More blasts from the past

If I'm ever going to get caught up to this year (senior year, gulp!), I'm really going to have to have to post like crazy! Above is The Grave Robbers, watercolor, which won Best of Show for Illustration at the Juried Show of 2010. We were learning about animal illustration and how to paint fur realistically - can you say layers and layers of individual brushstrokes?

These two pieces are both done in pen and ink and completed in the Spring of 2010. Above is Jack Kevorkian, below is Ludwig Wittgenstein. They are a pair from one assignment: illustrate two famous people with their 'pets' that embody said person's personality or contribution to society. Wittgenstein was a famous philosopher from the first half of the 1900s, Kevorkian an assisted suicide advocate (and practitioner). Ludwig Wittgenstein won Best of Show for Drawing at the Juried Show of 2011.

It's a bit dark, so I'll try to find a better photo to upload of it. This last piece is done in acrylic and colored pencil, also from the spring of sophomore year (2010). The Last Green Thing sprung from an assignment titled "It's never too late to call Midnight in America!" and had to be of some sort of insect invasion. I experimented with thin layers of watery acrylic under colored pencil throughout, and was pleasantly satisfied with the result. I wonder if anyone will recognize the tractor?

Fog and Faces

Due to my current internet-less state, blogging since school's end has been difficult! (well, yes, it is summer... that too.) Anyways. I completed this painting in the fall of 2010 on a repurposed canvas. The assignment was to combine different natural elements to create a landscape painting. I hadn't done much work on my book project at this point, but all of my landscape/background ideas for Into the Land of Sunshine were right there in my head, and so I used the inspiration for Fog and Faces, oil, 2010.

Into the Land of Sunshine

Five scenes from Into the Land of Sunshine, my first fully illustrated book (see The Book Project, posted January 2011). There's still a bit of work to do with layout and text, but at least all 30+ pages of artwork are completed!

Innocence and Finger Puppets

Sophmore year, spring 2010: Innocence was the inspiration piece for my entire book project. We had a free assignment to do anything we wanted with (complete freedom is actually sometimes the hardest of all) and I had just had a dream about a monster and a little girl. Sometimes my dreams are so vivid and snapshots of them stay with me for a long time, so drawing or writing about them helps to get them out of my head. Innocence was done in colored pencil and acrylic.

One other thing I wanted to add tonight was my finger puppets from a final presentation. I haven't made finger puppets since I was in elementary school and we used to put on improv shows from behind our living room couch. Gotta love art school!

Say hello to Peter and Squawk, respectively.

Oh Frabjous Day!

Calloo! Callay! It's finally the end of finals! For an end of the year post, here's my working artist statement. I'll see you at the beach (well, in a month or two).

Artist Statement

Mallory Torola

For as long as I can remember, I have had an intense drive deep within me to make art, one that won’t let me rest until I obey it. My true self is one that is evaluating the world in an artistic or aesthetic sense, stewing over a new idea or thought, creating or working on a piece. Lately I have been exploring close relationships in my life and the inner self that these souls contain. At the same time, I have been eliminating the aspect of personal identity, and by the elimination trying to explore what is really meant by those two words ‘personal identity’. I struggle with the meaning of my own personal identity every day: constantly questioning who I am in relation to myself, other people, and the world. Who defines these things, and how can I make my own voice stronger against the noise of many other voices?

I have been trying to work in a fast, loose, and vivid way with strokes and lines that speak in their own right. I’ve learned that if try to maintain too much control, I work much more slowly and overthink things. When I let go I get to a better place, where my hand and heart flow together.

Some of my biggest influences are the Impressionists. They have taught me many things about the use of light, optical blending of colors, and the effects one can achieve with different atmospheres and lighting on a similar subject. From them I learned that light doesn’t always have to be logical, and it was there I first saw how well light and color can be used to create different emotions in a piece. I experienced in the work of the Impressionists a spiritual feeling that I wanted to emulate in the quality or atmosphere of my pieces; whether it be comfort in a Divine presence, struggling or wrestling with God, rebelling against a religious identity, or a scream into the vastness of the Universe.

Explorations of Sunflowers

People have been asking when I'm going to start to upload some of my more current work, so let me reassure you it will be soon! I'm almost through the first half of my college career (well, the postable work anyway) and the semester is finally almost over (two more days alleluja!) These two paintings are from sophomore year, when I took my first class in oils. I studied Impressionism for most of the semester, and learned a lot about using light and creating color palettes. And it was just this year my art history class took a trip to Chicago and I got to see my first Monet in person... along with many other paintings I'd only seen in books.
Words do not describe.
So anyway, above is Sunflowers for Monet, oil on canvas, and below is Green Room Still Life, oil on wood, both from 2009.

End of the Line

I know I haven't posted anything in a little while, but I've been busy getting my other blog, documenting my yearlong sketch-a-day challenge, up and running... check it out at 365drawerings.blogspot.com! This piece, End of the Line, is a good pick for today, as it coincides well with real life - it's literally the last week of the semester starting tomorrow and finals are looming. I really do feel as though I am slogging through the wilderness, trying to get somewhere, anywhere!
Anyways, this was done in colored pencil and collage and was entered into the Juried Exhibition of 2010.

Crescent moon

This piece came from a workshop that visiting local artists Margo McCafferty and Tom Rudd put on in our studio in the spring of 2010. Cresent moon, a color reduction relief print, is not my first block print ever but definitely my best! Margo and Tom were great and taught a lot about the printing process - tips and tricks and whatnot. We started with a block of linoleum and before printing each new color carved away the areas we wanted to remain the previous color, lightest to darkest. We could only use 5 colors so the planning in that area was one of my biggest challenges - but I believe my final piece is very successful.

Loon landing on a lake is one of my previous block printing efforts. It was done with a slightly different method - here I started by laying down a watercolor wash for the background color, and then printed the image from the block with a single layer of black ink over it.

One last thing... I am embarking on a year long, drawing a day journey that will begin to be uploaded very soon - either here on Power/Batt or on a sister blog (not quite sure about the details yet). I'll keep you posted! Over 'n' out.

Stressed to the Max

Okay, it happens every semester but with only two weeks left until Finals I am completely freaking out! So I thought I would do a simple post of something soothing, like these orange flowers. Unfortunately, I do not know what kind they are, but that's a bit superfluous anyway. I think I will just stare at their flaming orange loveliness and when I need a break, the coolness of the background.

Oh, this was done completely in colored pencils in Drawing Foundations class.

Color and Comp work

The above piece and the one following both hail from Color and Composition class from my very first semester at Finlandia. Above is Everything You Can Imagine Is Real - mixed media: collage, tempera paint, fabric, and sharpie on cardboard. The quote is from Picasso (we had to choose one for a starting point), and inspiration for the piece comes from both Picasso and Romare Bearden. We were studying Bearden at the time and I tried to capture the way he creates visual rhythm through the placement of different elements in his collages (as well as creepy large hands).

This piece is titled Scream, also mixed media: collage and colored pencil on paper. Scream was from an assignment where the point was to evoke strong emotion from a dream, memory, or song. We also had to try several different color palettes before we decided on the most successful for the final piece. I tried both analogous and monotone palettes before deciding to go with a visually loud primary one. Scream speaks of a childhood fear of spiders, one existing more in my imagination than real life.

No Elephants

No Elephants is one of my favorite pieces from Freshman year, done with pen and colored pencil. We were each given a random fact to illustrate; mine was "Elephants are the only mammals that cannot jump." The cavorting animals in the bounce house are so carefree, and blissfully unaware of the poor elephant's plight.

Good vs. evil

 

Still posting work from Freshman year (2008-2009). These two pieces were a part of an assignment where the objective was to develop a 'good' and a 'bad' character, and then create two separate scenes illustrating these elements in them. My good character isn't based on but unfortunately ended up looking a lot like me (tall blond girl), and inspiration for part of my evil character came from a comment from Bunchy, my little brother. I love to bring the artwork around the family and feed off of their casual but always direct criticism. "He looks like an evil chef!" said Bunch. "Hmmmm..." I said. And the Evil Chef was born!

Another assignment I did in conjunction with this was a collaborative one with the entire class. We formed a team and using the concept, "Crash!" as well as our good/evil characters, made individual artworks that we combined into a book. We also worked with the book layout and cover. I was involved with the concept for the cover as well as the shading/pen work and coloring of it. Unfortunately I don't have a copy anymore. Luckily, I still have my own version of "Crash!" 

Crash was done with pen and black and white colored pencil. The pen and white colored pencil, when combined, made for some gorgeous bluer tones that I wasn't expecting. Happy accident! 

Oh, please let me know which you prefer... good or evil.

Yo Ho! Suddenly I see...

Since I've added mostly Juried Show pieces from Freshman year so far, I decided to add the last two entries of this sort. Yo Ho (above) was done with acrylic on illustration board and is 25 X 25 ". It won Best of Show in the Illustration category. This piece was another "Copy from Master", in which we had to take something about an original image that we liked and crop it, change the concept, or change the coloring. I cropped Yo Ho and exaggerated the characters. I also waited a bit too close to the deadline to get to work, and ended up painting all weekend long (well, until 5 am on Sunday). One of my first artwork all-nighters, but definitely not my last!

 This last piece, Suddenly I See, is one that I entered into the Juried Show of '09 but that wasn't selected by the jurors. Instead, it was shown in the Rejection Show held in the Finlandia Reflection Gallery, the student-run art gallery on campus. Suddenly I See was done with graphite on illustration board. This piece is a self-portrait of many different emotions.

Heyyy (Insert Roof Raising Gesture)

I just wanted to give a shout out to my photographers and assistants this time around... without them I would have had a lot more trouble documenting my work. It was windy that Saturday, and I didn't think far enough ahead to realize I would need at least two pairs of hands - one to hold the backdrop and one to point and shoot. Luckily, sisters are always around! So thank you to Rizzle, for taking photos; Ponch, for loaning me your camera; and Rolu, for snapping cute shots of me while I was struggling (see above). You girls rock!

 Oh yes, I was designated backdrop holder.

Sorrow

Here's more work from Freshman year... Sorrow also made it into the Juried exhibition of 2009. The original assignment was to illustrate the concept "sorrow" (I know, I know, I went all out with the title!) The roses are done in colored pencil (they took forEVER) and the rest is brown, white and black charcoal pencil. The 'Copy from Master' piece (below) that I did earlier in the semester definitely helped when it came time to work with the shading and tones on the weeping girl's face.

This is my version of Leonardo Da Vinci's La Scapigliata, which seemed fairly easy to emulate. Then I got started, and the closer I looked the more I realized just how complex this deceptively simple portrait really is. I guess they don't call him a Master for nothing.



A Furball In The Hand

I've compiled the majority of my work and started the documentation process, so I can finally begin to unleash it. This is a pen and ink piece, dimensions 8.5 X 11", that I completed freshman year. "Furball" was selected to be shown in the Juried Exhibition of 2009 at the Finnish American Heritage Center, and won Honorable Mention in the Freshman Foundation category. The assignment was to pick an animal to capture the effects of fur/feathers with pen, and I simply couldn't resist that face. Who could?

The Book Project

Here's a sneak peak at my current project... who knew how much work illustrating a book actually is? My book, tentatively titled Into the Land of Sunshine (open to suggestions), was written by a friend. We spent many evenings last spring spinning tales about a young girl (Julie), the monster who lives under her bed (Oscar), and their adventures. My friend then worked her magic and got it all down on paper.
Once it was my turn, I began with sketches and a storyboard, and worked my way through character development to 15+ drawings. My medium was colored pencils and oil - new to me, which is a bit scary! It ended up working out great - I applied only a few layers of colored pencil to my sketches, and with the help of the medium gel Liquin, added thin layers of oil paint on top. The Liquin and oil dissolved the colored pencil and made for extremely rich, bright colors in a short amount of time.
A few allnighters and many hours later, I am now putting the finishing touches on my pages. My book will be exhibited in February at the Finlandia Reflection Gallery (200 Michigan St. Hancock, MI), along with two others.

Further updates as events warrant! Stay tuned.