Back for another helping of Life Drawing II!Holy crust, months without a visit! I have neglected this poor blog, it's a good thing I don't have children!

It was kind of weird to go back and look at some

of my old stuff, I'm a little embarrassed... it's so hard not to delete it. But, I also have a lot of new goods to post.

here's an update:

I'm currently working full-time at a photography studio near Green Bay. And I have a few credits left to finish on my degree, so I'm commuting 200 miles to class on wednesdays. Crazy right?! RIGHT?!

This semester I would like to incorporate some photography into my work, since I now have a studio at my disposal. But I also need to work with my hands. So expect more drawing, and model building as well. I'd like to do some costume building too.

Lately I have been thinking a lot (ok, more than usual) abou

t aging and mortality. Not in a gruesome way. I think the aging process is a beautiful thing. In fact, when I'm 90 and in a nursing home, I'm going to go around wearing sweatpants with the word "juicy" printed on the butt for the purpose of making all the other old people jealous. J/K... (not really).

I think time is relative. There are days when I have no concept of time, with

out a watch I can't tell 15 minutes from 3 hours. It's gotten a lot worse lately. Early onset dementia? Probably not.

Maybe just some bad juju for cracking old person jokes.

In all honesty, I joke about old people and death because I can't stop thinking about old people and death.

Anyway, enough babble.

Here's some recent stuff.

Here's an i.p. of the next painting.

I like to draw my paintings a few times, and then paint them from memory.

This next series is "the naked aphrodite"

She is no more, due to a tragic moving accident.

It felt good to start drawing again. Digitally drawing is fun and fast, but nothing satisfies neglected muscle memory like picking up a stick of perfectly sharpened charcoal and attacking a large sheet of blank paper. This piece was intended to be non-objective. I used the pictures I liked and weeded them down to the ones that would work well together visually. While I was drawing this I had no thoughts on it, I was completely focused on moving charcoal around the paper. The process was a very meditative experience. Afterwards it was interesting to step back, take a break, eat a sandwich, and come back to look at it with fresh eyes. Now I see something conceptual that must've been hiding in my subconscious. It carries a subject matter that touches on the life cycle, death, mortality, the aging process, misleading hope, narration, destination, mistakes, failures, and process. It's interesting that out of the 100 pictures I took, my subconscious decided upon 3 photos that spoke of a similar subject matter.

Intro and Art Lessons reading

Drawing III Spring 2010

Hi everyone, my name is Andrea Kappelman, I'm a studio major with a drawing emphasis. This is my last semester here so in this class I hope to create some work for my senior show which will be held at the end of April, the show also features fellow drawing major Kalyn Meisner, and ceramists Adam Gruetzmacher, and Sean Larson. I plan to exhibit portraiture in the show, although I'm also interested in

illustration, photography, printmaking and graphic design. Next fall I'm planning an excursion to Kathmandu, a volunteering opportunity has arisen at a women's center there where I'll be able to immerse myself in the culture which already holds a strong influence on my art. Check out the rest of this blog if you'd like to read more about me or look at some of my work.

Reading Review:

I've actually already read Art Lessons. What I love the most is that author frequently encourages the reader to travel. In the book we are instructed to, “Learn about others through reading, dialogue, and the media, but especially, find opportunities to know the world through travel. Only by getting to know another people directly can you counter pervasive ideologies of the enemy. Be voracious in your appetite for art, I would even suggest that you can be indiscriminate. Look at everything, from the art in the world’s greatest museums to street artists hawking their wares. Develop your won aesthetic sensibility by looking.”

Like many young adults facing college graduation, travel is highly appealing to me. Alien cultures hold many fascinations, and since I’ve always been a hands-on learner immersing myself in a culture would likely be the most effective way to understand it. The book gave me ideas to help back the argument with my parents, who I am hoping to persuade not only approve of letting their oldest daughter

travel, but to also (fingers crossed) help fund said adventures. “Dear Mom and Dad, I recent found out that many artists find that travel is congenial to their work. Great artists and their locations include: Monet and the Mediterranean, Robert Henri and Ireland, Betsy Damon and China, and Ann McCoy and Poland. Perhaps add to that list Andrea Kappelman and Nepal?”

Additions to the never-ending project

Art is a type of universal communication. When you pair fine arts with the human form you have a direct and unmistakable way to communicate with current generations and those to come from all around the globe. Take the work of Michelangelo for example. Even though the artist was from centuries ago, and even though he spoke a different language, his sculptures speak distinctively to all viewers. Without the use of linguistics, the notion behind each of his sculptures is instantly recognizable, The David is proud, The Pieta is sorrowful, and Bacchus is clearly inebriated. Like Michelangelo, all globally renowned artists have breached the linguistic barrier through emotion in their work. Emotions are universal. They are our rawest and our most instinctual form of communication. I have always found visual images of human emotion inspirational. This is why I choose to work with portraiture and the human figure. As I hope to spend a lot of time traveling, it’s important for me to make work that can be globally understood, emotion is the key. Emotional communication is the broadest aspect of my work.

My concept then spans in a wide range of undertones including environmental activism, global events and travel. I’ve always had draw towards uninhabitable environments, particularly the Himalayas. The mountain range itself isn’t the only curiosity, but also the people found there. I find the relationship between wealthy foreign climbers and the native Sherpa absurd. It also seems that in that region of the world, the land alters us more than we alter the land. The naturally harsh environment affects humankind in physical and psychological ways. The bitter cold bites at human skin, we receive frostbite and windburn, and we develop a pre-maturely aged, leathery appearance. The high altitude and thin oxygen also affects our brains in ways we still don’t understand. What a strange idea for our environment to abuse us, instead of us abusing our environment. I’ve continued on a series for the last several years that addresses this curiosity. My work consists largely of black and white portraits of adventurers who have braved these harsh environments. The emotion of each individual is not readily obvious; it is hiding behind an abused complexion. Although, perhaps it is the skins complexion, rather than the expression that offers the most information about the individual. Like calluses that build up on hands, the skin on ones face can also be very descriptive. The texture and color shows the intensity with which one lives their life. Texture, along with age lines and wrinkles all contribute to the eye catching, multi-layered composition that I strive for.

The medium of choice varies from oil paint, to charcoal, and also digital drawing. When working with portraiture, the idea of photography is tempting, but it doesn’t offer the control that is required to do justice to these select individuals. Texture is a very important element to the compositions, and it’s more effective to create texture by hand. Plus I thoroughly enjoy the process.

human form project

The goal of this project was to create accurate representations of the human body

from memory. I began working by hand, then scanned the images to be re-worked. I really wanted to test out different lines while keeping everything as simple as possible.

At first I tried rendering a male body, but ultimately I decided on a female body because it was the most familiar. I'm going to need some more practice before I'll be able to do this with a male body. Goal for J-term?!

The Adventures of Jim the Sustainably- Challenged Designer

Hot off the press, comics by Oliva Lee

This center one hits home.

I really want to print these off and post them all over Applied Arts.

But that would be wasting paper.