what I did today.

First painting of the semester..... here we go. Please fasten your seatbelts and note the emergency exits nearest you.

This is an in progress painting for my editorial class. We are to pick a biography of a person and do four illustrations of them. I chose Helen Keller, and am going to do four different stages of her life. One thing I didn't realize about Keller is that she was born with normal hearing and vision. At about nineteen months old she became very ill, and lost her hearing and sight completely. Present-day doctors think it may have been meningitis or scarlet fever (the doctors in the late 1800s didn't have a correct diagnosis). Keller didn't meet her teacher Anne until she was about six or seven years old. So her toddler years were spent not being able to communicate with her parents, so naturally she was very frustrated and was not a well-behaved child. In this first illustration my aim is to show the frustration Keller must have felt when she was a young child. Text is going to be added later.

acrylics on masonite board

I'm trying out painting on masonite this time. I really like it so far. Sometimes with the illustration board (which is a paper-based board) I would run into problems like the layers of paper would start to come off if I wet the board too much. Not so with the masonite cuz it's hard stuff! And it hardly warps. I like! It is also very cheap ($1.60-ish for one 11x14 board). Which I also like very much. :D

Process pics.

This is a test I did for a technique I am trying called image transfer. One of my classmates suggested it for putting the text onto the painting. Results are so-so, but it's my first try. :)

I have to figure out how to get more of the paper off.