Fleishig bowls

My sweetie and I coordinated together to paint these two bowls at (this is a crazy business name if ever I heard one) “Color Me Mine,” which offers a studio and pre-fab ceramics that you can pay to sit around and glaze. Then the fire your piece and you go pick it up, and voila! you have new kitchen ware.

Does bread count as art?

I have been neglecting this blog because I have been channeling my artistic energies to places other than official artwork these past months. I’ve been taking a lot of photos and doing a lot of creative work in the kitchen. This bread, for example, was my first in the breadmaker and lo! there is a photo.

Metal Bear continues

I’ve been toiling away at the bear since I started it in July. These days, progress is not always obvious. Last night I spent three hours working on him and got his second hind leg covered. The time before that, I covered up his head. The time before that, his first hind leg. I keep refining my technique as I go, too. For example, I sometimes, I do a quick (bad) weld of a new piece of metal to an already covered part of the bear, heat the new piece to bright orange, and then beat the hell out of it until it both acquires some character and drops its weak weld. Then I weld it properly in the place it belongs. I’ve also been using more smaller pieces, and making sure each one acquires character before its left alone. Next steps are to cover the two front legs with skin and give his face some features … and maybe he’ll get a tail. Here are some progression photos of the bear.

Drawings from Lifelike Death

I took a trip to the American Museum of Natural History this past weekend and did some drawings from death of these taxidermied animals from Africa. There’s an elephant, a rhino, and a water buffalo.

See all three here.

Woman Lying Down

This drawing is actually from a figure drawing session from three years ago. I just rediscovered it. I like the angle and the use of line to convey the form.
 
 

Bear in a Stream

As I was pondering over what to create next in the metal studio, where I go every Thursday, I came across the idea of a bear, and a split second later, I knew the pose. It would be the pose of a bear I drew many years ago in pencil. I ransacked my closet and found it. Tonight, I start.

See the full image here.

Giraffe in Lines

Another drawing done with a pure contour technique. It is perhaps not initially as bewildering as the drawing of 6/23, but still cuts a sharp figure on the page. Inspired by one of the photographs of Mary Schwalm.

See the full picture here.

Lying on the Floor

I’ve been thinking lately a lot about line. When I look at the world, I often don’t see shapes and shades; I see lines between objects, between darker and lighter areas, between shapes. Many of my art teachers have focussed on trying to get me to focus less on lines, to let distinctions between things meld together, so I’ve abandoned line a lot. Here is a revisitation.

Look at the whole drawing, and give your mind a minute to process what it is.

spring class

Yesterday I started taking an oil painting class. I haven’t painted with oils in years … about 10 years, I think (here’s one of my oil paintings from 10 years ago). for the first day of class, we drew a model using charcoals and paper, one of my favorite media. I’ve posted here the following items from last night:

• 5 minute sketch
• 10 minute sketch
• Using a piece of charcoal taped to the end of a 3-foot stick
• 20 minute sketch

art calendar

I’ve done a lot of updating to the art store in the last week. There are now a bunch of new products, new product designs, and the whole store has a new design. The homepage especially! The most exciting new product is a 2006 Wall Calendar, which has some artwork for every month. There are also calendar prints (one picture for the whole year) and some new cards and postcards.

Visit the art store!