Hello All,
I will be having a show October 31st to November 4th in the Vergette Gallery. It is located on campus in the Allyn building (next to Shryock). It will be open each day (like a museum) from 8-5 and there will be a notebook open for you to leave your comments. There will be a closing show from 6-8 on November 4th.
Hope to see you all there!

Eeek! I’ve been a little bad lately on posting. I have some ideas then by the time I get to sit down to write them- I’ve forgotten! Here is a painting until I remember. I took the picture at an angle, oops! It’s nameless if anyone has any suggestions. I wasn’t just going to go with “Scream” lol

You know that moment where you are exhausted, staring at a stack of textbooks, and its 3am? Yea, it will get to that point around now and a few more times in the semester. I have been going to bed late, working constantly, painting constantly, and trying to squeeze in a small amount of personal life. I’m exhausted and I’m sure you are too. The key to surviving the semester is to do as much homework and studying as you can but to be sure to set a little bit of time for yourself a day. It’s really important. I usually pick up a comic or a novel or even just chat with a friend for awhile. You have to.

Keep working,
Angela

not much to say these days so here is a painting I did over the summer. This is the first I have ever posted on anything from the current work I am doing now.
Enjoy.
Angela

I was just thinking about a very simple yet effective tips for creative majors. KEEP A SKETCHBOOK. KEEP A NOTEBOOK. No, I’m serious. (That’s my beat up sketchbook shown above.) It doesn’t have to be what your teacher says, this is one just for you, for your ideas that you need to get down on paper. I didn’t for years because I never thought I “did it right” but the joke was on me. There was no “right” way to keep a sketchbook/notebook. You can just write, you can print pictures off the Internet, you can just free draw/right, you can work (and rework) a story, etc. Just as long as you have a place to put down your ideas and your work. All you have to do is work a little each day and even if you don’t do anything else, slowly but surely you’ll get better at what you do.
Happy Drawing!
Happy Writing!

Angela

I got on here originally planning to tell you about a specific class that fills a core requirement but I got really, really flustered by wordpress. Why? Because I am technologically incompetent.

-So here is a shout out to all those who forget their password and can’t get the site to send the password to you correctly. (what just happened to me)
-To those that can’t get their ipod to stop repeating Blue (da ba dee) by Eiffel 65 that your little brother put on there as a joke. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFx9eDXlCvg )
-To those of you that accidently set your toaster on fire and stain the ceiling.
-To those of you that typed a whole paper and lost it due to some computer mishap.
-To those of you that have flooded your bathroom because some strange magical thing happening to your pipes.
-To those of you that turn their TV to Spanish dubs and can’t turn it back to English.
-To those of you that broke a new form of technology within weeks of purchasing it.
-To those of you that can’t get your phone off of auto correct and keep calling your girlfriend nag instead of saying nah.
-To those of you that butt dial because you can’t get your phone to do what you want.
-To those of you that have a jerk friend that turns your phone language to Hebrew and you can’t change it back.
-To those of you that can’t turn your alarm off that consistently goes off at 3 AM.
-To those of you that can’t work your vacuum and emerge an hour later covered in dust because it exploded as you were trying to fix it.

To you, I say, all of these (or something very similar) has happened to me. You are not alone and I feel your pain. Hang in there.

Angela

There is a free magazine on campus called Grassroots that takes short story, poetry, and visual arts (3D and 2D) submission. There is no entry fee AND you get undergrad publication on your resume as well as the additional excitement of having students and faculty alike see your work. I have included the address at the bottom of this blog. The most recent issue came out this fall and it has a lot of your classmates work. You can find it in a bin right inside the doors of Morris Library, The student center, and all around faner.

This is a picture of the cover this year. Each year allows for new entries, new images, and new covers. Contact moi, grassroots, or just browse the website to learn more. It is a really great opportunity. Also, if you just want to find out what grassroots is about, check out fliers in faner for the next open mic night where people come to show off their work through readings. You can just listen (like i mostly do) or read yourself. Anyone can read, there are no restrictions!

http://grassroots.siuc.edu/

Angela

Checklist and suggestions for the  first week of class. They may seem simple but you would be surprised how often we forget these.

1) when going to class have your schedule: class AND room number (ive gone onto campus with my schedule and had no idea which room its in)
2) don’t forget to bring a lunch or snack for days with big blocks of class
3) “TR” does not mean you have a class on thursday only. It is Thrusday (R) AND Tuesday (T).
4) get a good nights sleep.
5) Make at least one friend in each class. Whether or not you want to hang out with them outside of class, it is good to at least have one allie in each class for homework and class.
6) Read the syllabus. Yes, it is boring and similar to all the others BUT some professors have fine print on absences, cell phone use, or homework. This is information you will need to know on those horrible mornings when you don’t want to go to class and screw yourself over on absences.
7) sometimes your classes don’t require all the books you bought at the bookstores. Make sure this first week! You only have a very small period of time to return your books to get your full money back.

Just a few tips, Goodluck!

Angela

Eeeek! My email has been out of commission because I am hopeless with computers. They don’t understand me and I don’t understand them. That said, I have been keeping up with my blogs and saving them in preparation for when I got it back up. So be prepared for a bunch all at once. =)

A lot of people have some misconceptions about painting/drawing artists such as myself. Let me clear that up for you. While many people with my degree are meticulous with planning every single part of their work out, many are highly skilled in immaculate detail or realism, (my studio mate is one extremely talented in this art) I am not. My process is somewhat haphazard and I am willing at every moment to change something, replace something, or even start over. For me it is less about the details or exact representation. I am more about setting out to convey some emotion, or atmosphere to the viewer through whatever means necessary. Any specific part of the work can never be considered precious and sometimes must be sacrificed for the whole.
Sometimes I do abstracts ( of the figure ), or focus on color, subtle details in the face, mark making, or even how I handle the paint. The figure is said to be outdated by some but not by me. I find that people are what fascinate me most because they are capable of exquisite cruelty, unfathomable kindness, and everything in-between.  That is not to say that you can’t represent these things with inanimate objects, it is just my approach.
There are different art movements that focus on different things. For example, instrumentalists focus on achieving some goal like spreading information or making a change. They have my highest respect because they are setting out to make a difference in the political world. If I were to put myself into a category of some kind (which I do in protest because I find it limiting) it would be some form of Expressionism.  I’m not looking for transcendence; I’m not even looking for symbolism. With me, what you see is what you get. I want you to stand in front of one of my paintings and viscerally feel every single brush mark, every represented cringe, and every color in the skin. My work is blunt and needs a viewer to finish the piece by experiencing it.

Angela