NICOLE GALINATO

So I've known how to do calligraphy since 6th grade, and I come back to it every once in a while for occasions like greeting cards and invitations. Recently I had two birthdays to give (super cool fancy pop up) cards for and I thought I'd customize the envelopes nicely to make the effort feel more sincere. Since I don't practice calligraphy all the time, it takes some time for me to plan out things to make them look consistent, balanced and evenly spaced. In this case, I also came up with doing an ornate drop cap for each name while testing out the look with gold ink via trusty gel pen.  I then wrote out each name in the appropriate size in dark ink to trace out on the front of each envelope so I could go over each letter in gold with pen since I don't have gold calligraphy ink.   Starting with the space around the first letter, I lightly drew in the embellishment in pencil. Then I went over the outside border in silver gel pen as an accent to match the sil

It's been a while since I've sketched in general, but more so with nature and plant life. A trip to my local bayside park brought me some kite flying and tree sketching. I've always been intimidated by drawing landscapes and flora because I get caught up in all the details trying to match the textures on a minuscule level, but I took my sweet sweet time breaking this one down because the shape of this tree was so dynamic.

It's nearing Thanksgiving in the USA and that means lots of food and lots of people. I thought it might be nice to provide a festive centerpiece for the occasion while getting some carving practice in. I've managed at this point to try and solidify what to carve before knife hits pumpkin, and had a dilemma in choosing how to use the negative and positive space in a balanced way. I did a second draft in body paint because the plain black and white was throwing me off, and this helped immensely when trying to determine my negative space, where to actually cut and how to cast light and shadows on the surface. I was very pleased with how well the surface photographed due to well thought out cuts to capture light instead of unintentionally encourage shadow and a different focal point. Thankfully I didn't have to use the entire design to fit the pumpkin, and no longer use a marked on guide to keep things spaced evenly. This lasted through two big Thanksgiving fam

Branch Out: Pumpkin Carving Another halloween time project. This time I tried a twist on traditional pumpkin carving by incorporating design elements of Thai carving such as flowers and repetitive shapes and patterns. Again I found it very interesting to have to think of the design in regards to subtractive technique rather than additive. The medium as an organic canvas was also an enjoyable challenge to handle. The use of repetitive design allowed me to practice recreating certain shapes to increase speed as well as refine technique. Something funny I found was that in the way I was shown, the techniques on holding the kinfe was very particular, but my hands were just too small to hold the knife safely! So I learned to adapt differently and can now carve efficiently, without having a sharp thing slip through my fingers. That's a nice mental image.  Happy Halloween!

Note to self, get better at recording progress. By this point I ran into another challenge with having to carve into the flesh deeper to get the pink of the watermelon to show, and also angle my cuts to show on the white part. Stopped a bit short after nearly slicing off finished areas...

Branch Out: Fruit Carving First solid attempt at fruit carving with Thai carving knives using basic techniques. An interesting exercise in subtractive 2.5D sculpture, one I hope to revisit frequently.