PPF and APR - New Wood Art

For today's installment of Paint Party Friday, I will also be connecting to Artists Play Room at 'just add water'. It is also showing some of the artistic/creative work I am undertaking & seeking to market under the banner of "Marshall Arts". This is work I do in collaboration with Jim, my husband - we have lots of fun with it, attend art fairs, etc, and have even sold! What's infinitely blessed and inspiring are both letting natural shapes speak for themselves, as well as collaborating with loved ones. It inspired me to take art to a whole new level, and to make it a sustainable economic activity from which others may benefit.

We have tons of these! He is the Wood Man & the Word Man - for as long as he's lived, practically, he has gathered these precious wood jewels from the surrounding countryside - and  even when we lived in Atlanta we'd come up here to WNC to pick some up - and randomly last year, we began turning them into art.

He began by burning messages into them - the wood speaks to him - and I followed by drawing random illustrations with the wood burning tool. At times these are elaborate illustrations, or at times only curly cues & random things to give the thing structure. He then goes in & paints in the colours - varnishes them at times, etc. Some of them have turned into earrings, pendants, walking sticks... or random wonderful acts of sculpture such as this one which fits into the hand.

The text begins with "The cosmic pipeline always looms a single misstep away... feathering even a modest nest brings plenty... every portal has own mysterious allure" and to me the cosmic egg shape, the mysterious animals, and the warning message bespeaks great wonder - not to mention the amazing shape of the wood. It is so darling! But it has teeth - just like life & death & nature -- "too big a bite augurs indigestion or worse." I have been so excited working on this collaborative art project - it seems a blessing indeed.

I have been busy promoting it - we have been visiting different art vendor events - all which we detail in this blog. Would like to find a way to integrate the Marshall Arts blogging with what I do here on my personal blog, but that's soon coming.

Have also spent time putting up a Marshall Arts facebook page!! Would appreciate any likes, and will return the favour.

This page shows both work I do on my own artistically, as well as the bulk of mine & Jim's collaborations.

I also have decided to migrate from Etsy to Zibbet. For anyone sick of Etsy fees, this is an excellent solution - only minorly less usability with the free version - but the minute I begin selling, I will upgrade. One of the perks of migration is an initial promotion of $5 for 50 excellent business cards from Moo. I am incredibly excited about these cards - double sided, with text, extra heavy 100% recycled paper --- sounds almost too good to be true - we'll see how they turn out when they arrive around the 11th.

There! Sorry about the novel - hope all have a great weekend!!!

Creative Tuesdays - Curls

For today's Creative Tuesday (themed 'Curls') I wished to revisit a piece from the past - pre 2005! For some reason also I had never posted this one on my blog... so there we are.

I went through a decidedly 'curly' phase during that time - everything I was doing was, well, curly - I was working almost exclusively in pen/ink - and everything, no matter how simple or elaborate, possessed many curls.

I wanted to take the time to say that I really appreciate this blog hop! I love the challenge of a weekly assignment - somewhere I read that limits create larger freedom by eliminating needless, distracting options - this is something I strive for in my life & which I find plenty of in Creative Tuesdays. Almost more than other blog hops it seems to instill biographical/memoirish moments which are satisfying to me at least LOL!

Speaking of 'curls', I've been a bit of a TV bunny lately (online anyhow) because I've been 'stuck' doing a lot of admin/computery-type stuff - I can only focus with noise in the background - so, I wanted to share something I bizarrely ran into yesterday as I was working on a facebook page (please visit my page!!! please like!! it's here)

the show was Toddlers & Tiaras. Plenty of curls to be found there!!!!! (roll eyes)

At one pt in my life I would have boycotted this sort of show - I mean, gee whiz - here's the almost misogynistic objectification of women and early indoctrination into outdated gender roles - not to mention other icky icky stuff. Fundamentally, I find NOTHING GOOD about this show, or really, about the people who buy into the lifestyle (one woman comments with no sense of irony "after all, I had kids so I could put them into pageants") - but, eliminating critical distance ... it doesn't seem so bad... just children wanting to look pretty. Pretty silly, though, no matter how you slice it. It did get me through a particularly boring stretch of image uploading, so it did its job anyhow.

SS - more mountain ocean sketches

Andes Mt

Torres del Paine, Andes Mt

Pier valparaiso

Vina del Mar, beach town

HI all at Sunday Sketches!

I am continuing to show the sketches I am using to plan & finish a large painting of the ocean I am to do. An continuing to sketch out different scenes of areas I have been to in the past, and some that I have not.

These mountain and scene sketches are from Chile - from the North areas, through the South. Vina (the last image) is from a wonderful city we loved to hang out in the summer - parties, swimming in the ocean, arts vendors, mimes, etc ---

Reminds me a bit of where I live now I suppose (Asheville) only... minus the ocean

I wanted the moment to state that it takes courage to be an artist - I'm sure everyone understands this! Not only because expressing oneself expresses vulnerability, but because one has to always confront one's own ineptitude and failures - I have painted 4 watery things (no photos yet) and each was very frustrating and failed - but the last one was more rewarding.

Confronting one's own fear in the hopes of getting better takes courage.

Also have quit smoking for the 13th time in 3 years - so far am 3 or 4 days along, and the result is something like a permanent state of PMS - eating lots of crap & being in a horrid mood. The most I've remained quit has been 3 months - wonder how long it will go this time?

I was hoping to win this blender at a sweepstakes, but it didn't work out :( Ninja Kitchen System - Gifts for Bride & Groom (Google Affiliate Ad) maybe next time

Hope all are having a great weekend!

PPF - Ocean painting updates

Nat'l Geo water acrylic

Hi all at Paint Party Friday! Am still working through this process. I am taking a dual approach of seeking to paint water and sketch landscape elements I might use in the final piece.

Am having fun but being frustrated by the water abstracts at the same time. The one at left is actually done in acrylics (since I had to be out of the house that day), and based of a cool National Geographic photography book we had .

All the drawings are charcoal.

Andes mountains

I feel sort of behind in this process. Unfortunately, last week I was involved in a lengthy, painful slide-presentation project that consumed all my time, and a big chunk of time during the summer is devoted to selling art at fairs anyway - I have still to clear the final drawing, but am making progress as much as possible.

possible scenario

I will share more on Sunday, but for now this is what I am up to! Hope all are having an awesome time, and hope to catch y'all by Sunday eve at the latest! Go art!

BTW- I can't resist, I though painters would LOVE and APPRECIATE the sight of this painting elephant --  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk

video below as well

it is absolutely adorable! I think this is the only sort of animal who can do this - though maybe different sorts of simians can as well.

Valparaiso composite

Happy PPF!!

Creative Tuesdays - Spy

For today's Creative Tuesdays, I briefly illustrate the case of the Pinkertons, one of the most famous private detective/goverment security firms, still active to this day, at one point as a branch of the Swedish company Securitas, and now seems to be Pinkerton again.

Famous for allegedly thwarting an attack on president Lincoln (alas, the one before the theatre), the Pinkertons were also famous for bringing many Wild Wild West outlaws to justice, and reputedly were the ones who came up with the idea of mugshots - collecting a database of images of 'undesirables' of all stripes so as to help law enforcement efforts later on. Their logo was "we never sleep".

Their bread and butter, however, was as hired guns to the Carnegies and other deep-pocket railroad barons and industrialists so as to protect their vast interests against those evil greedy rowdy little factory workers who were producing all the stuff that made them rich. How dare they request a livable wage and non-hazardous working environment? Yes, shocking. In any event, the firm found plenty to do in busting up Unions all over the U.S., when not busy hunting down train robbers and rescuing rich old ladies' fancy necklaces.

I first became interested in the Pinkertons after watching Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid for the first time (not a stellar script, but INCREDIBLE cinematography, as well as amusing to see Redford and Newman strutting about in their prime)

Then, they showed up again after reading The Devil in the White City, which tells the story of the ghoulish H H Holmes - they were the firm that finally brought the fiend to justice.

All in all, a busy lot - 'we never sleep' seems a well-earned name.

When the SPY theme appeared, it seemed as good a time as any to look them up.

Bee stuck in front of the computer for a few days working on some projects and this seemed a good break in any event. Collage above done with multilayers in Photoshop.

SS - JITS

Hi all at Sunday sketches! This is another fiverr piece, which essentially ended up being a logo. It was one of those involved images that cost client more than $5.

The company was a Jujitsu magazine - so one can notice all the small little details related to Brazil, martial arts, and fitness.

The hardest thing (as in time consuming) was the type. I had to measure and very carefully draw. After that, filling in (using various models off the net) was pretty easy.

Hope all are having a great Sunday!

PPF - Water Studies in Oils

And now... for the exciting news re my commission..

I have been offered a great commission on a 2 by 3 foot oil painting - on canvas - of the Chilean ocean, by a dear long-time friend who was also instrumental in helping me fund my Epic Painting Project.

The project, though it sounds simple, is also incredibly complex, because not only do I need to come up with an exciting and compelling composition for a seemingly simple subject matter, but I also have to match colours in as great a way as possible.

In the next few days, I will be concocting many sketches with ideas for final compositions & consulting with my client. I will also (almost more importantly) be going out to the many waterfalls and river landscapes in my neck of the woods and doing as many colour studies as I can.

The above is my first attempt. I know it looks a little shaky LOL but part of my process involves eliminating getting all the bad art out of my system, What I'm mainly wanting to accomplish is look for correct, even if unusual tonalities of water - taking into account peaks, waves, dark areas, light areas, running water, still water, etc - so as to avoid default blue-water portrayals. I wish to do at least 8 of these before committing to the final canvas.

That's it for now! I hope to have more updates in the coming weeks. Hope all are having a happy Paint Party Friday!

A Democratic, Grassroots Media Requires Media Analysis: Mediated Communication, Media Literacy, Missing Links: - PoliticalArticles.NET | PoliticalArticles.NET

A Democratic, Grassroots Media Requires Media Analysis: Mediated Communication, Media Literacy, Missing Links: - PoliticalArticles.NET | PoliticalArticles.NET