Air Brush Balloon

I finished my final air brush project, image above. This assignment was to use a hot air balloon or a blimp as our image. We had to search out reference pictures then do some small sketches. The instructor selected the sketch he liked the best to work up as final drawing that we could transfer down to Illustration board.

My final drawing is below:

Once it was transferred we were given a piece of frisket that we applied to the board and cut the masking shapes. I had done a color overlay using tracing paper so I had it for reference colors when I was doing the painting. A good thing because as you get closer to the finished air brush painting the less you can tell what has been done because of all the over spraying from the other colors on the frisket. When all the painting is done you take the frisket off and do a reveal of what the painting looks like. I should have taken a picture of the painting at that stage for you to see. Lots of little white areas where the masking overlays didn't get put back down correctly. Those are covered up and details are added by using colored pencils. In the above image the ribs for the middle green section are all done with colored pencil, white for the highlights and dark green or blue for the shadows and rib lines. Details were added for the ground in pencil, and the figure in the basket was mostly done with colored pencil. I am rather pleased with the final result.  I don't particularly like the process, it takes way too long to do as I have said before, you have 5 to 10 minutes of prep time and maybe actually use the air brush for painting for less then a minute. But I have to admit that the final results can be impressive and hard to duplicate using other media. 

What else am I working on, well I am sanding my plaster pieces so that Tuesday I can construct my final sculptures. I think they gave me a different type of plaster when I purchased it at the Clay shop because it mixed differently took much longer to set and seems harder then what I used for the first forms. I have about 6 pounds left, anyone need any plaster forms made?  I also created a slide show of images for my web site. I did it in Flash the hard way, but now I know how it is done and wouldn't mind cheating (buying a program that would do it for me) if I ever had to do it for another site. I am also working on my Graphic Design final project. We have finally moved to the computer for our next class. I have everything in a In-Design file and will let it sit for a day or two then go back in and play with arrangements. At least I have all my photo's and quotes which is more then a lot of my fellow classmates have done.

I hope to do some sewing today on my challenge piece and maybe a bag or two. Hope everyone else is doing well. Per usual comments are welcome.

Some Sewing

After weeks and weeks with no sewing at all, I finally manged to do some fabric cutting and sewing over the weekend. My poor sewing machine was feeling neglected I am sure. I have a Janome 6500 machine and it is really a nice machine that I should use more often. However while I am working on one of the Fast Friday challenges I don't have pictures of that just yet, what I did manage to actually finish is a "grocery bag." Instructions can be found here at craftster.org. Course I have to do things differently, esp as I don't have yardages of fabrics so I had to piece my fabrics. I am using batiks on the outside and some standard fabrics on the inside.  What do you think?

I have several more fabrics picked out and at least another 3 pretty much cut out and even started sewing them together. They are supposed to be Christmas gifts but... 

No School pictures to show today. I have finished the air brush work on my most recent Illustration homework, but I need to add color pencil accents and haven't done that yet. In 3-D design I spent yesterday sanding the rectilinear blocks we molded last week. They still need to be mounting on a base, but will do that next Tuesday. Today I am building molds for my curved shapes. One for a sphere I made Monday night by putting paper mache over a Styrofoam ball, I need a small sphere, like 1.5 inches in Dia. To make the paper mache I used Elmer's white school glue, added a bit of water then tore up some of my newsprint paper. Put on several layers and let dry over night on the radiator. I had coated the Styrofoam with wax and then vegetable oil so when I cut it apart on Tuesday the Styrofoam ball just fell out and didn't stick to the mold. YEAH. So after I post this I need to go mix my plaster and pour it into my molds. I need them to start drying so I can start sanding Monday or maybe Sunday if I am lucky. I won't bore you with pictures of molds this week. Graphic Design final project is at the boring (for the viewer) stage, we are picking pictures, and trying to decide on layouts for the pictures and text. Not exciting to watch but no so easy to actually do.

Hope everyone else is managing their Christmas shopping. I have managed just a bit and am not sure how I will get it done this year. Till next time, per usual comments are always welcome. 

CD Case & some Plaster forms

Only one project got finished this past week, my Graphic Design CD case. At left is the cover of my design. I was redesigning the case for a Loreena McKennitt CD called the Mask and Mirror. I love Loreena's music so it seemed like a good choice, and this title with its links to medieval Spain seemed to me to office some scope with images I could use. Course the mask I chose is from Venice not Spain, but I do think it is from about the right time period. The round object is a medieval Celtic mirror. I did change the the inside "reflection" to show pilgrims on their way to Santiago. Again I have taken some liberties, these are English pilgrims and are probably on the way to Canterbury. Still the pilgrimage to Santiago was done by all nationalities so I wasn't stretching it too much.  The music on the CD reflects the medieval period, Spain, pilgrimages etc as indicated by the title.

Next two photos are of the case opened up, sorry the 2nd photo isn't very good, but I have turned in the case so don't know when I will be able to get a better image.

 

It was a pia to put this together and I have to say that I really hate spray glue, such a mess to use, course I probably don't have the best set up at home to use it so that may be part of my problem. The case was made out of tag board and it took me about 3 hours to cut, glue and fold all the sides. All design work for this project was done in Photoshop. I printed the cover images on my home printer and then glued them down onto the tag board. Other than some issues with the actual construction of the case I am fairly pleased with how the design work came out.

Our focus has now moved onto our final project, a booklet design with five two page spreads, two pictures for each spread, one phrase from a supplied list and a quote from our final project paper.

Can I cancel Christmas? I am so not into Christmas shopping right now, and my last class of the term is the 18th a week before Christmas.

Oh yes I have one more image for you, Tuesday in 3-D design I poured my plaster for my rectilinear  design project.  Here is a photo of the plaster in the molds, right now I have the bottom cardboard off so they can dry out,  I will remove the side cardboard later today.  I was pleased that my molds didn't leak at all.

It took just over 5 pounds of plaster to fill these molds, the forms still have to be sanded before I can assemble the final design. My weekend assignment is to create a clay space sketch, drawings and measurements for our final curvilinear project.

That is it for this week. Hope everyone else is making progress with their Holiday shopping tasks. Per usual comments are always welcome.