When the sun reaches my sister

Hi, I finally finished the painting for Christopher, I am pretty happy with how it turned out, it was a very slow process though. He thought the face was too scary at first and wanted me to change it but he started to actually fall in love with it and no longer wants me to, so yay. I don't see her as scary. I am now finishing up a painting of Ginny, hopefully it turns out alright.

Process

So I have yet again set aside previous projects and started a new one. I am doing a commission piece for my wonderful friend Christopher for his fabulous new salon, here is the initial thumbnail and final line drawing before I jump into the painting. I pulled most of the motifs from Mucha, because I have no design sense whatsoever. The salon is called "When the sun reaches my sister" so I stuck what will be little sun flowers up top, and I guess the girl is the sister?


**EDIT** 06/30/09
So upon request I edited the face. Christopher preferred if the face was actually looking down and having her gazing up towards the viewer. I was a bit attached to the first drawing but I grew to like this one better. The drawing is on the board and ready to go!

WIP

Figured if I put work in progress up I will be more likely to finish it because I will be pressured to live up to maybe someone else's expectations and not mine. Because honestly I don't have expectations anymore.

This is what ladies look like in my head

Working at a salon makes me want to draw hair...not working at a salon also makes me want to draw hair....hair. I like turtles.

Foot clump and lotuses

I recently acquired the best job in the world, I work at a salon called Lotus Beauty and I get to have my nails done whenever, I get eyelash extensions every now and then, and best of all, get totally sweet hair colors/cuts. It is super relaxing and when I come home I actually want to work on art sometimes. So here are some random doodles and the ever so predictable morph of a painting of a generic girl who eventually changed entirely in color palette by accident and also accidentally turned yet again into a painting that resembles me, one day...I swear, I will paint a big fat man. The painting is still unfinished, and hopefully I will actually finish it for a change.

Busy times

Hiii,
So it's been a crazy month thus far. I spent the first two weeks of May in Florida with Kyler to check out the senior show, hook up with old buddies and play at Disney, we had a great time. Now I am back in Santa Fe where my sister is currently visiting, I am entertaining her at the moment but start a new job at a Salon on Monday after having quit Claire's. I need to be working a less stressful job that wont affect my art making and also I will meet higher class people who could potentially lead me to the next best thing. Here are a few pictures from my sketchbook, hopefully there will be more to come soon, I have a few things under my sleeve, just need the time to do it!
OH and I met Hugh Grant today, I am still shaking inside, what a lovely man.

Trying

I basically don't know what to do with myself until I go to Florida for the thesis show of my buddies so I decided to whip up a few portraits of people I know in Santa Fe. I am doing portraits of Bizia, Jaimy and my manager Cecily and that should keep me busy until its time to give Kyler hugs and see sweet work. I have my first art show in Albuquerque this Friday so I am very excited about that, if you are in town make sure to head over to the Master Works Exhibition at the Expo of NM this Friday from 5-8pm. Here is a sneak peak of my progress on the Bizia painting, about 40% done I would say. Cheers.

Been a while...

Hiii. I have been so busy lately just trying to survive that I totally forgot about this blog, also Kyler was here for a wonderful month and a half and I have been spending my days taking advantage of his presence. He is now sadly back home so I decided to make a post. I am going to try to do more work while still working the surprisingly exhausting job at Claire's. I get cheap accessories...and I get to hurt babies by shooting their ears with piercing guns, so it could be worse. It is admittedly hard not to punch the kids when they start screaming, it is the worst sound in the world. I moved into a sweet new house with Sean and we are just hanging in there, wishing there were more people around and wishing my dog would just sit and be a dog. Hmm aaaanyway, here is a painting I whipped together recently while K was in colorado visting with Matt and Megan and some pictures of my sweet new house. Cheersss

Back in Santa Fe

Hey, after spending a month and a week in Europe, I am finally back. It was completely fantastic, I really missed home and I got to show Kyler everything I know and love, so it was double wonderful. Here is a digital sketch I just did for the hell of it and I decided to post some random sketchbook drawings from the trip and also some I just never uploaded before. Hope everyone is well and had a great Christmas/New Year. Cheers.

Meh

While waiting for time to pass I start random paintings but don't finish them. Here are two examples of that, I will probably not come back to them but decided to post them anyway. Volker with a fake mustache and geisha.

Sketchbook Stuff

It's been a while since I've posted anything, I have been on the move and only now have had the time to just chill and post some stuff. I am living in Santa Fe, New Mexico now and the weather is lovely, snow is already predicted for them mountains. Sweet. Now that all my supplies are out of boxes I will be producing and posting more work, hopefully. I apologize for the quality of some of these, when I get my life in order here I will re post some better images.

Academy Ends

So the Academy ended and it was way sadder and way more climactic than graduation. I met wonderful people who I hoped I could have gotten to know better but it is great to know that most of those people will be doing the Academy again next summer which I will be doing again also, unless I die or get a job in a land far far away. This last week was a bit messy so all I had time to do was a small figure painting from a black and white photo I found. I also uploaded newer better versions of all the images below that I did in the academy. Next step, San Diego ComicCon and then Santa Fe to visit my friend Bizia! So exciting!

Project 4

This project was given by C.F. Payne and we were supposed to convey a conversation, the figures were supposed to be shown from the waist up and it was a square format. My concept was a fish lady at a Portuguese market (hence the tile work in the background, of which I am aware of the inconsistency of the perspective due to last minute changes) trying to sell a fish to some lady who is apparently displeased by this particular fish. I wish I could have gotten to a higher level of finish but I am a wuss and ran from the studio when the a/c broke on the night before critique.



Here is also some more recent figure work (about 20 mins each):

Project 2

Here is the second project from the academy. The assignment was given by Jon Foster and we were supposed to do a portrait of a character from a book. I chose to do the "Plum Girl" from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

Academy

Sooo for those who don't know, I am doing the Illustration Academy and it has been wonderful thus far! I suppose I will update this thing weekly as I am doing an Illustration per week, in addition to figure drawing. Unless it is terrible in which case I will not show anyone. Here is the first project given by Mark English ("Slice of Life", we were supposed to do an illustration based solely on shape, value and color without rendering and we were to simply convey Florida, or Sarasota I guess, I decided to Illustrate Amish people going to the beach since there is a huge Amish community in Sarasota and I have in fact witnessed their beach going. Sort of low quality image by the way, will upload better one later) and also here are figure drawings that are not the horribly embarrassing ones. My 5 minutes of free time are up, until next week!

Senior Thesis..phew

Finally found the time to upload my senior project at 6am on a Tuesday, guh. The two last images were not included in the show due to the limited wall space but they support the rest as small studies (even though they were done after the big ones). The four main pieces are 20" x 30". Oil on board. Here is the work followed by my artist statement:







Plures Affectus (2008)

The last four years have been of tremendous change for me. Being from Portugal, and having come overseas to pursue my career in art, I have endured cultural differences, a new life, new people and above all, large personal growth. Developing so much as a person and evolving so much in art at the same time has been the most overwhelming and wonderful experience of my life. This is what influenced me to take on these four paintings. It is the final manifestation of my training at this school and my journey through it. I decided I would paint metaphors to depict the obstacles and emotions I underwent. My ultimate goal was to have viewers relate to these paintings, either through the visual forms or the emotions portrayed. They represent feelings everyone has gone through at some point, feelings not necessarily expressible through words, but maybe through art.

I have always been attracted to the gracefulness of the female figure and the concept of love, and all my pieces use this as their principal essence, whether I was thinking of a specific person, a thing, a place or life. I used large scales and bright colors to catch the viewer’s attention, and left the subject matter vague enough to strike curiosity and wonder in the viewer and not have it be solely about my emotions, but about anyone’s. Whether the viewer can draw parallels to their own experiences, or simply find my images to be aesthetically appealing in their design and dynamics, I think I will have accomplished my goal.

Larissa Neto

New Website!

Like the title says, new website: larissaneto.com
Right now it is still the same as the old one, but with help from my beautiful friend Rita back home, I will have a new, slightly less boring website up soon. Also, I will be posting my full thesis imagery up soon, eeee! Life will all make sense soon, now that I have time to think about it. Will be going back to Portugal in May because I realized people who still matter to me so very much are there. Carlos, Rita, Vitor, Navarro, Fa, Andreia, Andre, just to name a few, i am so sorry for the time that I lost contact...I love you all and I know you read this, I will be back soon because I am done with what I came here for, I just need to go home before I come back to finish the rest:) Aurelie...I wish you could be there, I miss you so much...4 years my dear..let's not make that 5! I LOVE YOU!

Thesis teases

Imitating Kyler and posting teaser crops of my thesis pieces, will post the real deal after the Senior Thesis Show for my peeps who don't get to be there:

Yay

Found my sketchbook, it was in my room...of all places. Anyway here is one of the drawings I decided to scan from it (bad scan i know):

More figure

Was going to post some sketchbook figure stuff but I recently lost it, or misplaced it, either way, here is latest figure painting (9 hrs):

Drawringses

Sketches from india class and portrait night. Sorry about the terrible scan quality..

Bored?

Hagjgjahahahijaghair

Feegure

3 hours:

Same pose, 5 hour painting:

It's all uphill from here

First figure painting of the semester, 2hr Gloria:



Senior poster version of the Torment painting (only difference is the crop and the added body piercings):

Crop of the last piece I did for Hodges, the rest of the piece was an abomination:

Hearts all around, and lack there of.

Illustration for Bjork's Bachelorette:


Torment and Dispair:

No boiled peanuts for me thank you very much.

It beggins again..

Blue:

For Clauds

Self-promotion

Self-promotion piece, Portuguese tile art form with my face, plus the Portuguese mascot and my most overused Portuguese saying, that about sums it up.

Meh

"Kiss of Death"



One session painting:



Two day painting:


Some "i'm too lasy to paint today" sketch:


Dumbest collage..ever:


Painter still-life:



Carnaval, no real reason:

and it starts..

Some of junior year stuff, bleh:


Sleep deprivation whoo!:

Lingerie Billboard
(the gray part is negative space where the billboard would break the border, for those who keep telling me the gray is ugly):












Cottage cheese billboard:












The most tedious project ever, Chris West vector portrait:
























Bjork Caricature:























Jenny Saville master copy:

I surrender...

..to thee, blog world. Sheesh..