What I've been up to: January - June 2012 Edition

So I've been up to some things in the last 5 months, since I made that "What I've been up to since graduation in May 2011-January 2012" kind of post. Some things have changed, while others have not. Some new and exciting things happened in my personal life, and some crummy things happened, too. Here's the scoop:

Employment:

• Still working at The Discovery Museums! I have been working there for about 8 months now, and I still enjoy being there. Besides the joys of working with really cute and, at times surprisingly, really insightful little kids, it feels good to know that I'm working somewhere that: a) inspires and encourages creativity from its employees, b) makes me feel like an important team member and a human being, c) is frequented by visitors/customers who provide pleasant interactions most of the time, d) respects its employees and is pretty awesome at "having it together" in terms of scheduling, communication between every department and level. There are so many more positive things I'd like to say, but I don't want this blog post to be about this place!
• I have no idea what happened to my job as Studio Assistant to jewelry designer Lisa Monahan after the middle of January. We fell out of contact somehow; it's really too bad, as I enjoyed the times we had together during that month, and I still think her jewelry is great.
• Still working for Karenna! (http://karennamaraj.com/) Instead of internship, I just come in to visit her once every other week to help out with anything she needs. Her website was revamped and updates a whole lot more now, and it looks amazing! You can view many artists' jewelry/work, as well as her own; it has really nice photos and details of everyone's work, and I think you can even purchase the jewelry online. I enjoy working with jewelry when I get the chance - it fills a small "creative void" in me that I don't get from drawing or painting.
• I started working at MIT Museum in April this year. While I enjoyed my time there to an extent, and found that the museum itself is very cool (and has an awesome gift shop!), a combination of not really sure if I was happy being there-- a lot of opposites of the good things about Discovery Museums --and some outside-work/personal issues, is ending my employment there next week. 
• I am hoping I get chosen to be a special artist/teacher-type-person for an upcoming business in South Boston, which is in relation to the previous post with the painting of a beach. There are some other assignments I may have to complete, relating to finding out if I'm the right one for the job. I hope so!!! :) That would be really awesome.

Art:

• I have SO many ideas for all sorts of illustration and art pieces, mostly written down in a hurry before I forget them, or as tiny scribble-doodles that even I have a hard time deciphering occasionally, in a tiny notebook. They're really great ideas, I think, and really need to be expanded upon and brought into light... or into canvas. ;) I like to look through these notebooks almost every day to remind myself that somewhere in there is still a creative being... somewhere in there...
• Lots of things have been inspiring me and interesting me. I've been taking it all in. I wish I could do everything!
• As far as making art goes, I've been going on the abstract. Taking different sized and shaped scraps of gessoed cardboard, painting them a solid color, sometimes double-sided, and creating color themes with them. I think I have one for nearly every color, now. Two of them are on the walls at my boyfriend's place. Painting them has helped me become more aware of color schemes and shapes and patterns... They're kind of useless illustration-wise, but personally, mentally/emotionally, and from a fine art point of view, they may be my imagination's way of telling me something. I guess I can scan them sometime!
• I have a few scraps of this gessoed cardboard that have been painted on with a solid color, and I've smeared a single shape on each of them with palette knives. I intend on making something non-abstract out of this palette knife shape - two of them look like owls, one of them looks humanoid. We'll see what happens!

I guess that's all I have to say for now. Let me know if you have any ideas or input. (Cross-posted to my Tumblr)

A project.

So… this one is kind of like… one part “acrylic practice”, one part “assignment”, one part “showing someone how I paint” - selected from a choice of her collection of inspirational/reference photos that she had. I feel like I should have painted some cool South End buildings that she had in that folder, but I’d never painted a beach scene before. I enjoyed it.

For this painting, as part of the assignment, I altered the way I approach painting. Normally I’d get a thin glaze of everything down and work on a little of everything here and there - for this one, I worked in shapes, one at a time.

As an artist, this is one of the first times i’ve looked at a painting of a subject anyone could paint, and went, “yep, I can tell that’s mine”. That’s a good feeling. My brushstrokes are becoming as personal as my handwriting. I like that. Anyway, this project… well, we’ll see where it goes. I really hope something good happens with it!

This was a mural I created last June 2011, for a dry-cleaner (Sarni Dry Cleaners) on Newbury Street. You can visit this location of the franchise chain on 245 Newbury; if it’s still there, it’s right next to DeLuca’s market. Photo credit to Leah Klein (http://leahkleindesign.com/).

This was a fun project, and the first solo mural I’d created before. It’s above a fireplace that was nearly taller than my barely-5-foot self, so I had to be on a ladder. The surface area was on the taller side of somewhere between 5.5 and 6 feet tall, by a little more than 5 feet wide. I’d used multiple reference photos of what the owner of the company wanted: Boston skyline with some iconic buildings— not exact replicas, but just vague enough that Bostonians could recognize them — and sailboats on the Charles. I like how it came out. Especially after a year since its completion, one can “look back” and see things that are really great about a past work and acknowledge that, yeah, it is pretty awesome!

Usually I make murals with my best friend Vicki (http://victoriasarkissian.com/) - all throughout high school, we made quite a few murals, some with fellow classmates, that may or may not still be at Shawsheen Tech; we also made a full-party-room mural for my dad’s indoor baseball facility. That one, unfortunately, (or fortunately, as it was the summer before college, we were young and amateur, and the style would probably be embarrassing to us both) has been painted over and my dad moved his facility. Perhaps we will make another mural party room someday!

Blogspot - I didn't forget about you!

Duke as "The Cloud" - Duke is my boyfriend's sweet fat fuzzy Maine Coon

Sully - my friend Kai's Russian Blue

 Some things I started to make earlier this year: still unfinished physically, but will... someday... be completed. Mostly cat-related.

The plan was to make a painting of Sully for Kai, as Sully is getting older and he wanted something to remember him by in the future.

More Duke - these are all from memory, so probably not exact. He looks like a mix of Totoro and an owl.

Sully sketches - from reference photos.