Black Taurus

Things Keep Getting Eaten Podcast

2010-04-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a little treat for y'all: it's a podcast i made earlier on this year using garage band. It's not very long but i think it's a little funny/ironic. It's on how a lot of animals just seem to be getting eaten left and right all the time. Enjoy!

Funny Movie part2

2010-04-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

And here is part two of my funny video Cats and Dogs. Enjoy more laughs and silly pet moments. :3

My Funny Video

2010-04-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here is another video i made in i-movie only it's my long awaited funny video. I used clips of the cats and dogs my parents have, threw 'em together, added a little music, and made this. Oh and like my art autobio i had to cut the movie in half so i could upload it so here is part one! Enjoy! :3

My Art Autobio prt 2

2010-03-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

More Pieces

2010-03-02T09:58:00.001-08:00

Like i said i don't know how long ago, here are the newest pics i have of some pieces that i did both sophomore and senior year. They're all 3D work since i finally gathered them up to be photographed. So w/o further ado, here are more of my pieces. :3

Together (Sophomore Year)

Clay and Glaze

Yay an oldy...well not really, i did do this one back in sophomore year so it wasn't that long ago. Anywho, with this piece i think it was just a random assignment i can't really remember, but i wanted to do something on the essence of being "together" with the one you love. No they are not dinosaurs, i think i was just going for an abstract idea but in a way yeah they do kinda look like sauropods (long necked dinosaurs). And as for the color of them...that was one of my first times working with glaze so yeah they didn't turn out the exact color i was planning, but it still looks great. Oh and FYI, the darker one is supposed to be the "guy" or the leading one in the relationship and the lighter colored one is the "girl" or the one that gets spoiled 24/7. LOL. !!!SPOILER!!!: this piece appears in my autobio vid!

Baby T-rex

Clay and Glaze

Caballero

Clay and Glaze

Moonflower

Clay and Glaze

Hard-boiled Egg

Clay and Glaze

Snowfire

Clay and Glaze

Master Ball

Clay and Glaze

Jackalope

Material and Stuffing

Styracosaurus Head (Concentration Piece #4)

Toothpicks and Glue

Triceratops Defense Formation (Clay Version) (Concentration Piece #5)

Clay and Wood

My Art Autobio prt 1

2010-03-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry it took so long to upload this video but i finally found out why it was taking so long before: it was too big! So i've cut my video into two parts so here's part one! Enjoy my craptastic camera skills and some of my artwork on video!

SNOWING!!!

2010-02-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

Todays it's snowing up to 3 feet and rising outside! YAY!! No i don't have any new pics to post but i will by next week so there's that to look forward to. Till then here's a quick pic i made in photoshop to commemorate the falling snow outside! Enjoy! :3

"Snowfall" (Photoshop)

More Senior Pieces

2010-02-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Just like i said here are some more pics of some more pieces that i've done my senior year (this year). I am also working on a concentration series so i'll post the pieces from that when i get the pics. So they won't all be in one post, they'll be in whatever post i put them in (i will tell which is a concentration piece or not). Also the pics of my concentration pieces that are made of clay, i will have pics of them before and after they were glazed as an "in case" they blew up in the kiln. It's still kinda cool cause you'll get to see the before and after glazing/firing process.

Abstract Plaster Piece

Plaster

My original idea for this piece was different from what it came out looking like. What happened was my original idea was kinda hard to do in plaster so the piece kept falling apart and ended up looking like this. But on the positive side it still looks pretty good...even kinda looks like a Triceratops head almost.

Watusi (Original and Glazed) (Concentration Piece #1) 5" x 8" x 5 1/2"

Clay and Glaze (color: Dejan Brown)

Surprise, i have to do another concentration series this year but this one i think is much more fun than the last one. Only difference is this one is in 3D and i have more of a clue on what I'm doing this time around. So for my concentration series i have decided to do it on horned animals (alive, extinct, and "mythical") since i find them VERY interesting. So my first piece is of a bovine creature called a Watusi (yes it actually exists, you can google it). This one is made of clay but is actually hollow-- i did this by throwing (in ceramics class) a closed shape, which is a hollow ball which is VERY tricky to do, and then added the head, horns, and ears. The scary parts was firing it cause i had to poke a bunch of holes in it so while it fired all the air inside could escape, and hope it didn't explode--which as u can see it didn't. Then after i glazed it and fired it again, i was planning on getting a tan/brown color but where i put a thick coat of glaze it turned out kinda blue-ish; but that's ok. When u glaze it's like a surprise cause u don't know exactly how the glaze will turn out.

Gemsbok, Ibex, Ram Trio (Original) (Concentration Piece #2) 3 1/4" x 1 1/4" x 6 1/2"

Clay

These three pieces are about the size of your hand but i did that on purpose. Though they are small they are all one piece and the overall size isn't what u r supposed to be looking at. The point (no pun intended) of my series is the horns of the animals and what they look like and how they add to the appearance of the animals. With this piece, the horns going from the left to the right curve, going from straight in the gemsbok, to completely curved on the ram. The position of the head also adds to the look of the horns. This piece hasn't been glazed yet but i will add the pictures here when they are glazed.

Senior Pieces

2010-01-26T10:20:00.001-08:00

Now that I have pics of them here of some of the pieces that I've done this year as a senior. These aren't all of them so there will be more later on. Oh and I needed to have two views of each piece so that's why u r kinda seeing double--don't worry u r not crazy. :3

Apple of Your Eye (Summer Assignment) 7 3/4" x 7 3/4" x 8 3/4"

Styrofoam, Paint, and a Toothpick

This was one of the assignments i had to do the summer of my senior year. One we could do whatever we wanted so long as it was 3D. So i took one of the examples my teacher gave which was to do a saying like "Pig in a blanket" and instead did "Apple of your eye". This piece was pretty easy to make, the trickiest part was carving up the apple shape and the groove in the iris cause the excess foam got all over everything. Ack!

Foil Christmas Tree (Summer Assignment)

Foil, Plastic Hangers, Green Spraypaint, and Duct Tape

Now this one i'd been playing around with the idea and finally decided to try it. At first i was planning for it to be able to stand on its own but the hangers weren't sturdy enough to hold the whole thing up so it's become a hanging piece (In the left pic of the tree i had to photoshop my hand out of the pic lol). My favorite part with working with this piece was spray painting it. Never got to work with spray paint before and it was alot of fun! hee hee :3

Giant Toothpick (Summer Assignment) 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 27 1/2"

Over 1600 toothpicks and glue

Actually the 1600 is a rough estimation cause i wasn't really counting how many i was using till my sister pointed out that i probably should. The boxes of toothpicks i had were 800 in each so this is a rough idea of how many toothpicks i used. The BFT (big friggin toothpick) is not hollow, it is solid toothpick, i had to work on this from the inside out--which wasn't really hard to do since the shape stays pretty much the same. i had to start cutting the toothpicks in half though when i started getting to the points. It was a very sticky business (no pun intended) lol.

Balance 10 1/8" x 7 3/4" x 8 1/2"

Wood and Paint

With this piece i had no idea what i was gonna do at first. I pretty much just gathered a bunch of little bits of spare wood at school and started playing around with them to see what i got. Finally i decided i wanted to do something that curves and moves but still balances thus the name. Then when it was all glued together i painted it blue because i thought the blue was a nice color and i wanted the piece to look real mellow and smooth. And cause i like blue.

My Artist Statement

2010-01-07T10:25:00.001-08:00

I think I needed to put my artist statement on here too so here it is. :3

Artist Statement

Things that interest me create a sense of life in my work. In my direct observation pieces that sense is almost exact; I try to draw the subject as realistically as possible, almost like I’m trying to draw a photograph. In other drawings and ceramic work, that sense of life also exists but less realistically. The messages portrayed in my work differ with each piece. It’s in my direct observation pieces that the message is pretty straightforward. I drew what seemed interesting to me so that the audience could see the subject through my eyes. I want the viewer to wonder about the message, to guess the meaning of the piece.

I feel that art states an opinion or even tells a story by using images instead of words. In my work each piece tells a story, and sometimes states an opinion, using imagery.

3D pieces in show

2009-11-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

I know these pics are kinda late but these are the two 3D pieces i put in the art show i was in :3

Vertex Senior Year Phonebook Paper

This is a piece that i did in my AP-3D class and we had to make something using rolled up phonebook paper and hot glue. i started out with a diamond shape and this is what i got in the end. The tricky part with this was not only rolling up the paper as thin as i could, but also to avoid leaving hot glue strings; those little suckers are so hard to see!

Sittin' Bull Senior Year Wood

Yay i've accomplished greatness! i've made something almost as big as me! This was another assignment in AP-3D class called the Chair Challenge. Basically the assignment was to make a chair; so i decided to make one based off of a bull since i love bulls. It took me a LONG time to do but i was lucky to have my uncle help me out (and it even has a tail). So i named this chair after the name my uncle thought up for it. :3

Senior Show Pieces

2009-11-09T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'm in the third senior show coming up and these are the pieces that I'm going to put in it (though i have two 3D pieces also but i don't have pics of them yet... but i will post them when i get them).

Symbol Layers 14" x 10" Freshman Year Ebony Pencil, Colored Pencil, and Sharpie

This is the last piece that i did my freshman year and is definitely one of my favorites. It's also one of my best freshman pieces so of course i put this one in the show! The black and white background is of the "mini lake" behind my dad's house and the heart with a B on it is a necklace i got from an aunt when i was little. And the Triceratops is my favorite dinosaur and the bull is my zodiac and favorite living animal. P.S.: don't tell anyone but the reason the Triceratops (the dinosaur) looks so good is because i drew an action figure i have at home.

Painting Room Still Life 24" x 18" Sophomore Year Oil Pastel

This is definitely my best still life and also my first one in full color (and with oil pastel). You may see this same still life by other people but we all have a different view of the still life so this is my view. The tricky thing for this still life though was that we weren't allowed to use black at all except for a tiny bit--so for the background i used a mix of blue and orange (complementary colors) to make it look black when it wasn't. And yes that is a pink graffiti covered shoe in the bottom right corner. FYI: i didn't put it there. :3

Hyenbull Hybrid 18" x 24" Junior Year Colored Pencil

This is definitely one of my favorite pieces and one of my best ever. This was an assignment where we had to create a hybrid animal and then show it's habitat at the top and an interesting part of it as the border. Mine is a hybrid between a bull and a hyena (i decided i wanted to fuse my favorite animal--a bull--with another animal i liked that looked pretty compatible; so that's why i picked a hyena), the habitat is the plains near the mountains of Africa, and the border is it's tail which is two tails put together. And yes my new animal is a carnivore so don't go waving anything red in front of it or it will eat you. :3

House View #1 24" x 18" Sophomore Year Oil Pastel

This is my old house on Longview that we moved out of in the middle of me doing this concentration assignment; so that's why #'s 3 and 4 are of a different house. That tree somewhat blocking the view of the house is my tree and those are the bushes my mom kept getting paranoid about trimming just right (and yes some of the leaves are red so that's not blood all over them). This house was a duplex but we made it a single family house; oh and the red above the bushes is the front door.

House View #2 24" x 18" Sophomore Year Oil Pastel

The house really looks a lot older then how i drew it in this piece and that near the bottom left is in fact a pile of trash waiting to be thrown into the alley my mom didn't want me to draw. And i know the sky looks a little too blue but the sky does get like that on some days so nyeh. There's also a better view of my tree in this piece too. And in case u didn't see at first there's a little empty flowerpot on the window sill near the corner of the house (go ahead and look i know u want to).

Double Layer Contour 24" x 18" Sophomore Year Colored Pencil

This piece is actually two different contour drawings put on top of one another and then i drew them both onto one piece of paper. One of the drawings is of the couch in the living room of my old house, the curtains behind it, the two red pillows on it, and my little black cat Percilla next to the pillow on the left. The second picture is of a portion of the backyard (also at the old house) with another of my trees, the igloo dog house my old dog Chucho used to sleep in, the gate of our neighbor, the bushes in the neighbor's backyard, and the roof of the neighbor's garage. Coloring it all in was the hardest part!

Created Still Life 24" x 18" Sophomore Year Colored Pencil

In the show i accidently gave it a new title, so in the show it's called Self in Still Life. This was a kinda fun project where you either had to find or make a still life and then put yourself somewhere in it. This is obviously a made still life (and i got to actually use a lit candle as a light source yay!) and i'm near the middle in the inside DVD cover of the Jurassic Park Box set i have. And if i didn't tell u already I'm a HUGE dinosaur fanatic so there's a ton of my dinosaur toys in this still life (which my teachers didn't particularly like) among some of my other stuff.

Concentration Piece #5 18" x 9" Junior Year Oil Pastel and Black Gesso

In my junior year the class had to do a concentration series so i did mine on tools and stuff that you'd find in a garage since i could easily visit my uncle's garage anytime i needed (and there was also a lot of stuff i could draw). I also did some stuff from our own garage and tool shed too. This particular piece is actually two "drawings" put together (FYI one of them is upside down so either way u put it one is gonna be off somehow) and the drawing was of some brushes hanging from the wall. My teacher taught me how to do a piece in this style: basically i drew the piece with oil pastels, then put a light layer of black gesso which is basically paint over it, then i used a blade to scrape some but not all of the gesso off.

Circles, Squares, and Nines 12" x 9" Junior Year Oil Pastel

This is a journey drawing we had to do last year and it's series nostalgia when i think over it. This was the first time in years that i'd done a journey drawing (the first and last times were in my freshman year) and it's harder to draw and a lot harder to color than it looks. Basically it's repetition of two shapes and a number, and also there's a dotted line running through the piece u gotta look for to find. it was fun doing this but i tried to keep the three colors not only evenly dispersed through the piece but also to keep the same color from being too close (cause then there'd be too much of that color in one spot).

More Pieces

2009-10-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

I've recently photographed more pieces, yay me. So since I'm too lazy to add these pieces into their respective post groups I'm going to put them here and list what groups they belong to. Here they are :3

Colored Contour Bottles 18" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Freshman Year

Black and White Still Life Shadows 24" x 18"

Ebony Pencil

Freshman Year

Symbol Layers 14" x 10"

Ebony Pencil, Colored Pencil, and Sharpie

Freshman Year

White Rock Lake View(Summer Assignment) 24"x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

Shapes in a Painting 11" x 14"

Colored Pencil

Sophomore Year

Arboretum Pond 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

House View 1 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

House View 2 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

House View 3 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

House View 4 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

My Resume

2009-10-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

I think I heard we needed this on our blog so here's my craptastic (whatever that means) resume:

B Smith

5222 Miller Ave.

Dallas, TX. 75206

dino_girl_briana@verizon.net

214-826-3812

Objective Statement: Seeking admission to UT Dallas

Education:

2009 Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts

Anticipated graduation: May 2010

Awards and Exhibitions:

2009 Drawing show

2009 Ceramics show

2007 Participation award for participating in the AP 2007 Art One Portfolio

Review

2007 Sculpture Exhibit in Gallery 3434 at BTWHSPVA

2007 Drawing Exhibit in Gallery 3434 at BTWHSPVA

2007 Visual Arts Scholastic Exhibit Event (VASE)

2006 Jewelry Exhibit in Gallery 3434 at BTWHSPVA

2006 Certificate of Participation in Art for Teens at Gilda’s Club

Proficiencies: Ms Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, Word Perfect

Junior Year

2009-09-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

My most recent pieces which are from my junior year (although I'm a senior now...) but anyway, these are some of my best pieces so far.

Self Portrait With Percilla(Summer Assignment) 24" x 18"

Colored Pencil

Hyenbull Hybrid 18" x 24"

Colored Pencil

Two People Contour 18" x 24"

Oil Pastel

Teapot Shadows Contour 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Circles, Squares, and Nines 12" x 9"

Oil Pastel

Sophomore Year

2009-09-22T09:55:00.001-07:00

Pieces from my sophomore year. There aren't as many but they're more advanced than the freshman ones.

Double Layer Contour(Summer Assignment) 24" x 18"

Colored Pencil

Created Still Life 24" x 18"

Colored Pencil

Black and White Still Life 24" x 18"

Ebony Pencil

Painting Room Still Life 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Hands Holding Ornaments 24" x 18"

Brown Marker

Freshman Year

2009-09-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

Now that I kinda know what I'm doing, I'm going to post pieces from my freshman year. FYI all the pieces I post will be watermarked so ignore the little "BS"s on the pieces.

Three People Contour 24" x 18"

Oil Pastel

Small Journey Drawing 18" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Objects Layers 18" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Still Life Contour 1 24" x 18"

Felt Tip Pen

Still Life Contour 2 24" x 18"

Felt Tip Pen

Still Life Contour 3 18" x 24"

Felt Tip Pen

Kitchen Utensils 24" x 18"

Felt Tip Pen and Sharpie

School Hallway 24" x 18"

Ebony Pencil

First Final Exam Still Life 18" x 24"

Ebony Pencil

Concentration Series

2009-09-17T09:57:00.001-07:00

These are the concentration pieces I had to do for junior year. Oh and I had to watermark all of them so just ignore the little "BS"s all over the pieces. ^^

Concentration Piece #1 9" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #2 12" x 9"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #3 9" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #4 8 1/2" x 11"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #5 18" x 9"

Oil Pastel and Black Gesso

Concentration Piece #6 8 1/2" x 8"

Oil Pastel and China Marker

Concentration Piece #7 11" x 9 1/2"

Oil Pastel and Black Gesso

Concentration Piece #8 9 1/2" x 9"

China Marker

Concentration Piece #9 12" x 12"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #10 9" x 12 3/4"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #11 12" x 12 1/2"

Oil Pastel

Concentration Piece #12 12" x 12 1/2"

Oil Pastel