Hey hey hey!! I'm back in action once again! While I've been absent for a bit, my work has not slowed down!
Following my last blog post, I installed my KINSHIP series at the ODU Higher Education Center, and as the second semester started up, I began working on two collaborative pieces! Hence the beginning of a new category haha.
ANYWAYS! The two collaborations I have been working on have been as a designer for a production that seniors from the theater strand of the VPAA are performing: EmberBlaze. The other project has been a collaboration with Raenan and Yamilla. (You can find their respective websites here and here!!) The project is a seven piece series called Archangels that portrays people in our lives who have been a major positive impact in our lives as archangels.
I'll start off with Archangels!! We started working on our seven piece series for senior production at the beginning of the quarter, and I kicked off our project by working on the sketches for the seven figures. Each figure aligns with an angel as followed (as stated in our group's notes):
Michael: Pete Coore (Rae's Dad) - Protection, courage, strength, and success
Sunday and the Sun
Gabriel: Miranda Simmons (My Mom!) - Communication, intuition, and clarity
Monday and the Moon
Chamuel: Katalina Sussman (Mila’s Mom) - Love of self and others, forgiveness, and compassion
Tuesday and Earth
Raphael: Crystal Brewer (Friend of Mila's family) - Truth and healing (physical, mental, and spiritual)
Wednesday and Mercury
Jophiel: Erin Richburg (Our art teacher!) - Guidance and Inspiration
Thursday and Mars
Uriel: Rhyan Cooke (Rae's friend) - Wisdom, peace, and problem solving
Friday and Venus
Zadkiel: Damian DeSantis (My Best Friend) - Freedom, change, understanding, and comfort
Saturday and Jupiter
Now, for what I've worked on for the most amount of time.
For the majority of February, I spent my time managing the collaboration group between the visual arts seniors and the theater seniors' productions EmberBlaze and Trash World, shows that they're going to be touring to show in elementary schools throughout the city. I was the sole designer for the backdrops of EmberBlaze, a story of two siblings who get teleported into their video game, and I coordinated students to work on them. There was also a day that elementary school children came in and helped to paint a big chunk of blue and green on one of the backdrops! (Which I organized for my backdrops).
I also helped in designing the costumes for EmberBlaze; however, I spent 95% of my time with theater on the backdrops.
[EDIT] ! Artist Highlight !
Japhers
This is an artist who I've followed across a few different platforms after the semi-death of tumblr! Through it all, I have made an active effort to find their art because of just how inspirational their style and character design is.
I absolutely adore the style of their work, as their brush strokes and digital painting style makes me feel like an artist from the renaissance came to the 21st century and got inspired by webcomics and JRPGs. They always have an elegance and detail to their work that can allow a wide variety of people to enjoy their art! Their accounts are CERTAINLY worth taking the time to look through if you're interested in fantasy work and/or character design!