Last student blog entry :( May 6, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, festive, interesting, Random, Uncategorized.Tags: contact, freelance illustration, good bye student blogging!, graduation, illustration prints, murals, new illustrator, original illustration, portfolio, prints for sale
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And now my final post as a usf work-study student. Tomorrow is graduation and I will (officially) be a usf alum in…twenty one hours(ish). It’s been a pretty good time, and I’ve learned a lot, and met all kinds of great people which makes it kind of hard to leave. Today me and Sarah made fun of Rodney for the last time (officially). I ate my last breakfast of reconstituted egg product (officially, hopefully), and this is my last student blog entry (officially). But the good part about it all is that I get to make room in my life for new things.
This Sunday I will be sleeping and waking up a few times to shower my mom with praise and presents. After that I’m going to look for a part-time job (any ole thing’ll go). The rest of the time will be spent turning myself into a small business so I can start freelancing, making murals, and writing. If everything goes well I’ll be able to start supporting myself with just these things! I already have a few contacts from people I know and word of mouth. To stay on top of work I am going to fill out personal time sheets and will not work less than eight hours a day five days a week.
It’s been a pretty interesting year and for anyone who reads it’s been great sharing with you. I would say goodbye for good but Kristen tells me I can keep blogging for fun whenever I want and I might fill you in on anything new or especially interesting if it comes to mind. In the mean time here is a link to my:
PORTFOLIO: http://christineannecalhoun.wordpress.com/
and just in case you want to contact me you can EMAIL ME at: christineannecalhoun@gmail.com
If you see anything you like I’m available for commission and would love any illustration job you can throw at me. I’m trying to make it as a professional now so while my rates are going to be reasonable I can’t do everything for free anymore (girls gotta eat). That doesn’t mean I will never do pro bono work though. Anyway, thanks for reading.
Christine
p.s. By the way, anything you see in my portfolio is available for purchase as a print for fifteen dollars a pop. This includes any of the illustrations in my senior project which you can see if you follow this link:
http://www.blurb.com/books/2135085
The book will also be available to purchase in hardback soon. If you want an original prices vary but like I said I’m super reasonable 😉 Just email me if you are interested.
A book a week: Senior Project May 2, 2011
Posted by Christine in a book a week, art, Class, interesting, Random.Tags: blurb.com, original illustration, poetry book, self publishing, senior project, writhe crackle and stir
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front cover of my self-published poetry book
Go to http://www.blurb.com/books/2135085 to see a preview of the inside.
I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m making a book for my senior project. Well, it’s all put together now and in the system. Since they don’t do perfect binding or hardback printing in town I had to send my file to a book making website. Most of these sites are for personal/professional photography and trade sized books. The site I used had a lot of options for size and covers and paper stock. Mine is a an 8 inch by 10 inch image wrap, that means it’s a hard back cover without a jacket, and the cover art is printed directly on the front.
There are twelve original poems on the inside paired with images that I made for my senior project class and for part of my illustration classes. Now all I have to do is wait for it to get shipped to me and we’re in business. Speaking of business, there is another cool thing about sites like this. Most of them allow you to sell your books on their site. You set your price and how you want to get paid and wa-la your book is out their in the world available to potential buyers. You only have to order one copy for yourself (at least on this site), and then you’re good to go. Once I get paypal figured out I’m going to do this myself so if you want to order a copy just follow the link. I won’t mind if you don’t though since its going to be about 36 bucks a copy plus shipping. (Because I did a hard cover image wrap it was not exactly cheap to print).
All in all it’s been a pretty cool senior project and I got to learn about self publishing via the interwebs. Cool
Literature’s Most Wanted (shameless plug!) April 18, 2011
Posted by Christine in Class, interesting, Random.Tags: creative writing, literature, literature's most wanted, poems, short stories
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guess who I am
I think I mentioned this a few times before in previous post, but my creative writing class has to get together and do a “public creative event” and advertise it to the school. We spent the last fifteen minutes or so in class for the past few weeks figuring out how we wanted to fanaggle a little blog for your reading pleasure. And finally here it is, Saint Francis’s creative writing class all together and giving you sweet, sweet literature at our shiny new blog. We don’t have everyone’s stuff up yet, but pretty soon we will and you can read at your leisure; poems, stories, whatever you fancy.
If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s a group mug shot we’ve got going here. I put it together in Photoshop a few days ago which was pretty fun considering how photogenic all of my classmates are. We even have Dr. Prall in there!
Portfolio Review Day April 18, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, Random.Tags: portfolio review day
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poster/ illustration by Mikey Burton
This Thursday we had an (annual?) lecture/lunch/portfolio review at the Rolland art building. The speaker was a guy named Mikey Burton who had a lot of amazing work to show us. He had a great sketchbook and roughs to show us which was nice because you could see all the cognitive work that goes into illustration and design before a project is finally started. Also he likes beards, and bears (just thought you might like to know). Check out his stuff here: http://www.mikeyburton.com/
After that we went downstairs and laid out all our best work to be reviewed and critiqued by local art directors, Mikey came too to look at our things which was pretty cool. It was scary getting everything together and going in front of all these head honchos but it was helpful and definitely worth it. I’ve been reading up on freelance illustration and it’s sort of a dream to get all those art directors at once looking at your work. They gave me a lot of good ideas about how to present my work like taking pictures of where and how it would be used. Also taking a business class or two, and even experimenting with making my own hand drawn typefaces more often. So definitely if you come to Saint Francis or are going here for graphic arts/communication come to the portfolio review in the spring your junior and senior years. It IS worth it.
Student Show NIIIIIGHT! April 9, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, Fort Wayne.Tags: hypnosis, rolland art gallery, student show night
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I advertised this earlier but TONIGHT is student show. My very last one. If you want to come it’s at
6-7:30 in the Rolland art building and the awards ceremony if from 7:30-9 at North Campus.
It is usually packed at Rolland but it’s a good time with food and all the good and best art we’ve been working on all year long. So come come come, please! DO IT! That’s it, you know you want to….
Sooo busy (my life as a checklist) April 2, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, Random.Tags: checklists, creative writing, portfolio, student show
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I have never been busier than I am this last semester of my senior year. Next week I have to get two illustrations done, my book designed, put my portfolio together, my logos printed, prepare for and interview, and build up a portfolio website in flash. Oh, and resize the billboard I made for the adfed project. And write four more single spaced pages of fiction which is about the equivalent length of an eight page research paper.
Today is the day to hang the student show. I went in earlier and got that done. Check. Seniors get the Weatherhead gallery which is the biggest one and you get a bunch of space and get to hang it on your own to make sure it looks nice and is spaced properly. I got six of my images in and they all look pretty good with white floating frames. That was another big check for this week. I spent pretty much all Monday and Wednesday and then Thursday night making them in our wood shop (which, if you’ve never used it, is exquisite).
Today I am devoting to the last section of my story for my advanced creative writing class. Since we turn in four times as much fiction as in the first class we are allowed to make bigger works, or smaller works, or any works in between. The main goal is to teach us about fiction and get us into a writing habit so we can be writers instead of just have a story we wrote one time for some class in college. My work specifically is longer and will reach the minimum for a novella by the time I’m done with it. And this might be a bit premature, but I have plans to make the story for this class part one to an even larger–get ready for it–novel.
My class is also going to be putting up a blog that fulfills the “public creative event” requirement of the class. I will definitely post a link or make a link to it through this blog when we have it up. We are pretty much just putting up stuff we are proud of or things we’ve written for class. We thought it would be a good way to keep in touch after class too and share what we have with each other and get feedback. We can also see everyone’s revised editions at the end of term instead of just the works in progress.
Huff! Now that that’s been said I’m off to get more things done on my extensive check list. Here we go.
Self Publishing–Thank you Interwebs March 18, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class.Tags: making book, self publishing, spread example
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I hope to finish two more images for my senior project before spring break is over. And then I can start working on the layout. I already have my typefaces chosen and the layout is pretty self explanatory since most of them are organized around my illustrations. I laid this out before leaving for break and I really like the way the font works with it so far. The header is called elephant and the body and the subhead is centaur which tickled me since my book is sort of strange, the font titles kind of work. If I were superstitious, I’d have to say it was preordained.
After that happens, and all my spreads have been laid out ect, the real fun begins and I can start working on a cover. Finally I need to research publishers that I can send it too, have them print and bind a couple of copies and then wa-la! I really have to crunch to get this done though if I want to put it in the student show which is only weeks away.
I’ve already done a tiny bit of research and its pretty cool what you can do with just a little bit of money. There are plenty of sites out there were you can print copies of your novel or whatever. You just type in the number of copies you want and all the details. Then they give you a quote right there. Most sites all you have to do is type in the number of copies you want and all the details (any full bleeds, have you made the cover yourself, have you picked the type yet, how many pages, paper, hard back, soft back, and so on). It’s actually pretty cool.
Victorian package design–in PINK March 6, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, interesting.Tags: jello cheesecake, modern, redesign, Victorian
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Our latest design project was to create a modern package design utilizing Victorian design elements. The first step was to buy the original package to re-design. Mine was Jello no-bake cheesecake. My design was subtle but I used a fancy silver platter to showcase the cheesecake that wouldn’t have been out-of-place then and a banner which was a popular element in the Victorian era. Then, like always, we critique–then make changes–then print, trim, and construct the package. The next phase in my design process is to make the cheesecake and stuff my face–mhm, indeed *strokes curly mustache*.
Writing, writing, writing–oh yeah March 6, 2011
Posted by Christine in Class, Random.Tags: artist statement, creative writing, crows, method and madness, on beauty, research paper
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I’ve made a previous post about my creative writing class, but its going so well I’m going to do another one. Each week we read a book called Method and Madness which is full of short stories and thoughts on writing them–sort of a handbook–but nice and thick, and the novel On Beauty by Zadie Smith. We also do three fiction entries in our personal journals. On top of all of that sweetness, we sign up to submit four to five single spaced pages of fiction four times over the course of the semester.
I just turned in my second entry. My first entry was sort of a sci-fi/fable and I didn’t have enough space to fit it all into five pages so I submitted the same story again-this time with much more detail and clarity. It’s about a young woman excluded by her village because she has purple eyes, the same color as the weird native people that live in the woods. The story takes place in the present while she’s on her way through the woods to see her dying mother. Weird crows live in the woods too, grimpet crows, that can turn people into homicidal maniacs. I still haven’t finished it yet, but its okay if we expand our stories which I’m trying to do with this one–maybe a novelette or a novela (if I ever become super-ambitious).
We have a lot of variety of fiction in the class which is cool. Every time a group of people submits their fiction we read it and come back to class and critique everyone’s writing, talking about strengths, areas to improve on or expand. This Monday we brainstormed about our class assignment, which is to come up with a public creative event and we had the idea to create a blog that showcased our writing, and it would double as a way to keep in touch after the class is over.
In senior project we had a writing assignment this week too; artist statements. Artist statements are usually pretty short, just a few paragraphs but they are one of the hardest things to write because you’re writing all about yourself and your work. You want to give a sense about what your work is all about, what is means to you, and what your goals as an artist are while being really specific and maintaining a reader’s interest. We had a lot of help and revised two and three times though. Finally this week we read them out loud and helped each other with more suggestions to make them better.
A lot of times when I’m writing a paper I remember freshmen year when writing of any kind for school was always a huge deal and eight page research papers felt insurmountable. As you go along, it becomes a lot less dramatic and you find that they sort of force you to figure out what your opinions are and how to analyze the way things are.
And a word on revisions: I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter. ~James Michener
Anyway, YAY writing!
Addy’s Prom Night cont.! February 27, 2011
Posted by Christine in art, Class, festive, Fort Wayne, interesting, Random.Tags: addy award night, Adfed Fort Wayne, Prom Night, sweetness
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At about six last night, I had gotten all gussied up for prom night and a couple of my friends (my dates; students who helped with addy’s too) came and picked me up. I even got to descend a flight of stairs when this happened. (They were concrete, but it was still pretty sweet.)
The Fort Wayne Museum of Art looked amazing, and there were all kinds of delicious foods out for us. Everyone was dressed to impress of course in their prom finery–bow ties and pearls abound. We didn’t have much time to look at the work, but we had helped hang the show (which went off without a hitch) so we had already seen everything. And then all of us Saint Francis students, and some IPFW students too, had our prom pic taken by a guy with a giant afro.
After the drinking and mingling came to a peak, we all got together and watched the awards being displayed in movie format on a huge projector. In between categories we got to see lots of bad, goofy, sometimes frightening dancing, which was hilarious and awesome. Some really spectacular adverting and design too; from self promotional designs, to web design, television commercials, logo design, everything from all sorts of agencies in the Fort Wayne area. Agencies like: One Lucky Guitar, Boyden and Youngblutt, Britton Marketing, BIG, LaBov and Beyond. Some of the clients you might recognize like Parkview, the Indiana State Fair, Fort Wayne Airport, and Vera Bradley.
Then came the student category. One of our students got around six or seven addy awards! AND my date won best in show for the students! AND I got a gold addy for my LGBTQ article about gay bullying leading to suicides among young men! All in all, Saint Francis completely owned in the student section.
Needless to say it was a magical evening.
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