Monument to Sucess

I've talked about Michelle Ward for forever because I love her stuff. I especially love what the graphic design world has been calling "Maximalism". I noticed it but didn't really connect with the trend until Michelle blogged about it. That was back in 2006 and I am just now getting around to being brave enough to try it. Of course this style goes hand in hand with the cool things that she is doing with stencils & spray paint.

As I am not set up for elaborate processes, I have chosen to play with the picmonkey and explore what I can do with the concept. No physical space required. No wasted material in failed attempts.

Tonight's issue:

The background was generated using picmonkey layers and editing the crap out of them. The engraved drawing is from the British Library collection I mentioned yesterday. And the rest was a lot of frustrated picking and deleting.

I'm not normally found of mixing cool and warm colors, which is what holds me back a little. But this red and blue/green combo is starting to grow on me.

Artifact box #5

Among the mess I started unpacking I found a box of Somerset Studio magazines and sketch books. Some were filled, others were only partially full and one was almost embarrassingly bare. the good news there is that I don't have to shop for more sketchbooks.

Here you can see two examples of why twitter knows me as @glyphgeek, a sample of my fascination with all manner of earthen vessles, the beginning of some kind of old engravers styled corbel design (middle bottom) and a sketch for a mannequin angel. If I had to guess I would say it was from the period when I obsessively watched Stargate SG-1 and continued through the point in which I moved out of my fathers house to begin this crazy 8 year quest.

When the jar and papyrus sketch popped out at me I kinda swooned. Sometimes I have some really good ideas. And that was one of them. It started an idea for a series of rubber stamps. Seriously need to get back on that track. Just have to figure out how to get around a couple of speed bumps.

From the Vault

My favorite color scheme should be pretty obvious by now. This 12x12 canvas came shortly after my father died. Seems fairly evident that the loss left me feeling like I was missing some parts of me; searching for those parts. Not sure that I have found them yet

Focused on red still? Or again? This is a 4x6 with the texture paste. The stencil is my own design, cut from thick mylar. I love it. But the next time I use it I will go with the blue stuff. It is thinner and I think will leave me with cleaner edges when using the paste. It needs another paste object in the bottom right corner for balance.

I really like this tree. It is a bit cartoony in this version. But the roots have that swirly curly character that was my almost "Signature" style in school. And obviously yellow is a bit of a departure from the norm.









The pictures are a bit washed out. That is due to the lack of proper photographic lighting and a small basement window by which to take pictures. Will remedy that soon. I wanted to get these up so that I could keep a discovery journal while unpacking the boxes downstairs.
 

Missing No More

I'd forgotten for a while that I had framed some of my work to put up in the last house I was in before dad died. Death does weird things to your brain. Anyway, I was looking for some things to sell to the antiques dealer when I found a box labled "DEC". I figured there would be good collectibles in there. Instead I found framed artwork.

Among my pieces I found a Muscha reproduction, courtesy of Matt. And this:

framed Freesia with reflection.



Box Number 4



 

Among the blanks stands a few gems:

 

 

 Three: in numerology three signifies a communicator. One of the defining numbers or my life, communication is essential to my overall well being. I must speak. If I cannot speak I must create. If I cannot create I must write. If I am left without an outlet then I become disconnected with reality. I begin to die inside.... it's very much a Holmesian problem.

One of the things I was exploring before the chaos that ensued after dad's passing: textural pastes. I really love how this layout lead from one thing to another. The amphora as a desert traveler needs something dark grounding it in that lower right hand corner to balance the 3 purple dots. And I need to wash the background colors smoother.... there is no transition between orange and yellow. It wasn't finished before it was boxed so I am not upset that it lacks some important details.


And another collaboration. I wonder where the rest of his art is that he did leave me before he left.

Start to Finish: Box #3

And the jewel of box number three...

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. The preliminary sketch. On the left is a box of Tazo brand tea with the late 90s packaging design, a Martha Stewart mug from K-mart, the bowl to the Martha set and a dollar store vase that I thought was kinda cool. This is the most factual representation of those four objects. The "draw what you see not what you think you see" portion of sketching.

To the right is the homework assignment. One of the casualties of the box, this somehow was folded over and bent into an ugly curve. This was submitted for the monochromatic project. As you can see, I changed the packaging and made it anonymous, added fruit to the bowl which decided the color tone, eliminated the dimensional designs on the case and kept the mug about the same as the original sketch.

It made for great homework but not for frame-able art as in the picture below. Four is really not an ideal number of objects for a still life. It is generally accepted that odd numbers make a perfect composition. I won't bore you with the scientific reasoning. It is just so. Thus, I decided to pull a grape from the bunch and bring it far enough forward to be it's own object to give me five. The composition also needed more diversity in sizes. The other objects are too similar in size to be interesting without a straggler.

I especially like how the details in this close up turned out. And I love the macro function in the camera. Have I mentioned that lately?

Meet Artie: the inscrutible Miss Tessa

 
 
 



Because every warehouse has to have a supervisor stuck in the dark ages of technology to keep an eye on the minions, keeping them close but not too close, making sure they don't screw anything up... there is this gem of feline superiority.

My roomie's cat, Miss Tessa. Sometimes called Bugs, mostly she avoids me. I am not her favorite person only because, in true cat fashion, she only likes her human. And I am not her human. When I am in the basement she is always there. I think to make sure that I don't mess up anything that she has gotten accustomed to. And today.... I messed up her life.

I've moved a few things that I think she might have been using as cover to hide from the kitten. He is still a furry ball of furious energy and likes to torment her as all little brothers do. But he doesn't like to be where the action is. He'd rather critique after the fact than supervise during. Anyway, it took me a while to realize that I was being watched. For the longest time I thought that uncomfortable stared at feeling was coming from the lone window to the outside world. But no... it was a cat.


She was watching me unpack and photograph box number three.

The unfinished (obviously) start of a watercolor from about 2002 or 3. And a page from a block of water color exploring the technique of multiples on a theme. I think that it could be a successful trick for people who like to work in miniature. This learning experience taught me that I get distracted by the other blocks when I am working in another one. I do like the one top left. It is my color way. The bottom right is too jarringly bright. The red block? I got bored drawing those sunflowers.

Oddly though.... I don't get bored with stargazer lilies. Of course I grew them for my reference materials. But again... stargazers have a special meaning. And the sunflowers were to be marketable.

My great take away from this set.... I wonder if the masking tape will ever come off. It's been there for a decade.

A DECADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!! Really where does the time go?

Box 2 continued...

I am not sure why Blogger does that when I am uploading multiple images. This is the second time that I have tried to add a second batch to a post and it decided not to let me see my library. If I were a paranoid Spook* I would think it was the Russians. It doesn't help that all of the spam in my stats is coming from Russia. So stop it if you don't want to get blamed! Oh... right. The bots don't actually read the posts.
So, moving on with the last post:





These lemons were from Jennifer Harrison's art class. The graphic representation of 5 in a complementary color was the assignment, if I am not mistaken. The left is done in acrylic. I love acrylic because it let's me work with texture. I am a very tactile person. The left is in watercolor. The graphic "advert" style on the left is fun to do once in a while. I need to do work like that to take me out of the rigid adherence to reality that sometimes I get mired in. I can not do that kind of simplification on a regular basis. Jennifer kept encouraging me to make more decisions in the realism with the reduction method in mind.

It helps your brain edit out the things that just don't matter. And she is right. The acrylic makes a strong statement. Those lemons are "gift wrapped". Definitely a life lesson in there. :)

 

 

You might think that these apples are watercolor. In a way they are.... it is acrylic wash. A lesson from Jennifer about playing with your medium to see what all it can do. 

 

My hands. I purposefully did two left hands in this drawing for Glee Fenby's class. I can not draw left handed. And  my right hand is not exactly photogenic. That is my own bias, I have no deformity. I just don't like my right hand.

The self portrait is woefully misshaped and distorted because it is a vertical orientation on an 18 by 24 inch piece of paper and I was working flat. It is the same issue I have with the peacocks that I started this past Winter.... accidental forshortening. It is me.... one of the best self portraits I have done. But I look like I got caught in one of Wesley's distortion field projects in school.

 The drawing pad containing all of my assignments from our text book in Glee Fenby's class and the only project I was not going to be embarrassed to post: from Commander Mark's book that I taught my daycare kids with 10 years! before I got to school myself. I loved Mark Kistler's program until my mom did what she always did and went off the deep end competing with him and then me. There is some thing distasteful about an adult that has to find a way to put down little kids.

Speaking of Russians. There was a kid who got to be on the show quite often. He was good. He could out draw Commander Mark, and Mark said so. He also said that was the point and the hope of every teacher: to have the student surpass the master.

 After a full 6 seasons of Doctor who I look at these chess pieces as Daleks in disguise. I need a break from BBC.

And I need to figure out what my eyes are doing when I have multiple objects in a painting. At first glance this watercolor still life is astoundingly talented for someone who at the time was new to watercolor. My glass is not as screwed up in the symmetry department as is usual. The banana and peach are well shaped, shaded, balanced and placed in the composition. The purple fabric is very natural and soft looking as it should be. But then you look at that apple. WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!

It looks like the peach smashed into it and collapsed the thing! The apple should have it's left side behind the peach. Instead they look like they are competing for space and it ruins the whole thing. I'd like to say that was a freak, one-off accident. But it isn't. As I was taking photos today I noticed that is a recurring problem in my work. Now if it is something that is happening with my visual cortex then I have a huge problem. If the issue is that I don't stop often enough to step back and look objectively then I need to change my methods and the problem is fixed. Of course by the time I get the  drawing done I am so starved for color that I could just be rushing myself... in which case that is a discipline issue.

either way.... that is at least 15 hours wasted. There is just no way to make that yellow apple melt into the green background behind that damn peach!

 And then there is this: yet another reminder of my ex-fiancé. A graphic representation for Jennifer Harrison's class. I think that this was the last project of the first year. Matt and I were either in constant competition or constantly encouraging each other. This is a project in which he gave me permission to use his handwriting to model the letter "A" in an art nouveau style. And the homework is explained in the 5 areas of the project itself. The technique used tricks from my rubberstamping days. Glossy paper, alcohol inks and gold leaf pen. Simple. But stunning.

MO W13 First Box

Also uncrated from this box....

A portrait of an ex boyfriend, sleeping angel. And the oil on paper of a Chickadee in Winter. This has a very graphic feel too it. I can see his penchant for the 80s in this work. And lately, as I am digging things out of storage and finding tons of work from this time period, I find I miss him a lot right now.

Life, being what it is, has separated us for good this time. In the past we could always find one another and catch up. He is my Wonder Twin. Sometimes our artistic lives clashed in competition but most of the time we fed and improved each other's passions for our individual projects.

He's shown at ARTprize in Grand Rapids and has had his work shown in a few places down there. I do not know that he ever has sold much. Tis a shame... he is so good at what he does really love, anime and art nouveau. The combination is stunningly fresh, almost steampunky if it weren't for all the bright colors he used. Steampunk...... yeah... I do miss him.

My Own W13

I just uploaded a bunch of stuff to facebook. My sister is back online and I wanted to shove a few things at her in preparation for the onslaught of her baby pictures. Plus.... facebook is quicker and I get to try out the funny on them before launching words at you guys.

So here we go....


From the W13 Artifacts Vault, First Box:
Among the Chagalls, Degas and Victorian Cats, in a Rubbermaid repository lies tiny treasures of past artistic adventures and experiments. Unlike a real W13 artifact..... none of these things possess weird powers that warp reality or bestow superhuman powers.
Too bad.





The vault is open........

 

 



The top layers are laid out on the floor. From left: Italian wall
calendar 1998, watercolor exercise from Watercolor Magazine
of pears, 2 Chagalls from a wall calendar, 1992 Gates McFadden
portrait in colored pencil, Dover Collection Degas wrapping
 paper, college project "Product Announcement" 2001, watercolor
of a random hill in the middle of a farm in Port Oneida in
Leelanau County in the Fall.
 

Charcoal drawing from Glee Fenby's class 2000.
Study in textures and shadows.



Prelims for rubber stamps sold to A1 Stamps. The collection
celebrates my home town.

Trying to be Degas with ink.... not sure how
successful I feel about this one.



Left: Censer for Christmas maybe 1999? Right: Imagining a Woodcut or Lino-cut badge
of an artist in the service of his or her queen.

Grammpa Gerbstadt and the unfinished portrait
1998 or 99

THe NatGeo cover that started a thing with cacao pods sitting
alongside a watercolor exemplar of the Hebrew alphabet.

Practicing a new wet in wet watercolor technique on the left
and exploring cacao on the right.

One of many partially used watercolor pads in the box. I opened
this one thinking it would be the fifth empty book. But no. This
one had a surprise inside......
A mostly finished stargazer lily.