During this month's Member Livestream, I taught a section on mixing neutral paint colors to coordinate with your palette. I swished the colors all around on a page in my sketchbook (to show how they looked together) and ended up with this mess: Well, I took a few minutes this week to clean up the mess and turn it into a composition. And I looooove how it turned out: Simple patterns will always be on my love list. If you'd like to learn more about composition, check out the upcoming season of Design Boot Camp. Thanks for stopping by! Read more →
October 2021 posts
Hello, friends! Here is a little bit about life around here right now: What are you working on? These two mixed media collages are headed to an exhibit at a local gallery... ...and so today I am planning to frame and wire them. I need to deliver them to the gallery this week. If you're local, the Opening Reception is on November 4, 2021 4pm-7pm. And the show will be up November 4, 2021 - January 8, 2022 at the TILL Wave Gallery: 264 Arlington Street, Watertown, MA. What are you loving? Meal prepping! I'm not all the way in,... Read more →
If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, the concept is simple: It's a commitment to take ten minutes each day to do something in your art journal. No need to finish anything or even like it. It's about making the time to nourish your creativity every day! If you have the time to flip through your phone, you have the time to Art Journal Every Day. If you'd like to share what you make, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. You can find new Art Journal Every Day posts here on the blog... Read more →
I stumbled across Josh Blackwell's artwork online and I couldn't stop staring at it. (He doesn't seem to have a website anymore, FYI. I hope he's still making art, but I can't seem to find anything recent. ETA: An eagle eyed blog reader found him under J. Stoner Blackwell.) Take a peek: source From the artemorbida website: By embroidering and stitching onto such items as plastic bags (known as ‘Never Uses’) and oven mitts, Blackwell transforms commonplace objects into visionary sculptures. Josh Blackwell (b. 1977) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Trained as a painter, Blackwell has been collecting discarded... Read more →
So the September Scrawlr Box landed in my mailbox on Monday, October 18. Shipping was very slow from the UK this time around, but the good news is that art supplies have a long shelf life. This was easily my favorite Scrawlr Box yet. Watch the unboxing video for all the deets: Contents: Derwent Charcoal & Graphite Blocks: could not find a link - sorry! Faber-Castell Pitt-Graphite Matt Pencils Clairefontaine Paint-On Denim A5 Pad Vairico Art-Graf Tailors Chalk Goldfaber White Colored Pencil Derwent Blending Stump And here's a better look at my doodle from the unboxing: As a side note,... Read more →
In 2012 (almost ten years ago), I painted this painting: It has been sitting in my stash of paintings for almost a decade. Not good enough to sell. But kind of nostalgic for me because it represents the time period where I figured out how to go from painting faces like this... ...to something that actually looked like a real human. Nonetheless, I felt like it was time to revisit the work and do a bit of analysis. So I grabbed my sketchbook. What worked? What didn't? I decided that one of the major issues was that the composition was... Read more →
Steve and I have been debating what to do about trick-or-treating. We both want to take our son out, but we also want to make sure there's candy at our house for the other kids in the neighborhood. Someone online suggested that I leave little treat bags on our porch -- under the theory that people are less likely to clear the whole bowl of treat bags out than a regular bowl of candy. With this new idea, I had a new debate: just stick them in a bag or make something artsy and more "me?" Well, you can probably... Read more →
I do a lot of teaching. And I love it! But I know it can get confusing as to what your options are. You can always visit the Event Calendar to get an easy visual of what events are on the horizon. This is a screenshot of what the Event Calendar looks like. You can even directly add events to your own calendar from it! How cool is that?! Here's the scoop for October: PRINT•INKTOBER LIVE You don't have to be a stamp carver to love this class. I'm sharing lots of techniques and ideas that work for rubber, foam,... Read more →
In case you need the reminder: Join me tonight to make some art in tonight's PrintInktober class, which is all about multi-color printing. Cheers to the weekend! I hope it's a good one for you! Read more →
In case you missed yesterday's live Book Club presentation all about the book, How to Paint Abstracts, here is the replay video. My Mom texted me after watching the livestream and said, "Each book club is like a free mini-class. Good value." Thanks, Mom! Here are a few things I made inspired by the book: As I mentioned in the livestream, I've just chosen the 2022 dates for Design Boot Camp -- both level 1 and level 2. You can check both out HERE. In November - in preparation for #CarveDecember - we will be discussing the book I wrote,... Read more →