White Russian.

So here's my last piece from Lifestyles, and in turn the last piece from my first semester as a Senior! I have another thesis piece done, but I was never fully satisfied with it so it's going to stay hidden in my computer.

The assignment was to take a cocktail of our choice and illustrate it (without involving the cocktail itself- think of it more as a creative interpretation to the name of the drink). I chose my favorite alcoholic beverage, the White Russian. So now we've got a lovely Russian lady (wearing a variation of this outfit) chilling out in the snowy tundra with some wolves. This piece originally was super flat and graphic (and one of a pair- we had to illustrate the ingredients as well, but I felt that piece wasn't up to snuff), but I ended up tweaking it so that it had some cool lighting and a real sense of mood.

So all in all, I am happy with how this semester went, though I was incredibly stressed since the first day of classes and worked myself incredibly hard (and harder then I think ended up being healthy...) but I feel like my portfolio has really solidified and I've found ways that I enjoy working!

Tumblr!

I now have a tumblr where you can follow me and check out all of my work! Follow me at kristendraws.tumblr.com!

Paper Doll Group 11.

Wow, it's the last batch of Lifestyles dolls for the semester- see the colorful clothes the group is wearing here, here, and here.

Website!

kristenacampora.com is now live! It will continue to be tweaked during Winter break, but I'm really happy with how it ended up looking!

Paper Doll Group 10.

My second-to-last set of paper dolls for Lifestyles shows my fabulous models rocking colorful patterned clothes! See their outfits here, here, and here!

May Calendar Page.

May! Springtime, flowers, and breezy weather- what's not to love? I had to do an illustration for a calendar page in Lifestyles and was assigned this fun month. It gave me a chance to do some detailed hand lettering as well, which was (as always) a pleasure. You can find the outfit I based this one off of right here!

Paper Doll Group 9.

More Lifestyles dolls- this time everyone's rocking pastels! You can see their outfits here, here, and here.

Business Cards/Postcard Designs.

Just sent these out to get printed today from Overnight Prints- fingers crossed they print well!
I have too much to do and too little time to do it... Let's hope the next few weeks aren't *too* terrible to me, but it's not looking very promising! Finals are no fun.

Trotting Horse.

Quick silhouette I did tonight to try to de-stress before classes start this week.... Maybe it will be incorporated into a pattern in the future.

Senior year is really tough.

Right to Remain Silent.

Another thesis piece- this is a spot for the This American Life episode "Right to Remain Silent" which deals with people who have the right to remain silent but choose not to exercise that right, and face adversity/controversy when they do so. I wanted to do a more serious editorial to switch things up a bit and do a black and white piece since I haven't done one since first semester Junior year. Conceptualizing this was a very interesting process and I'm pretty happy with what I produced.

Paper Doll Group 8.

This week's dolls for Lifestyles are all dressed to go on a classy date! You can find their clothes here, here, and here.

Stay tuned for more updates in the next few days- there will be plenty more!

Accessory Interaction.

Here's some new Lifestyles work... the assignment was to take print ads of a designer fashion product from magazines and incorporate them (collage style) into a one and two page spread illustration that is fantasy based. I found ads for the Bulova Precisionist watch, a Vhernier ring, and a handful of Ralph Lauren rings and incorporated them into an underwater exploration set of pieces where my lovely ladies (wearing a Spring 2010 Maurizio Pecoraro bathing suit and a Spring 2009 Jasmine Di Milo bathing suit respectively) interact with the objects. It was a very new experience as I had never done a photo collage in this sort of way before but I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. Spent way too much time on them, though!

Paper Doll Group 7.

New dolls! Our heroes are now donning some sharp duds for the first day of school! You can find their clothes here, here, and here!

There's plenty more work to be thrown up on here from my classes, my portfolio website is in the process of being designed *and* I'll be posting a virtual tour of sorts of my studio space, aka my second home here in Baltimore, on the blog. Keep your eyes peeled!

Paper Doll Group 6.

More paper dolls for Lifestyles- this time my guys are ready for a snowy day in honor of the freakishly early snow that came to a lot of the upper east coast a week ago! You can see their clothes here, here, and here!

Adventure!

Time for another thesis piece! This is an editorial for the This American Life episode "Adventure!". It dealt with broadly different stories about adventure, and I ended up focusing on the notion on space exploration. I fooled around with inking and ink wash mixed with graphite and I'm liking the direction it is going.

I've been crazy busy and I can't believe how stressful this semester has been, but I'm trying to keep my chin up and push through! I'm trying to get the absolute most out of my final year here at MICA.

Vices and Virtues- Avaritia and Caritas.

If you follow my Twitter account, you would have seen a sneak peek of this work when it was still in it's linework stage- and after quite the wait, here are my posters based on the vice/virtues of avarice (greed) and charity! I have been continually tweaking this piece for the last week or so, and I'm finally happy with where they both are. I logged somewhere around 40-50+ hours on them (including my concept sketching process and whatnot). Per the assignment, we had to have 2+ figures interacting with objects that represent the vice/virtue- I ended up deciding on mass amounts of jewelry- the avarice girls are swimming in a pool of accessories while wearing and holding even more adornments, hoarding it all to themselves, whereas the charity girls are presenting themselves and their pile of finery to the viewer as a gift of sorts.

Something I challenged myself with on this assignment was using a palette that involved black/charcoal grey, since I don't usually use that color in my work. And yes, all of that jewelry was hand drawn- no shortcuts! A side effect of all that detailed drawing was that wrists were a hot mess for weeks. Not fun, but I don't regret my decision!

You can see the avarice clothes here and here, and the charity clothes here and here.

Paper Doll Group 5.

Another batch of dolls for Lifestyles- this time my group is dressed up to go out for a night on the town! You can see their clothes here, here, and here.

In other news, I'll be posting lots of work soon... another piece for Thesis and two for Lifestyles soon- I just need to finish/tweak them. As for how my senior year is going? I'm totally booked solid each week with work, but I am getting good feedback and am excited to try some new techniques in my next few pieces.

Notes on Camp.

Sorry for the delayed post of my work- due to having to rework this piece and do some alterations on other work on top of all my new work to get done has made my posting habits get pretty sporadic. Anyway, this is my This American Life editorial for the episode "Notes on Camp", which talks about people's experiences in summer camps and in situations that were similar to a summer camp. I had a lot of difficulty with figuring out where I was going with this piece, but I'm pretty happy with the final product! I ended up focusing on the aspect of growing up in a camp, which not only was important for the camps themselves (repeat customers bring in a constant stream of money) but was considered by the kids to be integral to them gaining experiences to help them grow up to be well rounded adults.

Paper Doll Group 4.

More paper dolls for Lifestyles! This time my gang is decked out in their summertime clothes that you can see here, here, and here.

Paper Doll Group 3.

More street fashion paper dolls! You can find the outfits here, here, and here.  This time these guys are wearing their best for the cold winter weather.

As of now, my Senior year has been killer- all nighters in the studio are not unusual at all, and my stress levels are at an all time high. It's hard to manage, but I'm keeping myself motivated and trying to stay positive (which can be harder then it sounds!)

Paper Doll Group 2.

Here's my second group of paper dolls for Lifestyles, based on three more "street fashion" outfits that can be seen here, here, and here. I was going for spring oriented clothing- hopefully they fit the bill!

Frenemies.

Another thesis piece has been completed! This is an editorial for the episode of This American Life titled "Frenemies", which deals with the issues of friends who actually aren't all that great of friends at all- with stories about estranged siblings, broken friendships, and people who look out more for themselves then their "allies". I struggled with this piece- initially it was supposed to be done in gouache but after having some issues using it in this piece I ended up having to scrap it and restart it digitally. It was a lot of work to do but I'm satisfied with my result.

Paper Doll Group 1.

 

My first group of paper dolls for Lifestyles, based on three "street fashion" outfits that can be seen here, here, and here. They're all dressed and ready to take on a brisk fall day, don't you agree?

So far senior year has been really tough, but I'm happy with most of the pieces I am making, so that's positive! I basically live in my senior studio now and have turned it into my own personal art nest... Expect updates soon with photos of my new home away from home!

Paper Dolls.

In my Lifestyles class with Dan Krall we had to make paper dolls that we will dress in "street fashion" outfits or clothing we find from runway shows. These are the bases I drew, which will be clothed in the coming weeks.

In Dog We Trust.

Well my plan of posting a few things before the summer ended failed miserably! My final year at MICA has begun and now I'm starting to put together my thesis. For my first semester I am doing editorial illustrations based on episodes of This American Life, an NPR radio program. For this my first assignment I tackled "In Dog We Trust", which has stories of how pets affect our lives and how they become an influential part of our families- so I ended up drawing two women worshiping a corgi that is sitting atop a mountain of dog treats.

Letterpress.

I've been so busy this summer, I forgot to take some time to post scans of my letterpress pieces from my class this summer! First two are post cards (on two different shades of paper). Next are 5 different versions of business cards that I have made, and last but not least is my calendar page which references the phrase "April showers bring May flowers."

Letterpress- Tests and Postcards.

So for the next few weeks there will be a disruption in my normal posting habits because I am taking a Letterpress class with Kyle van Horn! It's really really interesting and I have learned a ton in only four days. It's a three week long course, with each class starting at 9:30 am and ending at 4:30 pm. We have three assignments we have to finish before class ends- a set of postcards, a few sets of business cards, and a calendar. Because the process can be so time consuming it is recommended that we either come to class early (around 8:45) or stay late (yesterday I stayed there printing till 7). It's tough on my feet- for the last two days I have been standing almost consistently for around 15 hours total. Ouch! But I am starting to get the hang of putting my sets together/setting them up on the press and luckily Kyle is a really patient teacher and helps me along the way.

The first image is the Vandercook letterpresses we are using. They are pretty old but beautiful and do their job fantastically. Next up are the lock ups that Kyle designed/set up for our syllabus covers. After that is a collection of the first letterpresses that I pulled- some syllabus covers and some text (everyone was asked to use the fonts available to them to make a 2+ line phrase- I did "This too shall pass)!

The following image is the mixing station, where I was mid way through mixing my final ink colors. Last but not least are some examples of my first assignment, a postcard. I have two different versions- one is on off-white/warm white paper, while the other is on "white-white"/cool white paper. I have about 60 of them in total. Apologies for the low quality pictures of the final versions of my piece- I used my iPhone camera as these are going to stay in the classroom till my class ends, and the lighting is terrible in the room I took the photographs in. Once my class is over I will re-shoot everything with my Nikon with good lighting.