Senior Year Paintings

Salutations! Sorry it's been a while. I have GOT to get the rest of my high school art up, so I can really focus on the stuff I'll be starting soon at MOORE!!
As the title says, these are all the paintings I've done over my senior year in AP Studio Art.

"Aces On Top Hat" 12x18 - I had to set up this still life myself, which was pretty fun, but I also had to paint in the details of the face cards- not as fun, but worth it.

 

"Rainbow Fish" 8x10- This was something I started my sophomore year, and I dumped it at the bottom of my drawer. I finally dug it up this year to fit in my portfolio requirements and got it done. I even added a bit of silver paint into the blue to make the acrylic shiny!

 





"Guitar God" 14x14 - This is a portrait of my TOTALLY AWESOME uncle Guy Van Duser, a really successful guitar player and a professor of Berkley College of Music in Boston. I found a photograph of him when he was really young and decided to copy it in acrylic paint. This is the result.

 

"Lightning and Thunder" 8x10 - Because of high school rules, all my oil paintings were done at a separate class. We had to do self-portraits, one of my favorite things in the world. :/ I don't think I got my nose right, but my nose is weird to draw cause of its shape. What's up with the title? Well, I gave myself lightning-bolt earrings, and red is the chief color surrounding Norse legend Thor, the god of Thunder, who my friend and I love to read about. There you have it.

 

"Hogwarts" 8x10 - Another oil painting, this time we had to do a landscape in the style of Vincent Van Gogh. I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, so the choice was obvious. I also did this painting on my sneakers and graduation cap, I think that one was even more like Van Gogh. 

(Here's the graduation cap...)

 

And here are the shoes...



 

 

Now, back to business:

"Angel of Music" 12x18- I love working in watercolors, and I had to create a Christmas piece for my church. I decided to give an angel a chance to rock out.

 

 

"Music of the Night" 11x14 - This surreal watercolor/ink painting was inspired by "The Phantom of the Opera," my favorite musical of all time. I had trouble making this really, really good, but I think it came out all right.



 

 

"She's My Shirley" 12x18- And the best for last. I found this GORGEOUS photograph of my grandmother when she was forty-something, and I had to paint it. It took me two days, but they were a tough two days. This was very, very difficult, but it came out AMAZING. Yeah, I said it. This is one of my best. Ms. Braverman was shocked when she saw this, and someone told me that they cried. That's never happened to me before, and it's a little crazy.

 

 

So those are my high school senior year paintings. That SHOULD be it for high school, I'll double-check and post if there's more. I'm gonna try to fix this blog up so that it's really professional for my Illustration career. Till then, au revoire.



Fairy Tale Concentration

And now, this is my AP Portfolio Concentration- Fairy Tales with a twist. 

I absolutely LOVE fantasy and sci-fi and anything supernatural. It really excites me, so I decided to make my concentration of twelve pieces based on traditional fairy tales- from a slightly different perspective (credit to my best friends for helping me come up with ideas and Sarah Cannavo for "The Wolf and the Hood." :D ). And as for pen and ink, as difficult as it can be, I love working with it and the way it comes out. Plus, it goes with the fairy tales (Harry Clarke anyone?). 

1. "The Wolf and the Hood" 12x18 - Like I said before, this is based on my friend Sarah Cannavo's short story "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which twists "Little Red Riding Hood" into a tangled tale about a young werewolf and vampire (trust me, it's NOT Twilight...never Twilight!!!). If you look closely, you can see the hint of fangs around Red's mouth ;)

2. "Pumpkin Prison" 18x24 - So this one isn't much of a TWIST on Cinderella...it's just a bit

more dark and creepy than it should be. Not my favorite piece, but I still like it.

 

3. "Beauty and What?" 18x24 - I've wanted to do this one for a while, and I was so happy that I actually got to....  Paws!!

4. "You Look Delicious" 12x18- As much inspiration my friends gave me for the concentration, I came up with this sick, twisted take on "Hansel and Gretel" on my own. Don't ask what goes on in my mind...

5. "The Little Mermaid" 11x14- The proportions are a little wonky, but I think this is still pretty sweet. Check out those cool patterns in her hair.

6. "Peter Pan" 11x14- Well, let's be honest. They always tell kids to never approach strangers...unless they're hot and subconsciously bear a resemblance to Matt Smith. IT'S NOT MY FAULT IRYNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



7. "Not Exactly Beauty Sleep" 12x18 - After sleeping for a thousand years, I'd look like that too. 

8. "Pinocchio" 11x14 - Wood's boring. Robots are all the rage.

9. "Princes are Dumb" 12x18- This is one of my favorite pieces. Because yes, sometimes princes are REALLY stupid.

\

10. "Thumbelina" 18x24 - They said she was as big as a thumb. But if it's the thumb of a giant...

11. "Snow White" 11x14- I figured I might as well save time. No need to bother those little dwarves. 

12. "Welcome To Mystery" 18x24 - This was my favorite piece of them all, and actually won Best In Show at my high school's annual art show. It took a REALLY long time but was so worth it. If you notice, the things floating around the rabbit hole are references to the other 11 pieces (all of them, I think, except Pinocchio and Peter Pan), and also some other fascinating objects. Special thanks to Iryna for giving me the guy in the bathtub!

Well, those are my concentration pieces! And after all that excruciating work, I don't know why I still go back to pen and ink. Call me crazy, I guess.
Another post coming soon with paintings!!

Figment Link

In a new attempt at organization, I've decided to link my Figment account to this blog. Figment, in case you haven't heard, is a writing site where people share their work and try to get feedback/promotion for it. My friend Sarah has one too which I'll also link so if you ever get bored of me you can check her stuff out.
That's all for now- here's the link:
http://figment.com/users/303151-Abby-McGrath

I am BACK!

Once again, I apologize for not living up to all the stuff I said this blog would be. Senior year of high school is absolutely NOT a picnic, especially with AP classes. However, summer's coming up, and FREEDOM!!!!!!!
I'm not making any promises on posting regularity, but it will be a lot more often than before. And hopefully I'll have the motivation to post more once I get to Moore.
Yes, you read that right. Come September, I'll be a freshman at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia!!!! It's really really really exciting!!
But first I have to post my senior year stuff. I guess I'll do posts by media, since this year was such a blur that I can't remember when I did what. 
And I will try to find interesting art stuff like I said, cause it's cool.

So I guess I'll start with some pencils and pastels. This one is for my Breadth section of the portfolio. It's a pinecone hanging from a tree in our school courtyard. It's chalk pastels and charcoals blended together on a 12x18 sheet of paper. 

 This one is out of my 8x10 sketchbook. I like to take shots from movies or TV shows and draw them in pencils for fun. This is another drawing of Arwen from the Lord of the Rings. I think it's still a work in progress but I like what I have so far.

This is another one from the sketchbook, and also in pencil and colored pencil. I call it "Pond."

This is just a page of doodles. I was at a restaurant with my family (my favorite thing to do in the world :/ ) and I got kinda bored. 

This is an actual piece, also in the Breadth section of the portfolio. It was our midterm project - we had a choice of two different still lives, and it was this skeleton or a bunch of boring vases and rocks- and we had to complete the whole piece, start to finish, in the 90 minute midterm period (though no one did). This skeleton was really tricky and it was EXCRUCIATING to do it but I did it. And I kind of broke the rules a little with the "Dare to Dream," but I didn't want a boring skeleton without some color. But hey, isn't art all about breaking the rules? ;)

All right, that's it for now. I'll post some more soon, including my exciting Fairy Tale concentration!

Apology Post

To any artistically awesome people following this blog, I apologize that I have not posted as promised. Senior year is ten times more stressful than it sounds, and it sounded pretty bad to begin with. Free time has now become a luxury since I haven't had much of it. But no longer! Since my AP Art portfolio deadline is fast approaching, I'll be posting much more often! Just you wait!
-A

Digital Mixed Media Blog and Miscellaneous Sketches

Senior year has been pretty crazy so far-but fun!! Three art classes is the most awesome thing I could have asked for this year. And in one of the art classes, Digital Mixed Media, I had to make ANOTHER blog! I seem to be starting a collection of collections of art, if that makes sense. The new blog is over on the right side with the other links, but here’s a link up front in case you get lost:

http://abbymcgrathdigital.blogspot.com/

In AP Art this week, me and my friends er.... dismantled (that’s the most pleasant way of putting it) some traditional mannequins that artists use for figure drawing and hot-glued them into a murder scene, I mean, still life that we will draw parts of in charcoal. It’s going to be pretty interesting when it comes out. I’ll post the pictures once it gets done.

Just so that this post is not completely pointless, I think I’ll post some recent doodads from my sketchbook.

I’ve been trying to write a fantasy book for a month now, and I’ve found I understand my characters better if I draw them (plus, awesome illustration practice). This is my protagonist Lynna the Artful Dragon who creates pictures with her special multi-colored fire:

This is her friend she meets along the way, Finley the would-be princess that’s getting chased by her cousin Farold who wants to take over the world:

Finley’s got a friend too: Yara, the last fairy in Chromania who rules over all the butterflies:

Another “friend” of Finley’s, this is Vian, Farold’s BFF who used to go out with Finley but now is chasing her down for his bro. (I only started this one yesterday)

In addition to illustrations for a potential new book, I also have been working on some celebrity portraits. Though it’s only about ½ done, here’s a drawing of one of my all time favorite people, Barbra Streisand:

This portrait of Arwen from Lord of the Rings, unlike the one of Babs, is actually done:

And then these are just some random things that don’t belong in any real category:

Mannequin still life pictures coming soon to a blog near you!! 

New Progress Before School Starts

One short day, and I’m back in school! How should I spend my last day of summer vacation? Blogging of course!

Here’s a piece that I’ve been meaning to post but just keep forgetting about. I did this in my watercolor class that I took over the summer.

 I’m not 100% certain on my art-tiara-portrait thing as I was in the last post, but I think I’ll post the new pictures anyway, just to keep it up-to-date.

I have been working on a new piece for the past week or so, and I think it came out really nicely. It’s a sketch that I made sophomore year of what I call the “Creative Bubble” In a nutshell, it’s the doodles that float around in this super crazy mind on paper in bubble form. When I first thought of it in tenth grade I had started it on a giant canvas, but it turned out to be a disaster. So this summer I thought I’d try it again, this time on black paper with pastels, and I think it looks totally awesome.

Here’s the original sketch:

Then what I like to call the skeleton of the piece (as you can see, some stuff in the bubble changed since the original sketch)

The first bits of color:

½ done with the color:

½ done with the piece:

Yes, that is my cat. Natasha was helping me throughout this project, so it seems only fair I give her a little credit.

Lightening the color:

Close-Ups:

Final Piece:

I know everyone else my age would kill me for saying this, but I really want to go back to school.

Gotta get back to Hogwarts, gotta get back to school... (A Very Potter Musical)