BROKEN

CRYING TREE

readers of this blog, I will be blogging on my new website, with an occasional post here. find me at Art Propensity

I felt oddly impacted by the death of Roger Ebert for whom I have been a long time fan. I follow him on twitter and his keen mind has illuminated many a different topic for me. But, mostly, I remember him from back in the days of “Siskel and Ebert” a show I watched every week. Roger was such a commanding wit. Today, most often, if I want to read a movie review I first go to Ebert’s website. I will miss his reviews of current movies and saddened by his loss.

Sometimes I feel such angst and jealousy by the accomplishments of other artists that I want to dive my head into the ground and stay there. Still, while I can understand angst, I despise jealousy/envy and mostly keep the green monsters beneath the bed where they belong. At the same time, I am so grateful for the brilliance and success of the truly talented. How banal life would be without those to admire and aspire to. Before the internet, one had to buy books or go to galleries and museums to see the work of others and now the myriad of images and artists at one’s fingertips is overwhelming and maybe that is where some of the angst comes from, there are so many accomplished artists to be jealous of, I mean admire.

Some art is on such a high plain I can not even be jealous of it. I can only internalize the impact so as to take the miracle of it with me. The work of Francis Bacon does this to me. Apparently he was quite a scoundrel and despicable as a human being but I don’t care and I don’t need to know it and knowing it does not change my opinion of the work. The work stands on it its own like disembodied legs. How grand it would be to stand in the studio where he worked and marvel at the complete irreverence for the environment while the man vehicle was sprouting master pieces from amidst the chaos. Here is a great little video:

I’m inspired by the method of using damaged photographs and images as source material for portraits and ideas. I can see myself doing the same kind of thing using damaged printed material (because I have a hard time damaging an actual photograph even if its not a friend or family member). Of course, even if I were to employ the exact same methods used by Bacon or any other artist, the work would still turn out like my own, there is no getting away from one’s self. So, using a method developed by another artist is copying but its not copying the art itself. Its a learning device.

I’ll be leaving for my parents house in the morning so I must get some painting time in. NOw.

I’ve sketched so many tree fems that I just about have a forest!

Pleased to be feature on the “Check this Art website”, check it out!

I’m working on a series of Swans. To be paintings at some point.
Chandelier

The Bulimic Swan

Eject

Gulp

These are small pencil drawings manipulated in photoshop

Kaleid Gallery (San Jose, Ca) invited me to participate in their “Exquisite Corpse” exhibit opening July 14th. I was assigned to do a torso. We were also given specific parameters for the type of paper and dimensions. Since I do not have the proper brushes to do a water color in my typical low brow style I decided to do a mixed media somewhat abstract. 😀 I started out doing a drawing with prismacolor pencils, one of my favorite tools but given the size of the paper and time constraints I ditched my first efforts, I did cut it up into bits and pieces for some future endeavor 😀

Check out Kaleid Gallery on facebook
and their website.

In other news I finally saw our neighbor the peacock! Stunning! I could not get a good close up of the plumage but you can still see enough…

Also, we made a visit to the Santa Barbara Botanical gardens and I couldn’t resist photographing one of my fav flowers, gigantic white poppies, I will be planting some!

I so adore this poppy!

I managed to draw today.

prismacolor and graphite

There has been so little time for art the past few weeks as my husband and I transition from one house to another and supplies are packed and displaced. We are down sizing quite a bit and that has confused things as well, because I could probably fill a whole garage with my art and materials, oh yeah I did :b I’ve been trying to be rid of stuff and pack other stuff up for my parents to sell in a garage sale. I do have a truck load for them. Lesson be learned, don’t be a pack rat (sounds better than hoarder!)

Did manage to do a little drawing and collaging, not all that thrilled with my collage, I see it is a form of expression one needs to work at or take lessons from Karenann Young!

This is prismacolor pencils on Bristol vellum. I had to stop as I wore out my sharpener. For real. “Hatched”

“Where there is smoke…”

I’m listening to Kat Edmonson and loving her voice and music. I Have home made beef jerky cooking in the oven, while we try to eat beef only once every other week I do love to snack on jerky but it is way to costly in the grocery store.

Sometimes a little mindless doodling is in order. The simplest and most straightforward of tools, pencil and eraser.

This one is touched up in photoshop, but I so prefer the textural pencil marks over the flat patches of color that is digital.

pencil on paper, a study for a painting of grown up Cindy Lou Who for Mike Kelly’s Holiday movie tv themed show.