Let's just call it Art and leave it at that

More Paintings from my class

2011-08-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Harvey

Morning Coffee

On the F Train

I'm also on Etsy now! I'll be putting all these paintings on my store for sale :-)

Summer Paintings

2011-08-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

Over the summer I took an oil painting class at the local community college. Here are a few of the pieces I did.

In the Coffee Shop

2011-08-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest video for Degs, starring Mike and Gabrielle (aka Nels and I).

I decided to go all La Jetee on it and use only still images. The challenge was to make it dynamic while only using the still pictures.

Programs used were Premier, Final Cut, and Illustrator. And Nels used Protools for the audio.

Freelancing with Vector Art

2011-05-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

I've been super busy lately freelancing. Mostly playing around with Illustrator and After Effects, woo!

I'm working with Degs Beldham, who has this nifty website Call My Other Number dot com where you can buy alternative phone numbers for your phone. I made a video for him for the Take One Small Step competition.

Check it out here

I hired my brother Nels to do the audio. We had a lot of fun working on it. Unfortunately we didn't win the competition, but we got into the top ten, woo! It took a little less than two weeks to make this. It was hectic at first, trying to find a time when Degs, Nels, and I would all be free to do the recording (an added difficulty that he lives in London and we in Texas).

This was a rare animation where I didn't use a storyboard. I wrote a script for the interview and voice over, and I made notes for what visuals I wanted, but I didn't draw anything out on paper before I started. It's a different approach that what I normally take, and it was fun and (dare I say) freeing to make it up as I went along.

Programs used were Illustrator, After Effects, and Protools (for Nels' audio work). Lots of help from the Video Copilot people. I always watch at leased 2 or 3 of their videos for any project I do. I'm pretty sure they know everything.

Right now, I'm working on my second animation for Degs. Meet Gabrielle:

More logo design

2010-06-03T01:06:00.000-07:00

This one is for the website Reviews of Things and Stuff
reviewsofthingsandstuff.wordpress.com

It was the negative space that excited me in this one. I like the partially visible reflection. I'll have to play with that more in future projects.

My friend Yankee emailed me today. He's starting his own business and wants to hire me as the in-house graphic designer. I don't know any details yet (the company is still in the paperwork stage), but I'm very excited.

Playing with photography

2010-03-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

There's this technique in photography called tilt-shift photography. It allows the photographer to have very precise control over depth of field, which basically means there's one small area on the picture that's in focus, while everything else moves quickly out of focus.

You see it a lot in pictures of food or very small things. See my favorite examples here.

You can also use this technique to make photos of life-size scenes look tiny. I love the effect. You can make people and cars look mini, which is always exciting.

Well, I don't own a fancy camera, but I own Photoshop. I've been playing photos that my friends and I have taken and made some neat images.(Cat photo taken by Lisa Lin)

the MADRE show

2009-12-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

My troupe, Bastet, had a Belly Dance for Change event for MADRE. I designed the flyer and post card above. This was a fun project. I used bright, bold colors like the MADRE website.
It was a great show. Scott Wilson performed, and Kelly Ann danced to him. Bobby played his bazzouki, Ray Ray recited some poetry, and Pacita danced.

Sunken Car

2009-11-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

So the goal of this project was to put this car under the ocean for 50 years. Of course, I show it to my Grampa and the first thing he says is, "I don't think this car has been around for 50 years."

lol

figures

This one took me two days to do (would have taken me one if the dear ol' family didn't keep distracting me)

This was a texturing project through and through. The model is the 1976 Chevy Hatch by Pieter Steyn off of Turbo Squid. Background photo taken from istockphoto.com. It was a lot of fun. Did a lot of playing with layered textures and bumps and difuse and transparencies and ambient colors and... well... everything. :-D

So let's start with a brand new car, just off the lot..

Then as we're throwing it into the ocean it's gonna get a few scratches

And it's gonna get rusted and corroded, of course. This is my favorite shot. I love how the light scatters across the hood and the roof.

then green things start to grow on it

And, of course, barnacles and more grossness

and let's see how this beauty looks now

I can't help but feel like my compositing skills could use some room for improvement, but I'm very pleased with how the car turned out. Very gross, very water-logged.

Industrial Light and Magic

2009-11-20T19:39:00.000-08:00

Today I visited ILM. I met David Lenihan (who I met at Siggraph) and he showed me around. It was a lot of fun, ILM seems like a, awesome place to work (and I am DEFINETLY gonna be workin on my portfolio to apply there now). There were lots of background paintings on display, some of which were amazing! i loved the Neverland ones. Lots of props from movies and replicas from Star Wars (SO much Star Wars shwag everwhere). We had lunch and talked about movies. It was nice.

I saw clips from their latest movie, Avatar. I'm not so sure about the plot (typical action movie set up with anti-war overtones. Some sort of love-story in the mix), but it looks like the visuals are what's gonna make this one worth seeing

Graphic Design

2009-10-20T22:49:00.001-07:00

Somehow I've been doing a lot of graphic design work lately. Logos, business cards, posters.
*shrug*
I don't mind it. I enjoy anything creative. And I'm starting to get more creative with type.

And now, for your entertainment, I've posted a few below...

business card for Dwayne (in progress)

Logo for my friend Yankee's Hackers on a Bike

Logo for Bastet, my belly dance troupe

2009-09-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

Job hunting and penniless.

Since I don't have a job, I've been filling my time with dance projects and personal art projects. I'm part of 4 dance groups right now-- Bastet (my belly dance troupe), Desert Sin for their upcoming and highly anticipated Twitchers show, Estampas Negras (a latin-fusion group), and Billi Shakes (a singer who I'll be a back up dancer for). It's been great trying out all these very different styles of dance.

My website also needs a revamp. I'm currently still using my Pratt website. Bleh. Needs to be brought into this century and placed with a proper web host.

2009-05-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is what came of my MEL final-- a teapot creator and customizer. I may put the code up later, but it's very very special.

Haunted Church!

2009-05-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

So I have an internship with a company called BreakThrough. They're a human rights activist group, and their US office focuses on immigration and due process issues here. I'm making an animation for them based on the Postville, Iowa raid from almost a year ago. Today I'm creating textures for the church, and got this alsome little render:

the haunted church!!!

This is what I actually have thus far, slightly less spooky version. Still a work in progress (clearly) but I'm pleased with how it's coming along:

To Siggraph we go!

2009-04-30T10:37:00.001-07:00

I found out recently that I got accepted to be a student volunteer at Siggraph this year. I did the same last year, and it was probably one of the most amazing experiences of that summer. This year it's being held in New Orleans, which is just a day's drive from Austin. I'm very excited.

done and DONE (or almost done)

2009-04-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Good things happening last week. Senior thesisisisis were turned in on Wednesday. Hooray! It feels so good to be done! I'm very pleased with how it turned out. All I can see anymore, though, are all my mistakes. Ack! But I'm gonna go through and fix up some of them by next week when we turn in all our files to our professor. Just a few small animation tweaks for now. I love the way the renders turned out. It's so flat and painterly looking. If time and inspiration are in my future, I'd like to redo the cat's texture and make that more painterly. But I love how the plants and the yarn balls and the bookshelves turned out.
I won't be putting up the complete animation online for a while, but stills are below.

Screening day is this coming Thursday at 6. I'm very excited to see everyone else's finished projects.

I'm taking a MEL scripting class

2009-03-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

global proc shootKellyInHead()
{

$cocksGun = "cocks + gun";
$aims = select -tgl "head"; select -tgl "gun"; aimContrain;
$fires = "pulls + trigger + back";

}
shootKellyInHead;

NURBS for teh win!

2009-03-14T21:45:00.001-07:00

I'm creating a NURBS tea set for my old lady :-)

I am animating like a fiend. A FIEND, I tell you

2009-03-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

My goal for tonight is to get the timing of my animation as close to the final thing as possible. It took me four days to animate my second scene (and I use the term "scene" loosely). It's the section where we first see magical things happening. 4 days! It is by far the longest and most difficult scene of my senior thesis. I'm still not done. That was just the first and second passes. I still need to go through it a couple more times before I can even think about calling it done. Now that I'm really in the middle of animating I'm finding every single problem with my rig. Gods above I am not a rigger! Not even a little bit.

btw- changing up my cameras worked out really well. It looks much better now that there are camera cuts and the like. Less floaty. Less lame.

I'd also like to say that my cat is the most adorable cat ever to see the 3D world.

Tonight I'm playblasting everything and putting it together in After Effects to make a render of some sort for Mike (my composer). I think I'm gonna put the video up on youtube and then beg everyone I know to watch and critique.

Goals for spring break:
-Get all my magical elements finished and put into Maya.
-Finally finish crap like blend shapes and weight painting (bleh). Hopefully this will clean up the parts where my rig is failing me.
-Test batch render (this is mainly to make sure I understand how to use the shiny new render farm)

because thesis isn't enough work, let's start again from the beginning

2009-02-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

So I've decided that doing the entire animation in one shot just isn't working out, and I just don't have enough time left to *make* it work. At a later point in my life, I'll go back in and make it all one shot again, but for now it has to change.

AAAAAH I going through my whole piece and reworking the camera! blah! I'm pretty sure there aren't words in the English language for how frustrating this is. But I have to make it look sexy in 5 days for the presentation.

Goals for March 6:
- finish camera changes
- put in all the textures and lights I have
- refine the animation in the first shot and the super magicky shot where the cat wraps itself around the old woman
- have render tests

If I can get the camera done and the first shot done by Monday I can totally handle the rest by Friday.

My sinuses are infected

2009-02-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

I've been very sick for over a week now and haven't made much progress. I hate feeling like I'm wasting my time. My mind wanders, though, and my head hurts. The strange thing is I don't feel worried about the upcoming presentation. Two weeks isn't much time, but it's enough for what I need to get done.

Maybe I'll feel differently when the anti-biotics take effect.

I've been copying and pasting keyframes and posing characters. My characters still aren't 100% done, and I'll have to recopy/paste keys, but it feels good to see them animated anyway. My mind still reels at how hard this thesis stuff is. The funny thing is I have all these ideas for projects I want to pursue after I graduate. I'll most likely be doing these on my own.
Restart progress
Return to square A

I know I complain about rigging, but I keep thinking about what it would take to rig a belly dancer. Rigging may well be the death of me, but I'm not sure I can avoid it. Everyone has their own self-destructive tendencies, right? Rigging is mine. I guess it's better than smoking.
On the flip side, I'm loving the look development part of this project. I made some sexy-looking cobwebs earlier today. This is by far my favorite part of the process. Possibly even moreso than animating. It would be nice if my job title could be "Person that makes it look pretty"

I want to go to Eastern Europe and study animation there.

There's some spectacularly awful music coming from my roomate's computer.

I think I shall sleep now.

Who put bacon in the soap?!?!?!?!?!

2009-02-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

basically, I hate Maya.

Is it wrong to hate a computer program? Like, really wish pain and suffering upon it? Is it childish of me to want Maya in some physical form so I can punch and kick it until I'm too tired to lift my limbs?

It is throwing every curve ball it has to ensure that I will not animate a goddamn thing tonight.

In other news, I think my adventures in texturing everything in gauche is working out well (isn't the watercolor paper texture beautiful in 3D?). I also think my old lady is the cutest thing on earth. At leased one thing is going right with this project; I feel like if I can just get past all these rigging issues, everything will be fine.

texturing is for winners

2009-01-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

Lol! I'm making the textures. I'm painting them by hand with gouache. It's fun, I love painting. So far I've got my woman's skin, skirt, hair, and most of her shirt. I love the picture to the right. I always make my alpha maps backwards, which leads to the amazing hair you see here. The checkered glasses and collar are pretty sweet, too.
I'm pleased with how much she looks like my concept art.
I'm *still* working on my cat rig. I swear, after this project I'm never rigging again! My woman is done except for a few blend shapes that I'm procrastinating on.

Rig!

2008-11-10T04:07:00.000-08:00

Woohoo!
I've finally finished the rig for my cat for senior thesis. This rig has been giving me so much trouble because the cat has to twist and stretch in so many weird directions.
I'M GLAD IT'S FINALLY DONE!
Now I can finally start animating. HOORAY!

Global Warming

2008-10-27T15:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Pat and I recently finished our midterm project for out Science and Society class. Our chosen topic was Global Warming. We did this entire animation (from concept to final product) in about 2 1/2 days. It was... intense.

Well I guess I should start with "hello"

2008-10-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

Thus begins my first artist blog (deviant art doesn't count!). Here I will post my digital art, as well as some of my more traditional things.

My name is Cherie Christensen, by the way, for any of you who haven't met me. You can call me Kitty, though, if you like. I am currently a senior at Pratt Institute and working on my senior project, which, if I do say so myself, is quite brilliant. Most of my postings will pertain to that.

Though I am a digital artist I love to work in traditional media. There's just something so satisfying in oil paints that you can't get with a computer. I love bringing together the digital and the traditional (in fact, my entire senior project revolves around this). Combined they can have so much more depth than one or the other alone, in my opinion.

I am also of the belief that art does not have to have a meaning. 20th century artists were brilliant, but they got this idea into peoples' heads that all art must have a purpose and meaning (and it must always be profound). Why can't art simply exist for art's sake? Why can't a person make something with the only intent of being pretty or visually interesting? So often I am asked, "What's the meaning of this piece?" when really we should ask, "Does this piece have a meaning, and if not does it really matter?"

Please feel free to browse through my artworks. I plan to post most of my things up here, but until then you can check me out on my website, Deviant Art, or youtube.

peace, love, and IK handles,
Kitty