Sketchy Sketchy

These are my sketches over the past few months. I am heavily inspired by my favorite movies. I used my love for film, cult classics and anime to be the inspiration behind my sketchbook. I have about 50 more pages to fill of this I think .. Hopefully I'll be able to post the full sketchbook on here soon!

Fresh Off The Press- Lost Myself

Went to print on a few of my images. Just a sneak preview into my next series! This is only one technique I used so far, but I am planning on using at least 2-3 more techniques to present my overall meaning. Anyways, you'll see the end result by Tuesday :)

Lost Myself

Sorry about being absent for the past week or so! School on top of being sick hasn't been the best duo for the past week. Its been awhile, but I wanted to show what I've been currently working on. "Lost Myself" is a series in which I explore the complete immersion of oneself into drugs/drinking to escape the world but in turn the escape themselves. Its still in the early stages, but I will be having the complete series finished by next week! I put this series on the back burner for the past few months so I'm super excited to see the full potential of this series!
Also, Happy October! I still don't know what I will be doing for Hallows Eve but It sure will involve tons of scary movies, haha.

Love For The Endangered

For all of those who know me, you know that I have always been a huge animal lover. Animals are God's given creatures to help this world survive. They have the purest souls. I've been following WWF for a while now. WWF is the World Wildlife Fund. This organization helps the world's citizens find out who the endangered species in this world are and how to stop them from extinction. I personally I always have wanted to be an animal activist but since starting school I had to put it on the back burner for a while. But now I feel there is more of a NEED for me to help. About 50% of the world's wildlife has declined in the last 40 years! And now is the time to act. I don't know of any better way to help than doing this through my artwork. So I will be painting an endangered animal every month and the artwork will be sold as a donation to WWF for their research and investigations. When my art piece sells ALL of the funds will go to DONATION, and with the painting you'll get a sheet of info about the animal painted and a receipt of contribution to the WWF organization. I hope that you guys will help me spread the word! Our world depends on it. And this little guy below will be my first painting to kick this off, so what better way than to paint WWF'S cutest panda!

Fall Tea!

Fall is here and I picked up some awesome teas from Teavana. I love tea more than any other beverage. So I picked up two new fall teas. The first I picked up Pumpkin Spice Brulee which has a sweet and chocolate-y taste. This tea was super amazing especially when I'm craving a (not so healthy) pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks.The next one I bought is a S'mores oolong tea. At first I thought it would be really weird tasting.I couldn't really pin point how it would taste/ But when brewed it silenced those thoughts. The tea has a gentle chocolate and smooth flavor and the marshmallows that were in the tea leaves added to the delicious nostalgic taste . Both of these teas will be great replacements for my coffee and will be carrying me along through the fall.

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Super excited!

My website is finally coming along! This is huge for me!! My website is basically a photography portfolio of past work and an where I will announce and show my future photography projects. My website will be open to view by the beginning of October :)

Photo Series- Home Safe Home

Home Safe Home

When I created this photo series I wanted to pursue almost nurture vs. nature or even human vs. nature; I did this by photographing interiors and exteriors of two very different types of houses. The nurture vs. nature aspect comes from how a house can become a home and also how a house can resign to nature itself. Where I live there is a street full of abandoned houses. The houses have been abandoned for months now and are starting to blend back into nature. These houses to me have a stoic, statue like behavior. There is no security or comfort being displayed. When I was taking images of these houses I felt unwelcomed, impatient, and uncomfortable. The nurture or human aspect I conveyed by taking images of my own home and recording the human existence with in its walls. I chose to focus a lot on images that seemed to mirror the abandoned houses well.  I wanted my home to convey comfort by how the house looked somewhat cluttered. To me, clutter means comfort. I feel as though clutter is a visualization of life. My home has a feeling of existence that the abandoned houses did not. I wanted to keep most of my pictures in a warm tonal color. I also really liked playing with depth of field in this series, especially with the walls. Both sets of images have a lot of warm tones but in the abandoned set there was a lot more rough texture. The rough textures being displayed inhabit the idea of unsafe, raw and somewhat dangerous feeling to the surroundings. I wanted to make sure that the houses were completely empty of people to not distract viewers from the main focus of the dualism and contrast between the houses.   

So I Think She's Pretty Cool

Meet Caitlin Hackett. She's one of my inspirational artist post for today. She's a California artist. She uses a lot of ink and watercolor in her paintings. Here's a quick artist statement about her work I found on her website."My work alludes to the boundaries that separate humans from animals both physically and metaphysically, and the way in which these boundaries are warped by science, mythology, and religion alike. I use my work as a commentary on the clash between science, religion and culture over what it means to be human, and thus, what separates us from the Beasts of the wild. " If you want to see more of her work you can find her website here -> http://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com/

A Little Bit About Myself

So hello there! Since I haven't really introduced myself, I am Angelica, Some people call me Jelly or Ange. I am currently studying at University of North Texas. My main focus being Photography and Anthropology. For my own little happiness I also paint on the side. I like to construct projects that have both personal content, mix media and distortion. I will talk a whole lot about my art on this blog so let me tell you a little bit more about myself without art in the equation. I like tea. I am a little crazy over it. I have a TON of tins and sachets of tea leaves and I still want more. My favorite is the orange blooming tea from Teavanna or my pink earl grey green tea from a local artisan tea place where I live. I love music, mostly any rock genre from early 60's to late 90's.
I can't help but to not talk about my little ones. I pride my self on my fur babies, Snowelle, Kira and Garfield. Snowelle recently passed and I'm still in sorts about it, she was my longest companion of 13 years and helped me with struggles of childhood to adulthood. Kira and Garfield are the newest members. They're both about year old and two months apart in age, bursting with energy and absolutely adorable.  

Favorite Color: Turquoise, In New Mexico people paint their door frames with this color because of its spiritual strength against bad spirits.

Cool fact: I met Kat Von D at a book signing and hailed to her Wayne's World style with my best friends.. haha embarrassing but well worth it when she was busting out laughing. " We are not worthy!"

Favorite Band : I have LOTS of favorites. But I am going to have to go with my teenage angst muse My Chemical Romance. I absolutely adore Gerard Way not only for his singing chops but also his artistic background. He has his own graphic novel/ comics and he used to work as an cartoonist for cartoon network and he has a Grammy ( some big award) for his Art Direction.
Favorite to Photograph: I recently bought a Polaroid Spectra System and I'm in complete adoration of it. I really like to take pictures of aged, worn down, distressed objects or buildings. I also really love creative photography!

Favorite Painting Medium:  I really love watercolor right now. Ive been using Dr. Ph Martin watercolors, Winsor Newton, Van Gogh watercolors, and Daniel Smith.

Well that was a little about myself., I hope you enjoyed!

Fresh Off The Press

FINALLY done printing, can't wait to share with all of you!

Photo Series- Home Safe Home

My new photo series will be available to view this Thursday! I focused on what makes a home have that since of security. I took pictures of several homes that were abandoned near where I live and juxtaposed them with images of my own home to draw contrast and comparison of the two. I hope you will enjoy it!

Photography Work in Progress

Another work in progress for my photography. A good way to create a series to me is to see them all side by side working together to get the end result. I do this by going on Photoshop and scaling my images down and placing them all on one Photoshop document. I will have the finished and full series on here soon as well as my photography website and my facebook :https://www.facebook.com/Aangelicagrace

New work in progress!

Hello there! 
I've been working on a few projects these couple of weeks and here's a work in progress of my most recent. I've been inspired by The Never Ending Story as it was one of my all time favorite movies since I could remember! I've also been inspired by the truly bad ass movie Guardians of the Galaxy's Nebula! Can't wait to see how she turns out! :) 

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog where I will be sharing my art work, fine art photography and my in progress projects! - Angelica