good karma

So last month's good karma piece was made and sent off and the good karma giveaway winner DK loved it. yay! I'm still waiting for the good karma to catch up with my regular life, but it seems to be working really well for Art Related Things.

good karma, ink, watercolor pencil and gouache

the catch up catchall

ok lots of things have been happening...

The public art sculpture at BP was dedicated on Wednesday. Public Art? Sculpture? you ask. Yes, I've spent the last 2 months doing hard labor learning new skills! like how to make concrete. FYI: concrete is heavy. Most of May, I felt like a zombie, minus the desire to eat brains.

Just exhausted completely, and in an odd sort of way, it was just what I needed. I had planned to spend May working on paintings for the Safety and America show at CAC. I was shooting for one more painting after roots.

I had plenty of work but wanted extra. So I had a week basically to get that one painting done, the one that Giovanni was going to film for movie magic. flow. I got it done.

And then I got hope done.

and pacifica.

and peace. and two untitled landscapes. Below is one of the landscapes.

What I didn't get done, was lots of pics of these paintings. I'm missing peace and one of the landscapes. So there is still more catching up to do.

The show looks amazing! And it's a huge space and it's packed, really packed full of my artwork. 31 paintings will be there til the 24th and then it's on to HAC. CAC is open Mondays and Thursdays 9-4.

And later this month I'm teaching/leading a mural class for kids. Originally, I was told this would be 4'x8', which is sort of a stretch to be considered a mural. I went out to the site for a meeting yesterday and it's going to be 8'x20' on one wall and then wrap around the corner to partially cover a 12'x28' wall. Now that's a mural!

movie magic

So about a month ago, one of my friends posted on facebook:

I want to film you.....and you.....and you and you and you. Yes yes?

This wasn't directed at me, but I didn't let that stop me. I had already been thinking that I should make a clip about my artwork to introduce myself to some new people. And I was already thinking that Giovanni was the guy to do it. And here he was asking to do it. Well, you know, sort of asking. I shot him a message and he was interested.

So here I was all ready. Giovanni was over shooting for several hours and I lived to tell. And so did he. And neither of us cried. At. All. I was actually much less nervous than I thought I would be, considering I hate having my picture taken. It went well. The painting went well. The plan is to have this piece completed for next week's opening at CAC. No pressure! Actually I work well under a deadline. Still have more to do, but here is where I finished yesterday.


N is for a New Plan, or why I am not a graphic designer

nwicreative.com had a type project last week: create a capital letter N. I thought this sounded like fun, which, frankly,  surprised me a little. I think if I hadn't just done the you are beautiful I, I probably wouldn't have given it a second thought.

Type is the reason I am not a graphic designer. Seriously. My first semester at Pratt, there was some sort of organized talk-to-an-upperclassman-in-your-major event. I remember sitting on the floor in the elevator lobby on one of the floors in the dorm and listening to some girl tell us that she doesn't even use press type, because her type skills are that good. And none of her friends use press type either because their skills are that good. And how awesome is that because everyone knows an entry level position in a design firm is going to mean a job doing type.

That spring I registered for CommD classes.

That summer I decided I was crazy to register for CommD classes.

Because I didn't want a job doing type. I didn't even want to take a type class. I just wanted to paint. I changed my classes over to Fine Arts. Ironically, the following semester I changed my major from painting to printmaking and started making etchings made entirely of writing.These etchings are the inspiration for the look of the ink drawings I do now.

Back to the letter N... I thought about doing two, one each ink and painting. Then, I sort of ran out of time. Surprising, right? No? hmm.. Actually I thought they were due a day later than they were. oops. I had made all sorts of super swirly edged N's which sort of ended up as a sleek ribbonlike N. I masked it and inked it. But I didn't have lots of time so I inked it in away that I thought would mimic crosshatching by writing in different directions. It didn't work. It was hideous. And I mixed a brown ink which I can only say did not work. This is why I work in daylight. Artificial light sucks. So, I decided to paint over it. Even though it was dark. In artificial light. I think I saved it. You can still see the brown ink in the outline.

One of the cool things that came out of this was some inspiration for an old project. After I did the History Repeats drawings I did the seven deadly sins and the corresponding virtues. I did sample after sample after sample to get the inks just right. But after I was done with the drawings, they felt kind of generic. They were missing something. They just weren't personal enough somehow. I think I tried to make them too much about the sin/virtue rather than using that as a beginning point. So now I have a New Plan to paint over them. I think I will start with some gouache. I used acrylic on the N, but I want to lay into these slowly so I can keep some of the text. Look for future posts about how these images will change.

 

delivering history

Today is delivery day for History Repeats and the sun is shining. Yay! for good weather on delivery day!

I made this series in January 2011. You can see work in progress pics on my facebook page. There are 16 drawings in this series, most of which were shown in the Decompression show with Megan Green and Lee Ligocki. There are a few that haven't been shown before, just due to space restrictions in that show, including the two featured here.

History Repeats opens Friday May 18 at South Shore Arts Substation No. 9 and there will be an artist reception Saturday May 19 from 11-3, in conjunction with the Downtown Hammond Art Tour.

reminder: one week left to sign up for the good karma artwork giveaway!

the thank you post

Sometime in the last week, I hit 150 "likes" on my facebook page. That is all kinds of awesome and I am grateful for the support. Art related things are going really well for me right now and there are good things in store all summer. Seems like a good time to put some good karma out into the world.

I wanted to have a giveaway to commemorate this cool facebook milestone, but I'd have to hire a lawyer to be sure I met all of the terms of agreement red tape and thaought that sounded like to much trouble/money/work. Seriously, this is why all the contests and giveaways on fb are links to blogs where you have to leave a comment or join an email list.

So here's the rules:

1. You must "like" my page. If you are reading this, you probably already have.
2. Leave a comment on this post. I don't really care what you comment, but, keep it semi-clean, please. You aren't getting bonus points for creativity or sucking up. However, sucking up is always appreciated.
3. The deadline to comment is 5/21/12. Randomly, one comment will be chosen and that person will get a small, unframed work on paper. If, at the drawing date, I have 200 "likes", there will be a second winner. That gives you two weeks to come up with a witty comment and, if you choose, get all your friends, family members, old schoolmates, and co-workers-who-you-really-don't-like-but-felt-obligated-to-accept-their-friend-request on board. The winner(s) will be announce the next day.

What are your odds? Well, technically, right now, they are 1:149 (because I'm not counting myself), although I'm pretty sure they are better than that, based on the regular interaction I get on the page. And if I hit 200, then it will be 1:99.5, and again in reality better than that. So if you invite your friends to the party, your chances of winning actually go up. Good karma for you, too!

Will it be a drawing or a painting? I don't know, I haven't made it yet. Does it matter? It will be awesome!

roots

My roots have grown but I don't know where they are.

I'm totally in love with The Head and The Heart. This line is from the song "Cats and Dogs." And why should you care? Well, you should care because they're Awesome. with a capital A. Perhaps more importantly relevantly, it keeps running through my head while I'm working on this painting.

I've started this piece in a completely new way. new for me, anyway. I began with this photo I took on a recent hike at the Dunes. This tree is on the ridge at the top of one of the dunes. Lake Michigan is at the bottom of the dune to the right. The roots are easily 18" or more out of the sand.

I started by blocking in some of the structure from this tree. Usually I start with the figure, deconstruct it, and rebuild it as a landscape (for the america pieces). Just to confuse the matter, this is a reclaimed canvas, formerly known as Buried, and I didn't bother to gesso over it. I'm using the old painting as an underpainting. The pink and blue is old, the ocher is new.

And here it is with a little more work. It's about a quarter of the way to completion.