Tableta Rasa

The tablet arrived in the mail yesterday and I've been pretty much obsessed with it ever since it got here. First of all, it is beautiful and second, it can do pretty much anything. It does take some getting used to as you will see in a moment. The experience is not unlike trying to teach yourself how to play piano, or some other impossibly complicated thing. The thing to remember is that you need to practice, and that's just what I've been doing.





So here is the setup as I had it yesterday...

I originally just pulled up paint but found that wasn't working too well anyways, so I started using Gimp. That is, until I put together my graphic design command center and get CS5. But anyways...here are some things I did yesterday just to practice including a new TV and Toast cartoon.



"You're still not good at drawing cubes"



"Its front leg is lumpy. Why is its tail so far down?"

Just some of the comments I received for those. But finally, here is the new (properly)tabletized version of TV and Toast...



I think this is the start of something good.

--Katie

Apologies and Exciting News

I am sorry that I haven't gotten a chance to go to the Library and scan the newest TV and Toast comic. I promise it will be up soon.

In other news, last night I ordered the first piece of my pending graphic design studio: a Wacom Intuous 4 tablet.



It should be here in about two weeks and let me tell you, this is going to be awesome. It comes in four sizes, small, medium, large, and extra large. I ordered the large which is 18.7" x 12.6" x 0.6" total with 12.8" x 8.0" of active area. I'm excited about it because I won't have to do things like go scan TV and Toast comics from my sketchbook (I also won't have to do tedious things like drawing in comic strip bars by hand wtf).

Next step is putting together a computer. Which is going to have to be broken down into several steps, but I'm putting the general plan into action. That's all the boring stuff for now.

--Katie

Pointillism, TV and Toast, and more.

I've been postponing writing a blog as to not overwhelm you all with my one-a-day posting. Really I just didn't want to set a precedent I couldn't live up to. But now that I have some down time I thought I would share the good news.

I FINALLY finished the pointillism piece that I had started just under three years ago. This isn't the greatest picture, but you get the idea.



I posted all of the detail shots on Art Robot and they're on my flickr too. I feel so much better. As much as I enjoyed working on it, I'm so glad it's finally finished. I can finally move on to other things.

other things like....



Yay TV and Toast. My plan is to post every Sunday and I have been posting primarily on Art Robot so that's where that has been. I dedicated an entire album to them for easy archiving.

Speaking of other things...I am about to embark on an interesting project. With the creation of this blog, and Art Robot, the need to go digital with my art is apparent. That is why I will be purchasing a Wacom Tablet in the next few weeks, and then putting together a desktop computer with Creative Suite 5.

I'll post more in-detail when I get back. Rugby nationals are this weekend and I won't be able to post a new TV and Toast until Monday. Suck it up.

--Katie

Comics

Finally, I have something going on. I spoke to someone about t-shirts and hopefully that will get off the ground pretty soon. I've pretty much finalized all of my designs, that is, which robots I want to put on shirts. However, until I get a price quote I won't know how much the t-shirts will be but I'll keep things posted on here and Art Robot.

I made two more comics today during class. I'm really excited about this project and I want to try to make it a regular thing. Though for the sake of consistency, I'm going to try and build up a collection before posting them every week or so. But since I'm still really excited about it, I'm going to post another one right now.



--Katie

Put up or Shut UP

more to come...


--Katie

Chromophobia

The required reading for my Notes on Color class includes a portion of a book (depicted above) by British artist David Batchelor. He attempts to explore what he calls "chromophobia" in contemporary art and architecture and I found certain things he had to say very interesting.

Batchelor's work with color evolved from a sculpture series exploring the contrast between the front and the back of a piece. In contrasting the shiny, polished, colored front side with the dirty, boring, ugly back side of a sculpture his work evolved into experimenting with color specifically...



So that's pretty awesome, but what else? In Chromophobia he writes that his color sculptures were more or less inspired by the realization that there is a conspicuous lack of color in contemporary art. I agree, there is.

Examples: Richard Sera ONLY published photographs of his sculptures in black and white. Richard Meier constructed whiter than white buildings. I guess we don't really know why, but Richard Sera's publicist suggested it was because color would add unnecessary contrast to his sculptures (which were usually in industrial metals, reds and metallic greys).

Batchelor points out the "otherness" of color in the Western mindset. But it's also much more than that. Color is many things. It is something temporary, cosmetic, inessential (to form), subordinate (to form), fluid, inconsistent, deceitful, feminine. Of all the things that color is, more importantly, it is NOT masculine, it is not rigorous, and it is not philosophical. Which is something I think contemporary art strives to be.

Once again, I am overwhelmed with thematic overlap. In this case, women's studies with Notes on Color. I hadn't thought about color in this way before and I must say it's a little bit weird.

Consequently, I will never look at the Wizard of Oz the same again.


--Katie

For F**k sake!

So, I made it through the hardest quarter of my LIFE and it feels good. I just got back from Scotland with my rugby team and let me tell you, it was amazing.







So that's a three-picture re-cap of the trip. Stone architecture, Rugby, and going out. It was the culmination of winter-quarter season but because we are so damn good, we have earned a spot in nationals yet again.


On the art front, nothing too exciting is going on, though I do have some news to report on.

1. I pulled of some decorations for a Bar Mitzvah (Designer status)
2. I designed a business card for my cousin Josh's catering company (with help from Sam)(Graphic designer status)
3. I am currently enrolled in an art class with Jim Welling,



The class is on color, so this should be interesting. I really had no idea what a complex subject it was until I sat through lecture. It's not a studio class, but it should definitely inspire me to work on some stuff and maybe after some new insight I can get over my anxiety of painting in green.

Still to come, finishing that damn pointillism piece and framing the fruit pictures above my stove. Also, I haven't abandoned the robot t-shirts but I need to come up with a better method of getting those done.

I promise I'll start writing more soon, I already have a lot more free time and plus my classes are extremely thought provoking and I'll probably use this blog as a colorful soap-box, so prepare yourselves for that.

yes I'm talking to the 5 of you who read this.

--Katie