Graduation!

After much deliberation, Brigham Young University has decided to let Spencer Graduate from College!!! Exciting right. My life has been full of finals recently and jumping through a couple more hoops to make it to the end. I get to walk on Thursday although I technically won't actually graduate until August. The reason why is because I have to do my final show.

My Final Show!!! It is called a BFA (bachelors of Fine Arts) Show. Basically it is where I show off my stuff that I have learned while being in college. It will be July 1st through the 14th I think. I will double check on that and let you know how that is going. For fun I may try to do a kickstarter for it just to try that platform out. 

It is going to be an alphabet book that I plan on turning into an ebook. Below is a gif of what you might expect in this... "A is for Apple"!

Also coming up on May 2nd and 3rd I will be in a show/craft sale in Salt Lake City called the: ART MARKET! 

That isn't it though I will be in another art sale/house visit on the 16th of May called the ART HAUS!

This is in Provo so it may be closer to some of you other friends.

In my last post I said that I should always post pictures so I will post a couple from one of my finals that I think was really fun. Check it out. Maybe even let me know which one is your favorite!

Thanks for reading. Next time I post I am considering talking about my experiences in college and whether I think it was worth it or not. There has recently been some talk about whether going to college for an art degree is worth it or not. So stay tuned.

These images were made for an Opera poster called the "Elixir of Love". It is about a boy that is in love with a girl, but he doesn't have enough courage to talk to her. Then one day a Snake Oil salesman comes to town and sell his an elixir of love... I don't know if it works or not. You might just have to go see the opera.

Blog Post about making Blog Posts!

I really want to start consistently blogging so that I can help more people find my work, but more than that I want to do it for myself. What? Yep for me.

Here it is full disclosure: I don't have anything completely figured out yet and I don't think anyone in this world does. Writing a blog is my way of writing down what I think works, which I may think later on doesn't work.

I used to work with an older gentleman that knew my parents and we would sometimes have these deep conversations about life. Once he turned to me and said, "Your parents don't have life figured out do they?" I paused and thought about it and replied I guess not. He then said, "Nobody has it figured out. I don't have life figured out, they don't have life figured out. That is why we keep living. Once we have it figured out we die." If you believe in God then maybe you believe that when you have figured life out he needs you to come back to him.

Ok enough about knowing about life and not knowing.

What I know about writing a blog post:
- It shouldn't be too wordy with out having a picture! (Opps)

Picture!!!

I recently made this Lithograph of Don Quijote. He knew some things about life... But then again he thought wind mills were giants.

Blogs should inform people. You should have some value in you posts.

I hope that is some value for those coming to read this post!

Maybe I can give you some info about me. My name is Spencer Olsen. I am from Provo, Utah. I love soccer, making art and my wife. 

I studied photography at UVU for 3 years and realized I liked to get my hands messy. For fun here is a picture of the Salt Lake City Latter-Day Saints Temple (MORMONS) I created at UVU.

The process that I used to make this image is called Cyanotype. I created it by making a large negative of the photograph I had taken. Then I painted cyanotype liquid on a piece of paper, usually watercolor paper since it holds the liquid best. Then I exposed the paper to the sun and washed the excess dried liquid off. Kind of cool right.

Well after studying at UVU I transferred to BYU where I studied illustration for another three years. Actually this next week I will graduate from College.

This blog is where I hope to record my journey and some of the projects I work on. I hope to have projects that people pay me to do as well as projects I give myself to do.

I hope you follow my journey into freelancing and making a life out of making art.

The final thing I would say about writing a blog is... You should grow from it. I know I have already grown from writing this blog and I feel energized to go after my dreams.

Oh ya Blog posts should never be to long or boring... Or else you lose everybody's interest. I hope I didn't mess this one up.

Cheap Paints and an Awesome Contest!

My little sister works at a pre-school and recently the pre-school received a very large donation of some acrylic paints. They weren't super high quality paints, but hey they were  free! Well the pre-school couldn't accept them so my little sister contacted me and asked if I could help get rid of like 10 boxes of paints. As an illustration major in college I knew exactly who could help me get rid of these paints. Artists! So I brought some to school where a show: "CHEAP ACRYLIC SHOW" was put together. The rules were that you could only use the three colors that made it to the school and you put a dollar on the back of your painting. The winner takes all the dollars. It ended up being like 10ish bucks. I didn't win, but I got second. Here are my pieces!

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!

Or Happy Day of the Dead!

It is a Mexican Holliday where they remember their loved ones that have passed on.

That is what inspired this piece that took 2nd place in the Cheap Acrylic Show

I also did a Pirate trying out this thing where I blocked areas off with a certain type of tape and painted shapes. I think it turned out super fun too.