Mural :D

I got a mural job at Sarni Dry Cleaners on Newbury Street in Boston. I have made quite a few murals in high school with my best friend Vicki, and one during the summer before college, so doing one alone for the first time in 4 years was a challenge. This was on an 8-foot ladder in a 10-foot room, above a fireplace with a mantelpiece. It was a lot of fun to paint, and I hope I can get more commissions from this, because I have a feeling that with practice, murals might be "my thing", especially with a partner (looking at you, Vicki!)...

I apologize for the weird angle - I'm short! :) I chose the color palette as my favorite triad of yellow-orange/red- and blue-violet/green. The boats were fun too... Never painted sailboats before. Also tested my fear of heights. Eek!

This roughly 5.5'x6' mural can be viewed in person, at 245 Newbury Street in Boston - Sarni Dry Cleaners!

Hmm! Art.

So I was thinking even MORE last night after that post and while I was trying to fall asleep. Thinking about art does not mix well with trying to sleep! :) My brain just never stops, sometimes.

Okay so... I figured that I don't have the nicest of scanners (it's NOT a flatbed, only scans about 8"x10"), but I'm definitely going to save up a few hundred for a 11"x17" flatbed. In any case, maybe I will stop neglecting my Intuos3 and my digital programs and give digital art a try. It will be difficult digitally drawing and painting on this tiny laptop screen without killing the battery - and my eyesight! - but I'm willing to give it a try. I would especially like to use Corel Painter... haven't messed around with that enough. Oh, and maybe making some small watercolor shapes and textures and painting on top of those. I have a lot of ideas. Like I said, sometimes my brain just never stops! It's supposed to be very grey and rainy all week and into the weekend, so anything art-related I get done will be great for me. I wonder what everyone else does to find inspiration and ideas for art-making. I feel like it's a big secret that I was left out of, along with a lot of other classmate/school related things...

So spring has sprung, and it's the middle of May. Wow! How did that happen so fast? It's like someone put time on the top of a rollercoaster hill and it's all going so fast from there. It's very weird. Is it going to get even faster as I get older...?

Thoughts.

So I'm all done with college... so nervous but it feels OK for now.

Portfolio Reviews went fine - I talked to some very interesting and helpful people who seemed to like my artwork a lot! Or at least I hope so. Portfolio Show was fine too. Not really what I expected... barely anyone looked at my portfolio and almost nobody had any questions for me (which is fine because it was so loud in there I had to yell at the top of my lungs for anyone to hear me); instead it was sort of a blur of people collecting postcards/business cards. Maybe 10-12 people, tops, flipped through my portfolio. But it's okay. I remember doing the same thing myself last year. It seemed most people like my 'Summer Yoga' postcard, followed by 'Spring'. I ran out of business cards halfway through, and had a lot of leftovers for 'Fall Yoga' - I almost wish I made postcards of 'Winter' instead. The best part for me, of course, was when my boyfriend visited :) ...and the cannoli. Yum!

Proudly, I've been applying to a lot of places lately through many databases and websites, as well as sending out postcards to magazines. I've also just signed up tonight for IllustrationFriday and ArtistADay in hopes of sparking some creativity. This grey and gloomy weather has gotten me down really bad. Oh, and I'm also open to commissions.

I think next I need to start drawing people again, especially men and kids. The former is fine because I have a boyfriend and a dad and a grampy and brothers... the latter scares me a bit because people are so overprotective about their kids in this day and age. I think, maybe, if I go sit in a park with sunglasses and a tiny sketchbook, I -should- be able to get some sketching done... when it stops raining. :) I definitely want to draw Alex though. And my cats... heheh.