Inspiration.

This fellow San Francisco based artist is my flavor of the month. Introducing Pakayla Biehn..

This is the piece that caught my eye. The transparency is brilliant.

She uses both oil and acrylic paint.

Just beautiful. Transparency is really hard to accomplish and she does it beautifully. She has many installations and other types of work, and even dabbled a bit with furniture. 

Check out more of her stuff at her website.

Or for you bloggers, follow her here.

Cheers!

Finals Shminals

It's been awhile since I last posted something, but then end of the semester is the craziest!

Here's a couple things I've been working on..

Silkscreen

Color & Design

Anatomy

So yeah, a few of the things I've been working on. Tomorrow is my last day of class this semester, then a few days of closing the building, going to see the Nutcracker ballet, and more holiday goodness. Then back in Arizona on Tuesday for a month. I will be doing some work there so more updates soon!

Happy Holidays. Cheers!

Inspiration.

I found this artist's work on a blog and I'm in love.

Alexandra Pacula paints these pieces that look like she is drunk, in a car, going 100 mph. Obviously not a safe idea, but it makes for great art.

 "My work investigates a world of visual intoxication; it captures moments of enchantment, which are associated with urban nightlife."

She is originally from Poland and now living in New York. She writes,"I am fascinated by the ambiance of the city at night and its seductive qualities. The breathtaking turbulence of speeding vehicles and hasty pedestrians evoke feelings of wonder and disorientation. The vibrant lights become a magical landscape with enticing opportunities and promises of fulfillment."


She even does Barscapes that are amazing.

I love the distorted image, the sense of light. It's just beautiful and inspiring and completely captures the feeling of night life in New York City.


I just love her work.






Cheers!

The Perks.

Finally finished my poster assignment in Silkscreen tonight.

The gradation in the background with China Marker didn't work too well but oh well, now I know.

I'm much more excited about my next Silkscreen project, but that won't be up until the weekend probably.


If you are in the bay area and don't have plans Friday night you should check this out:

I'll be there, it's going to have some awesome art and awesome music.

Here's a video I found on the facebook event page that shows a little clip of one of the artists..



Looks pretty awesome. See you there!


Cheers.

Inspiration.

The movie Amelie has been a huge inspiration for me lately. But more importantly, Yann Tiersen's music. Here's an example.






I was in the lab alone yesterday and just played the whole album loudly and it was great to work with. Very relaxing, but I got everything done. He is a beautiful musician and his pieces are simple but elegant.


I will have a finished project to show tomorrow.


Cheers.

My day, not yours!

What better day to show my Color & Design self-portrait midterm other than my birthday?

There's a few things I would change but I got a good grade on it. 

Self portraits are weird though. Unless they are conceptual, I don't care much for them. But then again I love other artist's self portraits. I don't know, just not for me I guess.

Class was cancelled today, spent time with some great people, and going to do a little celebrating tonight! Then the weekend is full of surprises!

Cheers!

As promised.

So here is what I had to finish up at the lab on Saturday and just finished it today..

Obviously not a professional picture, but you get the idea. There's room for improvement and the colors are much more vivid in real life, but I'm pretty happy with it.

I've got a busy couple of days coming up including my birthday, which isn't going to be very eventful this year because of classes and such, but I have a very exciting weekend to look forward to.

And I have my Color & Design midterm to show you tomorrow so check back!

Cheers.

Preview for tomorrow..

Had to spend my Saturday in the Silkscreen lab working on a project.

This is just the test sheet for the colors I was using. For some reason I find test sheets beautiful. And I already now the colors are going to work together because they are what's being used on the final piece. But they are unplanned and sporadic. I'm going to start saving them, but I wish I had before.

I will have the actual piece tomorrow. It was still wet when I left after 5 hours at the lab yesterday and I still need to crop the paper. 

More tomorrow!

Cheers!

Work in Progress..

Hello there.

Just a couple of things to show today...



Here's a little preview of my Color & Design midterm.




Recognize?
It's one of two color studies for a self portrait done in gouache on cardstock.



And here is part of my Anatomy midterm.



Just graphite on cardstock. Not horrible for my first time drawing a skull, but could have used more work. But it's perfect for Halloween!



Finally put up the banner at the top and simplified the background. Thoughts?? Next I need to add tabs, but that can wait until after midterms.

Don't forget to leave a comment! And welcome to my new followers!


Cheers!

Paint, Peacocks, and PostSecret

It's midterm time (sigh) so I don't have anything finished to show you right now, but I will soon!

For now I will show you this..





It's a piece I did last semester for a hotel in Mexico. Acrylic on canvas.



I also went to SCRAP on Friday and picked up some wood and old maps so you'll have to wait and see what I come up with! Also my silkscreen project and Color & Design homework will be finished on Monday so I will show that soon too! Once midterms are over I am determined to crank out as many personal projects as I can before finals.


Tonight I went to a PostSecret event at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. It was amazing, everything I hoped it would be and very inspirational. If you don't know what PostSecret is, definitely check it out. It's worth your time.



I hope everyone is having a wonderful October. I know it's flying by for me! Oh where does the time go...


Cheers!

I'm Baaack!

So sorry it's been ages since I've updated! Things were absolute mayhem from leaving Scotland to visiting family in Arizona, to moving back to San Francisco, to starting school up again. I'm a Resident Assistant this year so I had training, Orientation week for first year students, and so many other things to organize and attend! But I'm finally in gear and flowing along.

I did manage to work on a commission piece while I was in Arizona. A last minute thing so I could have probably made it more to my liking but the costumer was thrilled and that's what is important in this case. So here's a picture of that..





I haven't had much time or energy to work on much of my own projects so I have a little bit of schoolwork to show for now.





 This piece is one I did for my Silkscreen class. Doesn't have a title but I printed an edition of six and I'm pretty happy with it.



In other news..


I came across a competition that One Condoms is doing where you submit a design for a condom wrapper and winning designs will be printed and sold, as well as cash prizes and condoms donated to the foundation of your choice. So of course I submitted some designs for this great idea! The concept is basically anything, any design, photograph, one liner, etc. as long as you have the rights to the image. So I used some of my own drawings and hopefully it works out.






I will keep you updated on how you can vote for my designs when I find out later!




That's all for now! I PROMISE to update much more often now. I have a lot of things I'm working on and I have some awesome ideas for upcoming projects that I can't wait to share! My next order of business is to get all of my work up on my website immediately. If you haven't visited it yet, check it out, send a message, or whatever! sophiaalmada.com


Don't forget to comment!


Cheers!

I changed the layout a bit, thought it might make it easier to view, especially the horizontal images. I also want to add a portfolio tab (inspired by a good friend at http://nostalgicallyyours.blogspot.com/) so my best pieces will be in there instead of all over. Just need to spend some time on it and it'll get there. Eventually I will have www.sophiaalmada.com but as it's under construction right now, this is just fine.

I felt bad for not updating in a long time, not that there are a ton of followers, so I thought I would just show you a couple more tattoo style ink drawings I did just now.










Sorry about the bad quality pictures, just a little something for now! Hope you guys enjoy, keep checking in and feel free to leave some love in comments!

Probably the last post in Scotland, unfortunately. I'll be in Arizona to work on some pieces so I'll post the progress of those when I'm working on them.

Cheers mates!

Charcoal, Shmarcoal.

Thought I would put up a few of my charcoal drawings to share with you all..

Drapery Assignment. 18 hours.

Torso Study. 18 hours.

Nude Male. 10 hours.

Bjork. 24 hours.

Basically my pride and joy.

Also, if you have 10 minutes, check this video out, it's amazing!

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Going to be an extra on Garrow's Law and went for my fitting today. Can barely breathe in a corset and boy are there a lot of layers! Going in for work tomorrow, should be interesting!

Cheers!

Not my work... Unfortunately.

This is a sculpture that's modestly put up by an apartment complex near some ship yards, not anywhere that's really seen by the public. Which is a shame because it's awesome, so I got out of the car to take some pictures the other day.

Pretty awesome right? I love how it's made, with layering metals. It gives great negative space and amazing movement. Just awesome!

What do you think??

Still Life, Shmill Life.

I'm not the biggest fan of still life paintings, but after a whole semester of it, I have a large amount of them sitting around. Here are a few, all with acrylic paint.

Patterned item with metallic item. 6 hours.

Glass with red wine. 8 hours.

Dark tone. 8 hours.

Metallic item. 6 hours.

Drapery study. 6 hours.

Flower bouquet. 12 hours.

Patterned item. 8 hours.

Metallic items. 6 hours.

One of the first. 6 hours.

Farmer's market was great today. We got some crawfish type things but they are a little different and I forgot what they call them here, they are a little bigger but not like lobsters by any means, and they have skinnier claws. We got to taste them and they were awesome and got to taste a bunch of other things too. Kind of funny because Farmer's Markets that I've been to in the states mostly have fruits and vegetables, this one had waaay more meat vendors, but it was still great. Got some awesome banana bread and carrot cake and sun dried tomato stuffed olives. We are going to feast tonight! Need to go start dinner now actually.

Leave a comment if you're feeling generous!

Enjoy!

Goin' down the Bayou

Summer is good. Weather is great besides the occasional rainy day, going to a farmer's market tomorrow. Also been doing a lot of drawings and I have some ideas for bigger projects, one involving another pin up.

Here are just a few sculptures I did last semester.

Expressive self portrait with clay.

Bronze piece.

Personal Mythology with clay. Tree from the seventh layer of hell in Dante's Inferno.

More to come later, maybe even some old work in my portfolio..

Out to be in the sunshine, Cheers!

Give me that Vintage Feel

Summer has been good living here in Glasgow. Was asked to do some work to be sold at a vintage sale so I got to do whatever I wanted and decided to experiment.

First tried some oil pastel work since I haven't done that in over a year..

Then worked with ink to do some tattoo inspired illustrations in spirit of the vintage sale..

I also have some paintings and sculptures I made at school that I will be posting soon.

Hope everyone is having a splendid summer!

Cheerio Darling.