny and you can't really tell what kind of tone I'm using but its an uplifting cheerful tone. Just so you know. =] Peace, ya'll I am happy when I know I'm making progress. It show me that I'm getting better or closer to where I want to be. Progress is good. Anyways, speaking of progress in my artworkings, I am working on my next illustration. I haven't posted any progress from my illustrations for awhile so I'm finally doing it. yay! Arn't ya'll so excited. Well here you have it. Farm animals playing bluegrass music! Based on my memory of playing with some friends in our bluegrassy band for our fund raiser for our trip to Paraguay. It's been pointed out that an accordion is not a bluegrass instrument...yeah..I didn't think it was. But I just really wanted to draw an accordion. And besides, the pig looks adorable playing an accordion don't ya think? So thats my excuse. The accordion stays so now they are farm animals playing folk music. So there. So I started painting the folk playing animals and I'm having trouble figuring out the lighting of the painting. My painting of Campfire Friends, I did a cool blue wash first and added the highlights of the fire. But this painting of the farm animals I'm doing the opposite. A warm burnt sienna wash and painting in the cools and then the highlights. It messed me up in the beginning but I started painting today and I think I'm going in the right direction. And I'm also creating hipster animals. I will update you later with that...
Liz Craft, out. I am happy to say that my devotional is completed. It has been interesting and a challenge to write this devo. First the images had to fit what I wanted to talk about. that was the easy part. But what made this devo such a challenge is that I'm still going through heartache. Maybe you are asking yourself, "How can you even write a devotional if you are not healed yourself?" That is a good question. I even asked myself that question. I prayed about it if it's something that God wanted me to do. When I got the assignment the idea of creating a devotional popped in my head. And then instantly thought to make broken hearts the topic. I felt okay with writing it because I thought I was in a good spot emotionally. Things started to come together. I felt like each page fitted all together and my outlines for each page seemed to be writing itself. The thoughts just came to me. I felt like I had a strong outline to start writing. I started to create the images. The first was the cover with a pair of hands (God's) holding a broken heart. I felt at peace when I just stopped and studied at what I was creating. I really felt that God was holding my heart and taking care of me. I was doing well with creating the images. But when it came to write the devo. I felt like I couldn't write it. I wrote out one entry and it was just crap. haha I mean, it just didn't sound right and I didn't really make any sense. I felt like I was struggling. I remember praying to God if this is something you really want me to do. There was some days I couldn't focus because I would just start thinking about my past relationship that I have yet to get over...I felt like, "How can I even write this devotional??!!" I was just so upset. But don't worry. Let me finish. After a couple of weeks just spending my time working on the illustrations and spending time with friends, I think I was ready to write. As I was writing each entry it was like I was reminding myself of God's promises. God's love is enough, he will never leave me, he is providing for me, he knows my needs, he has placed encouraging people in my life, he made me beautiful, its God's plan not my plan, God is in control, and so much more. Though I still am recovering...and I have my moments of sadness I know that I have hope. I know that God will pull me through this. And I'm reminded of this through his Word and the friends that are helping me through this. There is more I want to say but this blog will be super long...so I'm going to just leave it at that. Thank you for reading. I hope to figure out how I can save the book as a PDF so I can put it here to download. Because Adobe InDesign is getting on my last nerves...I hate that stupid program. haha But you can view my selected illustrations from my devotional here. Okay, so it wasn't a piece of cake. Teaching is a challenge. Truth. It was time to present a lesson plan to a group of 6th grade students. It was like I was being put to the test on applying everything I learned from my art ed. classes. How do I mange the classroom? How do I get the student's attention, to follow directions, how do I guide the students with the lesson, how do I manage my time...wow...It was definitely a learning experience. I presented a lesson on one of the elements of art, Shape. There are seven elements of art if you are not familiar. Value, form, shape, line, texture, color, and space. So for my lesson I choose shape and I talked about what shape is. What are the two types of shapes, (organic and geometric) and then I introduced and artist, Jayme McGowan. She is an amazing paper art artist. She does some pretty great paper cut out art. So my project was for the students to create a paper cut out illustration of their own. You can find the whole lesson here. The students were required to have at least three of each geometric and organic shapes and create an animal in an environment using only paper. You can see their work on the elementary lesson page here. Some of the students didn't understand how to create an animal only using shapes. So I had to stop and explain. Some struggled but majority of the students followed directions and understood. All of them did their best and were excellent in putting effort into their artwork. And some students thought outside the box by making it 3-dimensional! pretty great.
Since i mentioned cake earlier I want some now...so bye for now! Sunday I just returned from Mackinac Island for the annual NAEA conference.. (National Art Education Association) It was held at the Grand Hotel!!! Like woah! It was fantastic. Before I tell about the conference let me tell you about the hotel. Overall, the hotel was pretty elegant. There was live music every night which was such a treat. I even got the chance to dance! Which you know is always a good time. And it was weird being on the island in the fall. It was soooo dead that it was kind of creepy. You would just see some locals here and there. But when it came for the day they celebrate halloween, the streets were packed! So much fun! Anyways, the conference was great! It was cool to connect and talk with other art teachers and learn from them. I've taken back some excellent art lesson ideas, contacts, and some free art supplies I get to play and have fun with. there was a guest speaker, Robert Sabuda, who creates AMAZING pop up books! One of my favorites is his 12 Days of Christmas pop up book. Its amazing and mind blowing to think that every single pop up book is made by hand!! And to end the conference, there was a steampunk theme party. Everyone made some steampunk accessories. Some teachers went all out and had on full costumes!! It was great. i made a little "steampunk" little headband which kind of looks like a little flapper headband then steampunk, but whatever. haha (see above photo) keep a look out for some NEW artwork that I will be posting soon! updated my art lesson page tabs, "elementry" and "middle school" Peace and Blessings! Hey! So what is your take on candy corn. Delicious three color goodness? Tasty little triangles? or disgustingly sweet rot-your- teeth little nasty pieces? Well, I happen to love candy corn. I don't know why a lot of people are hating on candy corn. Yeah, it's probably the cause of cavities but I love the stuff. Did you know that it takes 156 kernels of corn to make one kernel of Jelly Belly candy corn? Me either. Why am I tell ya'll this? for our next editorial project we have to create three spot illustrations for three random facts that we choose from a list. This one is pretty much finished. Isn't this little corn so cute?! my other two facts are 45% of adults eat Lucky Charms cereal (I'm proud to say I'm part of that 45%) and the average number of times each week U.S surgeons operate on the wrong patient or body part, 40 surgeons. Rank f preventable medical errors among the leading causes of death in the U.S: 3 So there you have it. Now you just learned something today. You're welcome. So more illustrations to come! Still working on my devo, and just about to start my forest friend campfire painting. So keep a look out! I'm just curious: who likes candy corn? Cutting paper with scissors is not bad at all. I actually enjoy mindlessly cutting up strips of paper. Its...just relaxing. Am I weird? haha Anyways, cutting paper with an exaco blade, is another story. I'm kind of lazy and cheap so I don't change my blades often as I should. So here I am trying to cut things out with a dull blade...that may be the problem that my finger hurts because of all the pressure I putting on it and the blade is not as sharp. So it's been taking me longer than I thought to create these paper images. But I'm loving how its turning out! This is all for my devotional on Heartbreak. The cover turned out excellent! I'm just trying to figure out a technique that works so I don't waste time or paper. And now I'm working on the page where I take about God made you unique and beautiful. So I'm going to have all different looking girls that are different ethnicity. This is to show that no matter what you look like, God made you beautiful. Because I feel like after a heartbreak, a girl may to start to doubt the way the look or dislike their own personality when they make up reasons why they got broken up with. Anyways, I don't want to give too much detail on the devotional right now. Back to what this post is actually about. Cutting things out of paper is becoming something i really like. I think I want to do other illustrations this way. So keep a look out!
I guess thats really it...haha Peace! Hey people! So I'm pretty excited for this next painting for my series called, Camp Memories. It super adorable, I think, and it just brings me back to the memories I had with some awesome people sitting around the campfire making smores and singing songs to the God. This painting also makes me think about the moments I had consoling and talking and making smokes with the campers. The ultimate smore is one that is made with a whole gram cracker, a whole bar of chocolate, and four marshmallows. Yes, people, I'm talking about a smore sub! If you want to get fancy, you can add Recce's peanut butter cups, or Hershey's white chocolate. What is your best smore? Anyways, this painting is cute because it's little forest animals making their treat over a big roaring fire. I can't help but think about what the fox says when I drew the fox character. Also when I was looking up photos of foxes, images from the movie, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, came up and I immediately wanted to watch the movie. If you haven't seen it...HOW DARE YOU! Go watch it, it's pretty great. And there are other little details around the painting. Notice the little mouse chopping down a gram cracker? Or the little box of gram crackers and marshmallows? What about the three headed dragon eating a plate of pancakes in the trees? That one is a tricky one to catch. So the drawing and the color studies are coming along great. Now I just have to figure out which one feels the best. I want the fire to be the most warm thing, obviously, and have everything cool around the animals. Which color study fits those requirements? Thats the question I need to answer. I'm thinking the bottom right . What do you think? you can see all my process work for this project here. Also, I'm thinking about making paper cutouts out of my hipster animal sketches. So that should be exciting! I know I am excited. (pics to come)
And I'm just now cutting out paper for my illustrations for my devotional Its coming along well...just have to figure out how to write it. If you can pray for me that God will give me guidance, that would be wonderful. =] Cutting out paper with an exacto blade hurts my hand...So much pressure trying to cut paper out! (maybe i need to replace my blades...) I'm hungry. |
AuthorI am an artist who enjoys the outdoors and living in Michigan where I can live in all four seasons in one day. I love cake or anything that is sweet! Archives
April 2018
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