iPod Doodles and Sketches from Early Fall

Sorry I haven't been updating much lately, but school's in full swing and I've got a lot of irons on the fire all the time now. However, despite all the busy hustle and bustle I have been able to keep myself doing art regularly, with the help of my new iPod touch and an app called "Artstudio", which is pretty much like a basic version of Photoshop, and it's just brilliant. I've been sketching and doodling on it during my classes, instead of a on notebook like I was before. It took a bit of getting used to, but it's really fun to work with.

So here are some of the little works I've made on my iPod. There are some silly little low-quality brainfart pieces, and also some sketches of random classmates.

Sketches from Class: Early September

Sorry I haven't been a very active blogger as of late - I'm afraid both the end of summer and the beginning of the school year have been a mite hectic. I haven't been doing  too much art lately, but school has afforded me the wonderful opportunity to have lots of artistic subjects that I can draw discretely while they're distracted by a teacher. Here are some of the sketches I've made during my lectures.

 

Which Reality is Virtual? - Combination Digital and Screen Print:

A print created for a class assignment, from about two years ago, for which we had to combine a digitally printed image with a screen printing image. In this print, the head, goggles, and monitor are all digitally printed, and the images on the screen of the monitor are screen printed on top of it. The pictures I used for this all came off of google images, and while I photoshopped and rearranged them, I do not claim them to be my own.

Poetry Book Pamphlet Design

I'm planning to post here about some of my slightly older projects and art, that I ought to have talked about earlier but forgot, and I thought I could start it off with a little something that has to do with my mom. She's a talented writer and poet, a passionate, caring and strong person, and a mom that I am constantly proud of and thankful for. I could have asked for no better mother to have been born to.

My brilliant mother, Theresa Alberti.

But enough of me buttering up my mom so she will be less unhappy if I eat rhubarb cake and refried beans for dinner - let's get down to business. And of course, by "business" I mean "plugging my mom's book of poetry and encouraging you to spend your money on it".

This is her website, where you can learn about her and read samples of her poetry. Her book is available here on amazon. My painting is even on the cover!

I'm bringing this up because of something my mother wanted my help with a while ago. She was going to an event where she would have the opportunity to advertise and sell her book. She thought it might be a good idea to make some fliers or pamphlets about it to pass around, so she wrote up the information she would like to have on it and asked me for help with the design, since I have a generally good eye for that sort of thing. So then I went about rearranging and tweaking it into something that I hope looks at least somewhat professional.

Below are the two versions - the original one my mother put together is on  the left, and my own modified version is on the right. I blurred out her phone number for privacy's sake, but everything else is intact.

Go check out her website and poetry, and if you find those interesting, please go take a look at her book too!

Steampunk Clay Cyborg Face Pendant

A cyborg face pendant that I created using polymer clay, miscellaneous metal bits and beads at a craft workshop at Convergence, a scifi/fantasy/anime/gaming convention. We were supposed to make hearts out of the clay, but I decided to try something different. I would have put some little gears on it to make it obviously steampunk (because you can make just about anything steampunk by sticking a gear to it) but everyone else at my table had already grabbed them by the time I got around to thinking about it. But it's still pretty cool without any gears, and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Bento Box Creations from Convergence

My family just recently attended the sci-fi/fantasy/literature/anime/manga/gaming/general nerdiness convention "Convergence", which we have been going to every year for quite a while now, and we all had a very good time going to panels, watching movies, partaking of free food and drinks and looking at all the interesting cosplayers.

In past years I'd barely even noticed that there was a craft room at Convergence, since I spent so much time at panels or walking around, but this year I noticed some interesting-looking events that they had scheduled going on in that room, so I decided to try them out, and with a couple of them I found myself having a very enjoyable time.

One of these craft workshops, which I attended with my mother, was for the purpose of making bento boxes (Japanese boxed lunches). The purpose of bento is not just to fill them with tasty food, but to make them look appealing too (see various examples of cute bento boxes at the linked-to page).

So for the bento workshop everone sat down as volunteers began passing around various foods, fruits and vegetables, and then we all set about using various materials to make adorable and edible animals, flowers, people, etc. for our bento.

I, however, was (as usual) not satisfied with doing what everyone else was doing - I had to go outside of the box, to make something different, to use my creativity to its fullest capacity...

...which meant, of course, making an "ero bento" (ero being the Japanese term for "erotic").

I was inspired first to use the tips of a hot dog and little bits of carrot to make the boobs, and then I just had to cut a little penis out of a cucumber slice, and arrange them just so. Yes, I am that juvenile.

I also took photos of some of the other fun bento created by various people at the workshop. Below is my mother's delectable creation, complete with a non-traditional hot dog octopus.

Below is the only other bento with boobs, made by someone I didn't know. I'm not sure what the scene is supposed to depict, or what the creature is, but it's still a very fun lunch box.

Here's the bento made by someone at my table, with a little woman in a flounced grape dress with a cheese hair bow, and a clever rice head with vegetable features.

The next bento was made to look like a clever little scene. I'm not sure what it's suppose to be, other than what looks like a saint praying and what looks like the dead form of the Dread Pirate Roberts (from the film The Princess Bride), but it's very cool nonetheless.

And below is a cute little kitty that someone at another table sculpted out of rice and nori sheets.

So as you can see, the workshop was enormously successful and fun, and the room was just bursting with creativity - I know I definitely want to try making bento again in the future. There's something really satisfying about preparing food that's not only tasty, but creative (and maybe a little bit sexy) too.