freshman year / semester 1 (fall 2024)

oh man... i'm a college student now

"strange in a way i still can't comprehend, and yet, here i am.

busier than i've ever been in my whole life, now living in Alabama of all places and attending Auburn University as a freshman in Studio Arts. crazy.

enjoy some of the major projects and things i've made so far, complete with a nice backing of blood, sweat, tears, and lack of sleep."

(freshman abby)

semester 1 - FALL 2024

first ever artwork i had professionally photographed. cool...

collage project

wow, this was fun to make. this was my first actual college project! a college collage! c...col..age...? yeah

i wrote a ton about it, so... here's an extract:

"My family sits in the center of a large eye, all of which are made out of the texture of my mother’s paintings. I, however, am represented by the iris of the eye ... (meant to represent my own) is made out of the texture of my drawings, and the pupil of the eye is made out of MRI and X-RAY images of my own body – a literal representation of myself, meant to be very subtle and almost unrecognizable as me."

erm. what is it

ok, the meaning is pretty layered. i wrote an entire freakin' essay about it, so i'll just pull some extracts from that:

"Symbolically, I wanted it to represent the two biggest, most defining parts of my life – my family, and my faith (that is, the Lord) ... the eye is meant to symbolize the fact that God is watching over us, and that we try to view the world through his eyes, not our own ... The background of the piece is also meant to represent the Lord, as it wraps around the entire eye, and thus my family, holding it all in place."

a digital mock-up before I started the final version.

all practice collages, in preparation for the big one. they're supposed to represent the dollar sign ($). it's somewhere in there...

figuring out what to make

drawing i made to articulate my thoughts post-production.

made a gradient out of pictures we've taken. fun

finished the family! textures of my mom's paintings, my drawings, and MRI images of me. hahah

figuring out a background.

making a doll? September 2024

dude i actually did that. crazily enough started and finished in 10 days. i honestly don't know how i did it... crazy.

ok, i actually had a lot of fun. favorite college project by far. in fact, i'd love to make more dolls like her. definintly my favorite project so far. i had a ball doing it.

ok so... what's the process?

so, the project brief was to make an art piece inspired by a specific artist of our choice -- mine was Mariko Mori. she's got some pretty cool stuff.

ok, personal secret... i really like dolls. fashion dolls, specifically. you know, Barbie, Monster High, that sort of thing. as i've grown older, i've come to appreciate the design and craft of these dolls a lot.

with that in mind, i was particularly inspired by a piece of Mariko Mori's, "Star Doll." so i was like, dude, what if I made a doll? that'd be nuts. i had always wanted to...

and uh. i did. and i really liked it.

digital concept boards i made prior to starting.

variety of conceptual drawings i did prior to starting.

drew some of Mariko Mori and her photographs to understand her art better.

unsure about design...

rough final design. led to the digital drawings above.

i rescued this elsa doll from Goodwill. poor girly had glitter glue on her face, guck in her hair, etc. well loved.

first, i removed her face with 100% acetone, and chopped her hair off.

I'm Commiting Doll War Crimes for School, Mom

(putting her head/neck in hot water to loosen the plastic to take elsa's head off)

then, i plucked all her hair out. each one. it took a solid hour and a half

then, i started to thread in new hair with unwinded yarn and a needle.

in the midst of doing that, i gave her some blush using real human makeup. not my finest moment

more hair! and a process pic of threading it. cool

more hair!

painted the whites of her eyes with acrylic, and blocked out both irises and brows with watercolor pencils.

gave her some iris... irises? irisis? iris'? i don't know

putting Glue-All on the inside of her head to hold her newly rooted hair in place.

finished her hair!

fun fact: she is completely bald except for her hairline (hence the high ponytail)

using a facial mockup i made in photoshop, i began to paint it. i actually changed most of it after this picture.

gave her eyes a little gradient. fun! this is all with acrylic paint, by the way.

gave her lashes, lips, and pupils! very delicate work -- took a long while!

gave her blue + red eye shadow, freckles, and little stars in her eyes! so cute...

and yes. it kind of looks like me on purpose...

meanwhile, i bought a Made To Move barbie doll to put her head on. it has 24 points of articulation, folks! (compared with OG elsa body)

I'm Commiting Doll War Crimes Again for School, Mom

(putting her head/neck in hot water to loosen the plastic to take it off, again)

took her hands off and painted them to be funny little gloves.

special shout out to the scrub daddy helping them dry.

HANDS ON A KEBAB

(put on a stick w/ tinfoil to seal the paint with Mr. Super Clear)

made clothing patterns by wrapping her body with saran wrap, covering it with tape, and cutting it off.

clothing patterns + boots!

(boots are tinfoil w/ tape around them).

trying to use aforementioned pattern. hahaha

first big success of the project (this was pre-face painting). it's pretty far from perfect, but it was great for me.

top + gloved arm!

FUN FACT: i don't know how to sew. so, i kind of gave up on her torso. that's why it looks so funny.

skirt demo! fun stuff

full clothing demo!

gave her a little bra to help with the wonky shirt situation. i think it looks better than the totally white shirt i originally had, so it worked out.

top of the skirt looked like crap, so i added an overskirt.

(fun fact: the bra thing and the skirts are hot glued, NOT sewn. again, i can't sew)

demoed a holographic hair tie. didn't work out, but i liked it.

also demoed star earings. again, didn't work. i really wish they did, but the glue just sucked

an attempt at a tuule skirt that also did not work. i tried, at least

neck joint b gone*

*i actually ran into a huge problem here -- the elsa head's neck joint was too small to fit the barbie body. i ended up having to saw off barbie's entire neck joint and sand it down with actual sand paper. it's actually not even attached or glued on, it just sits there. lol

i originally bought this irridescent blue fabric to make a shawl, but it obscured her figure too much. a friend suggested i pleat it, so...

i gave her this really sick cape thing! i love it. it looks so cool and pulled everything together

and... finished!

before...

AFTER! auughhh i love her

side view

wow... this was really fun!

i'm pretty happy with the final product. she was a huge learning opportunity, and i had a blast making her.

the craziest part? start to finish, she took 10 days. which is a pretty insane turn around, if you ask me.

you'll notice a few extra details i added last minute, like the silver accents on the neck and wrists, blue on the boots, and the belt and hairtie. she's a pretty far cry from ol' elsa, huh?

i got a B

professional documentation pending as of 11/8/24.

studio 2 collaborative project / Oct 2024

first ever art collaboration. it was difficult at times, but really super fun! i had a good time doing it. :)

we were supposed to design our own "movement." we designed a movement focused around migrating into space, thus the artpiece. to create it, we combined the concepts of space, storytelling, myth, and faith.

really early concept we ended up dropping.

adventures in home depot (featuring sister)!

crude concept, post home depot.

less crude concept.

somewhat understandable concept.

refined concept!

initial spraypaint galaxy test, just to see if we could. it's on a scrap piece of wood.

small-scale print, to help with sizing/conceptual work.

crudely taped small-scale paper on the studio wall (callum for scale).

second, better spray test. literally on a piece of paper.

tried a spraypaint gradient, again, on paper.

BIGGER, BETTER canvases acquired!

figuring out canvas orientation to eventually create a reference.

created a meticulously measured reference, for eventual spraypainting and hanging.

spraying down yellow/orange gradient, which would be taped over for galaxy patterning later on.

taped and finished galaxy pattern! took a hot minute...

at this point, we decided to do image transfers onto the canvases from digital drawings. small progress shot

attempt at modpodge image transfer, onto the spray tests. realized they needed a white background.

all finalized images, drawn/rendered in tandem with my partner. the grayscale ones were to create spraypaint stencils.

spraypaint stencil + image for transfering. we forgot to flip this one...

image down and mid-transfer! it took 24 hours per canvas, all done in tandem.

getting everything hung up, mid-transfer.

post-transfer, after being treated once or twice with a sponge to remove the paper. it's still not totally done at this point.

attempted to finish the rocket trail, but the spraypaint bled through the painter's tape :(

re-hanging, using the reference we made earlier.

removal of the reference.

final version! groupmate helped remove the remaining white film on the transfers, added glitter, and other great varnishes.

cardboard planes project / Nov 2024

yep, it's my own head. made of cardboard, painters tape (to make the edges look nice), and acrylic paint. mostly made in a 6-day fever after the previous project. resulted in my second ever all-nighter, but i'd say it was worth it. i got an 17 hour sleep afterwards, so it was fine. paint job isn't my favorite, but it is what it is.

aight, so what is it?

ok, so, we were supposed to make a piece based off of something personally significant to us. the picture here to the right is one of my favorite photos in the world -- it's me (left) and my twin sister (right) as babies, where my mom sat us in front of an azalea bush. i just love it. so i wanted to pay some homage to it, given how important it and azaleas are to me.

mid-cardboard build. still figuring things out here.

finished and primed cardboard build. looks pretty nice!

digital painting draft + setup. unfortunatly, i didn't have the time or skill to replicate the concept in the final version.

mid-painting bonanza!

this picture was taken at 4:39 in the morning. i worked with an absolute fever for the next 3 hours after this.

finished product. not very happy with the paint job (particularly the blue), and i'd like to repaint it sometime. but it turned out good enough.

skulls + drapery extended project October 2024

it's a skull of an animal. i don't know what it is

it's charcoal. a lot of it! a lot of it...

i did this in one sitting, singing my brains out to disney music

(empty studio at 8pm)

did THIS in a second sitting. blasted my vocal cords so bad singing to the Rio (2011) soundtrack my voice was raspy for a few days

ended up in the hall of fame in the art building. baller

wire project October 2024

a project that took blood, sweat, and tears to make more literally than i'd like to admit.

this project also procured my first all nighter in my entire life. crazy, huh?

working on the bum. also bandaids

dude, what even is it?

ok, so the project was to make a personally signifigant "kitchy" object out of wire. i've got this super cute ponyo plush on my bag, so i made her. took about a week. and again, an all nighter. yep.

conceptual workings

"inhereted risk"// Nov 2024

when asked to make a project about a problem in my life, i wasn't quite sure which one to pick.

then, i remembered that my family has a rich history of cancer occurrence. i am pretty much cooked, in that regard, so i decided to make an art piece about it. the meaning is almost purely figurative, but we'll get into that later.

showing off the work in progress, convinced i didn't need to pull an all-nighter.

waiting for the campus security shuttle, post all-nighter.

"family hardware" // Nov 2024

51 individual pieces of technology, XX photos from my childhood, all hanging from the ceiling. probably the magnum opus of my first semester.

chalkboard ideation.

thinking of that one scene from megamind.

final idea. changed a lot from this, later on.

prepping for disassembly.

taking apart a Wii Balance Board.

the guts of the balance board. suprisingly bare bones?

cracked open Wiimote. absolutely facinating to me.

two wiimotes, same revision period, different circut boards? interesting!

motherboard of a PS2. i find it to be so beautiful. is that strange?

just SOME of the extra parts I had. oops.

singular PS2 from the ceiling!

commemorative drawing of the ps2 from the ceiling.

first couple of things. awful

dissatisfied with progress.

few more things. still awful

a few more things?

TIRED. got a serious work out from that ladder.

slightly more things?!

it's kind of skinny from the front! on purpose.

soooo close!

the finished product!

an abby, midway through her first drawing class, terrified in her new habitat.

/ August 22 2024

minor projects/pieces

silly, goofy little things i have had to do for one reason or another. most of these are just practice exercises for the larger projects above. but these are important too, so i slammed em right here

enjoy my creative frustration