Hello World

Hey! Welcome to my art/design blog. I'm Joseph Smolin, a young visual artist from Birmingham, AL, currently enrolled in Auburn University's excellent Industrial Design program. I plan to use this blog as both a means to put my work out there and a creative outlet. Expect to see pages from my sketchbook, pictures of Industrial Design projects I'm working on, and any other visual pieces/ projects I create or dig up. Keep in mind that this is not an online portfolio, a lot of the stuff I post will be rough sketches, or concepts for larger works. The point of this blog will be to document my creative process, not to store my best work.

With that being said, I thought I'd kick things off with some older pieces that I'm fond of.

This painting has grown on me a lot since I did it a few years back. The style is bit simplistic even for what it's trying to do, but I enjoy the different patterns and textures shown. I also love the colors. Overall I think it remains a solid painting.

Here's a neat little found object sculpture I did for an art class about a year ago. I think it came together really well. I love the motion of the wire limbs as well the feeling of the whole piece. The main body is a cork, the head is a upside down candle, the eyes and heart are buttons, and the limbs are made out of wire. I heated the wax to soften it so I could place the eyes on, I also burned the cork body for texture. Fun stuff.

Here's a cool album cover I did for my brother's band. My brother picked a similar drawing out of my sketchbook and also came up with the central concept. It's simple, but effective. The design has actually grown on me a lot since I first did it. Good stuff. Oh also you should check out Ocean Liner; They're good.

Here are some different views of a mobile I did for my Industrial Design studio last semester. Overall I think it's pretty successful. It's hard to capture a moving sculpture in still photographs, but these pictures show off the angles of the mobile pretty well.

This last one is from a children's book I wrote and Illustrated, doing the brunt of the work in the summer of 2013. It was a wonderful process to work through, and I'm proud of the end result. Unfortunately, finding a reliable publisher has been a struggle, and I'm still trying to figure out the best path to follow. It's looking like a longer and longer road, and it's getting harder and harder to find time to devote to it. I, however, remain hopeful that the book will, one day, find it's way to the right publisher. It's definitely something that I need to devote more time to soon.

Alright that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed it, and I'll try to post again soon.

Thanks for your time,

-Joseph