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Little Shop

May 18, 2012 by Shauna Leva

For the next few weeks I will be blogging about the individual pieces that made up my senior exhibition. In no particular order, I would like to start with this re-imagining of Audrey II, the monster from the musical ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ For my senior project I choose to make a large chunk of art about theatre. This piece is new concept art for a classic musical theatre character. Audrey II has been interpreted on the stage in many different ways, but in my opinion, the large costumes always felt a little too stiff for the character; bulky is a word that comes to mind. I wanted to reinterpret Audrey II with a more fluid, animated look. Longer, leaner vines and a totally new silhouette makes the plant feel more graceful in its movements even if the mechanics of operating a costume like this will always be a little awkward. Audrey II is a predator, and a very smart one, and so I think he should like a smooth and cunning carnivore.

I also wanted to take more visuals from actual carnivorous plants in my design. I have seen Audrey II on the stage with huge, white, shiny teeth, which clearly belong to an animal, not a plant. I don’t care if he is from outer-space, I think that this intelligent plant should look like it took a similar evolutionary track as our earth plants, and the big shark teeth just aren’t working for me. So I did a little research, and adapted the ridges, grooves, markings, colors, spines, and vines from carnivorous plants alive on earth today.

The painting itself was executed with watercolor on cold press paper. For reference, I built a model of my initial sketches with clay, then lit and photographed my sculpture. Overall I had a fantastic time painting this piece. Painting monsters is liberating because they can look anyway we want them to; there is no right or wrong with a monster. I never paint very scary things but I think I may want to continue incorporating supernatural creatures into my work.

You can view this and other brand new illustrations in my color illustration portfolio.

Senior Show was a Great Success!

May 16, 2012 by Shauna Leva

Two weekends ago my classmates and I celebrated the culmination of our art education with our senior exhibition. Our show was titled Vignettes, which represented the different worlds each of our work peered into, but also how unified the work because under one consistent method of presentation.

In order to exhibit in the senior show, each member of our graduating illustration department had to complete eight illustrations over the course of the semester which would make up a new portfolio for the student to apply for his or her dream career. We could work in any side or medium, but everyone had to include a self-portrait in their body of work in order to unify the show.

This year I served as class representative/student liaison/show coordinator, which meant that I had a hand in every aspect of planning the show. Everything from advertising, fundraising, food, music, styling, and managing people, I had to organize and delegate tasks for. Therefore it was especially rewarding for me to see the show go show go off without a hitch. The night was a huge success and our show of twenty-four exhibiting artists looked clean and professional.

We filled a huge gallery with our art and with people who came out to the opening reception. I do not know exactly how many people showed up, but we had light food for 500, and that went in the first hour and a half of the three-hour show.

For the most part we kept the styling of the show very simple so that the work would stand out without distraction from flashy decorations. However one fun element that we did put together was the salon style picture wall of all our self portraits. Each exhibiting artist was required to make a reproduction of their self-portrait and fame it in a decorative way. We then hung the pictures salon style on the first wall of the gallery which can be seen from the entrance, surrounding our show title. This wall introduced visitors to the flavor of our show, and represented each artist in a really stunning fashion.

Overall I had a fantastic evening dressing up, mingling, and talking about my work. I am so thankful to everyone who came to the opening to support me and my peers. I am also thankful for having such awesome classmates, without whom there would have been no show in the first place. Everyone did a great job this semester, and all biases aside, that was the best gallery opening I have ever been to!

You can view all of my new work, which was featured in my senior exhibition, in my color illustration portfolio. I will be posting about each piece in detail for the rest of the month.

Thanks for reading!