The Apartment

I haven't finished this piece because I felt like it looked better this way. I live in an age where young adults that are my age, work and live for the weekend (I don't anymore, I work at a restaurant). This was inspired by my generation of people who work and live for the weekend, we do what is needed to be done and live for the weekend later. It's called The Apartment

This was done using watercolored pencils and light pen

Mirrors

I was feeling down and at the same time creative, the only way I really express myself is in drawing/painting through my pieces. This piece is no different, it's called Mirrors. I used bits of broken CD-don't worry it wasn't Beyoncé-and created the illusion of a shattered heart by (in the color version) using watercolor paints.

I used the illusion of broken CD because I wanted to get across the message that you can't play a broken CD, therefore, the music's stopped. You're left looking in the bits of broken CD and seeing your reflection, while at the same time your heart is broken.

I'll also do a tutorial on how to take an old CD and DESTROY it to make a masterpiece.

Marilyn Monroe

When I was in high school, I was emailing around to try to get sponsored to be a juried artist at the SoFlo ArtCenter. Being a juried artist essentially means that you pay them rent for a studio and you get a certain space (depends completely on your budget) to present your art work, no matter what medium and when I heard about the program I was psyched.

Anyway, while emailing around, I found a potential sponsor, who I unfortunately lost contact with who wanted me to draw a picture of Marilyn Monroe from the Playboy magazine and he said that if he liked it he would be happy to sponsor me. I think I did a pretty good job.

This is the original picture I drew from, Marilyn Monroe as Playmate of the Month in December of 1953

This is my drawing. I was in love with it until after I colored it. I decided to use watercolor for the skin and hair because it's very soft and light like Marilyn Monroe's features. I used acrylic paint for the background, this is all done on sketchbook paper.

Freestyle Graffiti

I'm not a professional tagger or anything but one day I got bored and decided to do some freehand drawing. I posted a status on my Facebook that said 'If you like this status, I'll draw your name in graffiti letters and post it on your wall/timeline. These aren't all of the names, just some of my favorite, all done with Sharpie Marker.

Here's what I came up with:

Biggest picture: Jean, Top right: Brittney, Middle left: Eric, Bottom left: Vanessa, Middle bottom: Shanice, Bottom right: Todd

Artist Spotlight: Vik Muniz

Brasilero, Artist-I think we're soulmates.

Vik Muniz is the first artist to be featured in my artist spotlight. I love to give credit where credit is due and this man deserves credit for his artistic abilities. He can literally make treasure out of trash!

What initially drew me to Vik Muniz was the fact that he is Brazilian (Viva Brasil!) and the fact that he's just amazing at what he does. That's why he's just one of my favorite artists.

Vik Muniz use to work for an advertising company back in São Paulo, Brazil. While on his way to a gala, he witnessed a street fight and attempted to break it up. Muniz was shot in the leg and one of the men involved in the fight, paid him money which he used to travel to New York. This is where we came to the wonderful and spectacular Vik Muniz.

His most famous piece is Waste Land it is also a documentary of Muniz's work, it's available on Netflix if you have it and probably available on YouTube for free somehow. But this work was about the catadores (garbage pickers, recyclers) of Jardim Gramacho which is one of the site of one of the largest waste lands in the world and their strifes of life-including getting paid to pick through trash and recycle. The recycling team is comprised of people of all ages. It was also the site of Vik Muniz's most popular project. Anyway, the proceeds from the documentary were donated back to the catadores of Jardim Gramacho back in Brazil.

Aside from being a humanitarian of some sorts, Muniz has also given to us, his magical works of art, he's created pieces using diamonds, caviar, chocolate, wire, sugar, thread and even air! How do you ask? He's simply a genius who wants to create piece of nostalgia buy using materials some of us touch/use everyday.

How can you be a humanitarian and an artist at the same time? Be Vik Muniz :D. If you want to watch a trailer for Waste Land the documentary you can click here: The Waste Land Documentary Trailer and if you would like to view all of Muniz's work, you can head to: Vik Muniz Online

Below are some of my favorite pieces done by Vik Muniz.

This piece is called Apple Tree, After Gerhard Richter and is done using thread. (1994)

This piece is called Ironing Woman (Isis) and is made out of garbage (Made during the filming of Waste Land in 2008)

This piece is called Paparazzi and is made out of chocolate. (1997)

This piece is called Valentina, the Fastest and is made out of sugar. (1996)

Weekend at Wynwood

One of my earliest mixed media collages, this creation was done using the distressed paper technique, I will do a tutorial for the salt technique and for the distressed paper technique in the future. But basically, the distressed paper technique is done using Scotch tape and paper, you can give it a aged looked by pressing the tape to the paper and carefully ripping up the tape and painting over the paper in a yellow, this can be a sunny yellow color but go as light as you can. You can also glaze over it to give it a laminated look.

This piece was inspired by one weekend my cousins and I attended Miami ArtWalk. It's very fun, it can get a little too crowded for my liking sometimes but it's a lot of fun considering I'm an art geek and this is Miami. There are a couple of stickers that I took from some of the galleries, one of the galleries were giving out free cupcakes and that kitty was printed on the box so I decided it would be cute to put the kitty in this piece.

This piece is done using magazine print/distressed technique, acrylic paint and of course the printed media from the box. It's also done on paper in a sketchbook.

Black Ballerina

Growing up, my sister was always involved involved in some sort of singing or dancing activities, she's a performing arts freak. She lives and breathes dance, it's her passion. She lived her dream when she became a part of her high school's dance program, now disbanded unfortunately.

I would work together with her to create costumes for her dance recitals and still to this day I give her ideas and help her create her dream costume for her shows. This painting was inspired by her, the Black Ballerina. It shows a Ballerina, who is resting, she looks nervous, her eyes are closed, she's not sure if she's good enough for the stage but she is about to go out and give the audience all she's got. That's the kind of determination I see in my sister when she dances, all her insecurities and problems disappear and she focuses on her dance.

This painting is done in acrylic paint on canvas.

The Gift Bag

My mother's birthday is always a few days before Mother's Day (nice try mom) and so I try to get her (2) gifts for her birthday--I love how she keeps everything I make/buy for her. One year, I decided to give her two gifts, a specially made gift bag and some very fancy perfume from Betsey Johnson, you're very welcome mother.

Just kidding, this was done with magic marker and acrylic paint. The rose is very fake and was just a nice accent I thought was perfect for the Leopard print.

Architect Majors

This is a cute little meme that I made the other day about Architect majors, it's really funny considering I am one and have came across these stereotypes by people before, especially my parents.

Another Round

I have changed the name of this painting so many times, but finally decided on 'Another Round'. This painting was inspired by the songs 'Fall for Your Type' by Jamie Foxx ft. Drake. The line of the song where Drake says '...dress hanging off your shoulder, barely sober/Telling me how you moving away and starting over/Girl, quit playing you just drunk...' 

After hearing that line, this is what I saw inside my head and I felt strongly enough about the lyric to draw it. For my first REAL painting, I think it's pretty good, a very obscure version of Bacardi 151° -- Hey I just took a crack at it and this is what I came up with. Now that I'm looking at it, I kind of wish I would've painted her in a more domestic setting like at her house or something.

This painting is done in acrylic paint. The background and the bar top is done using watercolor and the 'salt technique' which I learned in school--Basically, while the paint is still wet, you sprinkle salt over the painting and when the salt hardens you scrape the excess and get this weird texture of like, spotty or fuzzy depending on how much or how little salt you sprinkle over the painting. Thanks Ms. Pereira! lol

Egyptian Diorama

When I was in high school, I took a class about hospitality and tourism and this was a project that was assigned to me. My assignment was to create a new venue that is yet to be created at Epcot. Everyone who's ever been to Epcot knows that you can go around the world in one day, if you're lucky. There are currently (11) different countries represented in Epcot and they are: México, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, The UK and Canada. With that being said, me and my partner chose to do Egypt.

We loved the history of Egypt and the traditions, I, to this day am still fascinated with their traditions and the history of their people. This diorama was created using clay (regular Play-Doh clay) regular (thin, maybe 2-ply) cardboard and paint, the little bushes were made out of balled up sheets of paper and covered with clay. I wish I had a picture of the diorama with all the trimmings. In the end, I had included jewels, fake sand and a couple of pretend people (made of clay), there was also a PowerPoint presentation to go with this diorama.

This is one of the pyramids, it has the very famous Ankh symbol on it.

The full diorama-supposed to resemble the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. It include the Eye of  Horus (which is known as the symbol of good health). Although you can't see them, there are other symbols included on the pyramids aside from the Ankh and the Eye of Horus like the Djed which is the symbol of the God of death Osiris.

Ace, Watching TV

This is a drawing of my now 4 year old boxer (then 2 years old) named Ace. He's quite a rambunctious boxer as all boxers are-He loves to play and won't stop playing-I swear if I turned out all the lights and told him it was time for bed, I would only be awaken by him bouncing around and chasing his ball. I love him and am elated to be his owner :)

Anyway, in his down time, he likes to watch television, he loves cartoons, I'm assuming because of the different colors he just gets hypnotized he also loves Law & Order! But one weird thing about him is that he absolutely hates music and is terrified of fold out chairs... Those God awful looking things would frighten me too.

I drew this picture one day when he was just relaxing watching television, it's inside of a sketchbook which is why it's kind of small and is done with colored pencil over watercolor and magic marker.

Welcome to the Young & the Artful:

This is a blog of my art, I will talk about some of my favorite artists as well as post artsy inspirations just about everyday.

My inspiration from my pieces come literally from the top of my head. If I'm thinking about something very heavy in my heart and in my mind, I will eventually get around to drawing/painting exactly what I saw in my head. My favorite thing to depict in my drawings are either scenes from a saying or common phrase or drawing a scene from a music lyric that I've heard and I just loved it. Sometimes my drawings will just come from feelings that have been subdued in my soul.

I've also found a new love in 'stippling' and 'doodling' little things all over the place. I've tried to draw something/someone without using guidelines and etc. and I've also tried drawing while timing myself. Not only do I design paintings/drawings, I design clothing, collages/mixed media pieces and dioramas, among other things.

So enjoy my art and feel free to email me if you have any questions, comments, concerns.

stokessierrah@yahoo.com