Illustration and Fine Art Portfolio of Kelly Owen
To view design portfolio visit www.kowenstudios.com
Illustration
BFA Thesis
Fine Art
Illustration
Rupert and the Fox
Rupert and the Fox, 2018, 10 "x 10" illustration on watercolor paper using watercolor paint, ink, and colored pencils.
This illustration was created during a continuing education class at Ringling College. I would like to continue it as a series and possibly make it in to a children's book.
Character Design - Dungeons and Dragons Party
DnD Cameos, 202020 Illustrated using Photoshop.
Character Design - Octavia “Thunderthorn” Verashti
Octavia Thunderthorn, 2019 Illustrated using traditional graphite pencil on paper and Photoshop.
Impatient Mergirl
Impatient Mergirl, 2018, Digital illustration using Photoshop
Holiday Card for the Sun Coast Media Group
Holiday Card , 2018, 7”x 5” illustration on illustration on watercolor paper using watercolor paint, watercolor pencils, colored pencils, and digital text.
Peep!
Peep! 2015, 17" x 12" watercolor, ink, and colored pencils on paper.
Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Celebrated Jumping Frog, 2018, 6 "x 4" illustration on watercolor paper using watercolor paint, ink, and colored pencils.
This illustration was created for the cover of an E-Book for the application Books That Grow.
Basic Dragon
Basic Dragon 2016, 33" x 10", Ink, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper, edited in Photoshop.
This is a design that was entered in Breezy Boards' debut collection contest and was selected as one of the five winning designs to be featured on their first set of long-boards. The prompt competition was "Adjective Dragon," where the artist was told to choose an adjective to describe a dragon and then make a design out of it. I chose "Basic", playing with the "Basic Girl" (or "Basic Bitch") meme.
This was a particular challenge because I wanted to draw it to scale but had no paper or scanner long enough. I ended up taping several pieces of paper together to draw the piece on, scanning each page, and re-connecting them together in photoshop, using the blend and pattern tools to patch up the seams. If I did it again I would account for the bleed section, as they ended up stretching the piece a little to fit.
epicenter
Epicenter, 2013. Screenprint on paper.
This piece is a reflection of anxiety.
Toast and Hummus
Toast and Hummus, 2013. Screenprint , pen and ink.
This piece is one in a series of screen prints, each with the basic line drawing screen-printed on the page and then manually manipulated in various ways. In this case, a stream of consciousness was written in the background. The drawing is of my flatmate who slept with all his electronic devices in his bed and, occasionally, with some toast and hummus, too.
Bitchalots
Bitchalot Series, 2018, Computer graphics.
A series inspired by my boss at the Sun Coast Media Group. How would you feel getting your annual cookies from disgruntled ad designers next year instead of some chipper Girl Scouts? I am in the process of getting these turned in to pins and stickers.
Animal in Bed
Animal in Bed, 2012. Metal etching on paper.
Ruins
Ruins, 2013. Metal aquatint etching on paper.
PRINTS
A Series of Prints: Fancy Fennecs. • One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish • Calphabet • Bitchalots, 2018. Computer graphics.
A playful set of print designs using Adobe Illustrator.
Hope and the Librarian: Avalanche
Hope and The Librarian: Avalanche, 2014. Mixed Media.
This is part of the larger installation for my BFA thesis that can be found under the "BFA Thesis" option of the menu . The sequence of events depicted is the cornerstone of Hope and The Librarian's story.
This specific event is actually the cornerstone of the entire Hope and The Librarian Project. This initially started as a conversation between my friend and I one summer; I was complaining to my friend about how I always get my hopes up even while trying not to, as though I'm scolding my hope like a misbehaving teenager and sending her to her room, just to have her climb out the window, not realizing she has gotten out until she goes and falls from a tree or something--getting my hopes crushed. My friend durning this conversation used another similar way of describing herself, telling me she felt like her brain didn't process her negative thoughts and feelings correctly, so that when something bad happens, all the bad things that have been misplaced come out at the same time--as though when one bad thing happens, everything else she has ever felt poorly about comes up as well, overwhelming her. This picture is the depiction of that--in the first panel The Librarian is hiding the negative memories, in the second panel Libby is coming across them, and in the third panel Libby is being overwhelmed by the negative emotions all stored in one place.
BFA Thesis: Hope and The Librarian
Hope and The Librarian
As an artist with a minor in psychology I am naturally as interested in the inner workings of the human as I am in the outside. Combining my love of storytelling with my artistic and academic knowledge of the human being I began to develop a visual vocabulary to explore memory and emotion through the narrative of Hope and The Librarian. The narrative of Hope and The Librarian revolves around three main characters: Hope, The Librarian, and Libby. These three live and spend most of their time in The Library--a fictitious representation of the space within the human brain responsible for cataloging and storing memories. It is my hope that through this body of work I can depict the inner working’s of the human mind in a way that people can recognize and empathize with. In a sense, every individual has their own Librarian, Hope, Depression, Anxiety, Joy etc. each of whom have their own particular habits and processes. I use my anthropomorphic personifications of intangible human traits and their actions as metaphors to speak about the complexity of the human mind and its great capacity for powerful emotion.
Fine Art
Parasite
Parasite, 2012. 10" x 11" x 11.5" , Terracotta, built solid and hollowed out.
Referencing mental illness, depression, anxiety, and parasitic relationships.
My Hands Around Your Throat
My Hands Around Your Throat, 2012. Terracotta, glaze, glass-sand, velvet cord.
Lentil beads made by pressing balls of terracotta clay between my hands, glazed and one side dipped in sand for texture.
Head Space
Head Space, 2012. Fabricated steel, found objects, printer paper,
The tiny drawings seen floating around the piece are all copies of pictures from my sketchbooks. The prompt for this project was "Personal Space".
Remnants of the Bitch Queen
Remnants of the Bitch Queen, 2012. Sand-cast Aluminum, Shell-cast bronze, Photoshop.
This piece is about wanting to have your cake and eat it too, or rather, cookies,
Slipping
Slipping, 2012. Pizza dough, Vaseline, jello, paper, string, food coloring, nails, time.
The prompt for this project was "Blood," so I created an interactive time based piece about self harm. I made pockets of pizza dough lined with Vaseline and filled each with frozen jello and a single Vaseline covered strip of paper scrawled with negative thoughts. I tied the dough pockets off with the piece of string attached to the paper and put them in the freezer. A few hours before my critique I went to my installation site and nailed each dumpling to the wall, making sure the nail went through the part of dumpling with string. As the crit started the dumplings had begun to thaw out as planned, and I walked up and tore open a ball of dough, revealing the paper. Then, totally unprompted, my classmate walked up and tore open another ball. One by one my classmates went up to investigate, tearing open the pieces of dough. The installation stayed up for another five days or so, so the yeast in the dough started to cause the dumplings to grow larger, harder, and fall to the ground, it was an amazing develompment, even if it did make the hall smell of jam and yeast.