What are you doing to your bike?!? 
(Wire)
This is a wire bicycle I made in my eigth grade art class. The assignment was to make anything out of the wires provided. I like this peice because i just started messing around with the wires and came up with this loose interpretation of a bicycle. I think this shows a lot of my raw creative ability- even at the age of 14.
Keep it still 
(Graphite)
Still plant life drawn in my freshman year art class in high school. The shading of the plant was executed using a cross stitch patern made with a pencil. I was very perfectionistic with this peice and it took me forever. In fact, it took so long that the plant actually started dying while i was still drawing it.
Vegetables 
(Oil on Canvas)
This is my first oil painting. It is a still life of a bowl of vegetables. I made it during a summer art program I attended. While painting this my instructor taught me some color theory principals- I tried to utilize the color contrast concept to make the vegetables stand out from the background.
Sharks 
(Charcoal, Ink, Acrylic Paint)
This was an assignment for my Art 005 class at UNC where we were asked to disect our signiture into its shapes and patterns and then to make a design out of them. This includes two pictures that I drew. The top was made with charcoal and ink to give it an organic feel. The bottom was used with ink and acrylic to have a more graphic feel.
Macarbre Holiday 
(Charcoal and Ink)
An exquisite corpse project completed for my Art 005 class. My objective was to take the words, "macabre" and "holiday," and create an equisite corpse inspired by them. The results are interesting. I used various symbols of American holidays, such as Christmas tress, candy, a rabbit, an egg, etc., to constuct the body. To give the picture a macabre feel, I tried to use some grotesque imagery- such as the pumkin-faced creature hanging from a noose made of a Christmas wreathe and the torso consisting of a broken egg with a dead rabbit inside- and then washed the whole picture over with some diluted black ink. The quality of the first shot is poor because it was behind glass for display at the time I took the picture. However, you can click on the second thumbnail above and the head shot should be in better quality. There is still a glare as you will notice.
HMMM... 
(Watercolor and Pastel)
A portrait of a still model sitting on the ground. This was completed for a portfolio art class that I attended in high school. It was one of the first times i used water colors which was a challenge for me because I am usually a control freak with my art. I would like to continue to experiment with watercolor so that I can learn to loosen up with my art work.
Personal logo 
(Using Adobe Illustrator)
My personal logo completed for my JOMC 085 (graphic design) class. The goal was to create a logo image that, in a way, embodied our personality and to write our name in a font that complemented both our image and personality. Around this time in my life a few of my friends had told me that I was "lizard-like"- something about my mannerisms. So, I started with that concept. People have also described me as weird, bizarre, goofy and playful. Using these adjectives I came up for the idea of an upside down lizard that's curled around to form a "D" as in Dustin DeLuca. I think the final product reflects all of these ideas and me in general.
Self Portrait 
(Graphite)
My first self-portrait for a sketching class I attended in Florence, Italy in the Spring of 2003. I sat in front of the mirror about an hour to produce this piece. Completing this picture was way harder than I ever expected it to be just because it was strange sitting down to draw myself. One interesting story about this piece is that I had always thought it looked perfectly symmetrical until recently when I held it up to the mirror and notice that the left jaw line is lower and a bit longer than the other one. This is because in actuality my jaw is lower and longer on the left side, but I am so used to seeing my self in the mirror that I didn't even notice it. So, when I held it up the the mirror it allowed me to see the what the drawing actually looked like. When I used to draw caricatures at Carowinds one of my co-workers talked about a theory that everyone puts a little of their own image in their art work subconciously because we are so used to seeing ourselves in the mirror. This picture supports that theory. Something to think about...
The Dress 
(Charcoal and pastel)
A picture of a model/dancer with a colorful dress sitting down I drew for the Florence sketching class. We only had about 2-3 minutes to complete this piece which is why it looks very rough, rushed and the incomplete. During the time allowed, I wanted to focus on the girl's dress that consisted of about 4 or 5 colorful transparent layers. It was challenging to portray, but I think I did a decent job.
Sketches of Fine Art 
(Graphite)
Some incomplete sketches of some Renaissance artists' work for the Florence sketching class. These are sketches of: Donatello's scultpure "Abacuc," Michelangelo Buonarroti's "Tondo Doni," Sandro Botticelli's "Pallas and the Centaur," Piero della Francesca's "Diptych with the Triumphs and the Portraits of the Counts of Urbino, Battista Sforza, and Frederico da Montefeltro," and Botticelli's "Birth of Venus." These are incomplete because the original works that I copied them from are very detailed, not to mention by MASTER ARTISTS OF THE RENAISSANCE! I could have been there for years working on these. Instead, I just focused on a part of the peice. The cool thing is I was able to copy the original works from museums around Florence (where the Renaissance took place).
Old Woman 
(Colored pencils/pastels)
Portrait of an elderly model completed for the Florence sketching class. The main problem in drawing the woman was that she kept falling asleep and moving around constantly. Despite the obstacle I think I was able to produce a decent- and still- portrait of the woman.
Random Nef 
(Graphite)
This was a drawing exam for the Florence sketching class. This man was a great model compared to the older woman. This exam was timed for about an hour. Please take the glare from flash on the graphite of the picture into consideration. I had to take a photo of this because it was way too big to scan.
The Bald Girl
Wet 
After being fired 
(Clay)
An actual-size clay head of young woman with a shaved head, who modeled for our class, completed for a sculpture class I attended in Florence in the Spring of 2003. The main challenge of this piece was to make the head look feminine with the short hair. The most subtle details meant everything for this project- needless to say it took a long time to complete.
Butt 
(Clay)
This is a nude sculpture based on the same model we used for the head. This time she was leaning over a table nude. Because we only had a couple hours to work, I focused on her body and left her head and hands out.
Surreal 
(Photo)
This is one of my favorite leisure pictures I took from traveling around Europe this summer. I have never taken a photography class, but I was able to catch a very surreal lighting moment of a beach of Barcelona. The contrasts in the different lighting in this picture are amazing. It makes you feel like it's a different time of the day in different spots in the picture. For instance, the beach area dark and late because of the lamps, but the trees in the foreground and the skyline the background have almost daytime lighting.