Lunar Eclipse
Lots of people turned out to view the lunar eclipse tonight, the last total lunar eclipse until December 21, 2010. I wanted to try and take some photos, but I couldn’t get a good shot.
I started this piece today, but was feeling a little under the weather so I put it aside for another time. Afterwards I made some tea and then took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.
Dreamer
Later I took our dog Rupert for a walk and I just happened to notice our calla lilies were blooming. I am a huge fan of calla lilies, and I love to photograph them every chance I get, so here is one of the photos I took today.
Calla Lily
Mr. Rupert
Here is a photo of our little dog Mr. Rupert. He is such a sweetie pie !
One Of Those Days
Today was cold and rainy and full of last minute changes. I’m not saying that Change is bad, but I do prefer it in small doses not all at once.
After a rather interesting morning of delays, computer glitches, a server down and other oddities, I finally returned to my painting.
I placed a newly prepared canvas on my easel, selected my paints and brushes and hit the proverbial blank wall. Zip, nada, nothing, my muse had left the building and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it..
Feeling frustrated I decided to play around with some tissue paper, rice paper, illustration board and fluid acrylic paints.
The painting below is what I ended up with, and I did feel much better for having done it as opposed to just totally giving up and not painting at all.
Rainy Day In February
RAIN POEM
“The rain was like a little mouse, quiet, small, and gray, it pattered all around the house and then it went away. It did not come I understand, in doors at all, until it found an open window and left tracks across the sill”. – Elizabeth Coatsworth
Images For Collage
I love making my own collage images with my digital camera and photoshop, because it’s easy and fun to create a one of a kind image. I also love using commercial rubber stamps but sometimes I need something unusual or a little different.
The first place I look are thrift shops and antique stores, usually it is there that I find a treasure trove of objects to take home and photograph.
As soon as I return home, I grab my camera and take a photo of whatever it is I want to make a stamp of, then I take it into photoshop to retouch and clean it up.
Here is an example of an antique watch I just made for a collage I am currently working on.
Antique Watch Photo Retouch #1
Antique Watch Process #2
It is at this point I decide on just how much more I want to add or take away from the image. If I like what I see I go on to the next step.
Antique Watch Stamp
Once everything is finished you can either print the image and add it to your collage or make a rubber stamp.
Self Portraits
A self portrait is more than just a reflection of what a person looks like, it’s a window into how the artist interprets their inner self and the world around them.
There are also many practical reasons one might choose for making self portraits, one would be you get a model who is always available and works for free.
Painting a self portrait requires us to ask ourselves the most basic question: Who am I?
What expression, pose, colors, clothing, texture, and style best represents the real me?
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Self Portraits
500 years of male self portraits in western art
“It is paint’s organic nature that helps me to understand life. For within the act of painting there is a history, a continuum of alchemy through the Ages that lives on in paint”. – Lori Agostino
“Everything we paint is a statement about ourselves”. -Mark Davis
“In painting I want to say something comforting in the way that music is comforting”. -Vincent van Gogh
“In every painting a whole is mysteriously enclosed, a whole life of tortures, doubts, of hours of enthusiasm and inspiration”. -Wassily Kandinsky
Women In Art
Today I was reflecting on women artist’s throughout history, and how difficult if not impossible for many to receive any training or recognition as an artist prior to the 20th century.
We now have become legally as well as culturally able to receive the highest levels of artistic education, training, acknowledgment as an artist and are able to pursue our artistic dreams.
I would like to thank my mother and grandmother for giving me the gift of art, and all those wonderful summers spent learning how to sketch and paint.
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Women In Art
500 years of female portraits in western art
“The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that… women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves”.
Louise Otto-Peters
“Someone, I say, will remember us in the future”.
Sappho
At Play In The Studio
It has been a wonderful day with lots of sunshine and a perfect day to finish one of the collages I have been working on. It feels good to finally be done, so I can move on to the next project.
Afterwards I took a break and started browsing on the internet and found this great video.
One Week Of Japanese Art
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“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Happy Valentine’s Day
I went to the eye doctor today to have my eyes checked out, and he dilated my eyes so the pupils are huge and my vision is a little blurred. Very spooky looking!
My doctor said everything looks fine, and suggested computer glasses for I have been experiencing Computer vision syndrome (CVS). I have an appointment next week with my optometrist to help resolve this problem.
My hubby and I love coffee lattes and he found this great video. Makes me want to make a latte run. Yum!
Coffee Latte Awesome Art
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What A Great Weekend.
We had a great weekend here in northern California, blue skies, lots of sunshine and warm weather.
After all the cold weather and rain, it was nice to be able to work in the garden again. There is a lot more that needs to be done, but first we need to let the soil dry out before we can do anything else.
Of course, we went to our favorite book/coffee place to peruse the art magazines, and just sit, relax and people watch. My husband brought along his sketchbook and camera, and took some pictures.
Snoopy Statue
Today, I was thinking about what it means to be an artist, and how we define art. How do we define what it is that we do? It seems there are a lot of opinions about this subject and I wanted to share some of them with you.
– Art is the child of imagination and gives life.
– Having an itch you can’t scratch.
– Art is anything that requires a maker; it cannot make itself – this is Aristotle’s definition in The Nicomachian Ethics, and I think it to be the best.
Kate Cherry, associate director, Melbourne Theatre Company
– Art is indefinable.
– I asked our dog Ruby and she didn’t know either …
– For as long as we’ve been able to hoot, toot, tap bones and make effigies out of bits of clay and other inchoate stuff, art has been integral to our species; the imaginative end of our need to conceptualize.
Mystery
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, . . . manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty”. – Albert Einstein
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Lost And Found Files
As mentioned in prior posts, I have been organizing, clearing out and making backup copies of my files. Yesterday, I found all kinds of painting files in folders I had managed to hide from myself.
Paintings, sketches, photographs, and collages I found lacking in some way or another, yet after a couple of years have passed, I find myself looking at them with fresh eyes.
They were lost and now found, below are a couple in various stages of development.
Calla Lily With A Rose (C) 2003
Crow Messenger (C) 2005
Digital Collage