Dragonfly Studies

I went camping this weekend with a bunch of friends from my church (St. Mary's) in the Sugarloaf Lake campgrounds near Chelsea, MI.  Luckily, it didn't thunderstorm all the time like the weather had forecasted.  But it rained at night, which meant tons of MOSQUITOES!  We tried to go "hiking" in the morning but couldn't really despite the ridiculously easy trail:  there were a zillion mosquitoes flying in our faces and up our noses.  

We did have tons of fun, though:  We went swimming when it got sunny!  My friend Sean brought his dog, Lil, and we frolicked.  The other campers around us were really nice and shared firewood with us. 

This morning when we were packing up camp, I spied this dragonfly atop my friend Anne's bike wheel.  It sat perfectly still for the longest time - the perfect model for sketching!  A dragonfly's face is really weird - it reminded me of a teenage mutant ninja turtle.  I got so close I could see the tiny hairs on its legs.  

From these sketches it may seem like the dragonfly only had four legs.  Upon closer inspection, I saw it's front legs were folded near its neck.  The front legs are much shorter than its hind legs, so it only uses them to perch in certain positions (it might use them for other things.....but I'd need to research it more.) 

I like bugs if they're cute, like dragonflies, caterpillars, inch-worms, ladybugs, butterflies, etc.  But I hate annoying bugs like mosquitoes and anything that bites.  

 happy camping

mindy

Light Shining Hand Silhouette

Playing with my hands in the light.  Done with crayons.  7/4/07

And I'm now naming my posts more creatively.... "Sketchbook Entry #346" just sounds so utterly boring down the road.  It's like calling your paintings "Untitled."  I hate when people do that.

Enjoy!

mindy

JELLYFISH DAY

Purple-Striped Jellyfish

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey, CA

2/29/08

 I travelled to California this past spring with some of my co-oper friends.  We had many adventures, like snowshoeing in Yosemite National Park, feeling like ants next to the giant sequoia trees in Sequoia National Park, and visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  

I love jellyfish, and this aquarium had the HUGEST collection of jellyfish I'd ever seen!  I spent 2 hours just sketching the jellyfishes on the first floor (black sea nettle, lion's mane jelly, egg-yolk jelly [they were all stuck together and looked gross - really like an egg yolk - although eggs are delicious]), then discovered another section on the lower level (giant moon jellies [the size of a dinner plate], Mediterranean jelly, blue jelly, etc)!  

The purple-striped jelly was my favorite kind:  It was tan colored with purple and brown spots, and it's "body" was about the size of a baseball cap (without the visor part) and its tentacles stretched like 20 feet long.  Maybe even longer, because sometimes the ends are invisible and unsuspecting victims get stung.

I guess if I ever got stung I wouldn't like jellyfish as much.  But they're such fascinating creatures!  So colorful, so translucent, so graceful.  Since we're on the topic of jellyfish, here's a jellyfish windsock I made in fibers class in college.  It's made with silk organza fabric that I dyed using shibori, tie-dye, and other techniques to resemble water-like patterns.  It always hangs in my room.  Look at it blow in the wind!  

have a happy jellyfish day!

mindy

Dream Journal Excerpt 2: Dream of the Ocean

I had this vividly wild dream on 3/9/08 which I'm still trying to finish drawing.  All the events centered around the ocean, and they seemed to all connect.  This is just one small part of the dream:

A city that looked like New York, but it was in California, was being covered in yellow flying post-it notes.  (I remember trying to control the post-it notes, but it didn't work).  Followed by a red and green haze of pollution over the city.  This and the post-its were suffocating the trees, so they died and everything died.

Then I could see the city from a distance.  I was in a safe place, for now.  I walked towards a run-down trailer/diner that was orange, rusty, and in the middle of a junk yard, it seemed.  I met a woman there.  We gambled with pop cans.  I tried to fit a crushed can into a coin slot, but it didn't fit.  We tried to live off what was left, because there was no more in the world.  

  

to be continued...

mindy  

Comic Entry 2

My boss at GRIP, Pat Herbst, thought of this idea for a comic and I drew it out.  It was used in a presentation he gave.  I mostly work on the computer for my graphic design job, but this is a hand-drawn comic.

Mural Entry 2

Mural that my friend Laura Bickle and I painted in downtown Ann Arbor, in the parking structure on South Fourth Street and East Williams Street, in the south west corner, 2nd floor.  Sponsored by Arts at Michigan, it was in a series of other "element" themed murals painted in the stairwells of the structure.  Based on many rock formations I saw on a road trip out west that past spring of 2005, it represented "earth."  We painted it in a record time of four hours!  

Unfortunately, all the murals were painted over a year later, because the parking structure people thought the walls needed to be "cleaned."  We knew it would be painted over eventually, and the mural stayed there much longer than we'd expected, but there's a sad blank space there now.  Ah, such is the life and death of public art. 

muralistically yours,

mindy

Sketchbook Entry 3

I like to sketch people a lot.  This was coming back from a trip with some co-op friends to a cabin up north (MI).  The caption speaks for itself.  Once you get to know Avi, you find he's a big cuddly bear at heart.  

You can kind of see the face of another person that I sketched on the back of the page.  Whenever I tried to photoshop the greyness out it vanished, so I kept the scan as is.

sweet dreams

mindy

Sketchbook Entry 2

6/8/06 ~3pm to 5:15pm

Orange Spring Mound,

Mammoth Springs,

Yellowstone National Park, WY

This prismacolor pencil drawing is from my Yellowstone Sketchbook.  In the summer of 2006, I travelled with 13 other art students and my professor, Joe Trumpey, to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  This Field Sketching class was one of the greatest adventures of my life!  I also kept a journal along with the sketches.  Here's an excerpt from that day:

6/8/06

...I walked around the road part and saw Orange Spring Mound, one of my favorites!  The water trickling down it was so pretty and the sun glistened upon it.  I drew by the road and got so close to the mound.  Had to watch for cars coming, tho.  I noticed that more and more people stopped their cars to take pictures when they saw me.  I think I caused a little traffic jam.  This one couple asked me to take their picture and saw my drawing...  I tried a buffalo burger for dinner!  Delicious!  I eat better here than I do at home!

{end journal}

We learned a lot about the geology and ecosystem of Yellowstone too.  One thing about hot springs is that they're constantly changing.  They open and close, with periods of active water for a long time, then an earthquake or some movement of earth closes it up.  Soil and trees could grow there over a period of dormancy.  Because of this, if you visit the Orange Spring Mound (or any spring in Yellowstone or anywhere) it will look different from when you last saw it.  It's a constantly evolving ecosystem.     

Adventurously yours,

Mindy

And on the 7th day, she rested...

...well, not really, cuz I've been so super busy with other things today that I haven't had time to blog my art.  I'll just keep you in suspense.  TO BE CONTINUED!! 

huh, wait it's still Sunday, according to me.  well i guess it's technically Monday, since that's what this posting date says...

zonking out,

mindy

Dream Journal Excerpt 1: Green Rainbow Sky

I often have vivid dreams, so I started a "Dream Journal" specifically for them.  Dreams are often hard to translate into words and especially pictures, even when I remember what the scene looked like or how it felt, but I try to be as descriptive as possible.  I'll start off with a short dream that happened on 4/15/08:

I was sitting in a room that apparently was in my co-op.  I was on big bleacher-like steps but they were black felt and reached close to the ceiling, which was leaking!  The roof came to a peak at the top, made of wooden beams.  My friend Jon was there complaining about the leaks.  Some other co-opers sat there too.  Then I was on the top near a row of windows.  Something about seeing bugs crawling on the windows...

We all decided to go out for the night.  We walked next door to a place underground that reminded me of the Blind Pig.  I was all dressed up, but when I reached for my ID, I only had a credit card and/or library card.  I had to go back.

I walked outside.  The sky was green and I saw part of a double rainbow in green shades of neon colors.  I thanked God for getting me up at like 4AM for me to see such a beautiful sight.  Actually, there was kind of a sickly green tinge to everything, but I thought it was pretty.  This is what I saw:

(text from bottom of picture)

This was the road I walked up.  I was on the peak of a hill.  There was a city in the valley.  Everything had a green light cast upon it. 

Mindy

Comic Entry 1

This is the most recent single-panel comic I've done.  I've been elected "work manager" of my co-op this spring, and I made a bunch of little comics like this to remind people to clean properly :)   

Co-ops are run democratically.  We have house meetings to elect positions like president, treasurer, work manager, maintenance managers, etc.  We own our house.  There is no landlord, because we are our own landlords.  The co-ops in Ann Arbor are mostly composed of students, but you can be voted in if you're a non-student like me.

Part of my job as work manager is designating the rest of the people (that aren't elected) to cook, do room cleans, and special projects.  I also have to keep on my toes to check on their work, but people have been REALLY good at their hours this spring!

The BEST part of living in a co-op by far is the social atmosphere.  My house is a great community of all kinds of people, and we do fun things together all the time!  Like hosting themed parties, trips to concerts, trips to the zoo, everything!  Even just hanging out late at night and talking with people is awesome.  I could go on forever, but I need to stop myself.  Bye!

Mindy

  

Mural Entry 1

This is the most recent mural I completed.  It's from the album cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon*.  My little spin on it is the continuation of the rainbow, bending the light around the narrow corners of the phone booth of our co-op.  Indoor murals are often hard to document, but this is an especially tiny space!  Although, legend says that around 30 people crammed into that phone booth at once!

*Original album art © Storm Thorgerson, 1973.

Sketchbook Entry 1

Here's a sketch of one of my housemates playing guitar.  He was jamming with two other housemates down in our living room that night.  I wish I could've captured their electric, ambient, and trippy music.  

We live in a co-op, with a total of around 40 people, so my housemates tend to appear a lot in my art!

First Post!

Hi!  I'm Mindy Steffen, a graphic designer by day, comic-maker/illustrator/sketcher/mural-painter/etc by night!  This is my first blog, and I was inspired to create it from attending this awesome Artist Business presentation today (by Samantha Misiak).        

I graduated from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design in 2006 (BFA), and am now working for GRIP (Geometry Reasoning and Instructional Practices) at the School of Education at U of M.  

I hope to update on a regular basis with my artwork, but I'm totally zonked out from work and pizza and being excited about blogging.  Here's my website, in the meantime. 

www.umich.edu/~steffenm/