New Portofolio

I was looking through this old blog for a photo for a new project, and I thought to check the page statistics.  However rarely, people still visit this site for some reason, maybe by accident.   In any case, I have a new portfolio at www.joelmryan.com, so that is the place to go to check out my work.

Here is one of the more newish pieces. My work is almost exclusively in 3D modeling these days.

2014 Update

 I thought I'd post a few recent pieces in case anyone stumbles upon this blog.  the purpose of the Sculptorbyday blog was to find my style, grow my skills, and share my process.  I now know what it is that I want to make, and I've included some early samples.  I've been doing this kind of 3D sculpting for a few months now and this is the kind of art really speaks to me.

If you want to see more, check out my blog at:
http://joelmryan.carbonmade.com/

   

More Mushrooms

Revisiting one of the mushroom from last post, and adding a new one. 

Mushroom Drawings

Just a few recent drawings.

Low-res Landscapes

Here are a couple of low-res landscape pictures that I drew for practice.  The idea is to make drawings that might one day be used as backgrounds for a video game. 

Digital Art

For anyone who stumbles across my blog, or uses it as a hub to get to the blogs in the box labeled "Awesome Site List,"  I have the first update in five months!  I've switched my focus to digital art, and learned a lot about Unity and Blender.  I just finished the image above, and I think that it is miles beyond my previous work in Blender.  Its worth looking at at full resolution.  If you want to see more, check out my portfolio at:

http://joelmryan.carbonmade.com/

Most of the work in this portfolio has been on this blog at some point, but some of it is new.  I will continue to update the portfolio as I make new stuff.

VCU Application

As many of you know, I tried to apply to VCU's Sculpture and Extended Media program this year. It was a lot of work and took several months to get together.  Unfortunately, in the end, my final reference did not feel that my portfolio was ready to be submitted.  We did not have nearly enough time to make enough changes, and, without his reference, I wasn't able to submit.

I'm pretty disappointed at this, but I trust his judgement.  On the bright side, he would like to work with me for the next year, and I'm sure we can put together a portfolio that will be accepted.

For now, I need to do some thinking and re-evaluating.  The blog will be on hiatus for a while. 

New Resin Project

When I was little, I used to play with food coloring, watching it drop into water.  The way it disperses is so interesting and beautiful.  A few weeks ago, I came up with the idea of dropping resin into thickened water, and capturing the dispersion.  As it turns out, although the resin does make cool patterns, it turns into small spherical droplets very quickly. Its impossible to capture the inky patterns, at least using my current methods.

 However, I found that in water with a significant amount of gelatin in it, the resin will sit on the bottom for a few seconds, and then begin to rise.  As far as I can tell, this is because the resin heats up as it cures, making it less dense.   When its density becomes less than the density of the thickened water, it will come up in tendrils.  The little guys in this picture are all different methods of making these tendrils.

I have a lot of ideas to try out now.  Even though they are not at all what I was going for at first, I'm hoping that something cool will come of this concept.

Minotaur Drawing Final

This is the final version of the Minotaur drawing, poem and all.  I recommend clicking on the image to view a larger version.

This drawing is a good example of how I can tweak little things for weeks, but in the end I have to just give it up look forward to the next piece.

Speaking of the next piece-- I don't really have anything in mind right now.  Its been a while since I have made an actual sculpture, and I would like to start something new.  For now though, I am going to work on finishing the Artist Statement and getting in the reference letters.

Minotaur Drawing 2

Newer version of the Minotaur drawing.

Minotaur Poem

Here is the poem that goes along with the Minotaur drawing.  Its supposed to be a little silly, but also have a serious side at the same time.

The Minotaur paced round and round

his high-walled hallway home.  

Endless walls to wander past,

and endless halls to roam.  

Now anger is not the natural state

of any living creature,

And so his eyes, once red with blood,

had earned a gentle feature.  

And so his footfalls, though once they fell

with murderous intent,

so now a much more pleasant purpose

to the self-same stones present.

As caretaker and as guardian,

he wanders all alone,

trimming moss from countless crags

and cleaning blood from bone.  

And so in endless tedium

his hours turned to years

longing for a human voice

to warm his lonely ears.

But then, what’s this?

A single, solitary, solid string, strung taut!

“Another creature wanders here,”

The colossal fauna thought.

“But why the string?

And who, and what, and how?”

So on his bestial countenance,

a furrowed bestial brow.

“The string leads to the exit,

The creature seeks to leave.

Such a pleasant lifting of my smothering ennui.

Such a pleasant lifting, but such a short reprieve.”

Just then, clear strand, soft grace—

a spider stalked it prey.

And so the beast-man understood,

that he would die that day.

And yet, to see another face,

even one of hate,

would be enough to cause this beast

to calmly meet his fate.

So cold and still these years had been.

So heavy was his chest.

The Minotaur stood up at last

and ran to meet his guest.

Minotaur Drawing 1

Here is the minotaur drawing in an early stage.

Artist Statement

My major art project right now is a drawing of a minotaur.  I even wrote a poem to go along with it. Before I post anything about it, though, I want to do a post about my Artist Statement.

I've put a lot of work into the Artist Statement so far, but there is still more to do.  As it turns out, the Fireside Manifesto thing was a helpful exercise in getting my thoughts together.  I still had to do a few preliminary writing sessions to find a theme that I liked, though. 

I went to Starbucks a few weeks ago and wrote out the first real draft.  After revising it myself I sent it to my good friend Jenevieve, who did a great job of giving me suggestions.  I want to have a another good draft done this week to send to anyone who will look at it. 

The goal is to be artful, but not overblown; conceptual, but logical and deliberate. I also tried to be original by bringing Literature into the discussion. I'm hoping that the statement will be interesting for the evaluators to read, after looking at so many essays from undergraduate art majors. I'm still deliberating on whether to post the whole statement on this blog or not.

I just started reading a book called "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland.  Its about what goes into the artistic process.  Its really interesting, and I think that I may have to finish it before finishing the Artist Statement.  It was recommended to me from a few sources. From what I have read so far, I would recommend it myself.

*Edit: added author's names.

Apple Turkeys, 2012

Its apple turkey time again!  The first one is mine-- I thought I would try to make a turkey without using any candy this year.  Pushing the boundaries.  The second one is Noah's-- it is a tank-turkey.  The gummy-bear is driving it, and he is shooting something out of one of the cannons. The third one is a crab-turkey by Jeremy.  its got gummy-bear eyes-stalks, and it is holding a worms in its claws. 

Photo Post-Production

 One of my big projects right now is to choose the photos that I want for my portfolio, and clean them up a bit.  I'll probably just be posting new photos of old pieces for a little while.

Some of the photos took very little extra work-- just some re-sizing and cropping.  The photos of this sculpture, however, needed some touching up in particular. This guy is 45' x 56' x 63' and 80lbs, and it was difficult to take pictures of it in the confined space of my room.

The four pics above show the process of taking out the overlapping and folded cloth.  I am far from an expert on this though.  If anyone has opinions on how I could do a better job (color balance, more contrast, more clone-stamping, etc), please let me know.  I really want these photos to be as good as they can be.

New Teapot, Finished

It took many weeks, but I have finally finished the new teapot.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out.  I used a thin layer of a glaze called Randy's Red, which gave a nice blueish-black color on the surfaces, and a rust red in the crevices.  Unfortunately, I forgot a basic aspect of teapot-making, which is that pots get twisted as they are thrown on a wheel, and they untwist when they dry.  The result of this is that the spout is not perfectly parallel to the ground, even though it was when I made it.  It's not something that you see unless you are looking for it, though.

Photos courtesy of Lance. 

Headless Horsewoman

I drew this label for my friend Chris.  He made some spiced pumpkin ale liqueur by modifying a recipe that he found online, and we thought that it needed a label.  The liqueur is made using a pumpkin ale that has a picture of the headless horseman on the label, which is where I got the idea for this.

I thought I would include a clean version of the picture without the words as well.

Wax Male Figure

I think that this little guy is kind of interesting because I have revisited him three times now since I began this blog.  The first time was back in November of 2010, and the second was in February 2011. The pose of the second incarnation is based on Rodin's Age of Bronze.  Interestingly, Rodin's birthday was yesterday, and the anniversary of his death will be this Saturday. 

I'm not sure if it is visible from these pictures, but I feel that each incarnation is significantly better than the last.  The final version has the words "Know Thyself" carved into his chest.

The photo on the far right was taken by my friend Lance, who photographed 11 of my best pieces last weekend with the help of his girlfriend Vivian.  They did an excellent job.  I will be posting some of these pictures in the coming weeks. 

Complete Halloween Costume

Full finished costume shot included as requested.  I'm hoping that I can add on to this in the next few years and make something really cool. 

Halloween Costume

This was my halloween costume this year.  Its a mechanical arm in the steampunk style, made from a lamp, a bicycle pump, some plasticard, a freddy krueger glove, a pressure gauge, plasma disk, some fake gears, and other random stuff from Home Depot. I also had a flintlock pistol and a fedora.  I won Best Costume at our party.  It was great.