Livia Marin

I remember seeing a work with the similar concept in my professor, Hollis's office, but that work was with carved crayon.  This is remarkably carved lipsticks.  It is amazing how artists can work with such small proportions.

Unknown

I took a clay class this semester in college and I was constantly urged by my professor to go beyond the norm, to make something that challenges the definition of ceramic art work.  This is defiantly an example of going beyond the norm.  This traditionally functional ware was manipulated in a way to get the viewer to think critically about this work.

Boo Ritson

This goes way beyond painting and even sculpture...this artist paints directly on her subjects using standard household emulsion and then photographs her model/work.  I do have any plans on doing this work as a building block to my portfolio, but I would say it is a very interesting thing to think about experimenting with.  What made me want to write about this, my friend has commissioned me to paint her body and photograph her, so this kinda relates to the venture I will be pursuing eventually.

Final Painting

This is the painting that I did that was inspired by the two artist, Tomma Abts and Anna Z, whom I wrote about in an earlier entry.  As you can see, I used inspiration of the background from Tomma Abts geometric abstract works and Anna Z for the palette knife painted flowers.  The gardening pale was something I just wanted to add, which I painted to look realistic.  I liked the idea that all these three combined resulted in a quite successfully piece of work....I mean I LOVE IT! :)

Tom Deininger

This artist calls his work "recyclable art" for the reason that he uses found objects that others would consider trash.  He has an unique way of combining various objects to make one image.  I find his work interesting and ambitious.  He takes steps away from the norm, which I hope to do one day with my art work.

3.2 million ink dots

I found this video as I was researching pointillism.  I wanted to learn more about pointillism to gain a broader knowledge of the technique and process it takes to create this kind of work.  I have always strayed away from this type of art work but I would like to eventually break this habit of hesitancy and go for it. I always get a thrill from conquering mild fears.

Amy Golightly

Amy Golightly is a local artist here in Austin whom I met and became friends with about three months ago.  She ha developed her own style of art by using acrylic and successfully making the paint resemble  a watercolor effect.  She paints from observation where she paints her interpretation of each image.  I am inspired by her ambition to create art so unique. She inspires me to want to experiment with more "trial and error" art projects.

Here's her website http://amygolightly.com/

Trompe L'oeil

I have been working on a Trompe L'oeil painting which consist of cowboy boots and a dog leash. I researched some examples of this type of art work.  These works above successfully demonstrate how trompe l'oeil paintings look like.  I have been struggling with creating a work that uses this method.  I have observed that there is a lot careful shading and emphasis of color, especially the white of highlights.  

Sand Art

This is amazing! I found this browsing one of my new favorite websites, Wimp.com.  It is fascinating how one can create art using sand and changing the picture by manipulating the sand on a completed image. JUST AWESOME!

Response to Book: Which artist(s) do I relate to? My story

After reading about other artists' stories, I could relate myself to two, Reverend Howard Finster and the Guerrilla Girls.  I relate to Finster because not of my art, but that I share the same passion he does about the Word.  I relate with Guerrilla Girls because I have a love and passion now for public art.

My Story:

As long as I can remember, I have had a passion and love for art.  I was first introduced to art by my grandmother.  She has a wonderful gift of artistic ability that she desired to share with me every time I would visit.  I can still remember the aromas that would consume my senses when I would enter her house as a child.  The smell of oil paints and the potent sting of the mineral spirits are two very distinctive smells that would give me a feeling of happiness and comfort.  My grandmother was always encouraging me to use my gift that I was blessed with.  Appropriate for the age I was, my grandmother would allow me to paint only with watercolors.  She would sit with me at her kitchen table and teach me different skills of painting.  She would instruct me as I would paint, patiently and generously explaining to me how to improve my drawing and painting techniques.  Because of how my grandmother would take the time to teach me, I naturally take it upon myself to help fellow classmates in my art classes during my younger years.  I always received so much joy out of seeing someone light up when he or she understood whatever struggle it was, whether it would be helping with drawing a Santa Claus character on a plate in the elementary level to critiquing fellow classmates’ individual final projects in the junior high level.   All my younger academic years, I fortunately have been blessed with amazing art teachers, but it was my art teacher from my junior and senior year of high school that really furthered my passion for helping others with art knowledge.  My junior and senior year high school art teacher was a delight to be around.  She was also such an inspiration to all her students.  Every day I witnessed how she truly cared about her students’ success in class.  She was always offering encouragement, helpful criticism and suggestions to individual art works, and providing her students with knowledge beyond textbook. 

Unfortunately I did not recognize that I wanted to be an art educator when declaring a major at the first college I attended.  During my time at Texas Tech University, I felt a kind of emptiness being in a non-art major.  I continued to be helpful towards fellow classmates, but I did not receive the same level joy as I did when it involved art.

I have three main reasons for pursuing a master degree in Art Education school focus at your university.  These goals include career advancement, improvement on teaching strategies and attitude, and contribution to the teaching community.  My ultimate goal is to be a college professor of art education.  I want to expand my options on where to teach.  I want to expand my knowledge beyond what Saint Edward’s University can offer me so that I can incorporate what I learn through you university into my future classrooms.

Matisse

“To find joy in the sky, the trees, the flowers… There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”- Matisse 

Here again is another example of palette knife painting.  I like that is seems effortlessly done, but knowing the process one must goes through successfully achieving a knife painting, I know it was not which makes the work so amazing. I like that it is a limited palette and it is a simple work focusing on the flowers.  Again, I love the texture that palette knife painting produces.

Marilyn Melancon Cox

Thistle in the Field 

Sunburst

Her artist's statement:

My deep connection with the Earth’s beauty and with Mother Nature started early in my life. I was nurtured by a warm, loving family and by a rich ancestry from the Acadian culture of Louisiana. My belief in the divine truths found in Nature compelled me to search for spirituality and mystery in the compositions I created.

Working in oils an acrylics, I strove to relate the ethereal elements from my visual memories of my surrounding environment. Each piece often became something other than the idea I first perceived. Detail was secondary to the overall result and as the concept evolved, the many layers of paint, color, line and texture brought my paintings to live for the viewer to appreciate and relish.

My experimental nature pulled me in many directions, yet the Old World masters and the Modernists were the strongest forces that inspired me. Cezanne, Matisse, Manet and Diebenkorn were some of my favorites.

Since the late eighties, after I closed Galerie Malancon, the art gallery I had founded and had run successfully for almost a decade, I have focused on landscapes as subjects with an occasional still life or figurative work. While I am always involved in social and environmental causes, my constant return to making art and the solitude and total involvement in the process feed my creative spirit, since it comes from within.

The medium of pastel is relatively new to my approach to painting. Pastels have become a formidable way for me to be more spontaneous and at the same time have helped me to hone my drawing technique and skills, since that medium is more demanding in terms of details and shapes.

My friend Camille introduced me to this artist, which is actually her French grandmother.  While looking through her website (http://marilynmelanconcox.com) I came across these two oil paintings that I really enjoyed looking at.  I love the her choice of subject matter, nature.  In her Thistle in the Field painting, I love her choice of color, with the simple purple flowers in the foreground, the spacious yellow field, to the mysterious forest in the background. 

Kate Long Stevenson

In my Life Drawing class, I did months of gesture block-in drawings.  I struggled with gesture drawings so much, mainly because of the short time I had to do each pose of the model.  So coming across these works, I was fascinated how beautiful gesture drawings can be. I love the color, the suggestion of movement, and composition of each.  These quite works act as finished work of arts that I would LOVE to surround myself with.

Gavin Worth: Wire Sculpture

With my new love of blind contour, I really enjoyed finding these!!! His work is so intimate feeling and I love the choice of medium. It is a amazing that the use of minimal lines can create such a wonderful work.

Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Dürer, Young Hare, 1502, Watercolor


First and foremost, I love rabbits so of course the watercolor caught my attention immediately.  But also I love the simplicity of the painting itself and how the rabbit is the only and main focus of this work.  I really appreciate the detail of the fur, which was done patiently with layered brushstrokes, because I know how difficult and time consuming this would have been. I really love the expression of the rabbit, so much thinking...:)

Zaha Hadid

I love his architectural style! His work work is so beautiful, especially this work, Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre because of its organic shape with the detail that one would see in leaves and flower pedals.  Just works so naturally with its surroundings.

BREATHTAKING!

Bearden

Quilting Time, 1981, is a traditional quilting scene between two African American females.  The two individuals could be making the quilt for profit purposes to support the family or for just personal use.  The theme of poverty strikes me because of the atmosphere of the room.  The room seems small and rugged, little furniture is present and the furniture that is does not seem to be much of worth.  There is little light from the one lit lamp in the background.  The two females seem to be wearing old clothes, especially the one of the right who is wearing what seem to be a torn apron, a head wrap, and rags for clothes.  The colors are deceiving considering my interpretation of the theme.  Happy, bright yellows, light blues, and red-yellows are seen in the quilt, around the windows, and back wall.  On the other hand, the woman on the left is in dark garments, the picture framed on the back wall seems eerie and mysterious, and there seems to be a dark shadowing centering on the two women.  I am not quite sure what to make of the diverse color tones, but if my interpretation is correct on the theme of poverty, I would agree with Bearden’s choice to make the quilt and outside bright colors and the women darker colors.  To explain, the women of poverty are sad and deprived hence the dark colors and the quilt is for sale which goes to the wealthy ‘white’ society outside.

Regardless of my critique, I really love the image being portrayed, the use of color, and the hints of detail Bearden includes to suggest to the reader of the two women's lifestyle.  

Frank Stella

Frank Stella's 'Harran II', 1967. Polymer and fluorescent polymer paint on canvas, 120 x 240 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

I have been looking at Frank Stella's work because it has been giving me inspiration for my previous final work that includes geometric figures and various colors.  I really like this work because of the color choice, the combination of shape, and the composition of the work altogether.

Malayka Gormally

Blind contour as become one of my new loves in art.  I was in a Life Drawing class and we practiced blind contour for months. I really enjoy the process one has to go through while doing  blind contour drawings. I appreciate the level of focus one has to do to successfully achieve this type of art method. It is so odd and amazing how many of my blind contour drawings are more accurate and better than my traditional drawings from observation.

Georgia O'Keeffe

O'Keeffe is my favorite artist of all time! Really love her iconic flower paintings. I also like how she finds unique and interesting ways of incorporating her flowers in her other works, such as in her  bleached desert skulls.

Monet

Monet is one of my favorite impressionist painters.  I am attracted to his work not only because of the floral aspects in many of his works, but of his use of color for shadows.  He does not use black like most artists do for a suggestion of shadow, but he uses combination of colors to give the appearance of black.  I also love the textural feel and liveliness he gives all his paintings.

Francoise Nielly

I have been experimenting with palette knife painting and I came across this woman.  I really LOVE the colors she uses in her palette to paint the faces from this video. Color is something I struggle with in my works, I have a hard to letting go and being more dramatic with my color application and choice, but watching her very much urges me to want to try.

 I am really paying attention to the way she transports the paint from the the knife onto the canvas. I am watching for how she is flicking her wrist and the direction of the knife when she paints thick to thin lines.

Alphonse Mucha

I like Alphonse Mucha's use of color.  He really pays attention to how color and line can compliment the other.  Because of my love for flowers and nature, I appreciate his combination of figure and his floral aspects in his work.  I really like how the hair  of his women flow so organically into/with the natural backgrounds of his work.

Continued Ceramic Floral Bowl Wall Installation Idea

Here is an image I found that best demonstrates the idea I am hoping to achieve with my wall installation work.

Notice how the each poppy flower ceramic piece is layered over an other piece. This is the idea I want to do with mine but with less pieces and not so many colors. 

Wall Installation Idea Using Ceramic Works

Recently I have thought up the idea that I want to begin creating wall installations using ceramic pieces as my medium.  I wanted to develop my floral concept further by stretching beyond the canvas.  My idea is to use several various size hand-built clay bowls I made, which resemble a flower shape as my.  I want to mount the flower bowls on the wall in a way that ehy staggard and some bowls pertrude further out then other bowls.  I am currently brainstorming different ways that I want the piece to look, such as the angle it goes.  I am leaning towards a vertical angle where the bowls are placed fairly close together. 

I researched other artists who have used this idea and found some really unique works. Here is one I really found unique:

FRANK SALIANI

Frank combines function with art.  He creates these colored cast porcelain pieces and creates wall art.  Each piece is sold separtely, but is displayed as one large wall installation. What makes his work effective is that each piece acts on its own as a complete work of art.




 Here is a close up of one of the individual pieces:

Palette Knife Painting

I have been doing some research about palette knife painting to expand my knowledge about the method so I can effectively apply it to my current painting.  I discovered that Paul Cezanne in his 1860 portrait series of his uncle Dominique Aubert that he used knife painting to create dramatic tonal contrast and layer of color.  Here is an example:

What makes the use of palette knife such a perfect choice of method is the energy that this portrait conveys.  Yes, this painting would be just as beautiful with a paint brush, but just look how much more emotion and drana the knife painting strokes create.  So forceful and brute character!! LOVE LOVE!

Anne Zapolska

Anne Zapolska is the artist I chose for my flower addtion to my painting with the Tomma Abts inspired background.  I chose to use her work because I have become interested in experimenting with palette knife painting. Palette knife painting has recently caught my interest because I really like the texture it creates.  I am trying to get out of my comfort zone with what I know is safe, by using a paint brush.  I want to push myself and use something I have never use and create a work that has a different energetic feel to it compared to my previous paintings of flowers. 

I have discovered through practice that palette knife painting is a difficult method of painting, but it is also thrilling.  I find the process exciting by learning that difficult sides of a palette knife can create unique shapes, various flips of my wrist can create different looks and intensity of textures, etc.  I am starting really enjoy it and hope to master it and incorporate it in my future works.

Tomma Abts

Tomma Abts is an artist who I chose to be my inspiration for the background of a painting I am working on.  I chose to use her paintings because I enjoy her use of geometric figures and the color scheme that she combines so effectively.  She has a great eye for balance and composition, which I try to portray in my own work.

Tomma Abts was born in Keil, Germany in 1967.  She know lives in London, England.  Her work is fairly small in size but conveys a concept that is very effective and understood by all.  Her work is of tightly painted systems of interlocking parts.  She begins working without any pre-determined design. She lets the work come alive as she layers shapes and colors, letting the form build up over time.

I usually like to have some idea of what my work is going to look like, but I used randonly drew shapes on my cavas and began painting without much idea what I was planning on it looking like until I approached my blank canvas. I am currently in the process of completing my Tomma Abts inspired work, but I believe I successfully achieved her concept and her approach to her art.