Three Men in the Fog - Straight Line series

Feel like I've been on a 2 day intensive.  I'm toast.

I wouldn't enter this in a contest but am pleased with what I learned.  Even fabricated the pin back which I often wimp out on for fear of melting everything at the last step. 
I would so love to study under a good jewelry artists, or several -so much to know.

To refresh: the path 3 men walked in the fog missing their destination (the black stone) and ending up back at the barn where they started.

My husband, Scott, was just telling me a story of meeting some farm boys in Rapid City, N. Dakota.  They said there are x-many steps from the barn to the house.  If there's a white out or blizzard and you go x-many steps without finding the house (or barn), turn around, retrace your steps back to the start point, try again.
Our winter cold isn't seeming so unpleasant at the moment.

"Her Name was McGill"

With this one I reminded myself of an old Beatle lyric:

"Her name was McGill,
She called herself, Lil,
But everyone knew her,
as Nancy"

Anyone know her? When she sees this, she may have to shoot me...lol..

watercolor, pigma micron pen, moleskine

Mini Portrait #1, #2, #3...Art Creating!

Well does cleaning and purging the contents of ones kitchen constitute an art form? (I didn't think so). Fortunately this energy was also directed at a little bit of art-making here in my studio. Here is a start on a miniature portrait challenge I have set for myself. Hopefully we will see some progression as the days ensue. Also hope to find a few live models to make the images much richer. Anyhoo, here is my contribution to art-a-day 2011.

PS I marvel at the creativity of our new year's group of artists. It's fun to see the group and the artistry evolve over the years. We are also attracting artists from out of the area. Yea for blogging as a way to unify artist's across the globe.

Broken Octopus

For an art class I had to do a broken window pane technique but I could pick and subject I wanted and the amount of detail I wished.

I thought about what could be really interesting with layers and pattern, so, naturally I pick an octopus :)

I've decided to name him Wembley after my favorite soccer stadium.

Wembley the Octopus..

Sarah B.

Just Backgrounds

This is day 2 and 3. It looks like the gray thing from the day before, however, due to spur of the moment spaciness i turned yesterdays gray thing into a dark green thing. THEN like a true space cadet, I turned around and made new gray thing. :) The gray thing on the left easel is up in the air, don't know what I want to do.. but the green thing on the right easel is going to be a background for a piece probably going to be called "What I Do"

Consumption (sh)art

dog & peas under the table, Dinner Party #1: the First Bite, Dinner Party#2: the Pea Nabber, Bottle Sipper, Cheese Chomper. Each about 2'x2'. On a consumption kick I guess. Pretty Productive day, sure I'll probably re-work some a little. Graphite, acrylic, and oil.

xoxo

Cameron T Mills

Blog housekeeping -unpublished posts

Laura G, mr2 and Jim have posts sitting in the "drafts" queue that didn't get published.  Would you like me to go ahead and publish them?

Zombie day 3 and...DONE!

Ok, So creepy Zombie doll is DONE! So, let me walk you through this little piece of art. Detachable head, arm, leg, torso and brain. Black lace for the hair. Everything was hand embroidered.

Our heroine's dating life is not going well...

I found a storyline evolving from the poses already taken.  It will unfold in time.  Please help me name our heroine!

Pierre despises his new easel and the American model is too skinny.  Still..., she might provide pleasant enough diversion on such a dreary afternoon.

 

More backstage

I had to include the uncropped version of the actors on break.  The big girl is great for setting lights!

I'd Understand...

I'd understand if you don't believe this constitutes 4 - 5 hours of work today.  I know... hard to keep motivated sometimes.
This is another "straight line" piece, the path three men took walking in the fog.  They made four near and not-so-near misses of their destination ending right back where they started at the barn. With more bends and turns there is more hammering, hardening, annealing and a whole lot more hassle. 

My first attempt of the day, with 16ga steel wire.  If you worked with forging you know the challenges.  If not, you probably don't want to know. Liken it to trying to fix a Slinky that gets pulled out of shape




 Pretty pleased with myself for figuring out little staples made by snipping the heads off and bending straight pins.  Didn't get my joins clean enough so only 1 of 9 solder joints 'took' and steel simply behaves differently than non-ferrous metals. Love the look of steel but mistakenly printed 75% sized templates for the next go-round so switched to smaller, 18ga, silver - and it just goes on and on and on...

"Take a Hard Right," by Jim Bumgarner

I saw her at an intersection today and immediately began thinking about Modigliani might have presented her. Now I'm quite sure he would have done this a whole lot differently, but hey, he wasn't here today, so it was left up to me, right?

Unfortunately, it was a number of hours between the "sighting," and the painting, but hey, it's art, right?

Right?


watercolor, pigma micron pens, moleskine

Seeing Red

Today I worked on the preliminary part of .... whatever's next. Not sure what that's going to be yet. This is 80 squares cut (digitally of course) from my photos and placed in this grid that I'm going to play with tomorrow. It was fun searching for the right colors and trying to include a detail here and there to indicate the original photo.

There are bits of a boat, sweater, flowers (of course), lantern, sunset, vase, bricks and more.

Was surprisingly meticulous in the studio yesterday and becoming more and more so these days.  Not meticulous in quality necessarily, but a calmer, more willingness to take time, be more zen about the matter and even - who have thought - completely redoing a cut, solder or join that didn't quite come out right.  And all the while less particular on how "perfect" the final piece is, trusting more to the "artist hand" aspect.  Interesting ride. 

my actors at rest in the studio

worked on three separate projects yesterday - so much for focusing.   I am SO done with these brooch/pins.  They've had numerous looks over the years, never quite right.  I am now completely weary and done of them. Colored pencil over copper and brass.  the top one's parts are moveable.
AND- finally realized why my pics have been so disappointing -well, duh! it doesn't matter how good the phone camera is if it has a scratchy, gunky lens.  doh~

Zombie doll day 2

Today I finished the leg/arm and pants. The doll will be done completely tomorrow. Then I get to start on a quilt with more embroidery. Also in the works are 2 art books using etched copper for the page covers. Excited to participate in this Art a day! :D

"Annency" by Jim Bumgarner

Too many football games on today to find time to do any "art," so after they ended and Seattle made it into the play-offs as the first team in history who lost more games than they won. But, I digress.

After the games were over and we had a nice little dinner, I came upstairs and found a reference photo of Annency, France, taken last summer by a cousin, and decided to see what I could do with it.

Sorry to spoil anyone's expectations, but this is all I could come up with, in the time allotted.....lol.

Thanks for the ref photo, Linds!

watercolor, ink, moleskine

Tiny Portrait

My second piece is a tiny portrait of a mouse and his most valuable possession.

I did this on a tiny 2x4 canvas in acrylic paints.

Maybe I'll make a tiny frame for it..

A bread clip helps visualize how small this little guy is.

If you want to connect and talk about art send me a message,

~Sarah B.

sarahnicoleboss@gmail.com

Intentions

Continuing my photo montage efforts, spent a couple hours working on this look. I find it hardest to edit - how many elements/layers/pieces are enough or too much. It's hard to know when it's "done". I'm calling this one done for now.

I love using tree silhouettes - with I'd taken more photos now. Titled Live With Intention, 8x10".

"Barbie and the Rubber Glove"

Ink piddle paddle. Art a day, yay yay aehy. there, there, some of my posts may be just images. I did a drawing i didnt like on some 300lb water color papel, so i spray painted white over it, found that today, and did this over the top of it this is about 12"X12".

xoxo-cam