New Books!!!

I'm super excited about the new books I got in from amazon for my research project! I've mentioned to some of you already that I'm writing my paper on what I'm calling at the moment "Urban Pop" and comparing it to classic pop art, exploring connections and so forth. The main inspiration for leading me too this topic is Shepard Fairey, particularly his Mayday show in which he makes specific references to the classics, like Johns, Warhol, Haring. And in his book he talks about why he makes these references so, PERFECT source. The other two books are general books about street art and artists. The one features profiles on the top 100 urban artists as well as galleries they are showing in. Unfortunately, my topic is referencing very recent work that our library doesn't have books on (well I can use the library for the classic pop references) but I'm not too upset about having to buy these books cause I'm obviously interested in street art. I'm hoping it'll help me find some direction with my studio work. Which is why I also got another book called the Street Art Cookbook, that has various methods and techniques for me to try out. I'm currently working on some stenciling ideas. I'll post more on that later in the week when I have more to show.

Art Show!

One last post for the evening...

The Fleisher Student Exhibition is up and I have a piece in it. Unfortunately, the closing reception is on the day we're in New York but you can stop in during regular gallery hours to see the show till then.
Its not letting my get to the page for the exhibition to post a link so here's the home page. http://www.fleisher.org/

Staying on Task

To help myself stay on track, I've been trying to make a schedule at the beginning of each week that plans out what I'm spending time on when. This week I have Tues as my full day of studio time. Weds is my library day. Fridays are almost always dedicated to the weeks response paper. Sometimes I break up studio time a couple nights. It depends what else I have going on each week because it tends to vary.

Oh, and I finally got a job! Just a part-time thing at my local bike shop. I happened to be talking to one of the guys that's a store manager and he mentioned they were hiring so boom! job. And I get a discount so if anyone needs biking supplies, i got the hook up.
So far it's just a few hours a couple days a week so it shouldn't effect studio and study time. But the schedule comes even more in handy for staying organized.

This past week stuffs

Somehow this week got away from me and I didn't get around to writing a post. Oops! Anyway, this is what I've been up to....

Continuing on my coffee shop stuff... At the moment they feel a little...flat...conceptually. I'm trying to think of ways to add another dimension of meaning to them.

I printed a couple more pictures on acrylic skin. I'm still not sure what to do with them but I like the way they look with light shining through. The photos don't really show the light well.

I played around with texture, creating wall textures. One technique was spreading an acrylic gel on a board with a pallet knife. After it dried, I painted over it with a solid color then a glaze of a darker color then I spounged on with a paper towel. The other technique was a ceramic stucco medium that left a rough sandy feel of a stucco wall. These were more or less tests to try out materials and see what I could do with them.

Towards the end of the week I've been thinking about how to use the notes and letters I find. I'm thinking about a series called "Letters" using the words from the things I find and stenciling them in some way. Letters will have a double meaning. Letters of the alphabet and letters that people write. There are a number of artists I could reference here that use type as image. Ed Ruscha, Jitish Kallat, Barbara Kruger...just to name a few. This could be a chance to use some designer/typography skills. I think I might start playing with this at the start of the new week.

Notes. Words. Layers.

The other day I found torn pieces of paper on the street. Another lost note. Multiple notes. At least one on notebook paper and one of the back of something printed. Unfortunately, I couldn't gather all the pieces but on a couple of the pieces that I did collect were curse words. "Shit." "Fuck." "Bitch." I can only assume that they were angry notes.

So this has me thinking about the language we use and the implications behind it. Also the multiple meanings of words and and how we can play with language. This takes me back to the Lost & Found piece I did at the end of the summer. I think I was on to something with my combination of words and images and the layering of meaning. Perhaps I need to return to that again, finding meaning and connections between seemingly random words and images. Maybe they don't have to be random to me. Maybe I just need to think about the things I'm using now and how I can build upon them with layers of meaning.

Creative Things are Happening

First of all, I finished the piece about my mom. It's not exactly what I was hoping for but it came out ok and it gave me some ideas for other pieces.

I started one about a bike. Bikes are an important mode of transportation in Meg's World. This isn't my actual bike but based on one I sketched. I got a little anxious and didn't take the time for fix the wheels before I traced it onto canvas so they're a little wonky. I also have to go back and outline and put the details in. I realized that maybe canvas, especially raw canvas, might not have been the best surface to paint this on. It would have done better on a smooth flat board. I'm thinking about redoing it on wood panel, along with a few other similar style objects and calling it my coffee shop series. It seems like the kind of art you'd see in a coffee shop, and I'm ok with that. In fact, I might try to get the series in a local coffee shop. But I think I'm going to try to play with compositions in Photoshop before jumping straight to the canvas...or panel...

The next thing I'm playing with is similar to the acrylic skin transfers Ben and I played around with this summer. The process is slightly different. I got the idea out of Acrylic Innovation. It kinda worked but I think my printer started to run low on ink. The page also got a little bunched in one spot so next time I have to tape it down better.

Kindred Artists

As I mentioned, I've been looking through a book on acrylic techniques called Acrylic Innovation by Nancy Reyner. (She also has another book, Acrylic Revolution.) Along with showing different ways of painting with acrylics, she features many artists using these different painting styles. Two of the artists that have jumped out to me so far with a connection to my own style and aesthetic interests are Jylian Gustlin and Catherine Mackey.

Jylian Gustlin combines abstract elements with figures, reducing down details to eliminate individual identity. She uses her knowledge of Photoshop to play around with composition and layering effects that she then uses in her paintings. She's also done work with images of industrial/urban landscapes and animals. There is quite a lot to look at on her website. I'm envious of her gestural freedom and ability to still capture a believable, enjoyable image. She also has a beautiful balance of figurative and abstraction that I would love to have in my own work.


Catherine Mackey is a fellow Rauschenberg fan but that's not the only thing I find kindred. She too is attracted to images of urban decay, signs, posters and graffiti. Some of the things she's done I feel could have come out of my own head. Mainly, it's her use of stenciling text combine with hand drawn images that I find familiar. Her background is in interior architecture which allows her to create amazing detail and space within her paintings. She works mainly on wood panels and builds up layers on each before combining some of them together.

Fumbling But Not Failing...

I meant to post here this weekend about what I've been doing this past week...

I cleaned the studio and made a lot more space.
I've built some more canvases and I have a few boards so I'm at no loss for surfaces.
I've started writing in my journal. I actually bought two cause they came in a pack together. I'm thinking of making the one about Lost & Found...any thoughts that fit into that criteria, and the other one for other thoughts and frustrations.

I started painting.... but I'm not really happy with how it turned out... I'm still working on it, or trying to. I'm not really sure what to do with it. I was playing around with the new quick projector I got and I liked how things looked blown up and bleeding off the page so maybe I'll try something like that....
I took some photos as I painted so even though I'm not happy with them. I'll show them here anyway and maybe someone can give me some suggestions or advice. I think part of my problem is that I can't paint people. ha.



I also think I need more images and things to work with so that will be my assignment for myself today and maybe tomorrow; going through photos, journaling and pulling words and ideas from the journaling.


Others things to note....
I signed up for a figure drawing class at Fleisher for their spring courses.
I've started reading the book I got about acrylic painting techniques to get some ideas of new things to try.
I've started to separate out my collections of things into their own boxes and containers; wood & metal, random letters, notes, etc... I might try writing a blog every once an awhile about each of the collections and talk about what draws me to them and how I plan to use them... we'll see.