badass animals in watercolor

summer session with Mary Warner

my first exhibition

i entered in two pieces a still life of a moldy lemon and rotting avocado and this collage piece. it's actually an exercise done in my drawing 101 class that i HATED! so i made it into something else. winning wasnt my priority, it was just amazing to have my piece in the show.

the opening reception day i walked in and asked jerry where the pieces were that werenot chosen, i automatically thought both of my images would be there. then when one was missing i thought someone had misplaced it and became mildly frantic. then someone said well, maybe you are in the show? and i was. and i couldn't believe it. total fluke entry. i almost didn't enter it until Adam Stoves said, "Olivia, just do it".

the turning point of this year

my grandma and grandpa in their earlier years.
my favorite photo of them, so much joy.

my grandfather was an alcoholic for the majority of his life. he did plenty of horrible things that he nor anyone really ever talks about. a few years before his death he gave up alcohol, joined AA. it was mind blowing how much he had changed. but slowly he began regressing back to his asshole self. i was never really that close to my grandfather,until he stopped drinking. there were numerous things i held against him, how he treated the most wonderful person i've ever met is one of them. but towards the end i really started bonding with him. i was actually one of the few people he would listen too. the excessive drinking for so many years really slowed him down mentally. his thinking process was like using a worn down butter knife to cut a huge tough steak- extremely frustrating. but no matter how many awful things he had done in the past he did not need to suffer the way he did.

in 2008 he had an 8.5 pound tumor removed from the outside of his colon.
in january he went to the doctor for what was believed to be pneumonia. it took weeks before they realized he had leukemia cells in his bone marrow. an up and down with chemo until march. the last week of march he was healthy enough to stand on his own, he actually was supposed to come home. then one day, after his final chemo treatment, while getting up to use the bathroom he fell. he broke his leg. his immune system dropped. they found traces of e-coli in his intestines. four days after my 21st birthday i received a call, he decided to stop all medications, go on a morphine drip, he passed the next morning. watching someone slowly die on morphine is life changing. holding a mans hand while his heart stops is something so, fucked up, but necessary. but she held onto him, faithfully next to his side til his last breath. i felt compelled to draw him.



this was for my final- my descriptive word was sad.
in this image i wanted to portray him being strong yet vulnerable. i want the viewer to recognize his suffering but to know that he is finally at peace. this is the first work of art that someone understood exactly what i was going for, and i was elated.

my grandmother has not seen this image.

art is different from anything else, to be successful you must immerse yourself into it.

so many things have changed. i am not able to load any of my images at this time :[
as of this moment i am sitting in the Donna Beam Gallery at UNLV. i babysit the gallery on saturdays. this responsibility that used to only be for grad-students but since the budget cut we are short staffed and majority of the grad students are teaching...at least this is what i have heard. two instructors that i had since transferring over are nowhere to been seen this semester which is sad. i really enjoyed them, they are great teachers.

i am working with watercolors mostly now. much more enjoyable than Oil. the mediums are completely different. water has movement, it rarely stays where you drop it. it can be frustrating to control the "blumes" but when you've manipulated it correctly it looks fabulous. the vibrancy of the pigments are terrific and how fast it dries!

my series are portraits, cropped portraits. a way of identifying the person from the tip of the nose down. also i want to take the face bit by bit, mouth now, then nose, only eyes, and eventually the whole face. now that i'm in life drawing with Jose i see the body differently. when i look at an arm i imagine the contour lines, would i include veins? wrinkles of the knuckles or just simplify?? there is so much thought and studying prior to dragging the char-cole across the page. its very intense, this semester is very intense.

i stumbled across my first self portrait last night and couldn't help but laugh. it soon next to my water color self portrait. it really is nuts, completely crazy how much i've improved in less than a year. before people were cartoon versions now what i draw, who i draw, is who i draw. its completely surreal.

i am not the person i was a year ago.

6 of us ladies are planning a show.
its going to knock your socks off.
it will be completely collaborative- no solo work.
there will be video, photos, transfers, water color, oil, sketches, EVERYTHING.
there are 3 photo majors and 3 painting/drawing majors.
its going to be fucking sick.