Inspired: Wayne Thiebaud

Toward the very end of last semester I learned of Wayne Thiebaud, a contemporary painter who is known for painting cakes, ice cream cones, and other bakery items. I love his use of color. Look at the shadows. They are blue and orange, yellow and green!  Plus the outlines of his plates are super colorful too. There is no black at all in this painting.

Meringues by Wayne Thiebaud, oil on canvas

Well, I was inspired, and I had some birthdays coming up, so I made some cards.  Here they are. They started as painted backgrounds of colors that I love. I just kept adding color upon color, like Thiebaud does.

This was the first one.

I had  to make one of a cake, of course!

Didn't have time to make a scan of this, just a snapshot.

More cake!

Inspired by the Memory game I helped to make in December.... 

I can't wait to make more!

Art Desert

An art desert is how it feels when I have done much less art lately than I would have liked.  Today is art day and I'm off to the studio as soon as this posts (and oh how I can't wait)!  But for now, I don't have much to show for the last month. The last four weeks weren't entirely art-free (which would have been like the Mojave!).  In fact, I visited several art museums for inspiration, including an especially great time at the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona and the Oceanside (CA) Museum of Art.  And I had a few little projects here and there for Christmas and a friend's baby shower.

Until I have something of my own to show you, here are some lovely photos from Phoenix, my faves of the things we saw.  Really great stuff in their contemporary exhibit, and then a treasure from a professional female painter of the late 1700s in the museum's European painting section. 

The view heading into the contemporary gallery (they were setting up for a wedding to be held that evening, thus the chairs).

Mass (Colder Darker Matter), by Cornelia Parker, burnt wood, wire and string, 1997 (meant to represent the moment lightening strikes a building)

Untitled, by Robert Irwin, 1969, acrylic paint on cast acrylic (to show what happens when you don't let the edge of a canvas restrict your work; obviously I am not a part of the artwork!)

Upside Down, Inside Out, by Anish Kapoor, resin and paint, 2003 (this is the same artist who made "The Bean" in Chicago)

Guillotine of Sunlight, Guillotine of Shade, by Peter Wegner, die-cut paper, 2008 (a second half is in on the other side of this wall, in the color spectrum's cool colors)

You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies, by Yayoi Kusama, mixed media installation with LED lights, 2005 (probably my favorite in the whole place, an interactive experience! You walk into a room and this is what you see. The lights surround you and slowly change colors, turning on and off).

Madame Adelaide, by Adelaide Labille-Guiard, oil on canvas, 1787 (I studied her work last summer in Art History and admire her ability to represent fine, shiny fabrics using plain ol' paint).