India

I'm in India right now. Here are some photos I've taken so far.

An Interesting Piece of Footwear

So my fabulous bestie, Lauren Reinecke approached me during school and asked me to paint a pair of plain converse she bought the other day.  I was so excited that I was jumping up and down for like 5 years.

Oh hello!  My face is in this picture.  I apologize in advance.

The rose on the heel is my favorite thing I've drawn so far.  It was also the hardest.

That's all I've done so far.  I've only finished one shoe, so this will probably be a two-part post.

So Apparently You Can Earn Money From Doing Art

Recently, some pregnant lady tracked down the Kimball Art Center and asked them, "I need a pretty good painter to paint a wall in my baby's future room for me.  Can you find someone?"  So the Kimball Art Center hunted me down and told me about her request.

I was about to turn them down. . . until I found out the reward was like 300 dollars!  Considering I've never even held that much cash in my life, I was like, "HECK YES!"

I went to her house and found out that she wanted a very specific Buddhist mural on her wall, consisting of a bunch of animals piling on top of each other trying to reach a fruit tree.

So without further ado, these are the steps I took in painting the room.  No, I do not recommend this process.  To anyone.

Step 1
Buy, borrow, or steal the proper supplies.

(I got mine off the black market)

Step 2
Brainstorm Stuff (aka: derp around on the interwebs)
I don't know much about Buddhist culture, so I had to look at tons of Buddhist art to finally feel like I knew what I was doing.

Step 3
Drawing Blah Blah Blehhh
Next I just drew a crap-ton of stuff that had to do with what the customer wanted.  Eventually I came up with something decent.

Finished, but extremely creepy.

Not finished, but good enough.

Step 4
Walk freaking 2 miles to the customer's house after being beaten-the-crap-out-of at track practice.

Step 5
Tell the customer you usually don't smell like this.

Step 6
Actually start the painting!  But first, draw it on the wall!

Step 7
Psych!  You drew it too small!  Redo the whole thing!

Step 8
Cover it with paint.  It never happened.

Step 9
Redraw it...the correct size.

Step 10
Actually start painting it (while remembering to take pictures of the steps).

(I kinda forgot to take pictures of a couple steps, if you haven't noticed)

Yay! Finally freaking done!

Step 11
Collect your well earned reward.

Phase one of my mission: Take Over The World, is now in progress.

Master has given Dobby money!  Dobby does not know what this so-called-money is!  They're simply green papers!  This mysterious substance can get you objects from these things called stores?  Dobby is confused!  WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS?

My Photorealism Attempt (part 1)

I feel like I haven't been posting about art as much as I should be, so here's an "artsy" post for all you people out there who wonder what my blog's theme is even about.

I have been completely and utterly obsessed with the "photorealistic" style of art since I saw examples of it for sale last year at the Park Silly Sunday Market.  Since then I've made it my life goal to successfully complete a photorealistic drawing.

If you don't know what photorealism is, allow me to enlighten you be showing some examples.

(credit)

(credit)

(credit)

As hard as it is to believe, those are all pencil drawings.

So yeah, that's it.  Basically, Photorealism is when you draw so well, and pay so much attention to detail that your finished drawing looks just like a freaking photograph.  Also, if you're an aspiring artist, the quickest way to completely demolish your self esteem is to look at Photorealism examples.

I had some extra time over the weekend (big surprise, right?), so I decided to attempt to draw a photorealistic picture of one of the most amazing villains of all time: Loki!

Here are the steps I took in making it:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 2 (still):

I really don't feel like finishing it tonight because it's freaking late and I'm having a brain fart and can't focus on anything for more than a nanosecond.  I'll finish it next week and give you an update on how it goes, because I am freaking excited to work on it.