Giraffe Tree Frog Acrylic Painting
After the success of my 2018 Fruit Frog painting series, by 2020 I thought it was time to begin a new one. Following in the spirit of the Fruit Frog pieces being species of names after fruit, I eventually decided my successor series should be frog species named after other animals. Creating a series of pieces with multiple animal subjects would be more difficult than focusing on a single frog, especially considering how enormous these animals could be in comparison to the tiny frogs named after them. On top of that, I wanted to push past the white backgrounds of my Fruit Frogs and create fully realized scenes. However, I have always loved all animals, not just frogs, and I am always up for a challenge! So while my mother was working on her life-sized paper-mache giraffe Jazz, in the summer of 2019 I set my ambitious series in motion with a painting of my own giraffe and Giraffe Tree Frog.
Rogue (Malinois X) Watercolor Painting
In May, 2019, the family of one of my closest friends Robby held a graduation celebration at their house for Robby, our equally close friend Harry, and myself. It was exciting to have graduated from Wilmington Early College High School and Cape Fear Community College after five years, and for us to be able to spend time with our families. But in addition to that, my friend’s parents told me they were interested in commissioning a painting from me of Robby’s wonderfully energetic Malinois X named Rogue. I had met Rogue several times at this point, so I was equally excited by this opportunity not only to paint a dog I knew and cared for, but to be able to make it for a friend.
Twilight Toad (Southern Toad) Gouache Painting
The best part of taking Color Theory my first semester at UNCW was the experience of trying gouache paints for the first time. For years at this point I had enjoyed working with both acrylics and watercolors, and I had a feeling that if I could master gouache, which combines some of the two media’s best traits, I might come to appreciate gouache even more. However, for the purposes of our class, we only worked with gouache briefly with strict requirements. Making my NC Native gouache paintings there was a great learning experience for me, and our color scheme restrictions required me to be creative about how I painted each of my frogs. However, I wanted to move beyond those 4”x4” paintings and experiment further with gouache on my own. So after taking Digital Photograph that Spring and taking a beautiful photo of a Southern Toad in my neighborhood, I thought I would use that toad that summer as the subject of my first personal gouache painting.
Wallace’s Gliding Frog Ceramic Painting
Ever since my first visit to a ceramic painting studio in 2009, my favorite way to celebrate my birthday has been to visit one and paint a plate or tile with underglazes. As someone who typically spends weeks at minimum on each painting, knocking out a painting in a day or two with family or friends is incredibly fun and relaxing to me. Additionally, I enjoy the challenge of trying to create something a little better and more ambitious each year. By March 2020, it had been well over a year since I had created a ceramic painting there, so that Spring break seemed like a great opportunity. My mom had been suggesting that I create more active frog paintings, so I though a Wallace’s Gliding Frog would be a perfect subject. After all, what is more active than a tree frog gliding down from rainforest treetops by using their toe webbing like a parachute?
Southern Leopard Frog 3D Model
One of the classes I took during my first semester at UNCW was 3D Computer Graphics, where I was taught to create digital, three-dimensional models using Autodesk Maya. Our first three projects for the course had certain requirements and limitations, but our last project gave us total freedom to create nearly anything we could imagine. Naturally, I wanted to sculpt a realistic frog, and since I had liked the Cane Toad model I had made for Project 3, I thought I would start by creating something similar. However, I never really liked the completely symmetrical, static pose I had sculpted my Cane Toad in, so for this project I wanted to push myself further by sculpting a frog in the most active, exciting post I could come up with. Thinking back, I could not help recalling the shockingly graceful, arcing leaps of local Southern Leopard Frogs I had witnessed in person, and thought the species would be a perfect subject for this task. If time allowed, I hoped I would even be able to sculpt multiple stages of a Southern Leopard Frog jump.
Cane Toad 3D Model
During my first semester at UNCW I took 3D Computer Graphics, where we learned how to sculpt digital models using Autodesk Maya. Each of our four projects during the semester allowed us more freedom than the last, with our third project uniquely being a partner project. Assigned in October, as a way of celebrating an early Halloween, our task was to create a combined sculpture centered around the theme of “horror.” In other words, each of us would have to create our own “horror” themed sculpture, and then we would fuse them together into some sort of monstrosity as partners. While I had no say over what my partner created, this was my first opportunity to sculpt a frog or toad in this class and I took it eagerly. As for “horror,” while perhaps not the scariest looking frog, few frogs seemed to embody the idea of horror to me more than the huge, intensely toxic, and terrifyingly invasive Cane Toad.
Peacock Tree Frogs Watercolor Painting
For my nineteenth birthday, I had the pleasure of inviting my friends over to spend an Art Club day with them, where we have fun and create and plan our coming “Super Senior Graduation Show” at ACES Gallery that May. After painting my Bornean Rainbow Toad in February, I felt inspired to create another watercolor frog scene, and after looking at pictures of different species, settled on painting the gorgeous Peacock Tree Frog. That said, I am always looking to push myself further and improve my skills, so I challenged myself to paint not one Peacock Tree Frog but two. That way, I would be able to depict this beautiful species with two radically different poses and angles. So I started my painting that April, with the goal of completing it before the end of our showcase in May.
Red-Eyed Tree Frog Watercolor Painting
I am incredibly fortunate that my parents advocate my artwork, especially as this has sometimes given me commissions. In May 2019, after my dad shared my work with some of his colleagues, one of them sent me an e-mail for my very first painting commission. Even better, it was a commission to paint a frog that she and her son had found in Costa Rica, a beautiful specimen of Red-Eyed Tree Frog. With photo references, it being the summer and with no hard deadline, and a frog being the subject, I could not have asked for a more perfect first commission. So I looked at their photographs, pulled out my 10x14 watercolor paper, and set to work.
Blue-Thighed Rain Frog Reduction Linocut
In Printmaking II at Cape Fear Community College, many of our projects centered around taking processes we used in Printmaking I, but pushing them further in some way. As one of our earliest projects in Printmaking I was to create linoleum relief prints, it was then only natural that we would use linocut prints again in Printmaking II. The difference this time instead of printing only one layer of color we would use the reduction process, in which the linoleum block is successively carved, to print several. As this was one of my first opportunities to create a multilayered print, I decided to maximize it by finding a particularly colorful and textured frog species to depict. After some time researching different frog species, I landed on the adorable Pristimantis crucifer, or Blue-Thighed Rain Frog.
Bornean Rainbow Toad Watercolor Painting
After my friends’ and my first gallery show at Art in Bloom Gallery, Amy Grant, the gallery owner, invited me to submit a piece or two to the their “New Year, New Art” exhibit to be shown between February and March of 2019. Honored by the offer, I dedicated myself to my Sculpture II and Printmaking II classes that semester, determined to create something in one of those classes worthy of submitting to the gallery show. I was so involved in this that I only realized February 2 none of my projects would be finished in time for the February 5 submission deadline. So I hurriedly began a brand new piece, an 11”x17” watercolor of a beautiful endangered frog species I had recently learned about called the Bornean Rainbow Toad.
Archey’s Frogs Acrylic Painting
I created this painting for Earth Day, where I was going to sell endangered animal artwork with my friends. I had been wanting to do a painting of an Archey's Frog family for a while, and this was a perfect opportunity, given their critically endangered status. I hoped to accomplish two things with this painting- reveal the loving bond of this father and his children, and embrace the beauty of nature. This allowed me a chance to improve at creating more convincing compositions. Additionally, by focusing on Archey's Frogs, which are one of the few frog species which raise their young, I was able to share a connection between frogs in a way I had never done before. In fact, I had never even painted a juvenile frog before! I absolutely love how this painting turned out, and I improved as an artist through creating it!
Horned Frog Ceramic Sculpture
One of my favorite classes I was able to take at Cape Fear Community College was Ceramic I during the Spring, 2019 semester, a class focused on sculpting with different hand-building techniques. The first type of hand-building we were taught was pinch-pots, where you form a ball of clay, dig a hole in the center with your thumb, and then press around the clay from the base towards the edges to pinch the ball form into a pot. Our first assignment then was to create a sculpture using two pinch-pots combined into a fully enclosed spherical form. Fortunately for me, it did not have to remain a rounded shape, only include one, so I eagerly thought of ways to turn my project into a frog. After looking at images of different frog species, I realized there were not many species more rounded in form than a Horned Frog, and decided that was what I would create for my assignment.
Diving Frog Acrylic Painting
I began this painting in the beginning of June, 2014. By the end of that summer when I completed it, I was a significantly better painter. I had never spent so much time on a piece of art before, and the skills I gained through the process made it a more than worthwhile experience. This was an incredibly ambitious painting for me as I had never painted water before or so much action! By examining how water looks in motion and how lighting looks in nature, I was able to create a convincing snapshot in motion, and gain knowledge about acrylic painting and composition that would aid me in every painting I would do afterwards!