Wow what a year. 2020 was insane. I'm not exaggerating. We lost so many amazing people this year due to COVID-19. Stress and anxiety rose in all of us. We didn't get a real graduation. We didn't learn anything in school. We didn't get to tell some people goodbye. It was truly a struggle. 

Even so, I'm glad I was there to experience it. COVID is a new part of history now, and we will remember what happened. To try and distract myself from the chaos, I tried painting some nature and people that inspire me. Here's two of my recent works. Watercolor and gouache paintings. 

Black gouache on sketchbook paper

Moth study
Watercolor on paper

I haven't posted in a long time. It was hard trying to stay positive during all the mess. I've been worried about my future, but everyone has a different path. There isn't an answer for every artist out there. I just need to find my own. Thank you if you are reading this. 

 

This Year at UNT

Hello everyone!
If you are new, this is my blog. I've had it for a long time actually. I never thought that I would have to use it for a school project, but here it is in all its glory.

This year, I've learned a lot about myself and my artistic goals. I've learned that I should not make decisions that are too quick, even if I know that it will make others happy. It's important to keep in mind that whatever decisions I make as an artist, I must make decisions that will put my health first, otherwise I will not be able to fulfill my goals. If you aren't happy in the short-term, how will you be happy in the long? I can't paint or draw if my personal life has issues.

As a junior, I've also realized that it's important to have a strong social network. Being around people that have the same passions as you do can increase your chances for new opportunities for jobs and events. For example, I had a friend from drawing class that let me know about a small art show that took place in Denton. Going to this event, I got to see artists display their work, and now I follow them on social media to gain inspiration.

Something that I noticed is that a lot of artists have their own style, but other artists try all sorts of styles. I'm still not sure if having a style is a necessity for an artist to get noticed in the world. But if someone does have a style, it can be easy to point them out in a group of art pieces. So, the question is, do I need to have my own style? And how am I supposed to have a style when I'm interested in more than one?

Thoughts For the Future

What is there to do with an art career? A constantly thought about question surfs through my mind on a daily basis. Illustration, Freelance, Art Director, Concept Artist, Design, Photography, Museum careers, etc. But what is it that I want to do? I'm twenty one and I'm still not completely sure. I might want to work in a museum and get some experience in Dallas. Possibilities are endless, but will fate decide?

I'm pretty skilled in photography, drawing, painting, and designing things. I've seen my peers try to design logos, and I can't help but laugh internally as they try to create logos from cheap phone apps instead of Adobe Illustrator. I have the capacity to design such things, but I have so much fear built up that keeps me from finding my dream job.

I don't even know if I should be worrying about these things. So I distract myself with things that have nothing to do with art. Eventually life is gonna hit me in the face and force me to get my life on track. (When I graduate) What am I to do then? I'm a junior in college, almost a senior. I have to start doing something quickly. All I know right now is that I should get my art into galleries. Maybe apply, apply, apply until someone accepts my work. Dreams...

Whenever someone I don't know asks me about my major, I feel like they are always laughing at me on the inside. I feel disappointed in myself for some reason, because they don't seem to think highly of me for doing something that I'm passionate about. It's sad that I have to live my life worrying about what other people think of my career. "What do you plan on doing with your major?" "How is that gonna work?" "You wanna be a starving artist?" "How is that gonna help you as a career?" Sometimes I just wanna know how to respond without sounding like I don't know what I'm doing. The sad thing is that I DON'T. But is it entirely my fault that I don't know what I'm doing? In high school and college, no one tells you what you can do with an art career. They just say "Oh, there's too many things that can be called 'art'." I understand that, but can we get into details???

Hello Again. Semester Spring 2019

No one reads my blog but that's okay!!!
We are back at it at UNT, painting something new, and meeting new people.

This next painting is non representational, and combines my take on color theory with repetitive but unpredictable patterns. The top portion contains different mixes of blues, greens, and yellows. Analogous colors I guess you could say. The pattern of colors are formed by rectangles that repeat over and over in vertical and horizontal positions. After continuing this pattern for a while, the painting will transition into a dripping effect that shifts in color hues as well. Why am I creating the painting this way? I got my inspiration from a couple of artists that were listed by my professor. I don't recall their names but I will soon. As in right now:

LIST
Shuji Mukai, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Piero Manzoni, Enrico Castellani, Sadamasa Motonaga, GÜnther Uecker, Robert Ryman, Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Sol Lewitt, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Paul Klee, Kenneth Noland, Josef Albers, Agnes Martin, Sean Scully, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Judith Murra

Some of these works I did not enjoy looking at at all, but the few that I did were incorporated into my inspiration. The artists that caught my eye the most were Mark Rothko and Wassily Kandinsky because of their interesting usage of color.

Digital Art

First completed digital art piece that wasn't created for a college class!

Used Adobe Illustrator and my Wacom Tablet! I created my own custom brush and learned more about the program as I created my work. The tutorials on the Adobe website are super helpful..
I even signed it at the bottom, and I always forget to sign my work no matter what medium it is. 😥

Fall Semester 2018
(junior)

Rookie Mag and College thoughts

It's almost the end of my first semester at UNT. It's unbelievable how much art work I've created in just a couple of months including design sculptures, figure drawings, still-life pastel work, photography collections, and other projects. 

I definitely love this school more than I should. Right now I need to stay focused even though it's almost the end of the year. I think it can be easy to slack off and especially right now since I started watching the Office. Sometimes I wonder how I am keeping a social life while worrying about all these projects. Low key.. I do lose my sanity sometimes and resort to procrastination and video games. Journaling helps my mind when I feel fed up at home.

Rookie podcasts are really keeping me happy though and I NEVER listen to podcasts. Ever. If you don't know what Rookie is, it's an amazing website that I found online that was created by a woman named Tavi Gevinson. Tavi is a big inspiration for me, because she has helped women understand that they can be whoever they want to be even if society tries to push them down. I feel like one day I would love to work for the magazine or create illustrations for their books.

The site is sort of aimed for teenage girls but I still read it even though I'm 20 since it's still really interesting and helpful for me. There's also lots of art and comics that interest me whenever I feel like having eye-candy or inspiration.
www.rookiemag.com/

Update on School Projects for Drawing Class

Hello everyone! I created an amazing post that I wanted to share a second ago. It disappeared because I accidentally exed out the tab. It was a long post too... I am so frustrated right now. It was about college, my art projects, and my biggest inspiration. Wish that I didn't lose that post.

Currently, I am working on a pastel drawing that includes mainly primary colors. Simultaneously, I'm planning to begin a self portrait for Drawing 2. I'm choosing to transform myself into an owl because they are one of my favorite animals of all time, they are night creatures (like myself), they have big eyes like me, and they are just so beautiful and overall cute. Owls are supposed to represent intelligence or something like that. I feel like I can be very intelligent but also very slow. Everything I do takes a lot of thought. Anyways, I don't know if I can connect to owls on a spiritual level, but that's what the internet said when I took the "What's Your Spirit Animal?" quiz.

Design Project 3

Created a sculpture out of balsa wood. Painted it a dark purple to represent royalty, because our teacher assigned us a word that we are supposed to describe through our sculpture design. My word was "distinguished", which means authoritative, successful, or commanding great respect. I got that off of google. (Hehe)

Update: I got a good grade on this project, but there were so many other projects that were better than mine. Now I wish that I had made it more interesting. I'm still proud of this little sculpture. It's sitting on my dresser in San Antonio.

Photography Class Nonsense

I don't really understand why my photography professor is making us listen to a podcast. about a shuttle crash. about a band called the long winters...how does this relate to photography?

Feels like he is staring into my soul right now. Okay he is looking away. Teaching assistant seems kind of thoughtful. I want to know what she is really thinking right now. Is she trying to be interested? Probably.

We are staring at this photo on the screen right now. It's been 12 minutes and 50 seconds. I officially hate this band. "The Commander Thinks Aloud" seems like an ongoing song that I can't get out of my head. It's creative but I'm tired of the repetitive piano part.

For our next project, we are supposed to be taking photos of any theme we want. It gives me some creative freedom. Some ideas of themes or concepts I want to photograph:

-trash and litter from the earth, dead animals on the side of the road?
-my friends on campus in their favorite outfits with their favorite things
-art, galleries, or street art
-sunset and sunrise scenes
-people and their technology, disconnection

Hello guys,

I haven't been on here in a while. I switched colleges. I was originally at the University of Texas at Dallas, but now I am attending the University of North Texas at Dallas. I switched majors from 3D Animation and Modeling to Drawing and Painting. Was it a good choice? I'm actually not totally sure because I enjoy both of these career paths very much. If I could do both, I would. Should I double major? Possibly.

Anyways, you are probably wondering what these things are at the bottom of the page. These are my things, which were all created by using found objects. I created them for design class this semester (Spring 2018) and have entered them into an art contest called the CVAD Annual Voertman Student Art Competition. With over 100 entries being submitted this year, it is unlikely that my small little sculptures will be accepted. But, why not give it a try?

I used a lot of super glue. I find the yellow sculpture to be one of the best ones, because it resembles a bird's nest. Overall, I think that the red and green sculpture is the best one. It's named Dragon Flowers, because my aunt suggested that the flowers look like dragons. She is totally right. I had a lot of fun creating these sculptures without knowing that I would enter them into a contest. I plan on entering many more in the future if any more pop up on a wall advertisement.

I do want to mention that before transferring to UNT, I had no idea that I would do it. I didn't plan it at all and never thought about it until one of my relatives suggested that I did. Right before this spring semester began, I decided that UNT would be a better school for me. I've always dreamed of attending a school that was serious about visual arts. UTD is not the school that I imagined attending after high school. Due to family pressure, I attended. I will not say that I didn't get anything out of UTD. I became very interested in their animation program, even if it was very challenging.

Completed, But Not Perfect

Finally, my spaceship is complete.
Requirements of my 3D Modeling and Texturing Final Project:
-Complete all Texturing
-Render the final ship in a new Maya file (which was provided for us)
-Create an Ambient Occlusion (< didn't get to do this)

My laptop is complete crap. If I didn't go to my university's open computer lab, I never would've been able to complete this project. So, I'm definitely gonna try to get a new laptop that's faster during the summer or at least before the beginning of the next semester.

That being said, I could've done much better on this project. If I gave it more time rather than focusing on my other classes, I guarantee that this would've turned out just the way I wanted it to. I also needed to visit the labs more frequently.

My favorite part about this project: I really enjoyed texturing the ship and adding color to it. It was fun to create the color maps in Photoshop and practice my digital painting skills. The orange and gray dust looks nice and realistic, and the BOBA TEA sticker looks so awesome on the cup. LOVED texturing this.

What I want to change: I want to add more texture in the interior, on the pink inside. I would like to re-model the the control panel and how it fits into the dashboard. I need to fix up the spec map to make the control panel less shiny, and maybe even figure out how to add a liquid-like effect to the boba bowl. (The bowl you can't even see) I need more close up and detail renders as well.

Spaceship Model (brand new texture theme)

I've had so much fun creating this spaceship, guys. It's insane how much better I've gotten at modeling in just one semester. I need to practice more on different projects.

model sheet

call out sheet

future modeling ideas for portfolio:
-car
-truck
-computer desk
-a small house
-train
-chess set
-guns
-Iron Man head

I've changed the theme of my blog design. What do you guys think of it? Let me know in the comments.

Recently I've been working on texturing a spaceship that I've modeled. I added some features to it to turn it into a boba/bubble tea-themed spaceship. The first photo was the very first iteration of the ship, when I didn't know what theme to do. The second photo shows the interior through the dome of the ship which has a transparent phong shader added to it. It was fun creating the control panel and the seat. I added a blender in the back and some cups. In my most recent iteration of the ship, I've added a small bowl full of boba and a holder for all the kitchen supplies.

I textured a suitcase! Didn't model the suitcase, but we were assigned to texture it and make it look old. Every assignment takes about a week or less to complete so, again, not that difficult. I tried to make the object look old and worn out by adding in scratches to the maps. I added some stickers, which was the fun part for me. :) I really like how it turned out. 

 I feel like I did great on the spec map. It looks like the dark brown part is actually a leathery material!

 Very scratchy on the bottom.

So anyways, I don't think this is the first thing I've textured. Right. I textured a lock a few weeks ago. I need to save it as a jpeg. THAT was my first try at texturing. This is my second texturing assignment. I'll be sure to post that soon.

It's finally Friday, and I woke up at the time that I was supposed to be in class. My only class that I had for the day. :( I still went and didn't miss any of the notes, but I did miss the critique section of the class. Basically during the critique section, our professor takes a look at some of our completed models and gives advice to the students about any mistakes or problems that were visible.

After that he started talking about UV mapping. I'm actually not looking forward to this, because it looks a bit difficult to me. I'm sure other people don't feel the same way. I took my notes on UV mapping, and I guess I'll just have to put it into practice. 

I feel like such a hermit right now, hiding in my room on a Friday. Things to do:

• start UV mapping assignment
• practice drawing
• read for other classes
• nap

I've created another complex model for an assignment :) 

I just love how it looks.This model took about a week or less to complete. 

Key Lock

"Hello...it's me"♪♪♪♫♫♫ sitting here at my laptop. So this lock took about a week. My favorite part about it? The color and the material I added to it. "Phong" material. I wanna know how to make it look more rusted though. Maybe I'll learn that soon. 

The problems I had with this model: the mesh flow near the key hole showed some sort of pinching..but not exactly pinching. You can see the edges when I smooth out the model. You're not supposed to see hard edges. I'm not sure how to fix this so I might email my professor. 

I like the depth in the key hole. I did have an issue getting the handle to look realistic/ closer to the reference photo I used. The bolts weren't difficult. The middle piece was a bit confusing to figure out. But hey, everything turned out alright.

Close Ups and Mesh Flow

Front View

Side view

Angle

Robot Head: Model Sheet

This is a model sheet of a robot head that I modeled last month for my modeling and texturing class :) So far I'm liking the class, and I think I'm handling it well. It does take up a lot of my time, but it's worth it in the end.

Model #1 College Freshman
This is the first model I've ever created! It's my desk lamp. Created with Maya 2016.
Created 10/4/16

Model #2 College Freshman
Second model: pawn. Created with Maya 2016.
Created 10/4/16

Model #3 College Freshman

Knife block. Created with Maya 2016

Created 11/7/16