The sketchbook project

Savannah and I signed up to take part in the sketchbook project. See the link below for details.

http://www.sketchbookproject.com/projects/sketchbookproject/how

Here are some bits and pieces of that project. Savannah took all of the photographs our overall theme was "the seasons" .

Summer

Fall

Spring

Spring

Winter

Sketchbook Cover art

Surreal...maybe continues

After the rush of the holidays I have returned to my painting, at this point I am calling it the Dumbo project. Here are some images from the recent sessions...

January 13 2013 (I)

January 13, 2013 (2)

January 15, 2013



November 27-January 15 work in progress 2012-13



Hand Drawn Holiday Cards

Years ago we use to send out hand drawn holiday cards. I didn't call them Christmas cards because only on a few occasions did I actually make the December 25th deadline. They were pen and ink pieces with a very brief news letter/update inside. As our family grew and changed so did the cards. Here are a few of these fun timeless slices of our life.



December 1990



Surreal...Maybe.

I started painting again a couple weeks ago...and I am so enjoying experience, we'll see where to work takes me. I will try to record each session as the images/shapes transform and develop.



November 25th 2012



November 25th 2012



November 26th 2012



November 27th 2012

 

Postcards from the past

I created these postcard collage pieces over 25 years ago...which is hard for me to believe on so many levels.

These were created the old fashion way, tons of magazines, a sharp blade, glue stick and lots of cutting, no computer to smooth the lines and clean up the images

Share and enjoy.



This is part of a collage postcard book

 

Steampunk a light switch plate cover

Steampunk a light switch plate cover in less than 2 hours...

Take one plain light switch plate cover wiped clean.

Add acrylic base coat, let dry.

Cut and apply clip art images face down using gel medium or mod-podge,

dry 15 minutes and peel/rub

off excess paper.

 


























 
Add more images and repeat.
Touch up with additional acrylic colors.


















Embellish with gears, clock parts and jewelry.
Reattach to light switch.


Coat with 1-2 layers of
mat acrylic gel medium/mod-podge

and enjoy your work!

here on earth: a thin line

here on earth: a thin line: "there is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt." - erma bombeck

Lisa Wood artist

http://lisawoodcuriosities.com/

Pinterest 50 Post challenge

I have thousands of Pinterest images on my page and I have decided to try and "use" at least 50 of those ideas I have collected. I started this Sunday morning with a lovely zucchini casserole, a perfect summer brunch treat. I chose the number 50 because there are just over 10 more weeks of summer break and I am hopeful that I can try/explore at least 5 pins per week. Today I did 2 (I also made 7-Up biscuits too).


http://www.food.com/recipe/zucchini-casserole-11467

Outside the Box 2012

Once again I created a work of art to donate to the Placer Arts fund raising event "Outside the Box". This year they gave us a deconstructed box. I used 2 of the 4 pieces provived. Here is an overview of the project.

King Squid



I used a spray primer and chrome base
for the background.

 


Gloss medium was used to build textures
and layer colors.







I added bits of string and glitter to
create more texture and movement

The black printed sea creatures and
ear are photo transfers using
gel medium.



White and neon  green ink dots for

interest and contrast

 Layers of paint behind and over the
fish images helped blend
them with ocean.

http://doodles.typepad.com/thedoodler/2011/04/doodle-.html

Great blog site for doodles and artists involved with texture, pattern and design

Miss Connections

http://vimeo.com/36116772

MAMA Art Gallery

Art Gallery



Lesean Bowe

USA

Single Mother: The Hand that Rocks the World



Spotlight Artists: Augustus John

"LONDON.- A new display at the National Portrait Gallery will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Augustus John, one of the most celebrated British artists of the early 20th century. Regarded as an outstanding painter and draughtsman, he was a leading portraitist of his day and his lifestyle epitomized that of the bohemian artist. The display of portraits of the artist drawn from the Gallery’s Collection includes photographs by Alvin Coburn, Howard Coster, Bill Brandt, Yousuf Karsh, Norman Parkinson, Ida Kar and Cecil Beaton. Charting his early career, relationships, his fascination with Romany culture, and his success and reputation as an artist the display will also include pivotal figures from his life including Dorelia McNeill, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Talitha Pol. Associated with the New English Art Club and the Camden Town Group he remained largely independent from artistic trends and movements and his sitters included many of his most distinguished contemporaries such as George Bernard Shaw and T.E. Lawrence. "

 Art Knowledge News Feb 2012

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/11_08_2011_23_37_46_augustus_john_a_life_in_portraits.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+artknowledge+%28Art+Knowledge+News+-+Keeping+You+in+Touch+with+the+World+of+Art...%29

Aggie Zed artist

Aggie Zed: Keepers Keep from John Reynolds & Lee Donaldson on Vimeo.

Artist: Bill Smith

sweetgum leaf and stag beetle (high voltage arc propulsion) from widicus on Vimeo.


Artist: Bill Smith

Van Gogh inspired

base image painted on canvas board

Working with the Very Special Arts Program/I can do that has been a very powerful and heartfelt teaching experience. This is the base for a Van Gogh inspired class collage project that we will begin working on tomorrow.



student working on class project



Students worked on this piece off and on for several weeks adding small found objects and art treasures. The completed canvas was displayed at the end of session community show in January 2012.



Completed group project by students grades 1st-2nd in the Very Special Arts Program Jan 2012



Vixen Vintage: Willard Asylum Suitcases



photo by John Crispin

 Vixen Vintage: Willard Asylum Suitcases

Very interesting post opening a door to the past,
provides two links to the Willard Asylum Suitcase
project.

Portrait by Arcimboldo

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/arcimboldoinfo.shtm

Work in progress

First paint blob drawing. What will it become?

How To Clay and Bead projects

http://http//desiredcreations.com/howTo_Desk.htm

great site for clay and bead how to projects.

Step by step directions and photos

Book sculptures artist Alexander Korzer-Robinson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR_AG7XuX-U&feature=related

Book sculptures artist Su Blackwell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp5Zv-wDgtQ&feature=related

The Nightmares of Beksinski

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyboDY6orGI&feature=related

artist Zdzislaw Beksinski

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4l1077U0Gw&feature=related

Beautiful and bleak images-
The drawings of the Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929-2005).

Stained Glass artist Judith Schaechter

Extra Virgin the stained glass work of artist Judith Schaechter...

She borrows freely from art historical sources such as nineteeth century fairy-tale illustrations, Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and Surrealism, as well as popular culture sources such as comics, circus posters, and folklore.

Regarding working in stained glass-

Speech Balloon by Judith Schaechter

"I guess the most appealing thing for me is the tedium factor. I don't have too many worthy and profound ideas, so each piece needs to take a certain amount of time. This keeps my hands busy and in sync with my head. "  JS






View youtube video for a more complete overview of her work

also on line article of interest

http://missioncreep.com/schaechter/index.html

and her blog

http://judithschaechterglass.blogspot.com/

Artist Adela Leibowitz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72LXKWBHUis&NR=1

Artist Julie Heffernan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK90EKw9iRo&feature=related

Her paintings have been described as "downright haunting," "enchanting but eerie" and having an "offbeat punch." And while Julie Heffernan of Art and Design agrees, she says she never strives for those results.


"Haunting and enchanting and eerie are wonderful words for getting a sense of how my paintings affect other people," she said, "but I don't drive or steer the work to any particular outcome. For me, it's about tracking these pictures in my head that I derive out of a process called image streaming."
View youtube for complete interview

Yinka Shonibare mixed media artist

http://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/shonibare-mbe-museum-contemporary-art/1890


Yinka Shonibare MBE is a non-pareil master of the sleight of hand. He has a way of extracting “what everybody knows” – our disregard of the disenfranchised, our vacuous obsessions, our acquiescence, our heedless longings for both temporary fixes and oblivion – and succeeds in personifying its quintessence, foiling us with his sumptuous, visual splendors.

Janne Parvianen painter with light

Janne Parviainen has created a personal painting technique that reflects the urban and technology centered life of today. His most common subjects are city environments and nature landscapes.

http://www.wix.com/jannepaint/jannepaint#!page-5

I'm still not sure how she does this, it's not a photoshop or computer effect.

Artist of interest Robert Schwartz

Robert Schwartz (1947-2000)

Robert Schwartz provides a portal into a world of emerging gay culture and social upheaval of the 1960s, seeking to expose truths about the human condition by depicting people involved in curious behaviors set in a world of his own invention.
 He painted detailed cross sections of a world where characters move about in the ironic overlaps of incongruous realities. With an intricacy often compared to that of medieval miniatures, each of Schwartz’s paradoxical narratives is expertly composed in a space rarely exceeding 10 inches wide—inviting close examination of his intriguing, yet revealing social scenarios. 
http://www.babcockgalleries.com/node/robert-schwartz/3913

Artist
Lori Nix
Photographer/surrealist
interesting approach to the world.

"I am interested in depicting danger and disaster, but I temper this with a touch of humor."



"I have been building dioramas and photographing the results since the early 1990s. As I'm working through various bodies of work, from Accidentally Kansas, Lost and now The City, my fabrication skills have improved and my subject matter has become more complex. "


http://www.lorinix.net/my8x10life/

the art of Jerome Witkin painter

http://suart.syr.edu/witkin/artist.php

French artist Marc Giai-Miniet mini rooms

http://www.marc-giai-miniet.com/page19.html







From the artist's website:
The "boxes" have appeared relatively late in my work as a painter, as a natural and necessary, and have become an integral part, his double play. As a reminiscence of my desire to teenage drama, and perhaps even the deepest yet my memories, of childhood games pitched battles between miniature electric trains and installed under the table in the family dining room . These "boxes" at the beginning of their manufacture in the years 92 - 93, repeated the themes of my paintings: the brainwashing scene, visit the mummies, agitation transfusions and various larvae

Alan Wolfson Urban cut aways

Notes from the Artist:

"I wanted to build a piece that resembled a core sample of a city street. As though you took a street, dug it up, and lifted it straight off the earth. "Canal St. Cross-Section" is a combination of five major pieces built into one box. There's a street scene on the top with a subway entrance on the corner. Looking down into the subway entrance, you are led to the two subterranean levels of the piece, both of which have intersecting cross views visible through the small windows on the sides of the piece."



http://www.alanwolfson.net/canal_st_cross_section.htm

 

Brian Dettmer Book artist

http://briandettmer.com/

Wagnalls Wheel, 2010, Altered Set of Encyclopedias, 9" x 20-1/2" x 20-1/2" - Image Courtesy of the Artist and Toomey Tourell Fine Art

Explanation of Process (from the artist's site)


"In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each layer while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose alternate histories and memories. My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception."
Brian Dettmer

interview with artist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jk9pHPPJbA&feature=related

Oreo and butter cameo

http://jgklausner.com/work/

Underwater sculptures

http://www.underwatersculpture.com/pages/gallery/latest-works.html

Moving Canvas

Special show at the Roundhouse...Curtain Call 360 degree theater experience
with live perfomances by a variety of artists.


http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/ron-arads-curtain-call/events/mat-collishaw


Mat Collishaw's film Sordid Earth with a live soundtrack from 20 Brazilian drummers