I’m still teaching myself how to sew with paintings. This is my first attempt to use a standard pattern, using the canvases I had available. I think it’s alright. A good frame would benefit the final presentation. Not my greatest work either, but lessons were learned and I don’t feel the need to dismantle it. Ultimately, that’s a success.
“Triangle Stripes” 28.5″ x 28.5″ (20″ x 20″ hung square), Acrylic on canvas
Detail shot after the jump:
Northampton, Massachusetts is holding a chalk art festival. And I’m in it! You should come if you’re anywhere near Western Massachusetts on Friday September 10. I’ll be drawing in downtown Northampton along with five other artists. We each get a 5 x 5 foot concrete square to adorn. The chalk art festival is being presented as part of Northampton’s monthly Arts Night Out.
I know I’ve been lax with the Sunday Sidewalk Doodles lately. See, even the drawing above isn’t a finished piece. Apologies, but oh gee I’ve been super busy, first with KPAO! and now getting everything ready for a solo show in October at The Northampton Center for the Arts. Yay! Linklinklink come see my art in the flesh! All good stuff so I’m not complaining, just letting you know why and promoting my art in the process.
Biglove,
-Steph<3
I don’t think the metallic leaf translates well in these tiny digital images. All that stuff that looks white is really silver. Meh, what can ya do? Hire a photographer I guess, but that’s getting a little fancy for my blood.
acrylic and leaf on panel with 3 holes
i forget the size–about 16 x 24 maybe?
I’ve decided to go horizontal at this point. You may remember I was on the fence about orientation when it was still in progress. It works nicely that way in real life. The high contrast of the broken silver leaf against the warm textured background almost reads as rusted metal and the circular forms running across the middle make this weirdly fun shifty movement happen when the painting is laid on it’s side. It’s more static when left a vertical.
Detail photos after the jump! Read more »
Two weeks in a row with nothing new! I have been really busy, but it has been doing photography for hire and I won’t bore you with those shots. So, until I have something worthwhile to share, enjoy this video gem from the 1980′s….
I have here 3 monotypes intended as semi-abstracted versions of a mensa candidate from the Jersey Shore, as dreamt by Toni Tiller via her blog.
T.B.
Dream Study Jersey 2, monotype, 20″ x 16″
Dream Study Jersey 3, monotype, 20″ x 16″
Dream Study Jersey 1, monotype on newspaper, 14″ x 10″
I went all wild and experimental and decided to try color. Crazy right? I didn’t want to get too carried away so I only used one color, but hey, baby steps people. I don’t want my head to explode or anything.
This kind of reminds me of some 1960′s hotel art, and I am OK with that.
This girl is around 3 or 4 years old now. This was a gift for my friend Sarah Eltantawi and was made by painting other canvases atop it, with various stencils to control the pattern.
I think its about 60 inches long. Because of its orienatation its hard to fit it on here so its easy to see, I’ll post a larger, vertical version after the jump.
Read more »
This week, for my daily drawings I’ve been concentrating on people instead of monsters. I’ll pry continue this theme next week too, although, I need to practice my perspective drawing. I’ve also been thinking about trying some paintings were I use my own drawings as I would a found image. I made these two digital colored drawings as kind of a sketch; one being a straight forward approach to color and the second a more arbitrary abstract approach.
I like the arbitrary one a lot and I would like to explore the idea in paint, as soon as I have time.
Warrior & Warrior 2, ink on paper 8 1/2″ x 11″ scanned and colored on paintshop pro
was a bit fat hit! Even the Holyoke Canal Creature came out for the day!
Remember I told you about how I was organizing an arts festival in our local park? Well, I did. And it happened. You may have noticed my unexplained absence last weekend. Aheh, sorry. Saturday I was busy hauling tents and tables and chairs and art supplies and answering questions and directing wonderful volunteers and happy kids. And Sunday I was busy returning tables and chairs and tents and various things and stuff. And the previous week was spent frantically doing all manner of last minute organizing and procuring and whatnot. And it was all worth it! The party was tons of fun and loads of people came and made arts and crafts and listened to music and ate hotdogs and complimented us on the fabulous event and suggested we do something similar every couple of months. Handmade buttons and origami and BEARDS and painted faces as far as the eye could see! HATCHAH! D’Arte Board’s own Toni Tiller even made a very much appreciated appearance! Thanks, Toni you sweet little lady! It was great to see you! The photo below is of the handful of us leftover after the fete and before the cleanup. Follow the jump to see more photos from the day!
So what next? Now that the festival is over, what will become of Kennedy Park Arts Outreach? Well, we’re going to continue meeting up and being creative, of course! We have tons of projects we haven’t even begun yet! We still have dragons and pinatas and juggling sticks to make! We have more Haiku to write and more parties to plan! To find out what we’re up to or to get involved, email Artspit@gmail.com. You can also find us online at the following URLs:
www.iheartkennedypark.blogspot.com
www.holyoke.ning.com/group/KPAO
AND
You can “Like” KPAO! on Facebook!
More pics after the jump! Read more »
Working constantly, no time to make art; squeezed this monotype out the other night as an interpretation of a dream of Tiller’s: “Last night’s dream – I climbed Martin Puryear’s ladder into the infinite and never came back.”
I just saw some of Puryear’s work last week at Moma. I like the choices he makes with materials and treatment.
This has some problems with design elements and particularly marks. I’ll try again in a few days.
T.B.
Study From a Dream: Puryear’s Ladder, 2010, monotype, 17″ x 11″
I tried posting this like five times last night, and it kept eating the post. So right here, I want you to insert with your imagination a whole bunch of really good writing, the kind that is thorough, articulate, highly entertaining, and completely enlightening.
It’s true, that is exactly what was here I swear.
I went to the store and got myself a few things to make life easier, and a few that I suspect will make life harder. On the easier side I bought a roller, to get thicker more even coverage of the ink on the plate, and so far I am pleased with the results. It’s not so heavy that I lose some of the subtleties but it’s more even and less streaky than what I get with a brush. I also bought a rotary cutter, despite having advised JD to get one 3 years ago, I never had need for one until now. Cutting the fabric takes forever, and my beloved scissors are less predictable with it than with paper. Now it’s all zip, zip, zip, and I have tons of panels. I also bought a bunch of colored paint, which I imagine will keep me sufficiently tormented for awhile.
In this one I used my new roller, and some stiff dried grass I had cut up and used in a previous plate. The previous usage got them covered with a bit of ink, and so when reused it gave a bit of a ghost in the center of the stalks which softened some of the lines, which had been appearing to harshly in previous experiments. I also originally had this tuned to form a wave shape but then reconsidered, and flipped it this way, I’m not sure why, it just felt better that way.
Its been a hairy week for me but you’ll be happy to know I finally shaved last night.
In lieu of finished art, though, I’m just going to post this photo of the crawl space under my apartment, where a crackhead was living for a month or two earlier this year.
If you click on the photo it’ll take you to Flickr, where you can view the full sized image, and get a glimpse at his full setup.
-JD
Not much to say this week, just trying to keep it weird, make some drawings. I’d like to try doing some daily paintings but I’m not sure how I’d do that and make a bunch of plush toys too. I’ll see if I can work it out.
guilty/innocent, ink on paper, scanned, colored and altered with paintshop pro
Sorry that I missed my friday post, but I had a good reason. Directly from work, I went out to support my wife at this event. Below, is an earlier post that I wrote advertising it, and there is a link to some pictures of my wife’s display at the very bottom.
Double-click pic to go to site.
My amazing and talented wife, Mandi, will be showcasing her design work at this new, annual exhibition which puts on display some of the best design work from the region and beyond. If you are around town, you should definitely come and check it out! For more info, read their info below or pick up a Riverfront Times and check out their recommended events for Saturday.
From FORM:
“FORM 2010 is the first installment of an annual contemporary furniture, functional object and architectural design show in Saint Louis, MO. Presented by The Luminary Center for the Arts, the two-day event will bring together some of the best designers and firms from around the country on August 13-14, with a focus on sustainable design. FORM is one of the first events of its kind in the area and is a developing platform for the cultivation of contemporary design in the region.
FORM is a fundraiser for The Luminary Center for the Arts, a nonprofit artist resourcing organization that that seeks to provide meaningful support to emerging artists, audiences and appreciators in the St. Louis area. Proceeds from FORM will benefit an innovative new artist equipment library at The Luminary, which will provide area artists and creative professionals with access to specialized equipment such as a woodshop, media lab, film and video equipment, and large format printers.”
FORM pics
I ran over to MOMA ( the Museum of Modern Art, for all those neophytes) the other night and zipped right in with a membership card through the thousands of tourists and what seems like -every friday night at MOMA- a holiday weekend at JFK. I visited a great show from their Contemporary collection, and a mind-blowingly large retrospective of Henri Matisse. Among the intense range of his paintings and drawings from his years in Paris, Morocco and Nice were some monotypes which he obsessively did for several months in 1914. He made 70 that year, 10% of his lifetime total. The simple, rich, heavy, flat yet deep black with contours drawn to reveal stark white lines against said black were powerfully elegant.
I came home and played around with the black that I had drifted away from. Here is a figure I made using tools like a screwdriver, pencil, knife and razor blade. I’m also including a related but tonally very different image, one from a series made with india ink, pencil and letraset ink on paper.
Neverland 2, 2008,monotype, 14″ x 10″
Neverland 1, 2008, mixed media, ink, pencil, 11″ x 8″
So while I was semi happy with last weeks posting, mainly for my interaction with the materials and if not the end result, I kind of wanted to go back to my little press on the porch and something more simple. Again, I am still pulling things up out of the lawn, grasses of different types, and trying out different things. With this one a few things happened, first, I thought I had the background ink down much heavier (a recurring issue) and I had the grass laid out in a more structured pattern. Then I moved the plate from the table to the press and they sort of slid and shifted, and thank goodness because this pattern is better than the one I made. Similar, but less rigid, and it made me realize I have two options while pursuing this; either be OK with everything shifting in transit, or ink my plate, lay it on the bed and work there.
I know from our search results that a lot of people search for information on Chinese Art. So I figured people would appreciate this brief video on the state of Chinese Art as scene on the TV Channel Ovation (a good channel to watch if you like Art)
This piece is heavy.
“Nested Squares” 33″ x 33″ Acrylic on canvas w/ safety pins
Each square consists of its own frame with wood lining the outside and inside of each layer. And because I was learning how to best do it as I was making it, some of the wood is heavier than need be. In the future I’ll be able to handle this better, but for now I’m not planning on rebuilding whole sections from the ground up.
I’ve held onto this for a few months now without photographing it because I wasn’t sure about the color scheme. The usual scheme I’ve been using for years now has been very nature based, with greens and oranges (colors of living and decaying leaves) playing out around some measure of blues (sky/water). When I’ve used purple I’ve usually made itself play alone (or with some oranges, mimicking the color of certain tide pools).
Detail shot, music and more blabber after the jump.
Read more »
This week, I started to concentrate on embracing my weird a bit more. I think, I need to stop editing my ideas, trying so hard to be cute, funny or clever. Maybe its not a perceivable difference to anyone but me, but I’m really digging it and will probably continue for a while.
trying it weird, ink on paper
Agora Gallery - the proud sponsor of the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, which offers contemporary artists the opportunity to show their original art at one the most acclaimed juried art shows in Chelsea, New York’s art galleries district.
darteboard
jdhastings
ssstephg
Tom Bennett
Toni Tiller
Jason Gray
probrucer
laelia e. mitchell
galinatodorova
