1971 - on display

Just a reminder that if you're in the area, my digital illustration 1971 is on display at Maxwell Public Library in Camillus, NY as part of the West Genesee Fine Arts Faculty Show. The show has been up for most of this month and comes down at the end of this weekend, so catch it while you can.

And as always, prints of this are available through my print shop!

Inspirations: Vintage Books no.11

Yesterday I visited my favorite local used bookstore, Books and Memories, as a way to kick off the weekend. I found some more great vintage books to add to my collection and thought I would feature one of them today.

The book is titled Sailor Jack And Eddy and is from a series of early reader books about Sailor Jack. The authors are Selma and Jack Wasserman, the illustrator is Robert S. Robison, and the book was published in 1961 by Benefic Press. The story is about a little boy named Eddy who stows away on the submarine Shark during his elementary school field trip.

I initially picked up the book because it has the bold colored canvas cover that can be found on many books from the '50s and '60s. I'm a big fan of these covers for their simplified design with limited colors and bold shapes, and am often tempted to take books home solely based on the cover design. This book is a nice bonus, because not only is the cover great but the inside illustrations are classic as well. The artist used a three color printing scheme - blue, yellow, and red - which is layered to make any green or orange that is needed. The result is a composition that has been very well planned out to make use of the printing technology that was available at the time.

I particularly like how some illustrations rely more on shapes than falling back completely on black outlines (like the sailors in the background of the final image below). The lines that are used are also nice and fluid - look at the continuous swoop of the pen that makes the sailor's legs as he walks in the image below. Older books like this are a good reminder that less can be more when it comes to art. Sometimes by setting some limits you can come up with a stronger composition and not be tempted to fill the picture with more just because you can.

Hope For Japan

The tragedy going on in Japan right now is unimaginable. Earthquakes, tsunami waves, fires, nuclear leaks...it seems like they've been hit with just about everything. I've been reading the news quite a bit since I woke up to the headlines yesterday morning and my heart goes out to all of those people.

This illustration is my response to the whole situation, offering some hope in my own little way. I used sumi ink, watercolor paper, and Photoshop to put it together this morning.

Fox Run

I've been meaning to make a piece of art that would lend itself well to a wrap-around design for a ceramic mug. Today's snow day presented the perfect opportunity! This was done with watercolor paint and then some digital edits in Photoshop. Measures 10" x 5", completed March of 2011.

This painting is available as an art print or as a ceramic mug through my print shop. If you get a mug, take a photo of it in use and send it to me! I'd love to see it.

Recycled Book Wreath

Earlier this week I made a new wreath for the front door, since the holiday one I made has once again been put into storage for the year.

I've seen people make wreaths out of books and sheet music before, so I thought that would be fun to try with some discarded library books that I had. Originally, when I thought of the project a while back, I was going to cut out lots of leaves, but I decided that would take too long. I had seen one made of sheet music on Etsy before where the papers were rolled, so that seemed like a good method to try for this project. I flipped over a large pad of newsprint drawing paper to use as a work surface, since I was sitting on the carpet and didn't want to get any stray glue on it.

I started off by cutting a base ring out of a cardboard box. If you have trouble drawing even circles, and don't have a compass, you can use different size plates and bowls to trace.  The book I used for this project is a discarded paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that I took from the free pile at the library (I feel that the choice of book makes the wreath all the more suitable for my home). Just ask at your local library, or even a used book store, to see if they have any books they are discarding or giving away.  I am always picking up discarded books to save for future projects.  The only other materials I used are scissors and a hot glue gun. You could probably also use regular Elmer's Glue instead of hot glue, but I was impatient and I also thought that the hot glue might be a bit sturdier in the long run.

I separated the book pages from the glued binding by ripping the book into a few smaller sections and then carefully tearing the pages off one by one. It came apart pretty easily and I hardly had to use the scissors at all. I quite like the slightly ragged edges that some of the rolls of paper have from ripping them instead of clean cut edges.

After separating the pages, I then rolled them into tubes, securing them closed with a strip of hot glue at the end of the roll. I started hot gluing the rolls of paper around the cardboard ring. The first layer of paper rolls was glued so that half the roll was on the cardboard ring and half was sticking out. The second layer was then glued on top of the paper rolls, moving in towards the center of the ring. Eventually there were three of four layers of paper, with the top layers being made of paper rolls that were cut in half to add some shape variety.

Ideally, I should have more carefully planned out the spacing of the tubes before gluing them, something I figured out too late into the project. I may have also been slightly distracted by watching Dr. Who on Netflix while I was sitting on the carpet working. Oops! There are a few gaps I might try and fix, but I only have a couple pages from the book left over and I don't want to mix in pages from another book and risk having the difference in paper color stand out. I might try again at some point with a different style of wreath, but overall it's not too bad for a first attempt.

All in all, the wreath measures about 18 inches across. It's not heavy at all, and all of the layered rolls of paper actually make it quite sturdy. I cut a U-shape out of cardboard and hot glued it to the back of the cardboard ring to make a hook for hanging it on the door. The wreath is easily lightweight enough to hang from a 3M hook.  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, and it didn't cost me a penny since I either had the supplies on hand or was recycling.

A Pair of Foxes

Last Valentine's Day I painted this watercolor painting of two foxes for Jeff. This year, I thought it would be fun to make him a small sculpture of the two foxes from last year's painting. I first sculpted it out of clay (you can see an unpainted photo below) and then painted it with acrylic paint after firing it. I had debated about using glaze to finish the sculpture, but in the end I decided that paint would help me better reach the finished look that I had in my head, and luckily it worked out great. When it was all done, I sealed the paint with a flat spray finish by Valspar. The completed sculpture is approximately 3.5" tall.

Paris Street Art

While I was in Paris, I saw a lot of interesting street art. There were a lot of the Banksy and Shepard Fairey variety, as well as some interesting other little bits.

I had a lot of fun keeping an eye out for the little 8 bit video game characters that we started to notice around the city that someone has been making out of little glass and ceramic tiles and attaching high up on the sides of buildings. I looked it up when I got home and found out that the tile street art movement was started by an artist who calls himself Invader. Apparently he's been posting his tile art around Paris and the rest of the world for a few years now. I also found this post on another blog that shows more tile art in Paris, including some that I saw.

Sketchbook - A Fabulous Floppy Hat

Today was a snow day because of the big storm that rolled through the area. While I was enjoying the surprise day off, I had some fun looking through vintage clothes on Etsy. I stumbled across one store called Astral Boutique and had a blast looking through the 1960s and 1970s style dresses that she's selling. I picked out two dresses at a good price, and can't wait for them to arrive in the mail! But really, I just had a good time looking through the photos of the clothes she's selling and wound up doing a sketch based on the fabulous floppy hat that is used in many of the photos.



This was done in my moleskine sketchbook with an archival pigment pen and watercolor paint.