Liz Ragan

As far back as I can remember, I have been experimenting with different artistic mediums. As a child, my first choice was crayon, what little kid isn’t fascinated by a box filled with eighty-four different colors with strange names? As I grew older, I was very interested in both lead and colored pencil. As the years went on, I experimented with other mediums such as markers, oil paint, ink, pastels, chalk, and 3D art. In high school, I worked more on designs for tattoos and T-shirts. Once in college, I was introduced to digital art and became fascinated by it. I found that I enjoyed it much more and it opened up my mind to more creativity.

Learning the software applications, tools, and techniques was initially a challenge for me, but they soon became friends design components as I began to defeat the learning curve. Throughout my years at St. Ambrose University, I explored styles that have interested me, and I believe I have found my own style. In addition to being fond of organic imagery and line work in art/design, I have a great passion for typography, and have been experimenting with it in many of my recent design pieces. Most recently, I have been creating designs that are mostly black and white with gray tones and the occasional spot color; not because I do appreciate the connotations of color, but because I am more interested in focusing the viewer on content and form.

Most of my art is highly influenced by nature and by music. As a musician myself, I not only believe music can be heard, but it can also be seen. Music gives off emotion and so does art making it easy for that emotion to be transcended into art. The sound movement of music plays a big role in what technique or stroke I want to use and what color would be the most appropriate. Nature also has a hand my style choice. As I had mentioned before, I love organic lines and shapes. Sometimes I will use one of my hand drawn sketches for a design by scanning it into a computer and tracing what I drew. The flow of a hand sketch, to me, is sometimes more appealing than a line generated by a computer.
I am not sure where my life in design will go, but I do have a few goals. I am currently preparing to apply at Red Frog in Chicago for a 3 month internship; if hired, I plan to apply for a full time job after completing the internship. However, I do not plan to put all of my eggs in one basket. I recently came back from North Carolina and fell in love with it. There are many design and advertising opportunities there, which I am currently exploring.

Liz Ragan

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

artist statement

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Portfolio Images