Michelle Thies

The Jim Henson Tribute Exhibition

2011-12-03T22:37:00.000-08:00

I am so excited to have been able to contribute a piece to the Jim Henson Tribute Exhibition at the Gallery Nucleus! Opening reception is next Saturday and coincides with the "What If..." show upstairs!

The official flyer:

Digital Comp:

"The Rainbeard Connection"
(8"x16", Gouache)

Edit:
So Awesome! Featured on the Nucleus blog as well as NBC LA! Thanks to Joanna Santos for curating the show and giving us the opportunity to share some Henson love!

Landscape painting

2011-10-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

Went landscape painting for the first time in almost a year! A lot of anxiety caused from rustiness, but I hope to continue going out and painting. It was a great hike with some real cool people!

People Sketching

2011-10-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm a lazy-poo and don't have a scanner, so I took some "hipster-fied" photos with my phone of some of my people-watching sketches

What I saw someone else wear the other day #6

2011-09-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

There's no age limit on being hip.

What I saw someone else wear the other day #5

2011-09-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

Chaplin Remix

What I saw someone else wear the other day #4

2011-07-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

upside-down-visor-hat&hair-silhouette-shape turned beehive.

What I saw someone else wear the other day #3

2011-06-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

What I saw someone else wear the other day #2

2011-06-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

get ready for a lot of walking poses... and flippity flops. And bleached blondes?

What I saw someone else wear the other day #1

2011-06-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to participate in the "what I wore today" postings others have been doing, but I only have like five basic outfits that I cycle through. :/
However, I've been lucky enough to commute to Hollywood every weekday for work...and thus a new trend has been born: "What I saw someone else wear the other day."

Graduated

2011-04-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

So... I graduated. Yayyy!
http://www.michellethies.com/

Giraffes!

2011-03-04T18:01:00.000-08:00

G is for Giraffes! Yayy :)
and it is also for Graduating! This April 23rd. Oh nooooooo

Shopping Sheep

2011-01-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

I found this drawing I did awhile back of a recently-sheared sheep going coat shopping. I thought it was uhh... funny. ahahaha

Landscape Painting

2010-11-04T09:40:00.001-07:00

Gouache paintings from life.
Such a nice break from the cold, dark rooms of Art Center!

Roald Dahl's "The Witches"

2010-08-20T01:19:00.000-07:00

""Mr Jenkins came striding up to our table with a very purposeful look on his face... He spoke rudely and looked very angry. My grandmother put on her frostiest look, but didn't answer him.
...
"Where is Bruno? If you don't tell me at once I shall summon the police!" cried Mr Jenkins
"Bruno is a mouse," my grandmother said, calm as ever.
"He most certainly is not a mouse!" shouted Mr Jenkins.
"Oh yes I am!" Bruno said, poking his head up out of the handbag.""

Drawing:

Color-comp:

Variation sketches:

Head Painting

2010-07-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Week 8&9 in-class oil painting

Portraiture

2010-07-06T23:23:00.000-07:00

Some in-class paintings from models,
3-4 hours each.

last week of digital life

2010-04-15T22:22:00.001-07:00

I'm gonna miss this class. Have to acquire a laptop and hit up the workshops to get my fix of digital life painting.

My file from last week's session got corrupted and is rubbish now. Bummer :(

15 minute:

4-hour:

Close-up:

More life painting

2010-04-07T16:38:00.000-07:00

Digital Life Dump

2010-03-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

I am really starting to enjoy painting digitally from life, I feel like it is becoming less of a struggle. However, applying that knowledge and skill to freshly designed stuff is still a ridiculous challenge. Hopefully, over time, understanding will come.

Week 10, 1.5 hours:

Close-up

1 hour:

Close-up

Week 9, 1.5 hours:

1.5 hours:

Week 4

The Prestige

2010-03-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

This term for color theory, the story we're supposed to redesign is The Prestige. I changed the setting to India and was looking at stage magicians like P.C. Sorcar and P.C. Sorcar Jr. for reference. I tried to emphasize their rivalry and differences through the way they carry themselves and the colors they wear.

Borden:
More reserved stage presence, contained and mysterious, understands magic, poor.

Angier/The Great Danton:
Strong stage presence, a showman and dynamic, lives for the applause, higher class.

Another Alligator

2010-02-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

I declared it Alligator Month.
Just a limited palette study, done with only oranges and blues of different levels of saturation and value

Master Copy

2010-02-05T22:43:00.001-08:00

Leyendecker master copy done in photoshop.

Contrasts

2010-02-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

Our assignment this week in Color Theory was to create a little visual story based on the focal points one can make with contrast of value and contrast of saturation. We weren't allowed to change the hue, just value and saturation. So this was my take on it.

Digital Still Life

2010-01-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

I am taking a digital life painting class this term to try to improve and become more comfortable/efficient with painting digitally. I'm excited!
This was my attempt on the first day.

Character poses and maquette turnaround

2009-08-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

I redesigned four of the Beauty and the Beast characters from Disney's version, but I set the story in Namibia and made the characters native animals to the area.
This is my take on Gaston as a wildebeest.

Digital Landscape with Mike Humphries

2009-08-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

Locations: Los Angeles Arboretum, Art Center sculpture garden, and Descanso Gardens

Sharks!

2009-07-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

It's Shark Summer at the Long Beach Aquarium.

Beavers!

2009-07-11T21:44:00.001-07:00

A.M. cont.

2009-06-25T11:28:00.000-07:00

Some more of my Animal Magic finals:

[watercolor and pen]

[Soft Pastels]

Wall Set-up:
[still have to get a good photo of the cow painting]

Animal Magic sketches

2009-06-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Animal Magic is over. *cry.
Here's some on site sketches:

Animal Magic, May 28, 2009

2009-05-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

This week for class, they brought in a full-grown camel, a young camel, and a baby zebra. Here are a few photos (for Amelia):

Animal Magic!

2009-05-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a class called Animal Magic (I think Ann Field named it) where the teacher has different animals brought into the school for us to draw. Last week, we drew reptiles. This week, they're supposedly bringing a baby zebra and two camels!
Most exciting class ever!

Anyway, this is a piece I did for that class.
Watercolor and ink

Materials midterm and final

2009-04-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Snapping turtle wall-mount:
Sculpy, felt, modeling paste, liquid latex, bronze, glass eyes, wood, foil, and paint.

(original sketched idea):

Monkey and bananas:
Bass wood (laser-cut), mdf, acrylic sheets (laser-cut and melted then bent), oil paint, electrical wire

(original sketched idea):

Painted cowboy

2009-04-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

break-time sketches

2009-04-21T22:40:00.001-07:00

Yay for break!

Style

2009-04-17T17:33:00.000-07:00

Some of my development sketches for my Style assignments.
Flying machine designs in the style of William Joyce:

And some tree explorations based on flower shapes in the style of Kay Nielsen:

A is for Ape!

2009-03-04T17:04:00.001-08:00

Open-ended Expressive Type assignment with Peter Greco. All we had to make sure of was that we incorporated a script-letter A.

I can't shake the monkeys off. I made a monkey-related midterm in materials as well.
They've been apart of my work since I was first considering art and creating pieces in seventh grade. Maybe I have a problem.

Term 2.5 - Kato's class (cont.)

2009-02-13T00:37:00.000-08:00

I love Kato's themes and lighting setups for the in class paintings. In combination with his teaching, there is no way you cannot improve and pump out some successful pieces in his class.
I definitely saw improvement between my paintings when I started the class and the paintings I was doing at the end of the term. And that is motivating. I hope to stop by one of The Drawing Club meetings one of these days.

Some in-class paintings (in order from most recent/end of the term to beginning of term):

Term 2.5 - Kato's class

2009-02-13T00:20:00.000-08:00

Sketching for Illustration with Bob Kato!
I loved this class, even though it had the potential to kill me.

some of the homework:

Final (theme: scene of the crime):

comp ideas for final:

Midterm (theme: a bad habit):

comp ideas for midterm:

TiVO

2008-12-26T00:10:00.000-08:00

My sister, brother and I all put in money to buy my parents a TiVO for Christmas.. but we ordered it too late for it to get here in time gift-opening. So I made a stupid little card for them :)

On the inside, it read "AND HELLO! To your brand new Digital Video Recorder! (It will be arriving by UPS in the next few days)
TiVO + 12 month subscription"

Christmas Card

2008-12-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

I'm working on this card design that is dedicated to my Grandpa who passed earlier this year.
If you heard me talk about him, you'd understand the ape reference.
I struggled so much on those squirrels, I dunno why. And I am still not satisfied. But oh well.

Highland Cow

2008-12-10T18:41:00.000-08:00

I'm practicing digital-painting.
One day I hope to be a badass digital painter.

My mum tells me this would be me if I were a cow. I dunno what to think of that.

Old people have the best imaginary friends. Friends that have lived.

2008-12-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

Awh, that title just made me sad.
Uhm uhmmm.
I haven't being doing much art.
It's a really really sad thing.
But I'm done with mah job in a week and a half, so we'll see what happens when I don't feel so drained by interacting with people full-time in a retail setting.
I can't wait to be back in school and immersed fully into the art world again! Really, I can't wait.

Gouache

2008-11-20T12:52:00.000-08:00

The first two are studies from photos and the third is a plein air study I did at some wilderness park north of Glendale.
All are duo-tone.. cobalt blue & raw sienna & white
Practice, practice, practice, eh?

Tree shape stylization/exploration

2008-10-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

eh?

Sketchbookness.

2008-10-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

Haven't been sketching as much as I should.
But anyway, here are some sketchbook pages:

WIP

2008-09-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

Pastels!

2008-07-14T00:41:00.001-07:00

I did these early in the term at the school's painting workshops... Sennelier pastels on sandpaper. The blue man I did during break before summer term.

Motion Design 1

2008-07-06T22:34:00.000-07:00

Our first assignment for Motion Design 1 was to create a five second animation using the tools we had learned in the first couple of classes.
So I chopped out a grassfish, giraffe, and background in photoshop and spent hours trying to animate them. My attempts to animate the giraffe took way longer than should have...I wasted two whole hours trying to move the parts piece by piece. But after getting a brilliant tip about parenting objects in AE from the TA, my outlook became a lot brighter. Yayy.
It was fun to make anyway.

Much love,
Michelle

2nd Term work

2008-06-23T17:49:00.001-07:00

Sketching for Entertainment:
(Harry Potter in Africa theme)

Comp&Painting:

Some work from Drawing Concepts 1:

Self Portraits from 1st term

2008-06-21T21:13:00.000-07:00

I took Head&Hands with Jeff Smith in the Fall, and his term assignment was to create 25 self portraits in different artist styles. These were some of my pieces from that assignment:

1st term

2008-06-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been hesitant to post on blogger because I don't really have a specialized body of work, such as entertainment art or whatnot. But! I will post some of my foundation work from my first and second terms at Art Center in these next couple posts. Afterall, this work is important in my progress towards a career in the arts, eh?
Constructive comments are appreciated.
Much love,
Michelle.

1st Term:
In-class portraits for head&hands

Comp&Drawing: