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.