First Painting

I took slides today, including one of Olivia's elephant painting. The pink spirals are making me crazy. I'm hating them at the moment. But most of the time hating a painting is better than loving it, at least mid process. It puts you in that "nothing to lose" place that is so important in making art.

Marigolds

One of our garden neighbors deadheads her marigolds aggressively. The kids were thrilled to find the still fresh "heads" tossed about the edge of the garden. They gathered them all up and took them home. I always wanted to do this as a kid but never had access to so many flower heads. Of course now I could barely breathe around the marigolds. I had to satisfy myself with taking pictures and stringing needles.

Yesterday there was a flurry of activity at the studio. I'm working on figuring out how to put these guys together and making more of them.


Olivia was making her first oil painting.


And Gwen, my fabulous new intern, was helping with all kinds of things. Here she is tracing more spirals for me to cut and sew. Thanks Gwen!!

Plans

Every time I make one of these constructions I plan to paint over it. That is WHY I started making them in the first place. I REALLY want to paint on them. However, it often turns out that I like it so much as is that I can't paint on it. One solution is to make the structure out of raw canvas. Then even if I like it raw I know I can remake it which allows me to go ahead a paint on it. This time I tried something different. I gathered the ugliest assortment of whatnot and sewed them all together. And wouldn't you know...three people came in my studio after that oohing and aahing about how cool it was. Well, what the hell. I am not one to be deterred from my mission. So I went ahead and ignored them and slapped paint all over it. It's not done yet so this is just a tidbit. It needs more painting and maybe more sewing but I doubt I'll get to work on it much until I'm done with the pink thing below.

Summer in the Studio

I finally remembered to bring my camera to the studio. Here's what I've been working on. I have to figure out how to join the pieces. My initial attempted failed. This might be one of those days where writing a blog entry at 6am is a mistake. But essentially I'm making a bunch more of these and experimenting with how I want to join them.

4th of July

Fireworks from Philadelphia.

Polination

Rocks State Park

Rocks State Park in Maryland.

Garden

Our garden is really starting to grow. The sunflowers burst into bloom this week and the weeds are a bit under control. So we've got sunflowers outside and inside!

Great Terrain

I think some people look around when they are hiking. I have to keep my eyes glued to the ground. Any attempts I make to walk through the wood looking to the side or, god forbid, above result in...well, crashing to the ground. Luckily there are many interesting things to see on the ground. I have a thing for things growing into other things. Like this tree/rock combination here. What in the world caused this to happen??

George Hughes in China

Wish I could get to China to see this one. If you're there be sure to check it out.

Doing it Again

I don't know if you love this project as much as I do. Probably not, but how can you argue with these great results? This time the kids are older, primarily 9ish (last time the kids were 4). These guys are pretty familiar with marker and line although a bit shy and concerned with "getting it right."


I love the unexpected things that happen in the shape works. Because they aren't as familiar with this way of working they are more creative. This is also a great precursor to finding shapes in drawing which is very important for observational drawing. I should remember to tell the parents that. Some of them were unimpressed.





Ha. This one is packing heat but lets just pretend it's a boot or something. Check out the folded collar on the pink coat. I wish we could do these every week.



This artist worked quickly and had time to do another one. The second time she broke out the pinking shears and had some fun.

Secret Garden

I've mentioned our garden a few times. It's part of the community garden plots over at Rose Tree Park. THIS plant, on the other hand, is a renegade. We are not allowed to grow veggies here. That restriction might be more annoying if we weren't also buried in the wood. There's really not enough light for anything that needs full sun. But I guess no one told that to this pumpkin?- I think. I don't know how much longer it will be until the powers-that-be remove it. We are secretly hoping it stays until fall along with the potato crop I generated by throwing a bag of potatoes on the ground.

Studio

I can't cut this one up because it has a lot of hard texture on it. Some sort of medium I bought a while ago. So I just keep plugging away at it. These two trees were actually joined at the base. Somehow they grew into each other and both managed to grow in their restricted space. It's difficult to get that idea across in a painting. I've attempted it several times. I'm sure I'll try several more.

Happy Father's Day

An appropriately masculine image for father's day. I drove home behind this the other day. Not something you see every day. We might try a hike today if the blasted rain will stop for long enough. Who knew Philadelphia had a monsoon season?

Sally Thompson

I got a great surprise in the mail yesterday. My friend, artist Sally Thompson, sent me these photos of her latest work.

For the Birds

From the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Inspiration from beautiful aquatic gardens in Washington DC.

Art Class

This is what I've been doing this week. Alzheimer's, autism, and kids art classes. Now I just need to figure out how to squeeze some of my own artmaking into the mix and life would be perfect. I probably put more of those Shape & Line portraits then you need to see. But, really, how could I choose!

Christopher Davison

Christopher Davison has new work on his site. He also posts regular updates to his front page so it's worth stopping by frequently.

Deluge

I really hope my studio doesn't look like this. I'm doing so much teaching right now I haven't had a chance to go down there. Poor me. THIS was what we had to drive over/through to get to school yesterday. A bit of road and a lot of big sharp rocks, oh yeah, and a ton of water were running straight across the road. I was worried about popping a tire but we made it. The bird below is identified as a Red tailed Hawk with some help from Bill of the Birds.

Lunch

This guy and I were having lunch together yesterday. Unfortunately I was eating Burger King, in the car, rushing between teaching jobs. This guy was preparing for a healthier snack of crow. The other crows were not happy about this and were screaming and diving all around him/her. I can't tell for sure if this guy's an eagle or some kind of hawk.