This is an Acceptance Letter

"Dear Kimberly Morgan,

Congratulations! Your application to the Department of Visual Arts has been reviewed, and we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a Visual Arts student in the 2D Studio Arts and Art Education areas beginning Fall 2014."

I HAVE A REAL ACTUAL MAJOR NOW!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!! I'M GONNA BE A REAL ARTIST!!!!!!!

Life is good. Reality is better than my dreams.

This is a Portfolio

I submitted my portfolio to the Illustration program today! I am so relieved that that is over. No more worrying about anything. I've done all I can do, so now I just have to wait and see what happens. Here are the pieces I included in my portfolio

"Line, Color, and Shape"

Left: Ink on paper. This is all about line.

Right: Watercolor on paper. This is all about shape and color. 

"A Study of Negative Space"

Ink on paper

I overlapped lots of negative space drawings of mine and came up with this.

"Negative Space Collage"

Magazines

This evolved from my study of negative space. It is made completely out of magazines.

"Collaged Drawing"

Graphite pencil on paper

I made a collage, then I drew it

"Collaged Portrait"

Graphite pencil on paper

This is a drawing of my friend, Brooke. I made a collage of her, then I drew it. She has her hand on her chin and is looking off into the distance, in a thinking pose. This represents our inner thoughts and desires, and how they make up who we are. 

"Self Portrait"

Charcoal and chalk pastel on paper

This is my cubist inspired self portrait.

"#tronietuesday"

Graphite pencil on paper

This is a modern take classic portraits, known as tronies

"Coloraid Portrait"

Coloraid paper 

This is a cubist inspired portrait that is made of a bunch of little papers. This is a portrait of my boyfriend, Will.

"Reading in a Tree"

Watercolor on paper

This is a picture of a girl reading in a tree. 

"Jacob Lawrence"

Watercolor on paper

This piece is inspired by Jacob Lawrence's "Ironers." The top painting is inspired by the composition of the piece, and the bottom painting is inspired by the patterns in the piece. I also used the same colors that Lawrence used. 

So that's my whole portfolio! Stay tuned to see if I got into the Illustration program. 

This is a New Study

Hey y'all! I know it has been a while, but I promise I have been "arting" as my friends like to call it. I still need to upload my final project from my drawing class, and after I finish my project I am working on, I will upload that too. But I'm posting because I am doing a new study. I call it "50 days of sketching", and I will draw 2 drawings in my sketchbook every day for 50 days so I will be ready for my illustration portfolio. It's gonna be sick. I am posting this so I will actually do it. Here's to the next 50 days!

This is a Scary Self-Portrait

I've always been fascinated with the idea of a tortured artist. I have never been one until this project. I like to use art as a way to escape my problems and trials, a way to forget the world that I live in. For this project, we had to do a cubism piece. I decided to do a self portrait inspired by Picasso's later cubism works and by African tribal masks. I channeled all of my hate, sadness, loneliness, and creepiness into this piece, and this is what I came up with:

My class did not respond well to this piece. But what do you expect from a bunch of Mormon's who try their best to make the best of any situation? There were several comments about how dark it is and how creepy the red eye is. All my teacher had to say about it was that it had fantastic technical skill. I guess that is a good thing, but I was expecting so much more out of everyone. Through this piece, I realized a lot about myself. It turns out that I really like making people feel uncomfortable with my art. I enjoyed seeing my classmates squirm when they looked at this piece, and I liked it when my teacher stammered until all he could say was that I used great technical skill. Maybe that is why artist do the things that they do, not because they are tortured artists, but because they enjoy torturing the viewer. 

P.S. This is made with charcoal and chalk pastel on Stonehenge paper.

This is a Guitar

These are six views of my guitar. It's pretty boring, actually. But I got a 100% on this project, so I guess its all good.

This is a Tronie

Hello all you lovely people of the internet (name that YouTube video series). For one of my drawing projects, we had to reinvent the classic Tronie. What is a Tronie you ask? It is an old school renaissance portrait.

Here is an example of what is arguably the most famous Tronie, Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring"

Notice the three-quarter view profile and contrast between the figure and the background. 

Now here is my contemporary take on the classic Tronie:

And for your enjoyment, I included the selfies I took as reference for this picture:

These are Drawing Projects

Hello to the people out there who read this blog (which is probably closer to one than two). I've been in a drawing class this semester, and I haven't posted any of my works because I didn't want to post them until they were finished. What I have learned this semester is that they will never be finished. Art works are always a work in progress, and they always have something that could be added or improved. I'm satisfied with some of my works this semester, and although none of them are perfect, they come pretty dang close.

This is a blind contour collage. I drew all of the elements in this collage without looking at my paper as I was drawing, then collaged them together. I like the composition of this piece, but the "cloud of ideas" part of the drawing was lost when I took the picture because the drawings aren't bold. If I was to continue working on this piece, I would make the elements other than the girl at the bottom more bold

This is a still life. It is a line drawing, so no value here. I had to use lines to show the contours of the objects as well as the shadows. 

This is a drawn collage. I cut out all the images from magazines, collaged them, and then drew the collage in gray scale. This is my favorite piece so far. 

This is an isometric design. I drew a grid that was based on 30 degree triangles, and then drew these shapes on the grid. The result is that all these shapes seem to be in a three-dimensional space. I used bold colors to make it fun and kind of trippy looking. 

More projects to come, I can guarantee it.