Scarf Paintings

I am currently taking a painting class at the SMFA as part of my Illustration Certificate. The class is organized like a workshop where we come up with self directed projects and the teacher pushes us in directions we need to be pushed. In addition to helping me critique all of the T-scapes I have done so far, my teacher encouraged me to think of another series I might be interested in working on in class. On the first day she talked about how weird artists are and how sometimes we collect things and don't know why, but eventually we will figure out what to do with them. There is a reason for everything we do, even if we haven't yet discovered it.

I realized that I have a vast collection of scarves so I decided to make a painting of each one. When my teacher asked if there are stories behind each scarf, I said, "Absolutely!" and she recommended finding ways to incorporate the stories into the project, so I began writing down each story. Once I had stories drafted for each scarf, a writer friend helped me pick out the heart of each story-- just one sentence or phrase to sum up the whole-- and I painted the text. 

I am really pleased with how this project is coming along so far! Here's what I've got:

Also Featuring: Tiny Lizards Everywhere

I have returned from Miami with some new art supplies and new ideas. I took my watercolors with me, but to be honest, I didn't feel that they were the right medium for Miami. Last Thursday I visited the Wynwood Walls and it was probably one of the coolest places I have ever been-- Completely inspiring!

You can read more about the walls on their website but basically it is an outdoor graffiti mural gallery in one of the artsy neighborhoods. It is also a haven for the elusive hipster population of Miami. The best graffiti artists in the world are represented on these walls and the owners of the surrounding buildings have also commissioned artists to paint murals. The effect is incredible. Art covers every inch of some blocks and every side street you venture onto yields still more fantastic graffiti murals. 

Seeing so much artwork had me itching to create something and I happened to pass by an art supply store on my way to catch the Metrorail. The universe clearly wanted me to get myself some new art supplies. I found a small sketchbook on sale and some beautiful, high end markers. The markers were so fancy-schmancy that they were sold individually and therefore buying a whole array of colors would have been out of my budget. I could only afford three colors. I had to choose wisely and I went for yellow, orange, and a teal/blue. 

I spent the entire metro ride and subsequent bus ride testing out my new supplies in my new sketchbook. I didn't have any specific theme in mind or any style, I just wanted to put out a LOT of drawings. It reminded me of the thought process I had when I did the New Yorker spot assignment for my Illustration Class. Here are some of the highlights of my drawing adventure:

In case the image above is too small to read, it says, 

"MIAMI: 

It's full of palm trees! 

ALSO FEATURING: 

Cuban food, live music, 

strip clubs, booze, 

tiny lizards everywhere, 

cars, fruit, sun, 

mosquitoes, and birds."

The creepy mind reader drawing is based on a weird dream I had. Weird is good for you! 

And finally, this leafy house plant and a self portrait done without a reference.

I wanted to include some photos I snapped of my favorite graffiti murals. 

If you ever find yourself in Miami, definitely go and see them!

 

Ka-CAW!

(this crow seems to say)

I am working on the paintings from the previous post as well as a cover illustration for a story written by one of my friends. I don't have a day job right now, so art all the time!

The Weirder the Better

One of the best things that came out of Bread and Puppet for me was inspiration. It was excellent to get away from home and meet so many other creative people. I noticed that a lot of other artists among the apprentices worked in a particular way, which is planning out their end result a whole lot less than I do. When I'm drawing (with pen) I usually make a sketch first and then ink it. So many people who worked with pen at Bread and Puppet just went for it. I really, really liked that idea so I gave it a shot and it completely rocks. It is a lot more spontaneous and whatever comes out of your brain just comes out. I've noticed that when I work with pen, a lot of what I do is cute. And I am tired of cute. Drawing in ink without sketching first is pushing my drawings to a much more interesting place, I believe.

Something else I noticed about a lot of the work that other apprentices were making is that the imagery was often totally creepy. That's a good thing. There was a lot of distorted bodies, oozy shapes, people eating things, penises, darkness, dismemberment, jars full of eyeballs, hair, things that blurred the line between beautiful and grotesque... It was AWESOME. I love weird. I want more of that in my world. It's gonna happen. Especially since I began collaborating with Leda, who is a really amazing artist and Bread and Puppet apprentice from New Zealand and who comes up with a lot of ideas I would never have thought of, but that's what collaborating is all about, eh?

Leda and I wrote stories and swapped them, then illustrated each other's stories. We fully intend to continue this exchange through international post. I wrote her a really long story about a woman named Elsa who has no legs (Leda's edit) and doesn't wear clothes. She goes on many adventures and then meets Bart, a flautist with a hat. They fall in love and live happily for several years until he pressures her into wearing a shirt so she leaves him. The story Leda wrote is about an old woman who shows up on the narrator's front porch in a very mysterious and surreal way. These are the illustrations I did for it. Guess at which point I stopped doing pencil sketches beforehand:

I sadly do not have photos of the artwork Leda did for the story I wrote, but I do have a picture of some earrings she made me that I now wear constantly:

Sometime in the final two weeks of the apprenticeship, she told me to draw a man eating a man eating a man eating a man and this is what came out:

This was really fun to draw. Really, really fun to draw.

Yup, I dig drawings that are creepy and weird and spontaneous. 

Weird is good for you.