Crystals

Some recent watercolor paintings by yours truly.

Smoky Quartz, 4 3/4' x 5 1/2'

Ruby Silver Ore, 2 3/4' x 2 3/4'

This guy is good

His name is Jason Thielke. 

I like what he does very much

early signs of genius

When I was 6 years old I wrote a poem about dinosaurs...

dinosaurs are short and fat

dinosaurs are totally insane

(I must confess that in the original version the "d" was written as a "b" thus reading "binosaurs.")

Probably Somewhere in Kansas

I finished this painting a few weeks ago. It's part of a series of paintings based on vintage, found photographs of mothers and children. I'm interested in the apparent disconnect between the experience of the child and the experience of the mother. Of course, I'm also interested in found photography in general, the idea of an event being recoded and then decontextualized. The intended meaning is perhaps lost forever, but by painting the image I have the opportunity to imbue it with my own experience and meaning. I especially love painting from vintage film because the age and quality of the film often gives the image these beautiful, unreal tonalities.

Straight Out of My Sketchbook

Well dears, I've decided to use my blog to share some of my own projects. Of course, I'm not working on anything in particular right now, so here's a taste of what's new in my moleskine. 

Abraham and Isaac

Okay, it's been a while, but I just had to tell you about this.  I was exploring ffffound and found my way onto the illustrator Sam Webbers site.  His stuff is really quite wonderful. It appears that in some of his pieces Webber employs decalcomania (pressing the paint between two surfaces, like Max Ernst), though he doesn't say for sure.  I thought Webber's rendition of "Abraham and Isaac" was particularly interesting as a modern interpretation of a very traditional theme.  You just don't see a whole lot of religious painting these days.  I find the tranquility of this image rather haunting, both Abraham and Isaac seem resolute and calm, utterly faithful.  The delicate surrealism is profound in conveying the mystical experience.

Here's a little Caravaggio (another favorite) for comparison.

Isaac's expression is incredible! Really there's no need for me to ramble on about some old master (doubtless that's been done). I just wanted to point out how different the mood in Webber's piece is compared to the stark realism of Caravaggio's more traditional approach.

Sharp eye

Well, well, well.  I was just checking out www.antigirl.com looking through the collection called "Women" and I noticed this piece.  What made it particularly note-worthy to me was the fact that I recognized the source material as a photoshoot from a W magazine from several years ago with Kate Moss posing as a Marilyn Monroe-esqe character.  I read waaaay too many magazines!  But this shoot was great (I tend to love W fashion spreads) and, in fact, I have also used images from it in some of my own collages (below).  Of course, I hope that pointing out source material doesn't ruin the mystique of collages for you, because for me it's half the fun!

 

More beautiful underwater pictures

Another artist who does fabulous underwater photography has been brought to my attention (thanks D&K Buckmaster).  Her name is Zena Holloway and she is apparently responsible for several ad campaigns (Olay, Nike, Umbro) that involve underwater themes that I have noticed in the last few years.  Her images are really very striking, I remember seeing them in magazines and wondering who was responsible.  I should have guessed it was the same photographer for all of them!!

Underwater photography!

It is a little known fact that I love images (especially video) of people underwater. I have spent many hours hunting such videos down in the interwebs.  Perhaps it is a bit more well known that I also love religious iconography (more specifically the various Kitch incarnations it takes), especially the Madonna.  Quite accidentally I found this photographer who calls themself Gattaldo and did an interesting underwater set which they have posted on behance.net.  This one is called "Madonna." 

How quaint!

From Berlin.Unlike:

"The Porcelain Pistols by Yvonne Lee Schultz (YLS), are replicas of the famous James Bond Walther PPK and it’s sister P99, with friendly permission of Carl Walther Inc. They are hand-painted in the style of classic china motifs. Whether happy strewn flowers, a classic golden rim or the even more traditional blue onion pattern, they will blend harmonically into the perfect table setting, the pride of every house wife."

The write-up gets a bit cheeky if you keep reading (which I love). These are so cute and ridiculous!