IP: New Semester, New Work

Soooo, I changed my project a bit. I lopped off chunks from the plans I made last semester:

-getting rid of the altar

-getting rid of the "crafty" materials like yarn and nail polish

Some new additions to the project are:

-Terrariums with living plants

-Illustrations both scientific and decorative

-Photographs of idillic landscapes

and then keeping the beetle portraits, dioramas, and obviously sticking with the theme of man's perception of nature.

I started my beetle portraits. I switched over to acrylic paint because nail polish was too hard to deal with in general and wasn't adding much to the overall project.

We'll call this Bug1. I hope to start Bug2 in the next day or so. Along with these larger paintings on wood panels (they're a foot in diameter) I'm also going to be doing some water color bug/animal studies on a much smaller scale. I've already started a few, I'm sure you'll recognize an old friend:

Also on a non-IP note, I'm working on my Jockey painting again. My goal is to FINISH IT this SEMESTERRRR. We'll see if that happens, it's been a sloooooowwww process.

IP: Taking a Turn for Something More Real

SOooooooo I really haven't done much during the break related to my project except think, read books on identifying local plants (Seeing Trees, I highly recommend it) and hanging out in the terrarium section at Plum Market. I've come to the realization that I'd really like to learn about and work with REAL plants. My concept of the disconnected relationship between man and nature will still be super relevant I'm just going to approach it differently.

The idea of a terrarium is very interesting to me. It's something humans have created to contain and "own" a tiny bit of nature and have it with them in their homes without having to do anything to maintain it. Basically a small environment in a glass exhibit so that they can we look at nature without really having to understand it in its original environment. The terrarium is very specifically created so that the environment can survive in a small enclosed vessel with no maintenance. It supports the idea that nature is something to simply look at and that humans have the power to make any plant exist where ever they wish no matter the climate or where the plant is native.

I've always loooved terrariums, or at least the idea of a mini environment that lives in your house. Even the vessles had a very emotional - nostalgic feeling for me.

So in pursuit of exploring terrariums and the plants that can live in them I found this very very strange plant called a Lithops, or Living Rock Plant. It's originally found in desert climates in southern Africa.

It's looks kind of like a brain and then sometimes also a bu– no never mind. Strange eh?!

Finals and IP Review

So I had my IP Review yesterday. It was a stressful but exciting experience. I got a lot of great feedback from my panel. I had Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo, Dwayne Overmeyer, and Cynthia Pachikar–a pretty great combooo actually. I'll elaborate later but I'm actually still in finals mode right now so I should probably get some sleep. I'll leave you with a few slides from my presentation:

And a flying cat just for good luck...

IP: Waiting... Reading.

So, now that it's the end of the semester classes seem to either be speeding up to the point where they'll finish with an explosion or are simply slowing down peacefully. IP is one of those classes that is slowing down because I'm waiting for materials I've ordered to come in! which is fine because I'm now using this tentative speed to work on the more theoretical aspects of the project.

I recently bought some books that cover topics/terms that are directly related to my project: Biophilia- Human's innate love of living things and "nature" and Nature Deficit Disorder- a transformation in the younger generation's relationship with nature–one that is lacking. The books I bought are:

Biophilia By Edward O. Wilson

The Nature Principle By Richard Louv and

Last Child in the Woods also by Richard Louv.

I've started reading Last Child and I'm already in love with it. It speaks very specifically about the feeling I'm working with in my project, this detachment yet intrinsic yearning for nature in our lives. It mainly talks about how children interact with nature in the modern day and how it has changed from our parents generation. Louv is trying to encourage and help recognize the significants of children playing and learning in nature.

Some Quotes just from the first 20 pages:

"[Nature] serves as a blank slate upon which children draw and reinterpret the culture's fantasies."

"In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy."

"Nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder."

"[modern-day] kids haven't lost anything, because they never had it."

"they [speak] of nature with a strange mixture of puzzlement, detachment, and yearning."

Good stuff, you guys should check it out.

Crayon Sketches from John St

So I haven't drawn with crayons in awhile... in fact I haven't drawn much at all in the last year, and for FUN in a loooong time–not in the same way that I used to. SO the other night while relaxing and listening to friends talk I drew drew DREW like a crazy man! The drawings don't all make sense and were very much inspired by phrases I heard my friends saying through-out the conversation.

It was SO FREEING!

I'm going to do it more. For the practice. Practice for my creativity and my technique but mainly to help me break down the pressure I've built up around WHAT I should draw rather than enjoying drawing for the sake of experiment and creativity. I'm trying to make my friends feel ok with letting me put some of their drawings up too buut that may take some encouraging. I'll put more up when I can, hopefully this will get me to have these drawing sessions more often.

IP: Grant Photos

So I recently turned in my Grant Proposal to the Schools Grant commitee. I'll spare you the data sheet and budget info BUT thought the images might give you guys a better idea of how some of the elements of the project are turning out.

Fashion Band-Wagon

So I FINALLLYYYY got some urgently needed RAM for my computer and am now able to do some DESIGN WORK! I haven't done any on my own computer (and so almost none at all) since the school year has started. It's actually been a pretty nice break from digital work, which was I was doing for the whole of the summer. And since my IP project is almost completely non-digital it's worked out quite nicely.

But now that I'm back, I've been hopping back on the old fashion design band-wagon. Fashion illustration design is a lingering hobby/passion of mine. One I don't really seek to pursue it but it's something that is very often inspiring to me.

Maxfield Parrish (clown??) inspired outfit: