Artrageous Auction!!!

               So, last time was the enormous and most popular event of Montserrat College of Art was the Art Auction, the Artrageous28!!! What it is is a large, large party that auction off student, alumni or teachers artwork. But this is no original party for the public, it cost about a hundred dollars of get into the auction so there are a lot of rich citizens coming to purchase artwork.

                Here is a sample of the artwork from the silent auction, I do wish that I taken more but if you go on the Montserrat main website and the Art Auction site, pictures will be coming up soon about the entire auction,   http://www.montserrat.edu/auction28/

                 Probably one of the best impression that we bring to the party is the food. OH MY GOSH, THERE IS SO MUCH FOOD!!! From fish tacos, wrap tortilla, spring rolls rolls, fired rice, cheesy noodles, sweet potatoes fries, cheese that taste like bacon and mini hamburgers are spread through out the show. I could even say that this food is considered art for tasting amazing.  


 

                         When walking around, the Auction takes place around a large warehouse, which is much bigger than the area from last years Auction. Here, there is a lot more space to walk especially when all thousands tickets were sold. When walking around, it is pretty much like walking in a museum, where you can view all the silent auction pieces. They also featured a living activity band to perform spacey but enjoyable music. Also there were several workshops areas that Montserrat students sampled their artwork of printmaking, painting, life drawing, animation, drawing and jewelry making. This was where I worked.

        This is a dear friend of my that I was surprised on see there. All semester, he has been wrapped up in homework and decision on his major so I rarely get to see him. 

          At the Auction, I was at one of the most popular stations where I created pastels portraits.

           
             The first one on the left wasn't my best because I was adjusting to Auction world I was drawing it. Not only do you have a number of people looking over your shoulder, you have photographers flash photograph shining in your eyes. Also I haven't really mastered white pale skin tone since it is a paler orange and unusually light reflection.
            The second one was a lot more enjoyable once adjusting to the atmosphere. Using the darker tones allows me to use color layers of tones. Not to mention, creating the awesome beauty blue hair.

             Overall, I had an enjoyable time at the auction and would wish to attend it again. All I hope to be invited to draw portraits again or perhaps submit something for the silent auction. Once again, check out the website and see what you miss out on :)

           Also, I forgot to mention this my last blog. For the plaster project I am working on, I have to create an organic human organ. Here are some of my possible sketches to choose from on Tuesday.

Busy, Busy, Busy

               Advising day, Painting, 3-D, English, Art History, Life drawing, college activity and preparations for Saturday. A lot of events happened this week that I imagined, I was lucky that I had time to do my assignments. So, I'll give a summary of each class and day of this week.

             Painting started off as a day of critique of our three oil paintings of the black and white still life and the master paintings. People were pretty impressed with the paintings, using a particular manner of painting as well as replicating the Degas's piece. Now our next project is a colored still life, used of vibrant colors combination of fabrics and everyday outfits. I hoping that it will be similar to the color pastel pieces that I produced in Drawing I.

            Speaking of pastels, my awesome Drawing teacher asked me to draw pastels portraits for their annual event, The Art Auction. This is their popular event held in Salem where they auction off beautiful art pieces by Seniors, Alumni's and teachers. While that goes on, vary of work stations of animation, sculpture, painting, etc. One of the stations that I working at is a space where students drawing each other while people watch. It a peek into the student live artwork created from Montserrat. I not sure how many pieces we will make but there is a rare opportunity to sell your freshly new portraits. Again, I am very excited for this and glad that my friends are coming along with me. I'll talk about my reaction of the Art Auction on Sunday.

            Next, on Tuesday, was the entire day of Advising Day. I finally got to see my Advisor for the first time this semester. The first thing I showed to him was my sketchbook of watercolors and gouache sketches, because I wanted to see how invested I was in the medium. Also, I wanted to ask him if there were any watercolor media classes next semester. Unfortunately, there won't be teaching that course until spring semester but he strongly suggested that I take the Illustration I course by the head of the Illustration department. And I was a little bummed that I won't have a class with him again but he said we would before graduation.

So the courses that I'm attending to sign up for is Illustration I, Audio & Film Media, Graphic Design I, Introduction of Creative Writing and English Composition 2    

              So I finally had my Art History Midterm on Wednesday and what did I think? Well, I thought I got ripped off. I sent many, many hours and interruption to study the 156 flash cards. And in the end, it was a page long of ten questions and an critique essay. I barely reference the vocabulary worlds, a few iconic art pieces and the Last Supper interpretations. I thought there would be challenged a little more than having a art history quiz.     

             Thursday, I finally got to make fresh powdered to liquid to solid plaster block. The best analogy that my partner and I came up with plaster was clam chowder, cream soup and vanilla milk shake. But do not let the appearance fool you because when you stir your hand in the plaster, it feels like white fluid with hidden cold pieces of mud or clay. Not the best sensation of feel at the bottom of the bucket. It even takes two buckets to fill in one box, pretty ridiculous. I'll take a picture of the finally result of the solid plaster outside the box on Sunday. 

 

Quick Report

Hey, everyone!! I forgot this yesterday but if you didn't notice yourself, I changed the address. 

It is now under sarahdownie.blogspot.com.

This address will be more convenient to type in, instead of remembering some sort of username. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Please await my blog on friday.

Monkey Island Illustrations

                So while advising day is coming up, I have been keeping up with my watercolor and gouache sketches. Also I been keeping myself relax by getting back to pc program games. Somehow, I don't really remember how but I was suddenly drawn to the point & click game of "The Secret of Monkey Island".


          Originally, this creativity game was created in 1990 by Ron Gilbert under Lucas games. Then it was then updated in 2009 from the pixel bit to color talking figures interacting in this Caribbean world. Unfortunately, I never played the 1990 version but was happy that I found this version, especially the beautiful artwork that was put through the direction of art director, Jeff Sangalli. All the characters, props and background lay outs were hand painted by many, many artist including Dela Longfish, Molly Denmark, Yong Zhen Tan, Charlie Kim, Hwanggyu Kim, Richard Lim, Andre Pong and Paul Pierce.
               When first playing it, I really fell in love with the artwork that tells the story of Monkey Island. So what the best way to combine the artwork and watercolor is the replicate the style in this medium. The first two portraits of the main character and his love interest I copy in the understand the art style used in the characters.

                   Then I applied the style into my own imagery, such seen below. I actually think that this art style really helped my with my illustrations. When using my life drawing search technique to this realistic cartoon can help make real humans. I can even add it into my characters and study drawings in my sketchbook. By the way, I am really, really excited by this semester because I am almost done filling in my sketchbook. For many years, I never even finished filling in my book with my sketches so it will be an awesome achievement.

                     By the way, HAH!!! This is the actually final painting of the black and white painting of Edgar Degas's Dancer piece. So see if you can spot the edits I made in the painting. Your prize will be knowing that you have well working eyes.

Registration and Housing Needs

          Can you feel it in the air? It is that time to look through all the 2014 fall courses for next semester. I am really excited by this because I get more freedom to choose what classes to do and what medium to experiment with. I have done all my studio foundation classes, evidence that I have the perquisites to sign up for advance studio classes. You could say it is a step up and experimental time before deciding your major. 

           The only downer that I see is the limitation of class course. Last semester, professors kept saying over and over that "you need to do classes that you never done before, work with a medium that you never used before because it could be your possible future major". Which is a good to think about but if you try all theses classes you might not have enough credits for a particular major. I'm still leading towards illustration but with used of different mediums like watercolor, wire, graphite and etc. I want to try new classes but I just feel like I won't have the credit or time to get into the class. That's why we have advisors to meet with. I meeting with him tuesday so I will talk about my possible classes next friday :)

            And now, Housing!!!! Honestly, these two semesters have gone by very, very fast that I barely remember Spring break, which by the way too short to enjoy. College vacation is very confusing. What is up coming in April is the arrangement for the housing lottery for students who is planning to live on campus. Basically, the housing coordinator would email us a number, which was the results of the gained credits of the overall semester. What number you had would assign you the order of choosing. It is your goal to get the lowest number in order to get first pick.

            Also they are doing a brand new picking for housings. Originally, the student would just pick the house they wish to be in, and if they had a specific roommate they wish to bunk with then they would chose the lowest and best number to go with. Now, they added new features to the lottery: Group Housings and Open Housings. Group housing is the choice to have a group of friends of six to eight to room together in an apartment. Then Open housing is the choice of living in a co-ed apartment housing, meaning that you could room in with your boyfriend, girlfriend or co-ed friends. Most of the housing coordinator don't recommend it to students since it's an unusually living space between boys and girls, but they still opened it up to see if it success. 

            What I been think, and even talking with my friends, that we want to do the group housing. By this, we get to room together next semester and hang out together more often. It will be much easier to hang out when I had to walk to their house. If we do the group housing, we're planning have share the double bedrooms instead of triple rooms. It will be a little bit more expensive than the triple but not as much as a single. And after the complication and storing issue with the triple made it difficult to enjoy living in. I am very exciting about this and will let you know soon as this production begins. A lot is happening and it not even midterms!!

                     Finally, here are my finish art pieces from this week of all my studio classes. Coming up, self portrait in oil paint, a plaster made organ and many more charcoal drawing of the model.