Kevin Smith

Here are the two remaining pieces.  I rushed while taking these pics.  The first piece is my favorite.  It has faults all over it but it helps the character.  I put a cone 10 glaze on it but it was only fired to cone 6.  I started to refire it but I liked it the more I looked at it -- left somewhat of a grunge effect.

EDIT: Just realized there's one more piece that I didn't take any photos of. Will include photos of it when I get the other pieces back.

Today was the final critique in ceramics.  There are still two or three of my pieces that weren't fully cooled from firing so I won't be able to bring those home until Monday, probably.  I wasn't sure how to take photos of this stuff so I just threw up two pieces of mat board and dusted off my camera.  Results aren't too bad.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with how everything came out (excluding the three remaining pieces which I haven't seen since I glazed them a few days ago).  Working with clay is, by no means, as simple as it looks or sounds.  I took the class thinking it would be an easy way to fill a requirement...rude awakening LOL.  Click to enlarge.

The only thing I've done this semester (in the tangible form) that is with me here in Huntington is this drawing (and a ton of stuff from Ceramics that I finally got around to glazing today...I should be able to get photos of that stuff this weekend or maybe sooner.  When I have my camera ready and I'm near the rest of my drawings, I'll try to remember to snap pictures of them, too...

(click to enlarge)

This is the first drawing class I've ever taken and I think I've done fairly well in it. I've kept up with other people that have taken art classes for several years (I was a Business Admin major until this semester)...and the fact my professor is an awesome guy makes things easier.

The assignment was to create a cubist drawing from a still-life...cubism is not really my cup o' tea.

Shouts & Hollers is an online "ezine" of sorts that is published by Charleston, WV, area bloggers.  Bill Gardner got in contact with me to answer a few questions regarding a recent sideproject of mine.  Read it here.

Thanks Bill!

Via http://www.polyp.org.uk

Bored and playing with different tools in Illustrator.

We've been working with Flash in my Intro to Computers in Art class and I wanted to play with with Flash a bit more than the assignment I've been working allowed me to (even though the assignment has allowed me to play and learn quite a lot, a clock wouldn't be able to fulfill its requirements). I searched around and found a basic tutorial on how to create a very basic clock and I went from there. I didn't want to simply do numbers so I quickly plopped out another idea. Here's a very simple, very ugly clock that depicts the way most 9-5 people spend their waking hours.

My roommate lives off Chinese takeout and McDonalds.  Here's a menu with an amusing typo.

Going home for the first time in a while this weekend.  Happy Birthday, Dad!

The assignment: "Create a vector-based self-portrait. Using the photographs we've taken in class as a guide, make a vector-based self-portrait with Adobe Illustrator. The object of this project is to be as visually detailed and honest as is possible while using only strokes and shapes. Illustrator-based effects such as blurs, blends, and gradients are not permitted. Strokes and shapes - that's all. Your primary tools in this project will be the pen tool (and its subtools), the pencil tool, and, possibly, the brush tool."

The Result:

I enjoyed it for the most part.  I plan on delving into Illustrator a bit more when I get time.

I also have quite a few pieces from my ceramics class that I recently fired.  I'll try to get some pictures of those when I can.

Oh yeah -- Woot for Obama.  His speech was very powerful -- it almost brough a tear to my eye bahaha.  I don't know if I was just feeling very wimpy last night or if his words were just that powerful.  I'm going to say it was a mixture.

I just realized I haven't shared any of the stuff I've done since I've been back in school.  Here are two pieces created within the past few weeks.

This first one was a project for a class.  Here's an excerpt of the requirements: "This project is conceptually simple - create a new creature in Photoshop. This can be anything from an animal hybrid, something impossibly cute, or a scary monster. Using the skills you've acquired so far and developing few more, you must make the image visually convincing. There should be no visual clues that the photograph is a construction. Your creature must be situated in its natural habitat (swamp, sewer, house, street, forest, zoo, science lab, alien landscape, Applebees, etc.)
I took an image of a market, elephant, and goose to create this:

And this is a project I did outside of class because the text and class assignments didn't cover tool manipulation in great detail -- I wanted to play, basically.