Tiny Painting #2

 

"Poppy Pixie"

April 2013 • 2.5 hours • 2.5 in x 3.5 in

Acrylic on Chipboard

 

On display at Breakneck Gallery, Lakewood Ohio

until May 11th 2013

Tiny Painting #1

"Rachel with Green and White" 

April 2013 • 4 hours • 2.5 in x 3.5 in

Acrylic on Chipboard

 

On display at Breakneck Gallery, Lakewood Ohio

until May 11th 2013

Art in the Parc

I am thrilled to be showing again this year at Chartreuse Inc's "Art in the Parc" event.

Grab your coworker or BFF and join us at next Friday's art, design and summer soiree. Explore the work of our artist friends as they share their talents on a delightful summer evening. Have a cocktail and a sweet treat. Find that perfect piece of art you’ve been searching for. Mix and mingle with many area creatives.  Celebrate summer! FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012 | 5pm to sundown THIS YEAR’S PARTICIPATING ARTISTS INCLUDE: Alicia Costello • accessories for you & your wee ones Bushels by Jane King • handmade babushka dolls Erica Frazier-Young • contemporary jewelry Erin Schechtman • paintings & illustrations Grey Cardigan • whimsy illustrations Modern Pixie • hand-crafted exquisite jewelry One Sydney Road • a curated boutique Stitch Cleveland • sewn accessories Stash Style • one-of-a-kind clothing Suzuran Photography • photography  Rosy Girl Baked Goods • delightfully unique baked goods Stella • small batch jams, jellies and sauces Parking is available (but limited) on the street near the office, and the entrance will be through the Chartreuse parking lot. The fun continues onto the patio and into the studio. Hope to see you there!

Come visit me, my charcoal works, a few paintings, and some very LIVE surprises! See you there!

Stanka!

This weekend was pretty amazing - I got to take a 2 day workshop with the incredible multi-award winning portrait artist Stanka Kordic. It was such an honor to learn from her! Her paintings are sort of life-changing, I don't know how else to describe them. Please be sure to check out her website to see for yourself.

Image Copyright Stanka Kordic 2012

Each morning, Stanka did an alla prima demo. She approached the painting a lot looser than I'm used to, making seemingly random underpainting marks and then "finding" the contours and features of the portrait within the loose marks. In almost everything, she used a large brush - sometimes simple house painting brushes! She then layed in large flat planes of color - something that I would like to do more in my own work - and refined everything later. And suddenly *POP!* there he was.

 Amazing!

Here is my go at it:

This photo is a little dark, but you get the idea

 Thanks Eileen at BAYarts, Arthur the awesome model and especially Stanka for a wonderful weekend! Can't wait to try out these new techniques.

Let it Be Encaustic Process

My buddy Randy curates some awesome shows around town. This time it was "Album of the Year," which opened Friday at Studio Le Beau in Tremont (an adorable suburb of Cleveland, Ohio). For this show, we all created 12x12 tributes of our favorite album covers. We of the Rust Belt Monster Collective also used this for our Week 18 challenge topic.

Awesome Poster by Ms. Ashley Ribblet

  I chose to illustrate the Beatles' "Let it Be". 

To create my album cover, I first rendered the image in charcoal on Arches Hot Press 300gsm Watercolor Paper (right now, this is the only paper I use on for charcoal works).

The paper is attached to a drawing using drafting tape. I don't like this tape as much as my usual artist tape (which the store was out of) for 2 reasons: 1) It is lighter and not as sticky, which makes maintaining clean lines more difficult and 2) it is yellow instead of white, which makes you view the color of your work differently.

I spray fixed the drawing, cut it out of the sheet of paper with an x-acto knife, and grabbed a watercolor-paper covered 12x12 hardboard panel I had prepped earlier. This panel had to have an absorbent sheet of paper attached to it since it had come pre-gessoed and encaustic wax does not stick to acrylic gesso.

I then heated up some encastic medium (beeswax mixed with damar resin) on the ole' George Foreman and poured a layer of wax on to the panel. My assistant (boyfriend) and I then used a heat gun to keep the wax liquid long enough to let it soak through the drawing. This basically glues the paper to the wood and "fuses" the wax, making it stronger, smoother, and harder. It also is the most difficult part since the wax cools very quickly. Definitely a 2 person job.

George Foreman commandeered from the Boyfriend... Sorry Ron

Here is the drawing covered in Wax. I love all the cool textures we got! Notice how I accidentally cut it a little too small for the panel... whoops...

Waxy!

And then I painted over the wax in oils! Hmm... I bet you want to see that part. Head over to the Rust Belt Monster Collective site to check it out!

Here is a preview:

Pot Preview

Kiln Wizard Jeff sent these photos today of a few of my new pieces. Can't wait to see them in person! Although those brown bowls were definitely supposed to be greenish...

Pottery show THIS Friday!!

Painting Pots

I started creating pottery as an escape from working digitally every day and quickly fell in love with the feel of it. I am a sloppy pottery....but for me the thrill of playing with mud is more important than the end result. My fingers itch to get tactile again after hours of drawing imaginary lines.

My favorite part is the decorating. However, getting to that stage often takes a while, especially after a long break like this one. Sometimes it takes up until then for my obsessive nature to take over and I get hooked on pottery yet again...

Here are a few pieces I am working on now for the upcoming Sacred Vessels show at Bayarts (Opening May 11th, 7 to 9). I will also have some charcoal drawings in the show!

Large Woven Rim Platter

Small Textured Platters. These have the same floral motif as the bowls below but are going to be bright turquoise!

 

Time is Sacred Bowl Set.

Click here for Show information.