my week

It snowed overnight in Portland.  I guess Punxsutawney Phil was right after all. 

Another outing with my daughter's third grade class.  We took public transit to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland.  You really can't miss the 65 ft sign out front with over 6000 lights.  The 1928 concert hall is home to the Oregon Symphony. On Friday, the symphony performed a concert for students in the Portland area.  These special concerts have been a longstanding tradition for the Oregon Symphony.  I remember going to them as a young school girl! 

I went to see renown makeup artist Bobbi Brown speak at my alma mater.  She shared her story and gave some practical tips to entrepreneurs starting out.  About 95 percent of the audience were women.  I guess that shouldn't surprise me, especially since there were free makeup samples.  

During the Q and A session, Bobbi talked about persistence.  She mentioned working for a company for free if that means getting your foot in the door.  I wholeheartedly agree with this, and this is actually how I got my teaching job.  I volunteered at the neighborhood high school, and after a few weeks, I had an interview with the principal. 

Our new pet.  He's a beauty.  My eight year-old named him Leonardo DiCaprio. 

Here's a sneak peek of my current piece about half-way finished.  Mountains are a favorite subject of mine, but I've been wanting a change of scenery.  So a night forest scene it is. 

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Just in case you didn't catch the little promo box in the sidebar, I am running an art print sale in my Etsy shop.  Buy two prints and get a third free.  [Sale ends this Thursday.] For more details, go here. 

things i'm fond of today

latest work by street artist tellas

left: beautiful piece on flickr by common elements;  right: graduation project by kirstie van noort, a student at design academy in eindhoven, netherlands

aunt by inca pan

this put a smile on my face today.  photo by artist sabine timm.

new work and new series

New painting in my Etsy shop, Harvest Moon.

Harvest Moon in progress.

Like birthing a child, some works of art can be a lot more laborious and complicated than others.  My latest piece, Harvest Moon, was one of these works.  It was as if I was working in slow motion the entire time; everything just seemed to take twice as long.  Like any other work, I had to get over that hump, but that marker was pushed much further into the creative process of this painting.   The most difficult section of this work was, surprisingly, the water.  I had initially painted some natural ripples in the water.  Ultimately, I didn't like how it looked with the green zigzag, so I painted over the waves. 

The painting came out a little more linear than expected, but I am very happy with the finished piece.  I like that it has a retro Atari vibe to it.  Pong anyone?

close-up of finished painting

And I normally keep the sides of my wood panels natural, but I went for a darker look with this piece.  Think wood paneling on an 80's station wagon.  Yes.

After a great experience [albeit challenging] with the 30 works in 30 days project, I wanted to start another series.  You may remember the box of vintage note cards I scored at an estate sale last year.  Some of them are handwritten and others typed, but all of them have something to do with plants.

I like working with vintage and found objects.  There's already a story there that I've now become a part of.  And I love the idea of making treasures out of ordinary or expendable objects.    

I don't have a timeline or a number of completed pieces in mind for the vintage note card art series.  I figured I would get to at least 20 and see how I feel.  I priced the pieces at $25, which I think is fairly reasonable for small, original works of art.  Overall, a series like this is more work than one large painting, but if it means the start of a one-of-a-kind art collection for a buyer, it is well worth it to me.

My week

Painted these for my daughter who turned 12 this week.  On the day of her birthday, my husband and I chaperoned a class field trip to OMSI [Oregon Museum of Science and Industry] where the featured exhibit is Body Worlds.  My group was ready to move on after 20 minutes, which speaks more to the attention span of adolescents than the exhibition.

My dear friends brought back for me some anchovy stuffed olives from Spain.  I'm already on my second can today. 

I shipped off some of my original works and prints to a boutique in Beacon, New York called Blackbird Attic.  I'm the featured artist at the shop from March 10 - April 13.  Wish I could follow my works to New York, but that'll have to wait for another time. 

Here are two new originals that will be part of the show:

night journey and mountain glow, 2012.

documentating art in caves and on the street

I like to watch documentary films.  This past month I watched two documentaries about art- Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Exit Through The Gift Shop.  If you haven't seen these films, check out the trailers. 





Initially, the two documentaries seem to have very little in common.  One film is about ancient cave paintings and the other, street art.  But, as I've had a few weeks to reflect, I realized that Cave and Exit share a number of common themes regarding art.

The first theme involves the permanence of art.  The cave paintings of Chauvet [in France] are noted to be the oldest pictorial works of ancient time.  Scientists date the images to as far back as 35,000 years ago! Although some have questioned the dating methods used, we can all agree that the paintings are really old.  I find it fascinating that primitive art [essentially natural pigment and charcoal on rock] can last for thousands of years, and artists today are challenged with the integrity of modern art materials. 

Permanence has always been a core issue for artists.  Ironically, one modern form of art, street art, finds relevance in impermanence.  Exit testifies to this increasingly popular and very temporary art form, showcasing footage of notable street artists at work.  Like the early cave artists before them, street artists choose to display their works on walls.  But, these works are usually created in public urban spaces, so they are either promptly removed or left to decay with a dilapidated building.

Banksy, Los Angeles, 2011.  [image source: www.banksy.co.uk]

Another prevalent theme in both Cave and Exit is anonymity in art.  In both films, the identities of artists are passionately pursued. Even the director of Exit, renown street artist Banksy, remains anonymous today.  Anonymity is a way of life for many street artists, which is increasingly harder to achieve in today's very public culture.

Street artists choose to be anonymous, whereas the primitive artists of Chauvet are anonymous by the lack of a written language.  In Cave, the work of one cave artist was distinguished from the others by the repeated use of his hand print.  Archaeologists were able to track his work throughout the cave because of the imprint of a crooked pinky finger on the right hand.  This particular story struck a chord with me because I have a crooked pinky on my right hand as well [thanks to flag football].  Although we will never know the name or face of this early artist, his hand print with the crooked finger is his signature and identity.

Both films, Cave and Exit, document the creative nature of man.  When the first shots of the Chauvet images came across the screen, I was mesmerized by the beautiful details and craftsmanship of the line drawings.  Some of the animal drawings were layered or repeated, as if to show movement and action.  Clearly, the prehistoric art in Chauvet Cave is evidence of man's innate creative ability.  We are wired as humans to be inventive, inspired, and expressive. 

Exit celebrates the unique art and passion of street artists, but the film is really about one man's fascination with street art and his emergence as a street artist himself.  Although the self-proclaimed artist mimics the style of other artists, his debut in Los Angeles is a big success.  By the end of the film, Banksy leads us to the age-old question, what is art?  And is a penchant for art enough to call oneself an artist?  The featured artist even states at the end of the movie that only time will tell if he's a real artist . . . perhaps in another 35,000 years. 

New works, "Canopy" and "Gold Moon"

Remember the demo in my last post?  That vibrant red background was used as an underlayer in my lastest work, Canopy.  With most of my works, I start with warms colors and finish with cooler hues, like blues and greens.  Even though the layer of red isn't very noticeable in the finished painting, the subtle hints of it underneath is what keeps the painting from looking really flat.

Sometimes I find that the blues I use in my art don't translate very well in print form.  With Canopy, the blues turned out a little greener than the original, but I still liked the end result.  I placed the print in an old frame and temporarily hung it on the reclaimed wood headboard in my bedroom.  Is it just me, or does the framed print give off a black velvet painting vibe?

I also finished this piece- gold moon.  This is an original work on maple wood panel.  Both Canopy and gold moon are currently available in my Etsy shop.

My Etsy shop is going through some changes at the moment.  I'm sure many of you etsy sellers have already heard of direct checkout.  My shop is part of the initial rollout, so now transactions can be made without leaving the Etsy site.  Hurray!  This means that those without Paypal accounts can now shop with convenience on Etsy. 

Starting March 1, I'll be paring down my print collection.  Many of the items that I'll be discontinuing have been moved to the second page of my shop.  Additionally, I'll be instituting a price increase on select prints [first time since opening my shop].   Most prints will go from $20 to $25. 

With all this change, I thought it was time to revamp the header in my shop, too.  Here's what I came up with late last night:

My Etsy shop was not the only thing that saw changes this week. I think spring fever has hit me big time! We dropped off a trunk load of stuff at Goodwill, pawned off other unwanted items to friends and family, and even tackled a few mini projects around the house.  My current domestic focus is the bedroom.  This past weekend I painted yellow chevrons on the door to add a bit of cheer in our room. 

working with water soluble crayons

A few weekends ago, I picked up a set of water soluble crayons at an estate sale for $1.  They are the Neocolor II crayons from Caran d'Ache.  I've been a fan of Caran d'Ache's oil pastels for over 20 years now, so I was curious to see how the aquarelle crayons compared. 

When applied dry, the crayons act a lot like wax crayons, except they are denser and richer in color.  The magic happens when you add water.  Just look at the vibrancy and easy blending of color when a wet brush is applied! 

The Neocolor II crayons work beautifully on canvas panel, and I've used them on wood panel, too.  Here is a work in progress.  I used the water soluble crayons for the yellow moon.  I like that I can layer other mediums on top, which is a little trickier to do with oil pastels. 

I keep my crayons sorted in a metal slide storage box that I found at the estate sale.  I already added some new colors to my collection. 

Aquarelle crayons are a wonderful material for kids, too.  My daughter used them to make her valentine's card design. 

my week

new painting // lost lake

found these sweet and tiny vessels by elycia camille at tender loving empire

just a few dollars apiece!

i gave them to the girls as earring holders

i was happy to drop off more of my art prints at tilde this week

so that I could take another look at the beautiful paper creations of

katie kulper [friend and fellow portlander]

i've mentioned her work before here

her latest paper sculptures are part of curves + lines: a papercraft show at tilde

utter and complete guilty pleasure

my favorite >> monkey muffin, top left

my eight year-old made this for valentine's day

and we turned it into cards for her classmates

xoxo