Watercolors

This semester I have really enjoyed painting.  The SLC Comic con has given me a bit of motivation as well since I will be selling there. I've been playing around with some very simple and gestural shapes lately. 

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

SOLD

Digital Literacy

I tracked the digital devices I used all last week .  Keep in mind last week I was on vacation so it wasn't typical- for example I only looked at a computer screen for about half an hour to book a hotel.  This was super refreshing because during a school week I find lots of reasons to use my lap top.  I use it for things as simple as music.  I've never had an ipod and I can't stand to paint without music so I'm constantly streaming spotify.  But lets get back to last week.  I mostly just used an android.  My boyfriend and I both have one.  I used mine to take instagram pictures to document our trip.  I'll include some in this post cause they were really fun.  I'm sort of against instagram because it makes everyone think they are a photographer, but it is fun and I got sucked in.  I find there is a big art community on there so I post my art as well.  In case you guys are interested you can find me @ jennseeley.  The main purpose for my android use was the GPS.  I'm still not the best navigator, but thank goodness for the GPS because California freeways are impossible to newcomers without them.  I also watched a movie on a laptop we brought so i lied that's a couple hours of being glued to a screen. But I'm happy to say these were the only digital mediums I used last week.  I can see this is the direction the world is going, but I still like the simplicity of not having them sometimes.  I think you enjoy the little things in life more.

As far as online texts I think I use facebook the most (if that counts as a text, but from what I understand the term is very broad).  I just think it's fun I guess.  As I got back to school I searched some educational websites like www.uen.org for lesson plans.  It's awesome how willing teachers are to share.

How am I going to apply this to my students?  Well I tend to post a lot of art on digital formats such as this blog, my instagram, and facebook.  I think it would be cool to have students share their work with the world somehow.  We could have a class blog.  I think students will take more pride in their work if they know they can share it with people.  I've always loved doing art and I think it's important to find inner reasons for it, but sometimes I have felt like I spend all this time on something no one will ever see.  Although there can be other reasons like art therapy I think art is meant to be shared.  We had a good lesson for this today in class.  I found that there are all sorts of art games on pinterest.  Caitlin and I found one where you can create your  own Picasso using famous features he used in his art.  It was a lot of fun and I can see students getting into it.  We also found one on color.  It went through about six colors and had little illustrative clips on the colors meaning.  This would be a great intro to an assignment dealing with color.  It was entertaining and informative.

Realism

This is just to prove that I can do still life, though I choose not to most of the time.  It can be very satisfying to represent something accurately, but I have way more fun being more expressive and abstract.  Everything here was done at BYU Hawaii.  I had an amazing teacher. Same teacher for both painting 1 and figure drawing.

From life

From life

Ya i know this doesn't quite fall into the same category as the others.  It's more impressionistic and was actually done from a masterwork. 

Waves

Here is some stuff I did last semester.  I tend to go on tangents for awhile and then I switch.  Last semester I was inspired from heather brown, an artist I saw in Hawaii.  Her work looked like stain glass.  I started trying her style and it took in my own off direction from there.  Everything came from my own reference photos.  These are in order of when I painted them.  I started from inspiration from Heather and finished with a more Gauguin like style.

Lazy Painting Days

28' X 22"
Dec 2013

I've had a lot more time to paint since I finished my semester at Utah State and am on Christmas break.   It's been nice to have time to read a lot of art books and just paint without too many deadlines or external pressures.  The bottom image is the most current.  Others suggested I try a horizon line as the waves were very busy.  I was inspired by Gauguin for the style and skin tones of the girl and am very pleased with the unique skin tones I was able to accomplish.  I've been painting from my references I took while in Hawaii.  This girl in particular was in the canoe show at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Gauguin

California Road trip Photography

7 day road trip to visit my sister in Monterey California.  The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I felt artistically inspired the whole time I was there.

Inspired by Hawaii

Plein Air of BYU Hawaii campus
9 x 12"

I spent four months in Laie Hawaii, a lifelong dream of mine.  I went there to study art, but continue to work from the photographs I took when I was there.