ART LIFE's Hood Rat Promo Logos

The ART LIFE 'zine is due to be out in late September in time for our monthly arty party, consisting of the $5 art table (funding the organization) with goods from members, galleria of member work, music, drinks, and more. I sketched up a couple logos for some self advertising in the 'zine in which I'll also be writing an article!




I was inspired by Mai's neighborhood on King's Highway in Murfreesboro. It's what I would call a redneck hood. So here we have a nice grill and belly tat giving props to Tupac's "Thug Life". We are artists in the hood instead of thugs.

Maybe I'll call him Jeffrey

I think the concept might be obvious enough. The inspiration was Legba. The babies are Marasa.

From One to Another?

All Too Literal

I found this from a few months back. The song "Cactus" by the Pixies. All too literal. No puns here! And that is my dress. Now I see its kinda like My Dress Hangs there, now that I think of it... a Frida painting, of course.

Another Self Portrait

Multi-cultural religious symbolism convergence self portrait.

Struggling Artist to Blossoming Muse?

We all know it, hear it, say it: "the economy is just bad right now". Even though there's word on the streets things are recovering, it's unseen to these eyes in the middle of Tennessee. When it's hard enough to find the shittiest of day jobs to get by, it's even harder to find success commercially or otherwise, as a young, fresh out of art school. My income as a crafter, experimenting with printed fabrics, has increased slightly... few and far between. But my income has increased much more as not a prop but contributer to other artists- photographers. Photography is medium I myself don't really succeed within, much less dabble in. Yet, I've been working as a model with slow yet ever increasing success lately. It's an odd yet rewarding feeling. The image of my face and body has been more profitable than the images I'm creating, yet I am inspired to continue with what I do by helping others do what they do. I'm trying, beginning, to translate struggling into blossoming. There is a triumph in the fight itself.



http://picasaweb.google.com/118136517522684484179/YesIAmAlsoAModel#

Vageyena

Best/worst pun ever? You decide.



Yes this is on a doctor's office disclaimer.

Woman of the World

I know I've been pushing the humor. I like to be all cheeky. Hell I may even moon you. But there's another side to me. I'm a Gemini if you subscribe to that kind of stuff, so if that's so, let it be an excuse.
I've been drawing more... emotional... "worldly" (if you will) subjects. And here is my woman of the world. Within her adornment is included details from the decoration of women from several different countries in different time periods. Spot them all! Treat it like it's Highlights.
Of course I was inspired by History of Sex on History International. Now that's educational television!

Some ideas and doodles.

Yeah go ahead and steal em. It wouldn't be the first or last. But I do have a lawyer now... that's another story, though!
So with life difficulties, including photoshop having seizures, I give the abyss of the world wide web a peak into my sketchbook. It won't be so long til next time ya'll! Some progress pictures of actual work in progress, with a more emotive edge than I've been selling, will come soon as well.

Gotta Love a Bad Joke

I love a good horrible joke... and corny puns are even better. So here are some recent sketches demonstrating some top notch unsophisticated humor!




ROCK LOBSTER is totally one of my favorite songs of all time. I drew this on the board while working at Mellow Mushroom on a slow day... and later re-sketched it. That's happened a lot lately. And the DUO CORN is another example... someone called a cow a duo corn because of its two horns. But I saw this:



In the words of my brother, "I ain't right."

Country Girl on the Great Frontier

I really didn't know I was a country girl until I left the country. Sure, I went to college in deep south Savannah, but most of my peers were from freaking New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, D.C. and everywhere else people only on TV existed to me previously. Hell, even the Texans who grew up on ranches seemed like bonafide city slickers, silver spoon in cheek, next to lil ol' appalachian me. Where I was from, I wasn't perceived by the folks back home as a typical either, but for the opposite reasons, being more concerned with art, literature, and music than the average East Tennesseean bear. (Which is of course why I ended up at art school anyhow.) My thick accent, undetectable in the mountains, and lack of ipods and such weren't unusual, however.

Studying illustration, I was unwillingly put in my place as a young artist with an archaic view of the art world, having never touched a wacom tablet. The changes from papers to pixels of illustration are the unruly spawn, of course, of art and technology making wild rampant love. And that kind of copulation is unseen in the sticks of my youth! It's not like I had never used a computer in my life. It was that tinkering around "too much" on one was playing around. And as a teenager, the longer I spent on a computer, the higher my ever increasing chances of a crazy teen-hungry sex sicko waiting around every corner to get lil oblivious me. So I'll just say I was discouraged a little. Discouraged and poor. I couldn't afford things like computers and software. I learned at school, on SCAD's mac and epson and adobe and other such brand name equipment. Yet creating art that way wasn't radical to me... just frustrating and uninteresting. It's just a good way of preserving and presenting work digitally... virtually permanently yet changeable... "fixable". And I totally appreciate that!



I discovered printmaking where my work became inherently bolder via media. It made sense to me as well in that I was taught about illustration's primary definition as print based media... and how that's morphing. I'm still quite enamored with the oldest printmaking form to this day. (Relief!) It's alot like presently popular vectorized computer created graphics in that each color is its own layer and the image is created with clear-cut and separate positive and negative lines and shapes. And yet the character of the carving and unexpected flat textures and chattering lends organic ambiance. Halleluja, It saved me. I still paint expressively, but printing gave me a different direction when it comes to clear cut, punchy communication. All with hand cut wood and linoleum and sticky ink on real tangible thick paper. And hell, it looks good scanned in and on a computer screen, too, I must say. I've never shunned technology with my art. I mean, just look at me now, making my first blog post... about my art! It's just not my mode of creation. I'm hoping this blog can be a sort of digital sketchbook and I can connect with other artists out there- to expand my reaches into the community and hopefully what creative market still exists in this time.

I have also set up an Etsy account recently. One sale so far! Chicken Strips! Printed during my internship at Yee Haw industries.



http://www.etsy.com/shop/angelicapaige