Self Portrait

I have started taking an acrylic painting class at my school and I have to say it's very refreshing and interesting for me. I haven't done much in acrylic since I left high school, it's been mostly watercolor for me. But acrylic is very relaxing and I must say, quite a bit easier, I'm loving the ability to paint right over my mistakes. I have a very different acrylic style than watercolor and it's fun to play around with it. And since it's a very involved studio class it's actually really nice to get up at 8 in the morning just paint. I feel like I am learning way more and having much more fun doing the actual work than sitting in a critique for 4 hours. So since it's a fairly basic class we have started with still lives and self portraits:

This is a 40 minute monochromatic self portrait.

This is the same portrait with 40 minutes of glazing over it. I look like a bruise.

Oh my, It's in a Gallery!

Sure you can barely see it in the picture and there are hundreds of other ones around it, but here's my work in the gallery!

Yeah, I had to draw a circle around it so you know where it is but there are better pictures in my last post.
Also this is not my picture, I couldn't actually attend the show, some wonderful soul who could posted them on the Facebook event page and they have my thanks. Hopefully there will be some better photos soon from my wonderful family who could attend the show for me.

Submerged

Over the summer I found a call for art in my hometown to participate in a show called 'Submerged: Third Annual Mini Works Show.' I read the requirements, the piece had to be exactly 5 x 5 inches and somehow work with the theme of Submerged. I knew creating something so small would be right up my alley, but I didn't quite know what to do with the theme. All I could think of were those big old submersibles they used to use to explore underwater, something along the lines of Bill Murray's boat in 'Life Aquatic.' So I went from there. Knowing I didn't just want to do a tiny traditional drawing, I created the piece in layers to give that feeling of depth that comes with being submerged. The final result was a small tunnel book:

I finished it 5 minutes before I left to go to Scotland and asked my dad to submit it for me, hoping I would hear back as to whether or not it got accepted while I was away. A few days ago I received an e-mail, my piece was in! Now fingers crossed someone will actually buy it...

The Sea of Tea Sketchbook

My decline in posts has been due to a two and half week trip to Scotland and London and a severe lack of internet in my apartment. So here's quite a few pages from Scotland, with more to come: