Hey Jebus!

I just wrapped up charging the Spring Opera at Juilliard. It was called "Dialogue of the Carmelites". The designer had these awesome ideas from the beginning of his design, and one of them was this 8' tall sculpture of Jesus. As soon as I found this out, I called dibbs on it and wanted to get my hands on this project because I knew it would be an awesome thing to work on. I've done a little bit of foam carving sculpture work before, but nothing of this size, so I welcomed the challenge.

The image that the designer gave me was El Grecco's "Christ on the Cross with Two Donors"

The designer referred to this Jesus (who I call Jebus for the duration of me working on this) multiple times as hott, and saucy.
......................ok?
I just love his obnoxiously elongated torso, personally.

We glued together sheets of 1" blue insulation foam, and transferred the pounce to the foam. One of the carpenters made this A-W-E-S-O-M-E hot knife made with a piano wire and a car battery and that thing carved through the foam like butter.
It was amazing!

Behold, said awesome jolly-rigged hot knife =] <3

Someone snapped a picture with my camera of me carving away on Jebus. I'm pretty glad they did it actually.

Footless, Handless, Faceless Jebus is my favorite kind. I think he kinda looks like a larger-then-life size of Rocky with a Scuba Helmet on.

Of all the things I carved with this guy, the bellybutton was my favorite part. When I was carving him the foam layers started looking really cool, kinda like rings on a tree. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

First time subtractive sculpture on a face was something I was not ready to battle with my time frame, so I opted for some additive sculpture with some paper clay. It was coming along well, but I needed a place to put my tools while I was sitting on top of Jebus's chest, so I figured since I was already boarder line getting struck by lightening, I figured I'd put my tools in his head.
.....hey! why not?!
This is what he looked like on stage. He was pretty snazzy, and looked well on the cross that we also did for this show. Oh yeah, and I had to crucify him myself with a large drill bit and some liquid nails. It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E. And by awesome, I mean I am completely and entirely surprised that I did not get struck by lightening at all during this process.

And here is a full stage shot to show some scale.

50 hours of work, and it was onstage for about 15 minutes for each of the 3 performances.

Love, love, love theatre!

Finished Tromp L'Oeil

I finished my Tromp L'Oeil in the beginning of last week. It turned out pretty well, and I'm happy with the way it's turned out. Didn't take that long to do. It's a pretty tiny painting, only 2' x 2', so it's an exact painted replica of the two sculptures I just finished awhile ago. Anyways, here's the finished painting!



Here's a detail shot.



Enjoy!

Mmmmmm trompe l'oeil

So the only time I've actually ever done anything trompe l'oeil related, I was a sophomore in high school.
After studying it on and off for 4 years at SCAD, and seeing my fair share of it, I figure it only necessary that I finally visit it properly, and do some for myself.
Not to mention I think it's a vital skill to have as a scenic artist.
And well, I want that skill.
So, here is the latest portfolio project I'm working on...

I've only worked on it for a couple of hours, so it isn't much to show so far. I'm currently working on adding Shade and Shadow. I used the pounce from my sculpture projects, and just mirrored it over. It's only 2' x 2' so it's pretty tiny, and I'm having to work on it with smaller brushes. Not to mention is pretty much impossible to work on it on a stick, so I'm having a lot of bonding time with sitting on the ground.
It's great.
P.S. sorry about the shadow!

Who Knew!!!

I can do sculpture!
Here's some portfolio pieces I've been working on for the past month or so at Juilliard:
I have this tendency to terribly over photo document my projects with process shots, so I am bearing everyone from seeing a gazillion pictures, and just showing a few.
So I found this beautiful drawing of a piece of Gothic architecture. It is listed as a 'Wooden Boss'

huh.

I scaled it up to 1' x 2', and gridded it out in 3" squares. Then I Sharpied it in, and used it as a pounce that I've probably used about 20 times so far.

The sculpture was 5" thick. I glued 1" sheets of blue insulation foam together. The top piece of foam is missing here. This is my Subtractive Sculpture where I transferred the image to the foamboard, and with a Chinese saw, a box cutter, A LOT of Dremel tool-ing, and about 2 weeks of working on it on and off....

and putting on a layer of Sculpt or Coat and spraying a couple of coats of off-white paint I got this fantastic little piece of happy!

Yay!

For the other half of my portfolio project, I did the same thing, but using an Additive Sculpture technique. After about 2 weeks of finding objects to add, way too many Styrofoam balls, felt, shoe pieces, leather strips, string, wood, foam-core, matte-board, packing peanuts, paperclay, foam, animal glue tape, bogus paper, and what seems to be about 5 pounds of hot glue, the final result turned out a little more colorful then my Subtractive Sculpture.

I discovered the beauty of Aqua Resin, and put a couple of coats over it to unify the texture, and sprayed a coat of off-white paint on it, and this is what I got:

It's pretty spiffy. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Now onto my Tromp L'Oeil painting of the same thing. Yay!

Busy bee with art!

I've been trying to keep my artistic brain juices going by trying to work on various artsy things. Been really into vintage-esque things, and really muted color pallets. Also line weight. I'm really digging variety in line weight. I'm exploring these more and more, and I'm really excited about it. But alas, here is some things I've been working on.

I'm trying to doodle fast, look less...

and block in color better and faster.

I made this bag for my boyfriend's sister for Christmas. It was my first real attempt at making a bag from scratch, on my own, without my mom helping me. I was really proud of it! When I gave it to her, I thought she was going to pass out--apparently that means she really liked it. Score.

Detail of the bag, and I put one of her favorite phrases on it. I did all the embroidery by hand. I really dig that kind of stuff---if I could make a living off of doing that stuff, I'd think about it.

This is kinda old. I'm still exploring this ''couples'' series that I've been working on for the last year or so. Maybe I just like inking things...who knows.

Catch up!

So I know it has been a while....there is no excuse
But for the few people who do look at this, I am going to try to recap the last 2 1/2 months in pictures via as many pictures of Dochas as possible!
So...here we go!

Christmas was good...it was pretty laid back, and quiet...and nice. (Dochas enjoyed her Christmas collar with all the bells on it)

I went to Savannah to visit my boyfriend, and all my wonderful friends still down there. It was great--too short. But then again, it's nice to know I don't have to do homework anymore

I turned 23 and my dad baked me a cake with teal icing with purple, white, and yellow polka dots on it. It was pretty cool, even though it looked like the cake belonged to a 5 year old. (p.s. the colors were my choosing)

Oh yeah...and in December I did my first freelance gig (YAY!!!), helping to paint scenery for "Pee Wee's Playhouse"...yeah, it's kinda nuts. And by nuts, I mean great!

More to come!

Website is FINALLY up!

Wooohoo!

Ch-ch-check it out!!

www.lorynariana.com

Quilt for a cause

I don't know her, and I probably never will, but when my step-mother came home a few weeks ago with a piece of paper about this woman that's friends with one of the woman whose in her exercise class, I knew I had to help out.

The woman is 37, is a mother of a 3, 5 and 7 year old, and has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Colin Cancer.

Someone was asking people to make 6"x6" patches that would be sewn together on a quilt that they were going to make for her, and give to her and her family during this difficult time, and something that the children could cuddle up to later on.

They asked for positive messages, I chose "Feed your faith and your fears will starve"




I did all the stitching by hand, and it took me about 2 days to finish it.

My step-mom made one too, with a daffodil with some inspirational words on it as well.

Apparently they ended up with about 100 squares and have made a decent sized quilt.

I haven't heard anything more about it, but I like to think I helped make this stranger's life and her family's lives a little easier during this difficult time.

Oh Lee Savage....

Your color pallet excites and frightens me.

All at the same time.

Ode to Juilliard

I am about to begin week 4 at Juilliard. It's pretty crazy. I'm almost completely adjusted to waking up at 5 am, catching the 6:15 train, getting into Grand Central at 7:45, jump on 2 subways, and get to Juilliard by 8--1 hour before I technically need to be to work, but in order for me to get parking back home, I need to take the early train.

I'm okay with it though, because I have about an hour to putz around the shop, get all the lights on, and lay on the stage with the ghost light looking up at the ridiculous grid system that's in the theatre right next to the paint deck.

The paint deck is pretty large. This is about 85% of the deck--I couldn't fit it all on my camera. The show that we have on the deck in that picture one of the first shows of the season called "Arms & the Man", which is designed by Lee Savage, who I worked with at BTF in '08. It's a pretty interesting set. 10 gallons of joint compound to stucco the walls. Good times, good times. Upstairs is the Charge and the Assistant Charge's offices.



Below in 'the cage' is the other intern's and mine's computer tables, and a bunch of paint storage.



I think it's pretty awesome that they gave us our own computers and desks and personal areas. We also get out own little lockers. Even though my computer is a tad outdated and circa 1999, it runs okay. I just need to BFF the IT guys at Juilliard and convince them to update my Java and Flash so I can actually see what's on the internet.

These two super wicked drops are behind my bosses desk. When you look at them closer, they look like mosaic tiles, and they are BEAUTIFUL! Most of the face work and thin black lines are done with Sharpie---another reason why I LOVE Sharpie! =] That lovely sign is infront of my boss's desk--occasionally he will break out into a German accent and yell that phrase at the other Intern and I. I'm not sure if he's trying to be funny, or being serious, or both. So, I just awkwardly laugh and pick up the pace on whatever I'm working on.



This is only about 1/4 of the paint storage area.

I about passed out when I saw all this Super Sat. I'm pretty sure there is enough Super Sat here for the next 8 years at Juilliard. I back up this statement with the fact that I used some Kelly Green from 1995. Yikes. See the older Rosco labels up there too? Yah...it's pretty ridiculous. And by ridiculous I mean AWESOME!!!

There is ALSO a full supply of Super Sats in the mixing area.

I'm in Heaven. =]