Sunday, December 5, 2010

Fall 2010 Final

Untitled from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.


Uhhhh. This version is actually better than the one on the master. I was totally retarded and forgot to check the camera before I shot it, so it was off center and not cropped correctly. Also I forgot to add the copyright at the end. So, sadly, this version has both of those things and looks much much better. SIGH.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Metamorphosis: Sequences


Sequences from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.
This wasn't executed as well as I had hoped. Again, another learning experience. My time management skills need a boost. The transitions in this are very rough and I had to drop a whole sequence I had planned on adding because my supplies fell through. Sigh.

Walking with Character


Walking With Character from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Ball Under Layer






















This was originally all on top of itself, but I broke it into two pages to make it a little bit clearer.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Pendulum Again

Pendulum Again from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.


I got wayyy too caught up in nonsense last time, so I cut this down to the bare bones to try again. I hope the motion in this is an improvement over the last one. You live and you learn.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Pendulum


Pendulum from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.

I wish I would have had another week on this, honestly. I wanted to do a lot more with it, but I suppose I could come back to it in the future. Note to self: Scale ambitions to time constraints.

Incremental #1













I really liked drawing from a model. It helps me a lot to be able to see things in front of me. I have to say, I would have liked it if on this drawing in particular, I could have used different colored pencils or pens or something to make the different poses more visible. As it is, it looks almost too messy for me to really process where the figure is in each pose. I wish we could have done sequences like this about 3 or 4 more times that day.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Incremental Sample


This is definitely my favorite incremental sample. Honestly, I very rarely draw animals, so I spent a lot of time on this using a photo reference. Also, I love dogs.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Metamorphosis


Metamorphosis from Christen Mazurak-Fike on Vimeo.

India ink, water color, prismacolor marker and 4 x 6 notecards.

The Good: I really enjoyed just letting the water colors do what they wanted. I had no idea what so ever what they were going to look like when I was painting them - I just did whatever I felt like doing with each card. I think it was a fun experiment. It really helped me to feel less rigid and over controlling - something I have a tendency to do.

The Bad: It was frustrating waiting for the water colors to dry, and it was very taxing on my patience to paint each line with india ink. But, again, the ink was a choice I made to make the over all piece more organic and less robotic. I'm a very systematic person, and I have been making an effort to work in different ways to expand my capabilities. So, although I got ink ALL over myself, and although it wasn't fun having wet, semi-wet, and almost dry but not quite cards all over my living room, and then chasing my dog around to keep her from stepping on them, the end result was worth it.

Back Story: As mentioned in the post before this one, the swingset was from my backyard growing up, and the sofa and such are from my current apartment. I chose to use color because I'm more interested in color and texture these days than I am solid lines. In the past, I've relied very heavily on lines to make up a piece, and I feel that to grow as an artist I need to break away from that crutch. I also tend to get very, VERY attached to some lines, and even if they aren't really correct, I don't like to erase them. In order to skip all of that mess, I wanted to explore media and color. Last year, I took a workshop with Dwight Frizzel in which we did several color/texture studies, and although I wasn't really impressed with the results then, I am much more interested in them now. Using the knowledge I gained from that experience, I decided to give the whole random water color splotch idea a try. I hope to try more new things as the year progresses.

Friday, August 27, 2010

KCAI ANIM: Hunting & Gathering Project, PART 1

Our first assignment, first a location that we remember from childhood, and second our current favorite local spot. Both were done on 4 x 6 notecards. Here goes nothing.














This is my memory image. When I was younger, my family lived in Lee's Summit in a little blue house on Madison. My mom made our backyard pretty special. I had a swing set, a fort, a huge jungle gym, and a play house she built from the foundation up. I guess you could say I was really lucky. I spent a lot of time on the swing set in particular, which was right next to my play house that we painted lavender, my favorite color. I chose to try to stay away from linework and focus more on color since this was a memory piece. I drew the swing set with india ink because it was the most prominent thing I remembered.













This is my favorite place locally. I've always been a homebody, and thus my favorite place is my living room in my apartment. The couch is my favorite part of the room, so I chose to draw that with india ink, as well as the poster we have hanging above it. The couch was being thrown away, so we got it for free. It only has a small tear at the back, which isn't even noticeable. Yes, it only has one arm. We're pretty sure it was part of a sectional and the people wanted to keep the other part(s). Oh well. It was better than our last couch which was just an old futon. When we moved in my boyfriend and I painted the walls orange with a yellow stripe, which took a lot more work than I had originally thought. Either way, we're very happy with it.