Atmospheric Perspective

I thought you'd enjoy this progression of the drawing I worked on for my class last week. The point of the assignment: to create the illusion of distance. We had to bring three photos with us to class: foliage of some type, a building, and and animal/vegetable/person. 

It is probably most fun if you click on photo #1 and then Blogger will show you all the photos in a row, so you can toggle back and forth to see the differences in each one. There is at least an hour of work between each of the photos here.  The fourth photo is the final (taken at night, thus the yellow coloring). 

People in my class really liked it, and the teacher put it up in the hallway's glass case!  I feel like I'm in 1st grade with an accolade like that!

Negative Space & Card Swap

Here's a bicycle in the studio. Now, draw it. No, not by focusing on what it is, but on what it is not!

Progression:

You are invited to participate in this year's 6 Degrees of HLM card swap!  Here is how it works:

1. After I hear from everyone who wants to participate and I give you the signal, you'll have 8 weeks to make ten (10) greeting cards, most often somewhat identical in design (although this is not required).  These cards can be any shape or size, blank on the inside, themed wherever your whimsy takes you. Every medium is welcome: fabric, stamping, painting, beads, collage, photography, papercraft.... Most important is that whatever you make fits into an envelope that can be mailed either domestically or abroad. NEW THIS YEAR:  Please make your card within the theme or concept of "blue" or "mountain." No need to be literal about this--be creative!  What images, thoughts, words, or inspiration do these words invoke for you?  Please interpret as loosely as you need to.

2. On the given postmark deadline, you'll send all the cards you make to me with enough envelopes for each card and a couple of dollars (international folks exempt from having to send me money).

3. Once I receive everyone's cards, I'll divvy them up so that every person receives ten cards from other swap participants. Using the couple bucks, I'll send them back to you.

4. You'll receive a set of handmade greeting cards to use over the next year in the mail for just the cost it took to make yours and ship them to and from me.

Here are the dates you need to know:

·   RSVP to participate in the card swap by next Saturday, February 22, either by leaving a comment below or writing me at the email address to the right.

·   Start thinking about/making your design as soon as you can.  You'll be surprised how quickly that deadline will be here.

·   I'll host a Work Party at my studio in Fort Collins, CO on Saturday afternoon, April 5th--anyone who participates in the swap is welcome to join us.

·   Monday, April 14 is the postmark date for getting those cards, enough corresponding envelopes, and cash in the mail to me. (If you're local, you obviously don't have to bother with the sending business--we'll just rendezvous!)  

·   I'll send out a reminder about 4 weeks through.

·   Around May 1 is when I will hopefully send your cards back to you.  This is a fuzzy deadline, as the nature of having an international card swap greatly affects postal travel.

Please DO forward this invitation to any of your crafty or arty friends and have them RSVP directly to me if they'd like to participate.  Anyone is welcome (even if card-making is not their main means of artistic expression!).  My only request is that everyone who signs up follows through to make/swap their cards.

For inspiring close-up images from last year, click here.

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).

"Magic Yarn"

For once, a break from painting!  In art class we recently spent two evenings in small groups making a stop-motion video. My group consisted of just three of us, and we were all relieved to find that we easily worked well together.  The assignment was "Chaos To Order," to see how adding the component of time affects a 2-dimensional work of art.

It took approximately 7 hours for the three of us to make this video. It is a total of about 515 images!  Special thanks to Cydney and Jaque.  :)