Avatar-ded

This is an Adobe Photoshop project from Computer Art I, sophomore year at SLU. The assignment was to use Photoshop to edit a picture of yourself to look like a monster. James Cameron's Avatar was in theaters, and while I wasn't wild about the movie itself, I thought the visuals were gorgeous and really liked the overall design ethic. I tried to keep my original skin texture as much as possible. 

I remember it being pretty well received by my professor and classmates. Most people had done vampires and zombies, and they liked my more understated approach.

Nightmare Before Christmas Fanart from High School

I was and still am obsessed with Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, and while I was terrified of it as a child when it came out in 1994 (I was in kindergarten), I rediscovered it in high school. I watched it over and over; when I had the whole film memorized, I watched it and memorized it in French. I bought books about it and studied the history of stop-motion animation. I made a few figurines out of clay and fabric scraps and brought them to school and everyone was fascinated by them.

First I made a vampire duck out of Sculpey.

Then I made another vampire duck, this time with rotating wheels on axles:

Then I made a Pumpkin King scarecrow from the opening credits.

Then, with my improved  mastery of the materials, I made Jack and Sally dolls.

I made a clay swirl lollipop for a figurine of Barrel, and a teeny tiny Oogie Boogie with a pair of little snake eyes dice.

To take the craziness even further, I dressed up as Sally that year in my personally sewn together costume, complete with white-out contacts. People really liked it and a few told me it was the best costume they'd ever seen. I submitted it to the official Daniel Radcliffe website and got a swag bag of Harry Potter stuff for coming in 2nd in their online costume contest.

I made a diorama of Vincent, which is an early short film of Burton's on the extras of the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD. 

This particular piece caught the eye of my music teacher, Greg Schweitzer, and since he knew Ken Page (the voice actor who played Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas) from working summer stock at the Muny in Forest Park, he surprised me with Ken Page's autograph. It said, "To Cecily - Keep Smilin! Best Wishes and BOO! Ken Page Oogie Boogie 2004."

Art Nouveau Brittany

Senior year at SLU, independent study project.

This is an Adobe Illustrator portrait of my friend Brittany Goh with her strumstick, done in the style of Alphonse Mucha. Brittany is a talented musician, singer-songwriter, photographer, and all-around renaissance woman. We went to high school together; she was a year below me. She goes to Earlham, and looks just like Ellen Page.

Visit her at
http://sonorousbritt.tumblr.com/

Female Nudes in Charcoal

These are a series of figure drawing nudes of the same model, done senior year at SLU. Sketch duration was anywhere from 3 minutes long to 10 minutes. Figure Drawing took place in 2-hour-long sessions in the evening once or twice a month, and since it was not part of the official curriculum, anyone who wanted to draw could come even if they weren't enrolled in an art class. 

Jen with a Pearl Earring

This is a picture of a high school classmate, taken in freshman year. I kind of became fixated on how much she looked like Vermeer's painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, and so I convinced her to let me take some pictures of her in the study room of the school library. I made a pair of earrings for her out of polymer clay and some shimmery nail polish. 

The most recent version, enhanced in Photoshop:

The original Vermeer, for comparison:

The first version, done in MS Paint: