Category Archives: My Art
That whole work in progress thing…
Yesterday evening: plaster, this morning: cement! Last night I started the bas relief body for a cat, not necessarily for the cat mask I made recently… TBD. And I also started another human face/mask. These are still drying, and will need more layers, more shaping, etc.
The cement project is a concrete chair: I started with a broken resin “adirondack” chair that Michael kindly reinforced with a little rebar, wire, and epoxy. Then I got to work with expanded metal lath (aka blood mesh). Today, I used a stiffish mortar mix to putty the chair legs, and up along parts of the body to hide the plastic and to make the legs stronger for the increased weight.The chair is under wraps for a few days to allow the mortar to cure before I move it around for the next steps. The plan is to use fabric soaked in high cement mortar stretched out on top of the chair seat & back, laying it over the expanded metal. I may need to put another smoother surface over this, and perhaps I will need to cut the fabric in two pieces to better avoid wrinkles! I will be experimenting a bit more before this step!
Anticipation …
Working 3-D
I have been working on my technique and learning more than producing. However I have made these two small plaster faces/masks, heavily influenced by the work of Terry Turrell, whose recent exhibit in Seattle has been played on my screen & larger TV, along with the narrated video “Terry Turrell, In Layers” on Vimeo. Wonderful stuff!
I am trying out some techniques with cement mortar & fabric, hoping eventually to get artistic with this material. For now, just pots, a small fountain, and perhaps an outdoor chair.
Faces in the forest
Exercise in shadow
This is a sketch originated from an evening shadow cast on my drawing board: the sun through my windowsill installation yesterday evening. At the summer solstice the late evening sun comes into my studio through the huge north window, and shines directly onto my drawing board. This only happens for a few weeks midsummer…
After Ink & Drink
A Drawing Challenge
I admire and enjoy this studio photograph of my mother, probably taken while she was at University or at her graduation from Aberdeen University. That is just a guess, but she us certainly quite young, and I think she wore her hair short for most of her married life. She may have been just leaving secondary school, and just looking very mature & sophisticated!
Challenged by a wonderful book of drawings by many different artists, and by Maureen Piper, I decided to try my hand at a drawing from this photo. I did not get the angle right, she is smiling too much, and I can see other flaws, but I rather like my drawing anyway 🙂 I have not seriously tried to draw portraits at all, and have been uninterested/unwilling to try. But maybe once in a great while, I can manage one that appeals to me. Maybe next an older Mother, the one that I really knew.
Buying art
I am really enjoying my newest art purchase, an impulse buy from Simon Mace Gallery!
After a very leisurely and enjoyable lunch out, a friend & I were visiting art galleries downtown. At Simon Mace Gallery, I was egged on by my friend to just buy this very affordable little painting by Anna Magruder!
So I actually bought this lovely little portrait that I had previously admired, and now it hangs in my living room.
I think this a (slightly wicked) elfin child: no human child this… yet somehow very human.
Finishing old prints
Inking while drinking
After dinner last night, and two large glasses of very cold sauvignon blanc, I returned to my studio, cranked down my Dick Blick proofing press, and got to work (while MJ watched the Tony awards).
I have three “plaster” plates that are actually made with vinyl spackling compound over matboard. I put a lot of texture on one plate, the other two are trowelled smoother, but not sanded flat. I used an etching needle to draw on the plates, then sealed them.
I wanted to proof the plates for a preliminary idea of how they would print with an etching wipe. I started with a dauber, but found I needed a brush to get the ink into the plates.
I worked quickly, messing about, and decided to re-ink the plate with some black at the very last. I printed it over an earlier print in Speedball brown, reversing the plate direction. This double print is certainly the best of the test, and I kind of love it!
The smaller images are, in order, the two ink double print worked further with colored pencil, then the plate printed once in brown, and then another double print, all brown ink, worked further with colored pencil.
