30 Day Art Challenge!

Whew! With a couple of hours to spare, I’ve completed the thirty 8×10″ paintings for this year’s 30 Day Art Challenge.

I chose to paint burlesque girls for the entire 30 pieces. I wanted to use a lot of color, make some cheerful, sassy and frilly art, and well, the research is just plain fun!

While for most of the pieces I used bits and pieces of photo reference, I also got the amazing opportunity to paint Lolo Ramone, who visited my studio and modeled for five paintings! She came prepared with a Mary Poppin’s bag of props: parasols, garter-belts, corsets, hair accessories a boa and an exquisite burnt velvet tasseled robe.

Some pieces, while perhaps not exactly “burlesque” took a more circus-y theme. Perhaps a side effect of really getting into the current season of American Horror Story. This strong woman is one of my favorites!

Lolo Ramone.

Um, Sherlock?

Ringmaster.

Snake Charmer.

“Moira” A sea-faring beauty.

“Posey”

“Mimi”

“Suzy Spacegirl”

This is pretty much what my studio’s looked like for the past couple weeks: it needs a tidying super bad.

My pieces, along with the collections of over 100 other artists (!! That equals over 3000 separate art pieces!!) will be on show for one night only, mark your calendars! December 4th, during the Pioneer Square artwalk, from 5-10pm. Art will all be priced the same at $50, and will sell off the walls, so be sure to get there early so you don’t miss out! 🙂 Hope to see you there.

will

STELLAR: Evidence of an alternative space program

Oh my god. How is 2014 already halfway over? More importantly (to me, anyway!) – how is my solo art show at Twilight gallery opening in only eight days?! I am soooo excited – there will be paintings of planets, starscapes, unnamed cosmonauts and floaty space girls. You are officially invited! If you are a facebooker, here is the invite page.

This weekend I’ll be into the gallery to paint the walls black, and any day now my bags of glow-in-the-dark stars will be showing up in my mail. To be used on the gallery walls, of course, but which after the show I’m sure will all go straight up in the apartment walls.

Why am I devoting a whole set of drawings and paintings to this franky, naive and arguably overdone subject?

What I’m after – childish wonder, stark beauty, vast loneliness + absurd simplicity. Exploration, finding comfort in the unknown + active curiosity.

I’m not a scientist, or an astronaut, this collection is just a portrait of what I thought being a space explorer was like, when I was 10.

I have this desire to touch emptiness, embrace the nonsensical, and lose a sense of proportion. Gadgets, physics, magic… all that good stuff!

I aim to create a portrait of an innocent motivation to seek comfort and wonder in the unknown.

 

If you are in the vicinity, please come by for opening night! There may be space-themed cocktails. And there may be spacemen/women. YOU should definitely come dressed in your finest intergalactical gear. 🙂

13 Days to Go…

With 30 paintings to finish. Here are today’s updates!

“Suck it! (They’re succulents… get it? Huh? No?)” I think I’m coming down with some sort of cold, or maybe it’s a wicked combination of wine/video game hangover + caffeine withdrawal. Anyways, I feel lousy. 😦 So today was spent working while watching Dirty Jobs. Hmmm. The following paintings might be getting a bit grosser. Guts and maggots and flies all that good stuff.

Oh! Thank you, thank you so much to all of you guys for voting for me in this year’s RAWards. I am officially a city finalist! On November 17th there will be a finalist group show, where voting will take place live to advance to whatever the next stage of this popularity contest is. I owe you all big time for helping me out here, and getting a ton of exposure for my humble drawings. Let’s see what happens next!

love, me.

 

Housefly Tea Towels!!

This morning’s project, something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: cover some towels with houseflies!! I ordered a pack of 12 flour sack cotton tea towels, and they arrived in the mail yesterday, so – I had to start today! Houseflies first… now I need to do some brainstorming to decide what should be printed next!

Step one: Draw design on rubber.

Step two: carve away everything but your design.

Step three: start printing! I used silkscreen ink (Speedball) and a little foam roller (you can find them at hardware supply stores), then used a hard rubber brayer to press the stamp down on the fabric. I believe you can also use acrylic – at least, when I get it on my clothes it seems to stay fine no matter how many times it’s washed.

Step four: let dry, then iron to set the ink.

Yay! Now all insects that happen to get inside will seem teeny in comparison!

Towels are up in the shop, here.

Eraser stamps!

Daiso, how I love you. Down in the International District across from Uwajimaya on the corner of 6th Ave S and S Lane St, it’s the local Japanese “100 yen” store. Like our dollar stores, it’s packed full of knicknacks and I can never leave without something little that I didn’t plan on getting… like this pack of erasers, for example, at which yesterday during the First Thursday artwalk I sat in my booth carving away to create new little stamps to decorate my envelopes. I think I need to go back and stock up!

I needed a “do not bend” stamp so I no longer have to write it out on everything. I also needed a centipede, housefly, flower, paintbrush/pencil, little girl and heart, planet, coffee cup, Kiki (the black cat) and Momo.

Here I am working on them at the show – photo taken by an awesome marketer of First Thursday Seattle.

Now to find other things I can stamp. Any of you create your own stamps? What have you decorated with them?