Hello!
I'm a multi-medium artist who likes trying new mediums (to add to my collection) and pushing the edges of my current mediums. At the most recent count, I jump around between 11 mediums*; the most common 6 of those are listed below and have work posted on my portfolio page. I grew up and still live around Buffalo, NY, and am currently working on my BFA. I like fresh fruit, fireflies, and cooking. And making art, clearly.
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*for anyone wondering:
1. photography
2. linocut
3. screen printing
4. ceramic
5. pen sketches
6. alcohol and water-based marker
7. paint marker
8. digital
9. animation
10. sewing
11. painting
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some of these only kind of count, but count them I still will.
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How I Make Things
I mainly shoot portraits at this point in my life. I use colored light a lot in my photos, as an accent or full-sending it as the main light.
I do a lot of experimentation with all of my shoots, but the degree of messing around I do is toned down based on how planned the photoshoot is and what exactly I want out of it. For example, my character shoots are very intentional, and there's not much room for playing with it. On the other hand, my creative lighting shoots were planned entirely and completely around experimenting with the lighting and figuring out how to get the effects that I want out of the equipment.
I also don't tend to do a lot of post-processing these days, so just about all of the images you'll see in each project are exactly as the camera saw them at the time they were taken.
I make my own screen set-ups with stockings, picture frames, and duct tape. I stretch the stockings tight over the empty frame, then secure each side with a lot of duct tape. Next, I sketch the design in onto the screen, and use heavy white acrylic paint to block out the areas where I don't want ink to come through. Each color of ink in the design gets its own screen. After that, I print each frame one at a time, letting each layer dry in between and painstakingly lining up the screens so the colors go where they're meant to.
As much of a hassle as it can be, screen printing is one of my favorite mediums to work with!
I start each stamp with a sketch done in heavy pencil lines, so I can easily transfer the graphite onto the pink rubber I usually use. I outline the transferred pencil lines with a ball point pen, to make it less smudgy and easier to see, and also to mark out a consistent outline-width so I don't carve any spots too narrow. Then it's on to carving the rubber out, making sure to carve deep enough for a clean print, and after that it's done!
I mostly use Speedball's speedy-carve blocks, because they're soft and easier to work with than both the brown mounted linoleum and unmounted grey linoleum I've tried (even though they're more expensive). Rubber erasers also work nicely for smaller stamps!
Most of my ceramics process isn't very unique; wheel-throw object, fire object, glaze object, fire object again. What I do like to think is more unique, however, is what I've been working on recently with the bug bowls and soda cap plates. Both of these series are still wheel-thrown, but manipulated or carved out in a different way. The Teabugs were thrown bodies that I added legs to. I'll explain more about how I create each of those in their respective pages in my portfolio.
All my ceramics are fired to cone 10 or cone 6. For any non-potters, cone 10 is considered high-fire, around 2345 F, and produces darker, earthy tones in the glazes. Cone 6 is mid-fire, around 2232 F, and lets brighter, more vibrant and saturated colors come through.
When I create a piece of traditional art, I sketch with a mechanical pencil, and line with a ballpoint pen or my beloved dollar-store fountain pen. For color, I tend to lean towards alcohol markers, water-based tombow markers, or posca paint pens. The only universal is using colored pencil on top for detail and texture.
I primarily sketch in pen in my sketchbook, covering up mistakes with colored sticky-notes. It builds good line confidence (and doesn't smudge when you turn the page!!). I don't color much in my sketchbook, but when I do I use tombow markers because they don't tend to bleed through the pages unless you're really laying it on there. Poscas are also good for this, but they tend to warp the pages more.
I use procreate for most of my digital work. It makes the most sense to me, as someone who was strictly pencil-and-paper until I was around 15. I mostly use the default brushes, with a few tweaks. There are some works made with the Adobe suite in my portfolio, but those ones were made for class projects (and parts of those works were made in procreate anyway).