Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend – I know I am! This week was one of those non-stop-isn’t-it-over-yet-how-can-I-have-so-much-to-do sort of weeks, and I am feeling quite grateful for the weekend. I have promised my fiance that I will most definitely clean the house and catch up on the laundry tomorrow– I’ve been holed up in my studio all week long preparing to hang some new work in a fantastic new restaurant space in Media, PA (House on Jackson Street, if you’re in the area!). So before I commit myself to domestic duties, I wanted to make sure to add a new page to the site I’ve been planning on adding – a page dedicated solely to sketchbook images and drawings. These are the pieces I do in preparation for a painting, just to blow off creative frustration, or sometimes, just because I love drawing with ink. It contains images like this one:
Be sure to check it out here, and I hope you enjoy!
Some new work. All acrylic on canvas – see the full details on the current work page.
As always, contact me with questions, queries, or interest! Enjoy!
“Awk Fox” – 24″x24″ Acrylic on canvas
Just a quick post tonight – it’s Sunday evening and I was thrilled to spend most of the day locked away in my studio sketching in a brand new sketchbook. As a rule, I don’t usually change sketchbooks in the middle of the year unless the initial one is full (not the case with the moleskine I posted about a while back), but I couldn’t resist a couple of little 5.5″x8″ Strathmore mixed media sketchbooks I stumbled across in Michael’s clearance section the other day (only $3.00 each!) The paper is much heavier than my other sketch books and suitable for all kinds of wet and dry media. Below are a few of today’s finished products! Enjoy and let me know what you think!
There has been a lot going on here in my little home studio!
As you may have seen in my last post, my birthday was at the beginning of the month – I turned 28. Twenty eight marks 16 years since my grandfather taught me to paint with oils. Twelve years since I marched myself down to the guidance office at school and demanded that they replace all of my math and science classes with art and music classes. Ten years since I graduated high school and decided to attend The Art Institute of Philadelphia. Seven years since I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Graphic Design. Four years since I started painting again after having given up on the art after college. And, I decided while reflecting on my 28th birthday over a glass of wine and sushi with a friend, high time I started taking myself as seriously as I wanted others to.
It’s confession time – I have always relied on others to value me and my talents more than I value them myself, because placing real value on the things that I chose to do made me uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable because if I grabbed on to something – like art – and threw myself into it and failed, I would be devastated; but if other people insisted I should throw myself into it and I kind of did, I couldn’t be blamed if it went terribly awry. I have grappled for years with art not being a serious enough endeavor, but more so with not believing I was good enough to make it one. Continue reading
When I first saw the work of Michael Mapes, I was immediately fascinated. A mix of photography, sculpture, and science fair project – albeit a really, really, beautiful science project, Michael Mapes dissects his already-stunning photos and then reassembles the pieces using specimen pins, plastic bags, vials, magnifying glasses, gelatin capsules, and the like. The results are beautiful, compartmentalized sculptures that appear endlessly complex and function as portraits, collage, and intriguing forays into organization and disorganization.
You can see more of his work at Parlor Gallery.
Author and illustrator of over 50 children’s books during his lifetime, Maurice Sendak died Tuesday due to complications following a recent stroke. Most well known for his book Where the Wild Things Are (1963), he was both an award-winning author and artist. Nothing short of a character himself, Mr. Sendak graced us all with his unique perspective, timeless children’s literature, and expressive illustrations. We have lost one of the greats.
While Where the Wild Things Are is certainly one of his most well-known publications, Sendak’s other groundbreaking works include In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Higglety Pigglety Pop! and The Nutshell Library. Bumble-Ardy, his first book in 30 years, was published by HarperCollins last year. A posthumous picture book, My Brother’s Book, is slated for 2012.
Sendak has said of his own writing, “I don’t write for children. I write, and then someone says, ‘That’s for children.’” He held similar sentiments for his art, and once said that he wanted to be acknowledged as more that a “kiddie-book artist”. By the time the accolades came in 1997 in the form of the National Medal of Arts, Sendak, already late in his life, had moved beyond the need for recognition. “I was accepted at the grown-up party,” he said in a 2002 interview. “The medal said, ‘American Artist,’ [but] by then, I didn’t need it.”
“The distinctions of fine art bore me to death,” Sendak added. Continue reading
Long before Pinterest became popular, I have been snapping pictures, printing pages of images, poems, and prose, and stuffing scraps of paper into the pages of my sketchbook in the fashion on one, giant (rather disorganized, at times) inspiration board. I would feel particularly drawn to a paint swatch in the hardware store and keep it for months. Tear pictures from magazines. I have an entire folder of words that I’ve jotted down over the years: stories, quotes, poems – all of which I intend on keeping for a very long time.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly stuck on a project or am having trouble figuring out what to paint or draw next, I’ll take out my folders, old sketchbooks, and begin gathering the pieces of my inspiration board, so to speak, in order to find exactly that – inspiration.
The Artist’s Way likens creative input and output to a gas tank – when we create, we are drawing upon a store of inspiration, and if we don’t refuel with new things that inspire us, our inspiration will run dry. Before taking in this analogy, I had never realized just how important my seemingly-obsessive collecting was. Now, I make a point each week to spend time finding things that inspire me – sometimes it still is a paint swatch from the hardware store. Sometimes it’s the work of another artist. Sometimes it’s something I stumble across on Pinterest. Sometimes it’s something I find in my yard.
This week, I have been in love with the work of artist and illustrator, Sarah King.
Her work is laden with fantastic hand lettering and typography. It is both simple and visually rich. All of her work – from illustrations to animations – is incredibly beautiful. Here are some of my favorites:
