Old Artwork ... from High School and Beyond pt. 2 (Paintings, etc.)

Well this morning I woke up nice and early for my 8am class, only to find that UMD has a 'delayed opening' due to snow.  So, while I am up, I might as well finish off my 'old artwork' post.  These are in no real order, just basically the order I found them in on my computer.

 This is a watercolor painting of a Russian Soyuz launch vehicle, based upon stock internet images.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

This is a watercolor painting I did of a telescope I used while at the University of Arizona Astronomy Camp, a while back.  The painting was based off of a photograph, and I obviously took a few liberties with the color scheme.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

An acrylic painting of the Russian Buran space shuttle.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

An acrylic painting of a Soyuz rocket, again.  While this post tends to be Russian-spacecraft-heavy, I think that was just because they're spacecraft, launchpads, and even color schemes, seemed more interesting to me from an artistic perspective.  For instance, the Soyuz rocket above is legitametly greenish colored, unlike most American rockets which are painted white.  It might also have to do with the fact that I didn't know as much about these foreign spacecraft, and therefore were intriguing in that regard.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

This is a mural I did a couple years back as a commission for my cousins up in Minnesota.  This was done on a very large piece of canvas (probably about 6 feet long, and 2 feet tall), and is my cartoonish depiction of the solar system.  I was actually very happy with this painting, and of course had to throw in the U.S.S. Enterprise in the upper left.

And here is another commissioned mural I did for those same cousins (my cousin James in front for scale).  This was an acrylic painting of a sort of cartoonish Earth.  I actually had to get a little help (from Amy Godwin), in building and stretching this huge canvas (this is about 6x4 feet).

This is a hypothetical still life, acrylic painting I did back in high school.  The reason I really got into still lifes is because when I first started doing real painting (back in my freshman year of high school, I believe), I really grew attached to the work of Impressionist, Paul Cezanne, who painted many really beautiful still lifes. (Technically, I guess Cezanne was a post-impressionist, but I'm not an art history major).  Impressionism is, by far, my favorite art movement.

A (blurry photograph) of a watercolor painting of some flowers that I did back in high school.

A landscape, done in acrylics very early in my college career.

Back in high school, I also did my fair share of murals.  Below is a large, six-part mural I did on the walls of the stair case leading to the band and choir rooms back in my high school.  The six panels were meant to represent six major musical periods.  First, here's two images showing the large scale context:

And now for the individual images:

The ballerina was by far my favorite.  You also don't want to know the dangerous ladder contraption I had to make in order to paint high above stairs...

And lastly, I'll end with some non-paintings, from a summer ago when I worked in Tucson.  During that summer I was occasionally tempted to do artwork (between writing miles and miles of IDL code), and so I bought a set of nice markers and went to work...

The 4-meter telescope from Kitt Peak.  Based upon a photograph I took.

A Saturn Ib, based upon a NASA image.  The Saturn Ib is my favorite rocket of all time (it was the little brother of the big Saturn V that launched men to the Moon.)

A quick gesture drawing of the 4-meter telescope control room, I did while observing on Kitt Peak.

A still life of some flowers, based upon a photograph I took.

And lastly, a sketch of a VLA telescope dish.

Well that is all of the photographs of old artwork I could find on my computer.  To all of my friends in Maryland, enjoy the snow day!

Old Artwork ... from High School and Beyond pt. 1 (Drawings)

Before I get to my more recent stuff of the past month, I thought I'd put up some of my photos of past artwork that I've done (and have photos of).  In this post, I'll share drawings and sketches that I have photos of, and in a following one I'll show paintings.  (Basically, I'm clearing out my old DeviantART webpage.)

This is me, oh so long ago, on the cover of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art newsletter.  I used to take little summer classes there, and remember running around their exhibits, full of Grant Wood's landscapes, and Marvin Cone's clouds.  Later I did a fare share of volunteering with the Museum.

This was my first drawing in a sketchbook that I used sporadically through high school.  This is an Ariane V launch vehicle, that I remember drawing based off of an image in a science or aerospace magazine.

A completely fictitious rocket.  My high school art typically fell into one of two categories, highly detailed ink drawings like this one (and the following ones), and paintings (see further below).

The successor of the previous image, another fictional rocket.  While these drawings are good, and very detailed, I did them only with standard office ball point pens, which aren't so great.

Yet another fictional rocket, semi-inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is one of my all time favorite movies.  The imagery in that movie is really astounding, and the spacecraft and universe in that movie are really fascinating.

While not the best photograph of it, this is one of my premier 'technical drawings.'  (I took the photo of it, as it hangs on a wall at my grandparents house now.)  Basically I got my hands on some fantastic Micron Pens, and just went to town.  I started it in a random position (the lower left), and made everything up as I went on.  I actually took this piece to a couple local art shows.

Another technical drawing.  Perspective drawings are always fun.

And one more technical drawing.  Here I substituted fine details for using some really nice Prismacolor markers.

This is my recreation of the 2001 movie poster (shown here), but done on something called contrast paper.  Basically this was special, layered plastic material: the top layer is white, and using an Exacto knife, you can cut off the white layer, revealing a black lower layer.  This was used as a demonstration of working with negative space.

This is an ink drawing of the Hart Senate Building, based upon a photograph I took during a high school band trip to Washington D.C. and New York City.  (I played the Trumpet and Baritone.)  Yay Cherry blossoms.

These last three images I'll show are what are called gesture drawings.  Basically they're drawings from life, that are done rather quickly, with fast, 'gestural,' pen moves.  This one is a drawing I did while taking standardized tests.  I'd finish sections very quickly, and just sit there drawing.  (For those from my high school, this is of Dr. Drey's room.)

This is a gesture drawing of the band room, from my perspective in the back line.  I *think* I was either sick this week or didn't have an instrument, hence why I was drawing.

Lastly, this is a gesture drawing based off a photograph I took while at the University of Arizona Astronomy Camp.  This camp was probably the first time I really got to know the field of astronomy, and I think ultimately made me go into my undergraduate as an astronomy major - as opposed to aerospace engineering.

I'll continue my 'Old Artwork' in my next post, with paintings!  But now, I must get ready, for today is the first day of my last semester of my undergraduate career.

First Post - Drawings from Summer 2010

Hello all,

The main reason I created this blog was so that I could have a place online to display my artwork.  Facebook is not that great of a medium for this, and I'm sure by now my friends are getting tired of seeing random airplanes and spacecraft flooding their News-feeds.  I also plan to use this blog as a way to document my final semester here at the University of Maryland, my coming geology summer field camp, and eventually my adventures through graduate school (at a location yet to be determined).  (And honestly, I've been inspired by my friend Meghan's blog, where she is doing something similar, albeit slightly more delicious...)

Over the course of the last year, I have made it a goal of mine to do more artwork.  Back in high school, my life seemed to be dominated by drawing and painting.  I took art courses every semester, and never seemed to stop doodling.  I painted murals in the school, I designed t-shirts, etc. etc.  However, once I came to the University of Maryland, my life got swamped with school.  As my geology advisor once told me in an advising meeting, I am a "glutton for punishment."  I am a triple major student, who takes way too many classes, and does way too many things.  While I always did little sketches in my notebooks when I got bored, or draw overly elaborate diagrams or PowerPoints for classes, I never really spent that much time sitting down and doing actual art, for art's sake.  This past summer, I stayed in College Park and worked as a teaching assistant through the astronomy department.  (This differed from past summers, where I traveled or worked elsewhere.)  This gave me a good amount of free-time, and I decided to make an active effort to start drawing more.  I went out and bought a pack of 64 Crayola pencils, and dug out an old sketch book, and went at it...

One of my first drawings of that summer: The Spirit of St. Louis.  This was based off a photo I took at the National Air and Space Museum.  Airplanes and spacecraft have always been my bread and butter of art subjects.  I've always loved studying them and so they are things that I feel very comfortable drawing.  That's why almost all of my quick drawings are of this, or similar nature.

The above is Space Ship One, the first ever commercial spacecraft to reach space.  The drawing was based off of a photo I took of the craft, at the National Air and Space Museum, where it is currently on display.

 This is based off a photo I took at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the summer of 2009, when I worked with the National Solar Observatory as a research assistant.  As you can start to see, I really like color, and try to really bring out and saturate colors when I can.

This is the Buran space shuttle, a top its Antonov carrier aircraft.  This was based off a black and white color photograph I found on Google.  Most people don't realize it, but the Russian space program actually did develop their own space shuttle, to compete against NASA's fleet.  Unfortunately, this program was cut short due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they only did one test flight of the vehicle.  I actually wasn't that thrilled with this drawing, as it got a little sloppy and muddy.

Whenever I have a bad drawing (like the Buran/Antonov earlier), I tend to take a break and come back with a more ambitious drawing, that I take more time on.  Above is a drawing based off of a NASA image of the Apollo 17 landing site.  Apollo 17 is unique amongst the moon missions for being the only mission that brought a trained scientist to the Moon (Jack Schmitt, a geologist).  While the lunar module is still part of my spacecraft/aircraft-repertoire, landscapes and figures (albeit hidden, and suited astronauts in this case) are not.  So this represents a progression in difficulty for me.

Now this one took some time.  This drawing is of the NASA probe Cassini, which is currently in orbit of the planet Saturn.  Here I have drawn it as it approaches the moon Titan, with Saturn in the background.  Saturn's rings are shown edge-on, so we only see them as a thin line, but we do see their shadows on Saturn.  Unlike the other sketches above, I did not base this drawing off a photograph or stock image.  Rather, what I did is I used a solar system and planetarium simulator called Celestia (which is free!) to arrange Cassini and Saturn as I wanted.  I find this a fun way to compose images, since it lets me play around a lot with the setup, and does not limit me to published images of these astronomical objects (although I often refer to Google/NASA images to check on colors and more detailed images of the spacecraft).

The above is a drawing based on a photo I took from when I studied abroad in Cameroon.  In Cameroon, we were given the opportunity to hike up Mt. Cameroon, and while it was extremely painful, it was a very memorable event.  While I liked my drawing of it (I was pleased with how the people came out), it still can't compare to the original photo I took:

As the summer started to run down, I ran out of the time and energy to do big drawings, so I instead went back to my mainstay.  The above is an F-104 Starfighter - which I think is one of the coolest looking planes of all time.  It just makes me want to read The Right Stuff again!

Lastly, this is a drawing (based upon a NASA image) of the Titan II rocket that was used for NASA's Gemini missions, back in the 1960's.

Well that's all the drawings I did (and photographed) during that summer.  In the next post(s), I'll share some of my more recent works.