Fox

This is a short video that I made for my visual thinking class.
It's myself in fox makeup that I made myself (I made the mask and painted it and applied it and further painted).

It took me a whole trial and error process to do the mask itself, so it was about a weeks worth of work.

This is part of a series I'm doing about glimpses of the imaginary and hypothetical lives of animals, sort of like a voyeur of their privacy and finding how it coincides with our own private behaviors.

Also it's about the importance of simple pleasures and small details in life.

For me it was begging the question "When does necessity end and pleasure begin, and is this something that animals experience without our knowledge?"

Sam Weber

During my sophomore year at School of Visual Arts, I had a class that I think I under appreciated at the time so I didn't invest much work as I wish I would've now. These things happen. Often.

In any case, the last class consisted of the students visiting our teacher's shared studio space.

When I saw this man Sam Weber's work, I was muddled in thought for a few seconds.

WHY HADN'T I LOOKED HIM UP EARLIER ON?

This man is an illustration BEAST. He's incredibly dexterous and his work isn't large scale and is very attentive to detail. These are things that I achieve for in my own work and aspire to hone, things I feel people underestimate in art, and his take on it blew my mind.

What he was working on at the time we visited were pieces he was commissioned for to use in an illustrated edition of the book Lord of The Flies by William Golding.

I looked up his website and found that image.

He did all this in ink and acrylic, in the excellent technique of layering.

I sometimes come across his work in bookstores and often find myself looking it up.
I only had a couple conversations with him when he was my teacher, but I have much more to say now and I wish I had more opportunity. He makes me want to do so much, and now that I remember how enthusiastic he was I wish I felt the same then.

His website is http://sampaints.com/.
Check him out, he is truly incredible.

-Jennifer

Welcome to these days

This is my first day on the new blog.

Happy to be here and at this point I'll take the time to explain the blog.

I'm highly interested in animal artwork, but in an unconventional way.
I'm mostly going to be posting my own work, but trying to find other works that I'll find insightful or that I might admire in the sense of achieving a sort of bridge between the humility and sensitivity of humans and animals.

I hope this to be a good trek for the both (or all) of us.

-Jennifer