posted: February 1, 2010

The piece below is a colored pencil drawing started as a doodle in a class I had called "Appraising Prostitution." The main focus of the class was to study prostitution throughout cultures and history, in particular it's relationship to art. A friend recently saw the 40% finished drawing as a pic on my phone and encouraged me to complete it.

I also wanted to share with you the type of colored pencils I use. My friends have pointed out that they do look a little kiddish, but I'm obsessed with Crayola Twistables. No pencil shavings, no lead breaking off in the sharpener, and every color in the world.  They come in regular or erasable. The erasables are a little waxy but they are good for really subltle values. All of the drawings in my sketchbook section as well as the underdrawings for all of my paintings last year were done with twistables.

Sorry that It's been a while since my last post.  Honestly, I spent my entire winter vacation focusing on just extreme deep-hibernation. Then I woke up and went to Las Vegas. Then I caught some horrific swine/stomach flue thing while in Vegas and landed my first trip to the Emergency Room with an IV up in my hand. It took me weeks to recover. Fun, fun times.

A lot of the projects I've taken on since graduation are fairly long term so they'll get posted later. Some of the stuff you might look forward to seeing in the future - a ten legged nude, new weekly comic strips, a life sized monster designed to eat cats, and two spanking new websites. Until then,  -Alyssa

posted: December 17, 2009

Well, someone has already posted my thesis for me! If you would like to view my recent work which I completed during my last semester at CCA, please visit my professor Robert Hunt's blog and let me know what you think of them :)
*edit*
Also Edel and Robert made a good point a few days ago and I wanted to follow through. I was internetless this last week so I couldn't get on to post my thesis myself until now.

"The Jabberwocky"

by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

nbspnbsp

As you can tell by the poem, a lot of words don't make any sense. Lewis Carroll originally wrote this poem to amuse his family and later translated the meaning of the words into nonsensical creatures, actions, plants and objects. For some of these words there are various descriptions (ex. a tove is either a sleek white badger with long hind legs or a badger mixed with a lizard and a cork skrew) while some are left for interpretation (a Jubjub bird is described only as a 'bird that lives in perpetual passion') and others have no real description that I could find in research (tumtum tree, vorpal blad, The Jabberwock.)
All paintings were done in oil paint on canvas ranging from two to 5 five feet. The colors you see on the computer screen don't really do them justice. I was able to obtain a variety of fluorescent oil paints and went crazy with the skies and backgrounds, so in my opinion they look a lot better in person.
Also, the paintings marked with *** are the three that were stolen from the thesis room the day after I graduated :(
the police and school has been informed and so far we haven't heard anything. I miss them badly, never got to properly photograph them larger than 120 dpi, and without them I don't have a series to exhibit. If anyone knows anything to help out please contact me.
Despite the robbery, the overall experience of thesis was pretty amazing. I was very fortunate to get such a great class of peers to work with, well as the great Bob Ciano as my art director and professor. I feel like all of the hours I put into my thesis will really show in the work I do from now on, and I'm excited by the challenge of painting much bigger and much better as I enter the real world.

Thesis

posted: December 7, 2009

Hi everyone, I would like to invite you all to the California College of the Arts Illustration Department Thesis Review. For only 24 hours the illustration students that were in thesis this semester will have their work up in the Bruce Galleries here at the SF campus. 

I am seriously excited to brag about how fortunate I've been to be with a class of such phenomenally talented peers. I cannot explain the extreme variety of work that has been created this semester, and no two students are in any way similar to each other. 

If you are in the area this thursday night I would like to urge you to come out and see our body of work. You'll be able to go home boasting that you just saw a hedgehog crowd surfing a rock concert, dodos flying to heaven after being eaten by pirates, a giant wine-themed robot, a devil get a haircut, a mime trapped in a plexiglass box, Humanimaland,  and a 6 year old boy behead a 5 foot long 7-legged gold unicorn monster. 

All of the ten large scale oil paintings I did this semester illustrating the famous Lewis Carroll poem 'Jabberwocky,' four of which no one has seen before, will be going up this thursday afternoon. Since I'm planning on selling the originals of my thesis after graduation I don't know if they will ever be viewable again after this. 

See you there!

posted: November 23, 2009

I finally found some time to post the new personal work that I had exhibited in my senior show.  These paintings are kind of like cryptic journal entries depicting memorable turning points in my life, all of which evolved from weirdish doodles in my sketchbook. 

Prints and the originals will be going up for sale next month. Hope you like them!

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