Latest watercolor painting! I thought this one turned out interesting, it almost doesn’t look like a watercolor painting to me. I’m pleased with it, especially the right eye.
Not sure what I will end up doing with this painting, but sometimes it’s just fun to whip up something just to paint!
I’ve done more experimenting with materials for my collages, introducing more color and india ink into the mix.
While preparing a demonstration for a high school class on different methods of mark making with watercolor and India Ink, I got to experiment and make lots of examples and play around with various materials, including colorful india ink.
I usually use watercolor, but the india ink provides a darker, thicker consistency and is very fun to manipulate.
I would like to incorporate it along with watercolor to make collages. I feel as though I’ve been using painting techniques more with this batch of collage materials.
Upcoming is a large scale collage featuring colorful India Ink. I really enjoy mixing watercolor and India Ink to create a beautiful mixture of color.
I’ve been working on a new project lately to help with my upcoming senior thesis the next two semesters. Using a mixture of old and new drawings, paintings, and even some photographs, I’ve made a collective sketchbook combining all my different doodles, sketches and more to convey a journal like sketchbook with an abstract narrative. I began to make doodles of my thoughts and dreams, so I now refer to this sketchbook as an abstract “dream journal”.
I’ve been adding and subtracting to the pages existing in the sketchbook, constantly altering it to form pages and pages of collages, which is my favorite medium to work with at the moment.
Over the summer of 2015, in my free time I made the occasional oil painting with lots of animal watercolors, but the thing I found that I was making the most was drawings and collages for my sketchbook. It was easy to carry around and work on, and I have a growing interest in collage and mixed media artwork, which is why I kept working on the sketchbook almost daily.
It was a great way to unwind and process my thoughts and feelings into colors, doodles, and line-work, with various materials including watercolor, pastel, marker, ink, pencil, and even cardboard.
What started out as a normal sketchbook to doodle and think of ideas, became a work of art itself by encompassing the process of gluing, ripping apart, drawing, painting, and layering old and new artwork, morphing into a medium that had remnants of the original piece on each page.
Although I continue to work on this sketchbook as often as possible, and consider it a piece alone, it is also a basis on which I will start a new series of enlarged collages on. I plan on using stonehenge paper and layering various mixed media together to make collages similar to those in the book.
I will use my favorite pages in the sketchbook as a blueprint for making larger collages, continue to add and subtract from the sketchbook in the process.
This painting is part of a series I did last year as a final series. However, I just found it to be kind of boring. I like the painting as a whole, however my favorite part were the eyes.
I wanted to take the painting to a different level. Since lately I’ve strayed from my portraiture and gone a more abstract route, I decided to take this painting into a more abstract route while keeping the eyes the same.
Here is the first stage of making the painting abstract:
I decided to work on a larger abstract painting that I was just not satisfied with. I have been layering paint on top of this canvas all semester long, trying to make the “perfectly abstract” painting I’ve been wanting to create for so long. I was just hating it more and more. However, I finally decided that there was just way too much going on color wise, as well as with the subject matter.
Here is the last photographed stage of this painting before any change was made:
I wanted the canvas to have lots more white, with pops of color, rather than too much color all over. Lots of duct tape and white acrylic paint later, here is what the canvas looked like:
I covered the few pieces on the canvas that I actually liked with duct tape. The rest I painted over with white acrylic paint. I proceeded to use some red acrylic paint, and squeezed the paint on the canvas rather than using a paint brush. Drawing lines with the paint bottle was fun and liberating.
I worked on the larger canvas first, and realized that it had some common color schemes with the eye painting. So I thought I would go ahead and combine the two paintings to see what they would look like as a series. Turns out, they fit together really well and I was very excited.
Here is the final product! I’m very pleased with the outcome, and will probably feature it in an upcoming exhibition.
For my photography class, we were assigned to make a work of art about photography. My professor Rachel DeJoode really wanted me to make a video involving interaction with a Bowen’s light. This is a strobe light we have been using all semester.
Since I have never used Bowens before this semester, I thought it would be fun to make a short film about getting to know “Bowens”. So, a blind date seemed like the best way to convey this idea. I wanted to short film to be fun rather than be taken too seriously. I hoped to get a flirtatious vibe from my acting, and wanted a variety of perspectives, including the Bowens to be present. I wanted there to be more “dialogue” from the light and did not want the film to exceed 3 minutes, for I felt that would be unnecessary and boring. I felt the video got the point across without being superfluous in “conversation”.
I’m so excited that I have actually made a decent short film. For school projects in the past, I have filmed videos for projects using a point and shoot digital camera, and mediocre editing. I have been wanting to make a film for some time now, but have been nervous to shoot on my Nikon and edit footage. I’m glad this project taught me to film and edit, so now I feel comfortable to start making more shorts.
This is my first time shooting a film with my Nikon DSLR, and first time editing a video with iMovie. At first, it was difficult to figure out what everything was, but after a while, it all became pretty simple.
I originally had 40 minutes of film, which took several hours to set up and film alone (I wasn’t able to get an assistant on my filming date) and took 2-3 Â hours to edit. Sorting through the footage to see what was usable and sequencing it to make sense was the most challenging part.
I’m pretty pleased with the outcome! There are some parts that could be a little cleaner, and I am disappointed that some of the footage was a little out of focus, but for my first time acting, directing, and editing a short film all alone, I think it turned out well! The song used in the film is one of my favorite songs, and I think it really brought everything together nicely.
I was a little embarrassed and nervous to make this project, but after getting positive feedback in my critique, I feel much more proud and happy with the outcome.
Here is the link to watch the short on youtube:Â
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLVh7qZDIKY
This is going to be the start of many short films to come, which is a medium I have wanted to do for a long time.
One of my best friends, Tina, needed some headshots, so I was happy to take photos of her. Here are my favorites of the batch!
I decided to use one of the photos as inspiration for a drawing using graphite pencils, and here are some sketches:
First time shooting portraits using Bowen’s strobe lights. These were my favorite results! This is my classmate Fran. There is something strangely intimate about photographing someone you just met.
Here is what I have in my sketchbook from 2015!
Just some fun drawing a realistic eye with graphite pencils. I always find myself drawing eyes, but I don’t often spend time to make them look very realistic. I liked the turn out of this drawing!
One of my best friends went studying abroad last year, and in one of her trips she went to Scotland. As a gift, I decided to give her a landscape painting of a picture she took.
(In progress)
Final product! It happily lives in Jenna’s house! Although I don’t like landscapes that much, I like how this one turned out, especially the sky.
One of the paintings I did this semester was an abstract realistic painting. It’s a very strange painting, but I had fun making it. It’s definitely a different style than I normally do with my portraits. I don’t exactly know what made me add the eye, but it was a spur of the moment that turned the painting from abstract to creepy.
Here is the original painting I made earlier in the year, which had lots of colors, but had a more calm feeling.
I painted this while feeling randomly inspired! I really wanted to use lots of colors and make it more contemporary rather than accurate or realistic. I am pleased with the outcome but do not feel it is complete, so I shall be working on it while in my painting studio! Classes at DAAP have begun again and I am pleased to say that I share a studio with a peer, which is very exciting. I will bring several paintings and work on them then.The thing I didn’t like was the mouth, so I replaced it with a realistic looking eye.
It’s kind of fun to make a crazy addition to a painting and see how much the language and vibe changes.
Bailey Dowlin Art 