K A T N I C O L E B L O G

It's been a while

2011-11-26T16:53:00.004-05:00

OK, this time I have a legit reason for not posting in a while.

Between the mess of graduation and the excitement of working full-time on the game and moving to a new apartment I managed to develop a weird bone disease in my wrist. I had surgery that took care if it and things have slowly gotten back to normal. Look forward to more art posts soon!

I'm still working on this

2011-04-07T22:04:00.000-04:00

yeah. 'Trying to work out a new way to paint. I've been looking at a lot of Phil Hale

2011-04-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

I'm not dead, I swear

2011-04-07T21:58:00.002-04:00

I've been working on graduation stuff.

monsters

2011-03-28T22:13:00.002-04:00

portrait sculpt

2010-10-27T16:08:00.000-04:00

figure sculpture stuff

2010-10-06T14:45:00.002-04:00

When asked about casting, my sculture professor said "You want to cast something? But that would take a whole day! You could sculpt another figure in that time!"

new and old

2010-10-03T23:05:00.002-04:00

started to revisit an old piece last night and started to paint up a sketch I had laying around

simpler stuff

2010-09-28T20:51:00.001-04:00

some quick sketches going back to a more simplified style I was experimenting with about a year ago

doodleness

2010-09-09T10:48:00.002-04:00

paper doll

2010-07-11T17:13:00.003-04:00

John begged me to draw him a female adventurer-type character for him to sculpt. Orthos and an awesome motorcycle will be forthcoming.

PS. Also, there are some new updates over at my thesis blog that people should check out
http://knbthesis.blogspot.com/

resettlement

2010-06-25T19:22:00.003-04:00

.

2010-05-18T21:51:00.003-04:00

doodle

2010-05-16T08:54:00.002-04:00

quick, random doodles. I'd love to take a more painterly approach more often, but something about the brushes I was using made Photoshop crash repeatedly. ughhhh

male figure

2010-05-05T13:22:00.002-04:00

I always find myself wishing I had much more time to work on these before class ended and I had to tear them down........ I wish I could at least get to the point of adding some detail

future ads

2010-05-05T12:44:00.002-04:00

spanish art 1500-1600

2010-04-19T21:42:00.001-04:00

a few more sketches from the exhibit

st. Francis Borgia

2010-04-19T21:04:00.003-04:00

I took a train down to DC today with my figure sculpture class and sketched some of the crazy statues in the 1500-1600's Spanish art traveling exhibit. The exhibit included works by Velasquez, Pedro de Mena and some of their contemporaries.

2010-04-11T00:38:00.000-04:00

not the best pic....

Amphitrite

2010-04-11T00:28:00.002-04:00

sea goddess design. 'started out as a figure study.

Life of Pi.....and an arm

2010-04-09T16:27:00.002-04:00

cd assignment

2010-03-21T22:10:00.001-04:00

figs

2010-02-28T00:10:00.002-05:00

This is difficult : < I wish I'd had two sessions to work on this but..eh.
It was fun anyhow!

poetry

2010-02-16T01:41:00.002-05:00

done for a Baltimore public works campaign where we art school students illustrate poetry written by local middleschoolers. I ended up with a strange psychedelic poem about flying.

A Frank Talk With You, Boss

2010-02-02T21:15:00.003-05:00

mock Businessweek illust about bad managers

bust

2010-02-01T16:38:00.002-05:00

I'm really enjoying my figure sculpture class. All we do is sculpt from life for 6 hours, then tear everything down only to start again. Every day. It's so awesome.

first illust of semester

2010-01-27T15:39:00.005-05:00

So, the first piece I had to do for my Illustration Concepts II class this semester was a long spot for an NYT article about the Haiti disaster. Everyone else got lighthearted articles....

victorian lady

2010-01-14T17:58:00.001-05:00

more watercolour

2010-01-11T17:27:00.003-05:00

watercolour monochromes

2010-01-11T17:23:00.001-05:00

Illustration Concepts Finals

2009-12-18T04:01:00.002-05:00

grrrr

2009-12-15T10:03:00.003-05:00

some more finals stuff

2009-12-15T09:53:00.003-05:00

the project that nearly killed me

2009-12-10T19:36:00.006-05:00

Making these was a nightmare, but they're done now and I've already sold almost all of them! I spent waaaay too much time painting tiny details on these guys, but I wanted to produce them at a consistent quality and I'm glad to see it payed off.
Huzzah! I was told that there were only 4 left out of the 25 I made. I've been selling them at $15 per head.
OOh, I made a cute little blog for them too!
http://deskdemons.blogspot.com/
Also, you can check out my classmates' projects at
http://blogthelab.blogspot.com/
I've also been selling really nice prints of my Girl Vs. Sea piece, so check out the MICA Art Market if you're in Baltimore and interested.

ouan

2009-11-28T22:47:00.001-05:00

storyboards and character for a class

ANGER RAAAAR

2009-11-22T21:36:00.003-05:00

haha. I rather like the new direction this illustration is taking.
It's still a work in progress, but I think that when I finish it, I may sell some prints at Art Market.

girl and demon work in progress

2009-11-18T19:54:00.001-05:00

more character sketches

2009-11-16T20:14:00.002-05:00

I drew these last week, and forgot about them

corpus cristie

2009-11-14T22:48:00.002-05:00

Even though I've lived here for a few years, I'm still amazed by the stone architecture on the MICA campus and around Bolton Hill/Mount Vernon. I think it's very inspiring.

class sketchbook things

2009-11-13T14:43:00.003-05:00

texture stuff

2009-11-08T20:35:00.001-05:00

alternate title

lab work

2009-11-08T19:13:00.001-05:00

One of my little sculptures for Whitney Sherman's lab.

sketches

2009-11-04T15:26:00.002-05:00

people in my classes from yesterday/today

Baltimore Sustainability Project redo

2009-11-04T01:44:00.002-05:00

I'm FINALLY through with this project! I've scratched this and redone it way too many times now.

Chara dev

2009-10-26T20:59:00.003-04:00

Baltimore

2009-10-24T14:52:00.001-04:00

is beautiful this time of year

chara dev

2009-10-21T22:15:00.002-04:00

map project

2009-10-09T19:42:00.003-04:00

There are a few things I'd like to change about this, but it was due today, so maybe later.

a Menu Cover & a Character Design

2009-09-29T17:56:00.000-04:00

Character Development + IL Concepts work

2009-09-18T13:30:00.003-04:00

Last week's sketches for Character Development class, and some (mostly-finished) playing cards for my Illustration Concepts 1 class. The cards are supposed to belong to different suits representing various ancient civilizations. The first is Maya, the middle Greek and the last Persian.

A Journey

2009-09-14T23:38:00.000-04:00

a sketchbook

Riding Hood

2009-08-27T17:08:00.001-04:00

Yet another half-finished thing I've been working on

Even More

2009-08-13T19:21:00.003-04:00

Couldn't fit them all in the first time. I've just been inking from random photo after random photo. It's pretty relaxing

Much More Ink

2009-08-13T19:15:00.003-04:00

some more ink drawings from random photos I found on Ghetty and Google

More Inks

2009-08-10T14:28:00.001-04:00

Inks

2009-08-10T14:26:00.002-04:00

some stuff from yesterday

self portrait

2009-08-10T13:29:00.002-04:00

'Started this the other day because I was bored. 'picture taken one session in. ughhhh..I probably need a bigger mirror.

car sketches

2009-07-31T16:26:00.001-04:00

some doodles from my car trip

2009-07-15T11:03:00.001-04:00

some recent doodlings

2009-07-13T21:28:00.002-04:00

Things from the past few weeks. 'Nothing here is finished.

another monkey

2009-06-18T14:07:00.003-04:00

I hate monkeys, but they're kind of fun to draw.
'More experimenting

explorers

2009-06-17T21:50:00.000-04:00

fisherwomen

2009-06-09T17:08:00.002-04:00

eh, I'm tired of these cartooning schnanigans. Flats bore me, and these are too 'MICA style.' I need to look at more Byzantine art....
Hopefully someday I'll figure out how to reconcile line and rendering. Obviously, it hasn't happened for me yet.

cartooning attempts

2009-06-08T18:46:00.001-04:00

trying trying trying...

necklace

2009-06-08T14:29:00.004-04:00

I made these yesterday with some wire and shells I found on the beach. If I were a Fibres major, I would totally make a whole line of clothes called 'Siren' and it'd be a fusion between ancient greek and seashore themes using the colours offwhite, gold, aqua and coral. It would be kind of awesome.

Well, that's enough frivolousness, time to get back to drawing!

Jenny Saville

2009-06-03T01:47:00.002-04:00

On a scale from 1 to TOTAL AWESOME, Jenny Saville rates pretty high in my book.

Anyway, I did a quick study of one of her paintings, then decided to see if I could do a self portrait in a similar pallette.

Toad

2009-06-02T21:04:00.002-04:00

My mother's house has some interesting, formerly-living, knick-knacks that I grew up around...
I plan to draw some of the other ones soon.

figures

2009-06-02T18:03:00.001-04:00

one or two figure drawings... I really need to get better : <

Review of This Year's Body of Work

2009-05-30T00:18:00.004-04:00

I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but this past school year has been a sort of art crisis for me. I felt like I was falling far behind everyone else in terms of skill and imagemaking capability. I spent most of the year frustrated with my work and I think, to a large degree, much of that frustration stemmed from my lack of direction. I wasted quite a bit of time planning grandiose projects that were high in ambition but had a lack of any basis in realistic scheduling. Inevitably, I never was able to fully complete any of these overly-ambitious projects and my overall experience with them left me feeling physically and mentally drained. I was unorganized and had fallen to using, at random, whatever design elements happened to catch my eye. I didn't know what I wanted out of my work anymore. I wasn't sure how to grow because I didn't know what direction I wanted to grow in.

Ultimately, I believe I had a bit of a breakthrough at the end of the year when I was asked to compile a list of Illustrators whose work I admire and explain WHY I liked it. This forced me to reexamine my ideal aesthetics and ask myself exactly what elements in their work I found visually attractive. Just what was it about the work of artists like Vincent Hui, Sam Webber, Jillian Tamaki, Kent Williams, Odd Nerdrum, Justin Sweet, Tomer Hanuka, Jenny Saville, Andrew Hem, John Foster and many many others that I found so appealing? The answers surprised me, and ultimately, I came to realize that my taste in work had changed without my conscious marking of it, and this change had led to a deep dissatisfaction with the direction of my own work.

Now, armed with this new knowledge, I've set out to grow in a direction that seems much more clear to me. Recently, I took the time to pour over my work from the past year and figure out exactly what elements worked for me and what didn't. I feel that it's important for me to understand exactly what the strong and weak points of my work are in order for me to address them and therefore guide my own artistic development in a direction that I feel is more progressive, appealing, and enjoyable. I've decided to repost all of the images from this year that I feel were somewhat more successful.

Final

2009-05-29T01:22:00.000-04:00

Girl VS Sea new colours

2009-05-27T00:29:00.002-04:00

Things are looking better with new colours, but I still have a TON of work to do.

study

2009-05-26T16:28:00.002-04:00

did a quick acrylic study of one of my fav painters. I was pleased to discover that acrylic slides onto watercolour paper like butter. I'll have to explore this technique further.

Girl VS Sea....redux

2009-05-22T21:10:00.003-04:00

I started over. I think this composition is a lot stronger. Man, I've got A LOT of work to do before Friday....

Here's the pencil sketch with some base colours slapped under it really quickly.

Random People From Flickr

2009-05-20T22:29:00.002-04:00

I did a few ink studies of random people with interesting faces...

VS piece first attempt

2009-05-18T19:36:00.003-04:00

I started sketching out an idea for my VS piece today (girl VS fish). I don't think the angle on the hovercyle is dramatic enough, I think I might tilt the whole piece and change most of everything, but I like the colour scheme, so I may stick with that at least. I've got two weeks to do this, so I've got to buckle down and get this started for real.

the sound and the fury

2009-05-16T19:53:00.002-04:00

I want to illustrate a cover for this, book, so I was trying to figure out how I would lay out the text first....

More 3D

2009-05-14T19:22:00.002-04:00

This is what I turned in for class. I didn't get to finish all of the textures and alphas, but I plan on doing that this summer.

more cards

2009-04-26T19:08:00.002-04:00

here are a few more sketches for the playing cards. I've got a long way to go with all of them

norse playing cards

2009-04-19T21:04:00.004-04:00

My illustration final includes designing 7 playing cards in a themed deck.
Here are sketches for Freja and Loki, queen and joker.

I don't like the fantasy look. I never want my work to get too close to Frank Frazetta. I'm thinking of doing Hindu gods and goddesses instead

3D progress and studies

2009-04-10T00:54:00.002-04:00

Here's where I am on my 3D model as of tonight. I have no specs, so alphas and I haven't unwrapped some things yet, like her crown and the metal poles sticking out of her back.....

Also, here are two quick sketches I did for some oil paintings I have due on Monday.

A few more things...

2009-03-23T01:52:00.001-04:00

the other ones were too ugly to post

Oscar Winners

2009-03-22T23:27:00.001-04:00

I want to go to sleep now, but I have to finish my four other illustrations.....

FSA photos

2009-03-14T01:31:00.002-04:00

The library of congress has a pretty awesome Flickr account full of old FSA colour photos from the depression era that I find really inspiring. I'd encourage anyone to check them out sometime. http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/archives/undated/1940/

I decided to do a quick study of one of them.

2009-03-05T20:24:00.002-05:00

This is my progress so far on the 3D model I've been making for class. I'll unwrap it soon, then take it into ZBrush and have some fun.

reconfigured

2009-02-26T00:14:00.001-05:00

this is why I'm not a Graphic Design major

Valentines Day Illusts

2009-02-23T00:53:00.001-05:00

Valentines Day 'Do's and 'Don't's

DON'T drunk dial your ex
DO go on a date that's outside of the box

Queen Ortho

2009-02-18T14:07:00.001-05:00

I'm halfway through building this in 3Ds Max. I'll post up some screenshots of the work soon.

finished....I guess

2009-01-31T20:26:00.000-05:00

2009-01-24T21:28:00.002-05:00

class concepts

2009-01-23T17:24:00.004-05:00

I'm trying to think of a character I might want to spend a whole semester modeling for 3D character class.......

more with the squid

2009-01-22T15:21:00.002-05:00

'what I hope are better colours
......'still developing this. I have a bad habit of only working things until they are 80-90% done and I want to break the pattern with this and try to actually do a finished illustration. Gah

and so it goes

2009-01-14T12:54:00.000-05:00

epic squid battle

2009-01-13T22:19:00.002-05:00

bird people

2009-01-13T16:31:00.000-05:00

Lameness. I drew the birds outside my window as characters. Man, I really need to think of something better to draw.....

environment practice

2009-01-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

2009-01-09T19:35:00.002-05:00

More environment practice. I still suck at painting environments : < This took too long too. I think I'm going to have to start doing 1-hour speedpaintings. Hopefully they'll start looking less ugly if I do enough of them

Zbrush

2009-01-07T20:28:00.003-05:00

I've been playing in Zbrush and trying to figure it out. It's a lot of fun :3

houses

2009-01-07T20:26:00.001-05:00

I made some PS brushes and played with them

sleepy kitty

2009-01-07T14:59:00.002-05:00

'My kitten Angus sleeping, from life, and about 30 min of desert trees from a photo.
Again, my drawings look weird and washed out when transferred to my Windows partition....

I REALLY need to:
A. Paint more from life.
B. Practice more landscapes
C. Get better at everything

Djinn Sketch

2009-01-06T09:46:00.003-05:00

'easily the dorkiest thing I've ever started to draw. I should just quit while I'm ahead

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....I wonder why everything looks sooooooo washed out on the internet/my Windows partition. Wow. This is so washed out it doesn't even resemble the drawing I was just working on in Photoshop!