superman at tradition bank

I entered Superman in an SAO (Student-Alumni Organization) show and got in! The show is currently running at Tradition Bank on Montrose Boulevard across from Glassell. Here is a photograph of the painting in situ. I am really excited to start the year off with a bang.

My intermediate painting class is going well and I will soon post my first three paintings from that class as soon as I have my studio set up to take photographs - I just moved apartments so my studio is still a work in progress. Thanks for your patience with my work. And thanks always for your support!

matte-tastic

Here is a photo of my work up on the upstairs wall at Glassell. These two pieces were created using matte medium (which is basically liquid plastic) to create transferred images from inkjet printouts. I had so much fun creating these pieces! To do these I printed out images of pop singers, in this case, Ke$ha and Lady Gaga and poured the matte medium over them. I let it dry for 24 hours, then washed off the paper in the sink. The resulting images are a bit blurry and oh-so-matte-tastic.

For this one, I pixelated a photograph of Ke$ha in Photoshop and then used poured sheets of matte medium in bold colors that I then cut into squares for the background image. For the hazy overlay I poured matte medium over the actual photograph of the pop singer as I described above. I also made a $ out of matte medium using a magazine image, since she has that symbol in her name, and glued it onto the top of the piece. It's sort of a collage using a variety of matte medium techniques. The image is 9x12" mounted on a piece of Bristol board.

The other piece features Lady Gaga in what I'm calling a mash-up of two images. One is a pixelated version of Lady Gaga and the other is the pop singer herself. Both images were manipulated in Photoshop. I then printed the images out on my inkjet printer, poured matte medium over them, and let them dry overnight. After washing the paper off, I cut them into strips and glued them to a piece of 12x9" Bristol board leaving the edges raw.

My instructor liked the pieces so much he immediately hung them on the wall outside the classroom at Glassell where they remained for the rest of the summer semester. Pretty cool stuff. I'm going to have to explore this technique some more and see where it takes me...

chemical transfers

In my summer mixed media class we spent several weeks studying transfer techniques. For the first week this involved using chemicals, specifically a blender marker by Chartpak and Citrasolv household cleaner to transfer images from copy machines and magazines. Here are two finished projects. They are loosely based on the work of the artist Robert Rauschenberg. The first one measures 9" x 12" and is on Bristol board. It features images of the BP oil spill including two of President Obama on the beach picking up tar balls. The color is very subdued.

The second piece is 12" x 18" and is also on Bristol board. The theme is mainly military and the color is also subdued, except for the lower left corner where the palm trees and sunset are. Using the Chartpak marker was a challenge as it has a very strong smell, despite the label which says non-toxic. I gave myself a three-day headache since I used it indoors without proper ventilation! I strongly recommend using this marker outdoors. Despite the headache, I really enjoyed working with this technique because the end result is a seamless, smooth image made up of many different images. I am learning so much in this class!

the blotted line

My summer class has gotten off with a bang! We've been learning all sorts of techniques including this first one using a blotted line from brush and India ink onto watercolor paper (9x12") and colored with watercolor pencils. I traced a model from a magazine onto tracing paper and inked small sections (about 1/2" sections at a time) then blotted the wet ink onto the watercolor paper to achieve this uneven line.

After practicing on several images I was successful enough to do a dragonfly for an invitation to a party we're throwing for my husband's cousin. I was thrilled to translate my new-found knowledge into something practical! I wish I could upload a copy of the invitation but it won't show up here. The final result was pretty nice, though, I must say.

tuff tony

It has been a long time since my last posting, I know, but here is my most recent painting. I actually completed it in June but have been too busy to photograph it and post it online. The past few months have been really crazy due to some nasty migraines that are thankfully pretty much under control now thanks to a new medication. This painting will complete my series of striped paintings where I drew inspiration from Barkley L. Hendricks' work - work which began in Feburary of 2010. I set out to paint a set of paintings with a unified theme and did just that. They expressed my interest in color schemes and unifying rigid grid systems with hand painted marks. This one was all about the gold stripe. It is acrylic on canvas, 30x36". I am interested in expanding my painting vocabulary so I am taking a mixed media class this summer (my next posting will be all about that) and a new painting class in the fall. More stuff to come!

fta

My latest painting is FT A, acrylic on canvas, 2010, after Barkley L. Hendrick's FTA, oil on linen canvas, 1968. I really pushed myself here to line up the strokes and to amp up the composition by adding the diagonal line and the two white racing stripes. Although the original painting was about the army, mine is a bit more playful. I learned to use gel medium to seal the taped edges and that helped tremendously! Compared to my other painting New Orleans, this one taped like a charm! I'll never go back to matte medium to seal tape lines again!

sisters

I just wanted to post that this painting, Sisters, has made it into the Visual Arts Alliance Show at Williams Tower! The show will run from April 29 to May 28, 2010. The opening reception will be on Thursday night, April 29 from 6-8pm. All are invited to attend. This is a painting I made for my sister-in-law, Anna, last year. It is oil on canvas and done in many, many layers. There is also a layer of gesso which gives it the texture that caused the drips to run ragged. It took me about six months to finish this painting. I am so excited I made it in the show!