Emotional Masochism

Just recently I was revisiting my old obsession with serial killers. For years I haven't had the stomach to think about this sort of thing. I watched a documentary about Albert Fish the other day, and it disturbed me so greatly that I decided I wanted to make an art piece about it. I want to revisit the experiments I've done in the past with mixed-media and merge those aesthetics with graphic art skills I have garnered over the last year.

I'll keep you all posted as this horrible thing unfolds :)

Illustration Painting II Final

My painting final serves two functions. As I wrote up in my final proposal, I wanted to create a fantasy illustration, something versatile that could be used for calendars, gaming books, or even books on witchcraft (like a John William Waterhouse painting.) These are the markets I want to get into as an illustrator. The primary reason I created this painting was as a devotional painting to Brighid, as I have certainly been blessed with inspiration, productivity, and skill this first year at art school.

Brighid, goauche

Illustration Painting II Spring 2010

For reference I set up a photoshoot with my friend Coleen. Have I mentioned yet that my friends are good sports? She was willing to let me dress her up and stand by a fire-pot in her backyard for an hour while I took pictures of her in the cold. 

p.s. Coleen doesn't really have horns.

I was able to superimpose this image over a woodsy background, the lighting was challenging but I pulled it off.

I was stoked that I pulled off the fire-pot as well.

Master's Study

We all did one Master's Study in my Illustration Painting class, in other words, choosing a painting by an artist we admire and recreating it with goauche. I chose Morganna Le Fay by Brian Froud. Brian Froud is definitely an artist who I want to emanate in my paintings.

Master's Study, goauche

Illustration Painting II Spring 2010

I think I did a really good job rendering the painting while throwing in my own style (even though I didn't get to finish)

This bird looks so mad!

Drawing II Final Project

The Three Allegories of Beauty, graphite and charcoal

Drawing II Spring 2010

For the our final in Drawing II, each student had to create some giant project that related to the human figure. Their were 3 general themes to choose from: the human body as a machine, the human body relating to a grander concept, or using parts of the body to create the drawing final. For my project I created “The Three Allegories of Beauty.”
  
For reference, I took photos of my friends Courtney and Erin, and I modeled for the 3rd allegory. I sketched out the infrastructure of each piece with graphite. I enhanced the shadows of the compositions with charcoal. The modeling in the drawings consists of blended graphite and charcoal, as well as stippling and crosshatching to create different texture throughout the composition. These were all drawn on 3 sheets of  white 22x30 drawing paper.

There are a number of artists, traditional and contemporary, that have influenced the artistic decisions I made with this project. Throughout history, in the middle-ages especially, people used allegories as a solution to visually represent abstract concepts. I decided to use allegories because they are traditionally female figures, and this works perfectly as the project is about female body-issues. Another artist that inspired me during this project (and in general) is Caravaggio. I am inspired by Caravaggio’s intense use of subject matter, but also his use of tenebrism. The last artist that inspires me (in general as well as in context of this project) is Kiki Smith. Kiki Smith is a sculptor whose work is all about the human figure. She works in themes of women’s issues and makes several references to mythology and folklore to further contextualize her sculptures.  


Because this piece had so many medieval elements, I wanted to make it a traditional triptych. Because I felt like these figures were on display, almost like a freak-show, I gave them a more Victorian appearance and the typography followed suit.

Maid, the melancholy Woman-Child. This allegory is my favorite aesthetically as well as conceptually, as it disturbs me the most. Courtney was so perfect for this.

Matrona, the proverbial Xanax Soccer-Mom. It was hard to make Erin looked fucked up at all, as she is so beautiful.

Matriarch, the discarded Hag. Our biology tells us that women are no longer needed when they are no longer fertile.

I actually modeled for this one. I drew a bunch of lines on my face, and I looked like Yoda when I was done. Yoda in a severe corset.

The Journeys Project

This was my favorite assignment in Illustration Word and Image. We were to make up an explorer and illustrate/document their journey. We had to depict where they went, who they met, what they found etc. and create an illustrated book around this story.
I decided to make a Celtic children's story: The Journey of Sionann Donnelly. This decision was inspired by a book I recently read, The Red-Haired Girl from the Bog by Patricia Monaghan.  

I made this one another accordion book. I made the cover out of illustration board and book cloth. The image on the cover (drawn with colored pencils) was an homage to one of my favorite motifs from history, The Three Hares. I snuck them in throughout the book.

cover page

Beginning of the story, intro to the character. First illustration shows her home-base (bedroom.)

page 2 and 3 are a little map of the journey.....

SURPRISE! Fold out, detailing the journey

Northern Irish cemetery (sorry about the blurriness)

Biddy Early's cottage

Newgrange

At the Climax, Sionann is confronted by the goddess Ériu, who chews her out for stealing and tells her to go home.

Sionann flies home, and when she unpacks her things, she finds a book that tells the tale of her journey. 

THE END

There's a little hidden raven in every image, as Ériu's raven spies on Sionann throughout the story.

Stylized Portrait

For this assignment, we were to chose an artist that we liked that worked a lot with the figure. We were then supposed to create a self portrait in the style of this artist. Immediately I thought "Great, I'll do Giger." This turned out to be hilarious. My classmates all chose more conventional artists, demonstrating their amazing skills at rendering life-like portraits. I was the only one, it seems, that decided to portray themselves through the aesthetics of some creepy surrealist.

Trying to complete this piece in a timely fashion with charcoal was a giant pain in the ass. I tried my best to mimic the airbrush texture with charcoal and conte. I wish I had more time to execute this piece, as there is so much more detail that I would have liked to put in it, as well as more time to render the details of the textures. I salute you, Hans Rudolf Giger. You are a freakin' genius.

Gigeresque Self-Portrait, charchoal and conte crayons

Drawing II Spring 2010

Portrait of a Classmate

For this assignment we had to bring in a piece of cardboard to class and paint a portrait of one of our classmates. We had to use cardboard as it forces you to paint really thick and it also starts you off with a mid-tone, forcing you to create a full value scale in the painting. I was lucky enough to paint my friend, Danni, who is lovely.

Here's a photo of Danni:

Portrait of Danni, goauche on cardboard

Illustration Painting II Spring 2010

Personal Map

ARGH! I can't get a good image of this assignment to save my life for some reason. Anyway, for Illustration Word and Image we were given the assignment to create a personal map/self portrait. I will do my best to describe this project, as all the images I have suck. (In addition to photoshop, I need access to a good camera.)

I drew a map of the pacific northwest, where I have always lived. I wanted to the map to have a Tolkeinesque feel, but with my own cartoony line quality so it didn't appear as if it wanted to be taken too seriously. In acknowledgment to my habit of romanticising everything just to deal with mundane reality, I renamed various important locations to sound like something from a D&D campaign. They all have their own little map symbols too.


Legend: Locations North to South
- The City of Subdued Excitement (Bellingham, WA)
- The Emerald Vortex (Seattle, WA)
- The Hillfort of Newakum (house I grew up in, Chehalis,WA)
- Shrine to the Gaullic Soldier (plaque dedicated to my Father, Veteran Memorial Museum, Chehalis,WA)
- Port City of the Elves (Portland, OR)
- Cairn of the Two Brothers (burial site of my brother Jody and my brother Jesse, Santa Rosa, CA)
- The Golden City of Saint Francis (San Fransisco, CA)

I also included a brief biography, so I could further relate myself to the map:

Valerie Herron was born and raised in the Newakum Hillfort overlooking the Land of Sinking Sands. She spent many years swirling around in the Emerald Vortex until it transported her to the Port City of the Elves. She currently lives in the Witches' Castle and studies at the Persephone-Nyx Collegeum of Artisans where she is a neophyte scribe and painter. She plans to one day journey to the Golden City of Saint Francis to further matriculate and eventually explode in a supernova of Illustrative glory.

I drew a simple but accurate portrait of myself. I was trying to think of how I could make it a little more iconic, so I drew a heron circling around my head. I actually really like this image, and I'm toying with the idea of using it on my business cards.

Personal Map, ink on drawing paper

Illustration Studio I 2010

(yep, Journeys is misspelled. You know what rocks? Photoshop.)

Perspective Still Life

The assignment was to create a composition that displayed a still life that contained some element of figure within it, and showing some level of atmospheric perspective.

Last Spring, I found a statue of Pan in the dumpster outside the art department at Clark College. Made out of plaster, he was painted to look like bronze and his head had apparently busted off. I instantly fell in love with this statue, and I've displayed him in my room ever since.

I made this drawing as a tribute to my statue. I drew him from a very low angle as an art challenge. I wanted him to be high in the composition, as to suggest his importance, but I wanted to see if I could successfully convey that he was merely a small object drawn from close up. I drew all this on craft paper, which gave me a mid-tone to start with. I rendered this with white and black Conté crayons.

The Headless Pan, Conté crayons on craft paper

Drawing II Spring 2010

Portrait of an Artist: Amanda F. Palmer

For this assignment, we were supposed to create a portrait of an artist, preferably someone we are inspired by. I chose Amanda Palmer, as her music has been very important to me since I started school. I wanted to create a pretty, naturalistic portrait of Amanda, but I wanted to add a slight collage element to the piece.

I painted Amanda and her keyboard on good drawing paper, cut them out with an exacto blade, created the background with goauche, wrote the typography with white color pencil, and attached it all together. Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I wrote down the second stanza of "Astronaut" that I wrote it in the incorrect order. Oh well, I will fix this in photoshop before I send this off to Amanda Palmer :)

 Amanda Palmer, goauche and mixed-media

Illustration Studio I Spring 2010

In-Class Still Life

This was a still life in my painting class that we spent about 3 class periods working on. The collection of objects was set up in the center of the room, the students all in a circle facing it, so everyone was rending it from a different angle. My class found the composition of my painting especially amusing, affectionately naming it "Mount Junk." So far, this is the best painting I have done as far as rendering different textures with paint is concerned. It was even hung up in the Illustration building for the semester. Aren't I a winner.

Mount Junk, gouache

Illustration Painting Spring 2010

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