The womb

Florida
Acrylic on wood
11" x 14"
2010

Another Tate's entry here, for a Florida themed gallery. As someone born and raised here, I had fun with this. Especially as someone who gets frustrated when Spring Break comes along...

This was great fun until the very end, when it came to filling in the fence. Thankfully it's been fixed and looks presentable now, and some things have been tweaked. (including the title!)

The first self portrait

Self portrait
Acrylic on cardboard
11" x 19"
2009

This is my true introduction to painting, so I needed a simple concept and my face just happened to be that! This took a backseat to Memory Lane for about a month and a half, so it got done in about six months.

Bear and Bird's Halloween art show

Memory Lane

Acrylic on canvas

11" x 14"

2009

Aren't I just so clever with that title? Ahem!

Here in south Florida, we got this awesome shop called Tate's Comics, and they've got a little shop on their second floor, Bear and Bird, that holds galleries for short periods of time. Two times a year, they let local artists submit their own work for themed galleries, and this was for Halloween.

I did this with very little time, hardly any references for the background, and little experience with painting. This was my first finished painting! I had another one on the side, but my teacher really wanted me to start getting into shows, and this sorta thing still happens a lot with us.

The idea of Satan dressing up as an angel was funny to me at the time, and still kind of is. (but in a bratty sort of way) And again, I had little time to do this, so whatever halfway decent idea was good to go for this.

I stretched canvas for this one, and was taught the magical world of fast-drying acrylics. (that was both a good and annoying thing) So this was a pretty simple painting once I got used to how things worked.

And something to be proud of!

Mikael Akerfeldt

Pencil on paper

11" x 14"

2009

Another one of these. I was listening to lots of Opeth and Mikael's pretty easy on the eyes, so why not?

This was my first time filling in a drawing with a background, and thankfully the reference photo had a blurry forest scene. Starting the drawing up was ridiculous, it took a few months for me to even get some basic lines down, and in the end I almost erased everything. I nearly gave up on this, but I kept some lines down and decided to just go for it. It was a sorta blurry photo entirely, so my teacher and I had to mess around in Photoshop to catch different lights properly. This is still something I'm very happy to call my own work, even with the problems that came along with it.

This one took quite some time

Richard D. James

Pencil on paper
11" x 14"

2009

Another musician portrait! These are a habit of mine. After Iggy, I still needed practice, so another one of these had to be done. And I guess whatever music I'm into at the time becomes the subject. Richard D. James goes under the name of Aphex Twin in his music career, and he's an interesting fella.

Again, graphite pencils on paper for this one. The fabric and hair are an improvement here, but his eyes were insane to attempt making look normal (again, reference problems). This drawing itself took entirely too long to finish, and mostly out of laziness and going nuts over trying to finish it!

One of my first portraits...

Iggy Pop
Pencil on paper
11" x 14"
2009

So this drawing is simple enough, it's just an Iggy portrait. My art teacher asked me to begin drawing a portrait of anyone who I thought was interesting, so he came up! And at the time, I was listening to a lot of The Stooges, it worked.

I used various graphite pencils on sketching paper, and used a photo from a biography as the reference. It was a small photo too! So that's as far as the process went for this one. It took a few weeks to finish, because drawing this was also the first time I'd start filling in hair and fabric.

Hello!

I'm Rachel, a visual artist living in Miami Lakes. I primarily paint, and I take ideas from my neighborhood, nature, and video games! My favorite artists are Remedios Varo, John Bauer, Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, and many others. So enjoy the madness!