friends w/o feathers

Two more Birds

little felt creature says "goodbye!"

little guys

I really like the way these two figures interact. I can imagine a conversation between them.

Brazen Boobys

The Pleasure Pavilion

This is the first part of my sculpture based on the ideas from concept art. I'm thinking of creating an environment with several of these forms--but I'm still fleshing the ideas out.

sunny day

gypsy landscape

Another F A S T landscape.

fingerpaint landscape

I haven't posted for a while, while trying to finish up my ceramics pieces. For my final project in Concept art, I'm working on designs for my Capstone ceramic show. What I'm finding, is that whether or not anypiece on this blog looks like a complete concept, it is all going into everything I do in the ceramics studio. Very interesting.

mobile home

gypsy cottage

These are two of three from my current ceramics project. Gypsy Cottage is a bit of a conundrum for obvious reasons and Mobile Home is an interpretation of the definition.

concept synthesis

What an I trying to do with all these various parts? It seems that my concept is taking bits and pieces and assembling them like a mosaic: pieces of ideas, pieces of dreams, pieces of places and myself that have been buried. It's a bit lit an archaeological dig but I'm trying to let go of outcome and discover whatever is disclosed--I don't need to prove anything or sell myself anymore, and that is liberating. I'm happy building my dwellings, and some day, might actually inhabit them.

casa miguel

In Andalucia, the sun is hot, ripening the lemons and luscious olives. The distant sound of goats grazing on the hillside is comforting in its predictability. You have to understand the national obsession with ham to appreciate the seductive qualities of cured Iberian pork. This was graffiti on a stone wall outside of La Mancha:

Merche---
Si el amor que puse in ti,
Lo hubiese puesto en un gorrino,
Ahora estaría comiendo,
Buenas tajados de tocino.

Now that's sexy!
A plate of tapas is on the kitchen counter just waiting for the chilled pitcher of sangria and glasses to join us on the terrace. The planned escape keeps me going.

more birds

Escaping

Escape

Everything I'm working on seems related to houses. When I said it was my guilty pleasure, little did I realise how true that was. What is so damn obsessive about dwellings, anyway? It's four walls and a roof yet so mired in metaphor that it hangs on me like tar on a mastodon. In fantasy, you can create these wonderful places and chose to interact with whomever you please--banishing those who don't please you. Why is where we are, sometimes, so difficult to be?



This is a quiet place where the air is soft and the breeze gentle. It matters not that it's existence is only in my imagination. You can close your eyes and feel the salt spray in the air, my warm breath on your skin. A chilled glass of wine, a little fire in the stove and absolutely no electronics, we breathe, let go. Relax, it's just an escape.

after hockney

This is just a quick fun excercise, but I can see how easily effects can be changed. I really like working with pattern and flat color and the artists I'm most drawn to do as well.

you mean it wasn't an original idea?

caged

sick to death of my ineptitude with digital drawing, I revert to basic drawing drills. Now I just need to insert me to the center and I will feel completely encaged.

shabti

Egyptian shabti were buried with royalty and necessary to carry out the mundane tasks in the afterworld. I was inspired by the King Tut exhibit in SF over Christmas and decided I really needed my own--I think I'll make a fleet of them so that I'll have plenty of help in the next world--everyone needs a shabti or in my case, an army of them.

tent two

So, after watching the video on light, I went back in and tried to get a little more precise with the light. I think it's really difficult to create a visual image with no reference to check back with. I mean it's not that hard to look at a work and figure out the light and shadows, but when you're trying to pull it from thin air, I find it quite challenging.

tent in progress

finca at dusk

Finca

WIP

view from living room

Wednesday's landscape

Sergei Isupov

Sergei creates unbelievable characters in porcelain

more Maira

Maira has gone to visit Louise Bourgeois. "She is 96 and still works, for God Sake!" Her studio is dilapidated, decaying, inspiring.
the caption reads:

I think of her Bed Construction that says "Art is the Guarantee of Sanity." I really hope that is true. I think nature is the guarantee of sanity. Or maybe love. Or both. Or not. Anyway,
This is from The Principles of Uncertainty.

little canvas house

One of my favorite books is a little house of my own, by Lester Walker. It has 47 grand designs for 47 tiny houses. This is the canvas house from that book which has 248 square feet. It is part of a camping resort in Maho Bay designed by architect James Hadley. These are woodframed canvas cottages linked together by a network of walkways. It would be very easy to adapt to a more permanent dwelling with the addition of a water source and outhouse. I like to think about how much space is really enough for living well.

loose countryside

Monday's classwork

the work of Clare Twomey

I've been looking at the work of this ceramics artist since I found her work at the Eden Project in Cornwall. For Eden, she created some 10,000 unfired clay flowers and spread them all over the grounds with the intention of watching them dissolve back into the earth from which they came. These birds are from an exhibit at the V & A when she partnered with Wedgewood porcelaine manifesting 4000 of them which then were placed all over the Great Sculpture hall and patrons were allowed to take them home. Pretty cool?

bird's landscape

Here is the landscape my bird-woman needs to climb into. Maybe if you look at both images and blurr your eyes?

strange bird

So I broke down and got a Bamboo in order to work from home. As PS Elements comes bundled with it, that's what I used to edit the previous image. It is so different from regular PS, which I struggle with anyway, but with each use, I learn a little more or at least figure out what not to do. Could NOT for the life of me, get this gdf#@&ing creature transposed onto a suitable background, but I'll keep at it. ..... "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming".

another side of my character

as i lay here pondering the universe's grand plan, i find all sorts of fun can be had with photobooth.

I'd rather be in class

even my happy snowmen sheets aren't working

more maira

Maira's work makes me smile

Writing is difficult lying down, but gazing at cheerful images is not. I rediscovered Maira Kalman's illustrations last week while cruising the library shelves.
I love her whimsical themes and naive renderings. If you look at her large body of work, you'll see that her style translates well in a number of different applications from children's books to New Yorker covers.

running away to join the circus

In researching tents and tent shapes for a sculpture project, I came across a myriad of images. This is a created scene I found on Robin Law's blog. It seems quiet for a circus.

Travels with Loulou

Good gad!! What a labor to get this creature here.