The Zombie Apocalypse- Reviving a Blog!

Two months ago I realized how long it had been since this blog was updated. Originally, I was going to make posts here on a regular basis to keep track of my artistic journey throughout college. It turns out that things didn't exactly go according to plan, but as many of my peers have been updating their own blogs, I thought it would be as good of a time as any to really get back into the swing of things and brush off the dust from this ghost town. I'm going to keep the couple of posts that I made a few years ago for nostalgia's sake, but from here on out I'm making an effort to be much more descriptive and professional!

I have mentioned that I was accepted into the Character Animation track at UCF and started this past fall. When the semester comes to an end (only a few weeks from now, I can't believe it!), I'm planning on updating with some of my work from the classes I've had as well as personal work that I want to complete during the holidays. For now, I'd like to post a couple of pieces that were included in my portfolio that I haven't mentioned before.

My artistic journey has included experiences in many different techniques and materials, but I think it may be interesting to compare two types of a very common one: painting. I started painting with watercolors and non-toxic paints when I was only a child, took my first actual painting class in high school, and have since then been able to practice both in and out of a classroom setting to improve my skills. Below are several paintings that I've done, four were completed entirely digitally and one is entirely traditional.

These four landscape studies were done digitally in Photoshop with a Wacom Intuos3 tablet. I've been using my tablet for about 6 years, but hadn't truly done any landscapes before the ones above. Using photo references alongside my digital canvas, I started each piece with a mid-grey background and built up the values using layers of black and white before going back and adding color in various layers on top of them. It was a new technique and experience for me overall, so I'm very pleased with how they turned out!

This piece was done in Acrylics during a painting class I took over the summer before applying to Character Animation. The still life was one of several that we had to choose from that were divided based on various color schemes. This one was complimentary (green and red) and I liked it because of the variety of textures present in the objects. Over the course of about a week, I sketched, added washes, and built up layers of color until it was finished. I had a lot of fun working to capture the light and variance in color throughout this piece and it is still one of my favorite paintings to date.

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

-Cayla