Pandamonster gets a new look!

Thanks to my Advanced Illustration class, I finally got the inspiration/gentle nudge/kick in the ass to give my blog a more "custom" look. And boy, ain't it purdy!

Ever wondered what a pandamonster would really look like?

THAT.

Now I'm an "advanced" artist!

Currently working on a bit of a creative overhaul, so I'm finally getting some quality digital versions of my art. Thought I'd share one of my favourites from a series I just finished called From the Ground Up. This series is a unique combination of colours, materials and mark-making to literally "build" up a drawing that pulls inspiration from the effects of time on the floors and white walls at the university where I study fine arts.

Floor no. 3
Katelyn Richard
Mixed media on paper
October, 2010

More to follow soon.

Purple Haze

For my brother's 18th birthday this month, I decided to pay tributes to both my hero and his with a Warhol-inspired painting of Jimi Hendrix.



My brother, an avid drummer and guitarist, is also a big Hendrix fan. I had already bought him a Hendrix shirt a few birthdays back, so I figured original art of his hero would be a nifty change this year.

While Googling reference pictures, I came across one that had been edited to resemble a Pop Art portrait. I'm a big fan of Andy Warhol and I liked the look of that picture best, so I figured, "Why not?" Hendrix was also a well known psychedelic drug user, so I thought the colour scheme and aesthetics associated with Warhol's work would be appropriate as well. ;)

I think it was a fairly successful leap into Pop Art. I'm rather satisfied with how it turned out, and my brother (thankfully) likes it!

Drawing class

I finally decided to photograph some newer drawings, if only to prove that I can draw. These are two of my better ones from the Intro to Figure Drawing class I took at NSCAD in the winter.


This was an assignment early in the semester. We had to do a mirrored copy of a Master drawing. I mirrored Raphael Santi's "Nude Study" (which can be found here). I noticed as I was pinning it on the wall that the man's legs and feet look just a little bit small, but I'm not super concerned. The muscles in his back were pretty fun to draw.


This one of Acid Betty was drawn as part of my final project, a series of drag queens. I fell in love with her look after seeing her on season 4 of Project Runway and immediately knew I wanted to draw her at some point. I cropped out her hands because they gave me such a headache when I tried to draw them. (Note to self: practice hands and feet!). Other than that, she was some of the most fun I've ever had drawing. I'll definitely be revisiting drag queens in my future work.

THE POWER IS YOURS

I must have had some sort of nostalgic episode tonight because I felt a compulsion to go through some of my old files from high school. Between my oekaki doodles and my pet chemistry project (a comic about nuclear energy) I found this little gem from eleventh grade.



This was originally done for a poster when I decided to run for Arts Rep on my student council. (I lost.) It proved to be quite useful again when my twelfth grade Political Science class put together a mock election and I was campaign manager for the Green Party. (We won!)

At the time, I thought I had some mad Photoshop skills, but looking at it now, it's kind of ridiculous. I decided to cut out the poster text and throw it up here for a laugh. I'm pretty sure this cartoon was actually TERRIBLE but I still love as much as I did when I was five. I mean, it's a series about villains that pollute the earth solely for the sake of being a douchebag and the hero has a green mullet. You don't see stuff like that in cartoons anymore. (On the Metro Transit late at night, however...)

Mo shirts!

I suckered my friends Kandis and Katie into taking some photos of my final screenprinting project yesterday. There are two shirts with this design and 4 with a smaller Mo drawing that I still need to get pictures of.



I'm currently trying to find a place online that will custom print shirts for a decent price. I'd love to go into business selling my own work but it's much too expensive and time consuming to hand-print these multi-layer designs myself. I was looking at setting up a CafePress store but the licensing of my content to them under the Terms of Service makes me uncomfortable. Suggestions?

Southern Ann-Margret... On steroids.

My final project for figure drawing class is a series of drawings of drag queens. After researching photos of Varla Jean Merman, I fell in love with her retro-Hollywood look and did this drawing as sort of an exploration of the subject manner. Drawing a figure that's both male and female is an interesting challenge.



I think my cat, Mimi, really liked this drawing.

This is one of many creative obstacles I deal with every day.