This is a still life of, obviously, skates that are hanging against a wooden door. It's for my watercolor class at the Academy, which now Tom Herzberg teaches. I used to have Mat Barber-Kennedy, and I had hoped to have him again for 202 painting, but ended up with Tom instead.

Tom is incredible. His paintings are just so imaginative and clever. He had been an illustrator during his time before the Academy, and continues to do a few side jobs for the air force. But really. I'm very lucky to have him as a teacher.

B-K and Tom are so opposite from each other. One focuses on "what you see" when you paint, where the other stresses "what you know." I have found that you need both to produce a believable piece of art work.

In the painting above, i drew from a photo reference. HOWEVER, Tom thinks the taller skate's blade is out of perspective; that the viewer sees too much of the end. But how can this be? It's from a photograph! But he explains that an artist must tweak and correct photos, to apply our knowledge of how things look and rules of perspective when sitting down to draw.

well. to a less-trained eye, perhaps the blade does not look so wrong, but to him, it's a bit of a distraction. oh well, i tried.

my dirty little secret

secretly.....

i want to be a photographer. sometimes more that i want to draw. i think, however, it can sometimes take more luck than skill with photos, unless you have some incredible tricks up your sleeve. recently, i created a flickr so i can keep track of some cheep friends at school who won't purchase a website, and i stumbled upon some really stunning things.

a good friend of mine, nick eby has been photographing for quite some time, but i was really looking at his stuff; im impressed. then he introduced me to another photographer that he models some of his work after, and that just blew me away! even for an organized mess (im referring to flickr's set up), that site attracts some phenomenal artists.

profession of my love.

oh my god. i just watched the new star trek and discovered chris pine. he must be the most beautiful man on the face of the earth. i need to meet him. just to meet him. oh man.

otherwise. i must agree that artists have extreme abilities to love, and i definitely am a passionate person.

if you know how to access chris pine, please inform me.

seriously.

please.

how the hell will i make money?

okay, so my visa bill seems to continuously climb regardless of my attempts to cut back on spending. given, it was christmas and i spent and easy $200 on my parents, how can i account for the other influx? i need to start making money again before i spend every last penny.

i have the option of working at hollister again after the season. i must accept this and earn some cash at least until i can find a job closer to my house, or maybe even pays better (but they pay pretty good downtown). i would love to sell some prints, which are cheap but add up. i have prints of the octopus, anastasia, the mannequin, octobird, and about 7 others i can't even think of at the moment. i organized all of them a few weeks ago. i just want to hypnotize people to buy my work since it obviously isn't selling on it's own.

maybe i could find a place to teach night classes for adults. like, every wednesday night i'd host a figure drawing class or a still life drawing class for seniors. that would be fun for me. but i think it would be a lot of work and dedication to finding models and gathering people to sign up. ugh. i'm hopeless.

i just want to be famous now and skip this hard work, but that's not how life is. i gotta keep entering competitions (which by the way, i just heard back from the elmhurst artist's guild that i did NOT win the current scholarship competition they're hosting) or applying to galleries. i need to get on my game.

Goals With My Art

For those who think art cannot support a fair living, here is a list of what i hope to accomplish.

1. Publish a children's coloring book of monsters
2. Run a gallery
3. Freelance
4. Illustrate for magazines, books, and newspapers
5. Teach a drawing class for outside artists

Every time i tell someone i am an art student, they look at me and say, "what can you do with that?" and i want to sometimes hit them because what can't i do? there are so many options for an artist to make a living, you just have to be dedicated to it. you have to want to eat, sleep, and breathe art, which i do. it is my passion, my life, my reason for being. i don't care if i don't make as much as a doctor or lawyer, i will love what i'm doing and it won't be work for me. it will be....it will be the most enjoyable part of my day knowing that i have taken on this challenge and completed a new work of art. my portfolio is my bread crumb trail, my foot prints along the path of life. each new piece pushes me farther down the road to success.

i am so happy with the life i have chosen for myself and i wish people understood that this is the only direction that would complete me.

School Stuff

so, starting january 4th i'll be back at school. i am definitely ready to be downtown again, but i must admit, i'm a bit nervous about my classes. i figure math will be a breeze, and illustration could be good (if we continue to do the same type of projects), but watercolor scares me. i was thinking about changing my major from illustration to watercolor, but i don't know anymore. i feel like my better work comes from my inks rather than paints.

perhaps i'm just scared because i want to succeed in that class specifically. i love watercolors, therefore i want to be accomplished. i haven't tried painting yet this break; i did a few acrylics but that was minor stress relief. grids have become an obsession of mine. i find them therapeutic. i think if i can finish one big painting this break i will feel very good.

i truly wanted to begin a new ink drawing: a seahorse. someone suggested i include some type of cocoon and crazy bat wings to hybridize it. that would be pretty sweet. however, there is a different sea creature i've been trying to work on for about a year now. i want to add color, but can't decide if i need more ink down first or not.

whatever i decide to do, i'm sure i'll be satisfied. i'll make enough prints so i can mess up on a handful and get different color schemes outta my system.

Updated My Website

I've been keeping my website up to date regularly, but I thought I'd announce it again.

CHECK OUT MY UPDATED SITE, PLEASE!

www.samanthadecarlo.com

here is what's featured:

This is the current featured piece entitled, Pillow. My friend Sean Daley picked it for me. I do not typically title my pieces. This second piece is called Chloe and the Octopus. It is by far my favorite piece I've done thus far as a sophomore. It began my new, more developed style. (Pillow directly followed Chloe and the Octopus.)

so i made this tripdic of myself and i have had a lot of feedback. not all of it was nice. some people, mostly girls, commented that i looked good (perhaps to be pollite), but the guys told me i look too cheap; they do not like the images. now. i do not know whether i should keep them up on my website or remove them. perhaps i need a second opinion. or a hundredth opinion.

For work (Maddock Douglas: Innovation Agency), I must create a "profitable product" that showcases my artwork. My first idea was to develop an unique line of playing cards, using hybrid animals on the face cards and redesigning the font. This idea, however, seemed unlikely to be completed by the end of august so I changed my theme: painted lamps.

I am very fond of this new direction, and I feel that I can achieve this in a few weeks once I produce my lamp "skeleton" (wooden posts nailed together to establish a rectangular-shaped box with an open bottom and top, a light bulb positioned in the center) and the rice paper on which I will print my drawings.

My design is simple: underwater themed since I personally love the creatures of the deep. I think I will draw octopi, starfish, sea horses, coral, and seashells. I intend on using either watercolors or sharpies to color in the design. The final product will resemble the dimly lit asian rice paper lamps.

Tell me, does this sound interesting? Or will this be a waste of time?

1. Purple buildings at night with golden lamp: taken my junior year of high school downtown chicago. I played around with hue/saturation and lighting techniques.

2. Reflection in water: taken at a forest preserve in Elmhurst. I played with hue/saturation and cropping.

3. The wheel: taken

at the same forsest

preserve. I barely

touched the picture.

I got really lucky with

the lighting that

day.

4. The pipe: taken at the same forest preserve and just saturated.