Colleen Thornbrugh

Puddin Loaf Completed

2010-04-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here is my completed super hero trading card...

Click here to view my previous post for more info about this project and the origins of Puddin Loaf.

Graduation and these cats.

2010-04-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Lately the theme of all of art seems to be humanoid talking cats...

This is my poster for our upcoming Senior show in the gallery here at school. We all got to design our own poster and they are being printed on the large format printer over in the art department.

This is my graduation announcement. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I needed to go ahead and order them. I had them printed as postcards, and they printed kind of dark. Double bummer. No time to reprint though, so I will be sending them out Monday. Friends and family, watch out! They should be coming to a mailbox near you soon.

Puddin Loaf

2010-04-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Our current assignment for my Inspirational Design class is to create a super hero trading card. Over the semester our loving professor Bryan Ballinger has been giving us nicknames. Mine is Puddin Loaf. Cevin's is Thornmold. They are all very beautiful like that. Anyhow, we were supposed to create a character based on our nicknames and we are now designing trading cards about them. Here is the front of mine...

Doesn't he look like a sweetheart?

Cereal Box and Birds.

2010-04-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

Our latest assignment in Inspirational Design was to come up with a cereal box. We drew random words to make our titles, and I got Super Fudgie Plumpies. Sounds delicious, right? We were required to actually make the cereal and photograph it, or render it in 3D. I made my cereal out of Peep heads painted brown...

And for more viewing pleasure, check out the bird test for my senior project below. I animated the birds on paper, and then scanned all of the drawings. I colored them in photoshop and then printed them, attached to cardstock and cut them all out. After that Cevin animated them in our scene. Looks pretty cool, I think.

Birds from Colleen Thornbrugh on Vimeo.

New Hippo Puppet

2010-04-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, we finally got a good cast for our new hippo puppet. It only took us 9 tries. Yikes!

Here are a couple of images of him in our scene...

Cevin did a test animation of him running up the hill last night, and that went well. Tonight we are testing out the birds, and then if we just animate our eyeballs out we should have some form of a finished film for the spring showcase. It's going to be an interesting few weeks!

Monster Cowboys Revisited

2010-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

I did a little bit more work on the cowboy poster. I think it looks better. Check out the old one here and let me know what you think.

Senior Project

2010-03-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

Here is an image from mine and Cevin's senior project. We are working late tonight so Cevin can hopefully start animating tomorrow. The puppet in the image below is a stand-in. We made that one last semester, but after some animation tests we decided to redesign him. Our final puppet is currently in the oven, and hopefully is turning out ok. This is our fifth try on that puppet. For some reason, we have had tons and tons of malfunctions in the puppet making process with our final puppet. I will have to post some photos of the zombie reject puppets. There are a lot of them.

Anyhow, this is where we are with the lighting and general aesthetic of the film. I think it is looking pretty good personally. Cevin did the original color study, and crafted the hill out of foam. He also built the rig holding up the puppet that you can't see and he made the armature inside of the puppet. I painted the hill and everything else, and I also designed and made the puppet. It's been a lot of work! And we still have a lot to do...

(Sorry for so much chatter over one small photo. More images coming in the future...)

Watercolor

2010-03-26T13:19:00.000-07:00

Over Spring Break I got up my courage and tried out watercolors for the first time. I bought myself a 7 dollar set of paints from Walmart and a 4 dollar set of brushes that came with a plastic pallet. So this stuff is pretty high quality. I had a lot of fun, but I would love to get some feedback on how to improve. So what do you think? Here are a couple of my attempts...

And here is a watercolor that Cevin's little cousin Brock did. He's 4, and has impressive skills, don't you think?

Noodle Doodle and Dragons

2010-03-24T23:25:00.001-07:00

My friend Jimi did a noodle doodle of me and Callie...

I am pretty excited about this. Jimi did two noodle doodles before this one, and I was pretty convinced that they were both drawings of me. I don't think Jimi was as convinced, but then she did one that really was me! Awesome! Check out more of Jimi's art here: www.jimidoodle.blogspot.com

In other art news, my Artastic kids learned how to draw dragons today. They did an awesome job! For some reason all of the kids at the Boys and Girls club get really excited about drawing dragons, so we had a really good time today. Check it out...

This one is my dragon...

Monster Cowboys

2010-03-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Our latest assignment in my Inspirational Design was to design a parody of an old monster movie poster. We were each given our own poster and we had to change the name of the movie, replacing at least one word in the title. This was mine...

I decided that it might be funny to do "Destroy all Cowboys" and that it might be fun to come up with monster versions of old famous cowboy names to put on the bottom of the poster. Here are some sketches of cowboy zombies...

And this is the final poster. Honestly, I like the sketches above a little bit better...but I don't think it turned out too badly. I might have worked on it a little bit more to feel satisfied, but we were supposed to turn it in today for an online contest. So this is it, at least for now...

What do you think?

Club Tech

2010-02-25T23:15:00.000-08:00

Today I took some kids from the Boys and Girls Club on a field trip to HU to shoot a stop motion film they've been working on the past couple of weeks. I've been running a program called Club Tech on Fridays the past few months. The kids have writing and designing a one minute film, and this week we are animating! Cevin helped me out today, and we both really enjoyed ourselves. The kids did such a good job. I am very proud. We are finishing up the film tomorrow and hopefully recording sound. Should be fun! I will be sure to post the final film here for you.

Cevin took some great photos of the kids at work...

Nesting dolls, comics and tents.

2010-02-22T22:11:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things I am working on tonight...

In my design class we have been making 3D nesting dolls. Mine were supposed to be a Royal Walrus family. Here is the dad/king walrus sitting on a shelf at my house. It was actually an accident to make him shiny like that, but I thought it looked pretty cool so Cevin helped me composite it in a photo. He has a wife/queen and son/prince that I am still working on.

This is a comic that I did tonight, last minute as usual, for the school paper. Its funny because they are animals, am I right? Get it?? (I'm not very good at comics...)

And this is actually something I worked on last night, but it counts. The Boys and Girls club here is doing a tent drive for Haiti! (Check out www.ahomeinhaiti.org) It's so exciting. I hope the kids get really into it. Cadets, Juniors and Teens are the 3 age groups at the club and they are competing to see who can pay for the most tents. The group that wins gets a "super late night" at the club. Pretty cool, right?

So that's mostly everything that is going on with me at the moment. Cevin and I are still plodding along with our senior project. We've actually made some exciting progress lately, and I will try to put pics up soon. Also, I am working with some kids at the B&G club to make a little claymation film and we are shooting that this week, so I will let you know how that goes.

Oh! And I bought my very own website! Check out www.colleenthornbrugh.com! There's not much to see yet, but it's mine! Soon my blog will move over there...but don't you worry...I promise to keep you updated.

Very sincerely,
Colleen

Art Show

2010-01-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I had an art show for kids from the Boys and Girls club. It was pretty awesome. We hung the art at a local coffee show called Four Cups. Its just down the street from the club and the kids all walked over for a little opening reception. The reception was so much fun. The kids all went around and pointed out their art. They were so proud, and I was too. I think it was one of the best nights of my life, honestly. Some friends from Huntington judged the show, and the kids who won are going to be entered into a regional show. The art hung at Four Cups for about a week, and now I am hanging it up in my art room at the club. Here is a photo of one of my Artastic kids proudly pointing at his work.

I have a lot more photos from the show that I hope to post sometime.

Earthquake

2010-01-13T18:27:00.001-08:00

Horrible news came yesterday. An earthquake in Haiti. A huge one in Port-au-Prince that basically leveled the whole city. Port-au-Prince is a couple hours south of Ft. Liberte, where I've been on several mission trips. No one I know was harmed or killed...but the devastation that the people there are going through is more than I can wrap my mind around. How can you deal with that much destruction amidst that much poverty? Why did this happen? It makes my head spin. I feel like the biggest creep, sitting here comfortably at my computer. I want to get down there and deal with this with them. I feel so useless. I can't imagine what they must be feeling...

CNN report: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/13/haiti.earthquake/index.html

WAYS TO HELP...
A number of organizations are taking donations for relief funds. This site has a pretty good list of options for giving...
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/kindness/post/2010/01/how-to-help-victims-of-the-haiti-earthquake/1

You can also text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross relief efforts. Or text Yele to 501 501 to donate $5.

The organization that I work with in Haiti, The Friends of Ft. Liberte, is also putting together an Earthquake Relef Fund. You can donate through them here: http://haitifriends.tumblr.com/

That's all I've got for now. I'm heartbroken. I know most of you who read my blog probably already know all of this info, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway. Maybe it will help.

Pray constantly for these sweet people.

Christmas Dog

2009-12-23T12:11:00.001-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS BLOGWORLD!

Cevin took this of Callie the other night in front of the tree. Isn't she a cutie?

Artastic!

2009-12-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

I took my camera to Artastic today, and I thought I'd share some stuff with you. Maybe you're tired of hearing about my Artastic class, but it makes me really excited so I'm going to share anyway...

Today we drew Christmas nutcrackers, and they turned out really great. The kids really amaze me with these kind of projects, because I showed them step by step how to draw a nutcracker and they still all look really unique...

I had a bunch of boys in my class today, which is cool because its usually all girls...

And here are some torn paper Poinsettias the kids did last week. I don't know how much they really look like Poinsettias, but I thought they still turned out pretty nicely...

That's all for now. Cevin and I are going to out of town for the holidays, so I won't be able to teach Artastic for two weeks so that's a little sad. BUT when I get back we are having an art show! It's going to be at at the 509, which is just down the street from the Boys and Girls Club and I am really excited!! If you are from around here...maybe you can stop by and check it out. And if you aren't from around here...but you love me a lot...maybe you could still stop on by. I think it'll be worth it. :)

Senior Project progress...

2009-12-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a rough animation test Cevin just did with the new hippo puppet...

Hippo Puppet Test from Cevin Thornbrugh on Vimeo.

HIPPO TIME

2009-12-15T17:02:00.001-08:00

I have some thrilling news! Cevin and I finished our first hippo puppet for our senior project! He's full or error and will definitely not be used in our final production, but we've been working on him for a few weeks so it's cool to see him complete.

Check this guy out....

Look how happy he's making everyone...

Here is a snapshot of the mold we used to make him. Maybe it'll help you understand the process a little bit. We sculpted him our of clay originally and then used that clay sculpt to make this mold. Then we used this mold to make a foam puppet. Presto!

Vote Chris Christmas...

2009-12-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

Well I accidentally left my camera in Hamilton after Thanksgiving, so I don't have anything of mine to post. But I thought I'd share this video with you. After watching it I hope you'll support this cause as much as I do.

Vote Chris Christmas Rodriguez to replace Santa this year.

2009-11-24T00:49:00.000-08:00

First of all, sorry for my severe lack of updates. It's been a busy semester!

I promise to have some photos of stuff from mine and Cevin's senior project soon, but for now here is small update on my Artastic class...

I started a new thing called "Featured Artist" at Artastic and it is going over pretty well. Each week one kid is chosen to be featured for something they did in class the week before. Their art is hung on the door and they get to wear a construction paper crown during class! Here is the Featured Artist from a couple weeks ago...

And here are a couple photos the kids working and their finished projects. Last week we did cut paper collages with watercolor pencils. They turned out pretty cool...

Today we did Fauve style self portraits and they turned out awesome! I will try to post photos of them soon.

Hope everyone is enjoying Thanksgiving week!

2009-10-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

Last week at Artastic we made self portrait mosaics from magazines and construction paper. It was a pretty time consuming project and most of the kids didn't get it done. But the ones that did get finished turned out pretty cool...

This week we had a Where the Wild Things Are theme. On Monday the kids designed their own wild things and paint them with washable paints. They really liked using the paints, and their wild things turned out pretty cool...

On Wednesday, they had parent/teacher conferences so I only had one kid. We were going to make wild things out of clay. Instead she made an elephant, which actually I guess is a wild thing. I think I will do clay again on Monday...

2009-09-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

I recently started teaching the Artastic class at the Boys and Girls Club. I really really like it, and I thought I'd share some of the stuff we've been doing there with you.

Last week we talked about warm and cool colors. The first project we did was a self portrait called "Wild Side/Calm Side." The idea was to draw themselves split in half, making one side of themselves really crazy and the other side relatively calm. Then they had to color their wild sides in warm colors and their calm sides in cool colors. Most of the kids took their drawings home, but I put a few up on the wall...

The one below is mine. It's too bad I don't have a photo of Cevin's Wild Side/Calm Side. He is really proud of it. He's been enjoying doing the projects with me when I prepare for class.

After Wild Side/Calm Side we did a project called Warm Hands. I got these templates online of concentric circles and diamonds and had the kids trace their hands on them. Then they had to paint the inside of their hands with warm colors and the outsides with complementary cool colors. This was a good one because we reinforced warms and cools and talked about complementary colors and practiced with water colors. I think they turned out pretty nice...

Today we did collages. I had the kids choose a color and then find images in magazines that were all shades and tints of that color. Here's some of the kids working...

Here are mine and Cevin's collages. Cevin chose blue and I chose red. I thought this was a fun project and I think the kids enjoyed it too. On Wednesday I think we are going to do mosaics.

So that's it so far! I got the ideas for these projects from ArtProjectsForKids.org and I am planning on doing a few more from that site too. It's really cool. Also I will be posting the Artastic projects here weekly hopefully so stay tuned!

2009-09-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

So Cevin and I have started working on our Senior Project. The working title is "Hippo's Hope." Its about a hippo who dreams that he can fly. We got the idea from a poem by Shel Silverstein. It's going to be a stop motion film, and will be making the puppets out of foam. This picture is the beginning of a rough sculpt for the main character. What do you think?

2009-09-03T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hi there. Welcome to my new blog.

Cevin and I got married about 3 weeks ago, and my last name changed. So I needed to change my blog, email and twitter as well. Everything is cathornbrugh now, as in Colleen Annette Thornbrugh. Exciting! The wedding was beautiful and totally perfect. We are looking forward to getting our pictures back from the photographer (my friend Kelli Dailey,www.thirdlinestudios.com) within the next week or so. Until then, here is a little preview for you...

Kelli just sent me this one...

In other exciting news, my Junior Project from last year got into the Chicago International Children's Film Festival! I made the film with my friend Jimi Bonogofsky (www.jimidoodle.blogspot.com). Its a little animated documentary about what kids in Huntington, IN are thinking about. It'll be screening among 200 other films at the festival in October.

Check it out!

Colleen King, Jimi Bonogofsky-I Think I Might Be from Huntington Digital Media Arts on Vimeo.