Since I usually paint on really large canvases, I thought I'd try a tiny one -- 5 x 7 inches. Here is an optical trick. If you paint big on a small canvas, it makes the size expand and vise versa. Paint tiny and the canvas will appear very small.
I found this vidio of changing portraits and thought you'd enjoy seeing them.
I have learned that buying quality brushes is the best way to go. Inexpensive brushes will always be a disappointment. Either the bristles will fall out or the brush won’t hold its shape. Some of these brushes are over 15 years old – no, probably more like 20 to 25. You can see how the texture of the canvases has worn down some of the original shapes.
I keep my brushes on my studio desk. They have two psychological effects. They are a delight to see, but they also incessantly prod me to paint something new. In either case, they are my tools and they must be sturdy.
As I was gessoing the paper for this painting my husband said, "What are you going to paint?"
"I haven't the slightest idea," I said.
"How can you get ready to paint and not know what you are going to do," he asked.
"Well, that's just the way it is," I told him.
There is something both frustrating and magical in those moments before the pencil sketch is created and the paint is mixed. For me there is no recipe -- no tried and true habits. Each work, as so many artists know, has a life of its own. And in the doing, each painting I complete could have been several paintings if I had stopped at certain junctures. I had an art professor tell me to "stop now or the painting will become something different." He was right.
I don't stop until I have exhausted every possibility and the work itself says you're done. I'm not sure it will always be this way. When I figure out how everything works maybe it will be different.
Spring is in the air and eyes are scanning the horizon for that one special person to love. When eyes meet eyes and there is a chemical attraction, the pupils enlarge. Here is my drawing of "The Look of Love" and Diana Krall's very cool YouTube video to give you permission to look for love.
When I painted this nude, I had no idea I was tapping into an ancient male urge.
Like millions of other women I've always believed that long legs, tall height and small weight are the standards of beauty today. It's no secret that all of us are conditioned by the high-fashion business and advertising.
However, a group of American natural scientists headed by Michel Hopkins discovered that for today’s man the most appealing part of the female anatomy is – believe it or not – the waist, and the smaller the better.
However, if we dig past the media and deeper into the male psyche, men truly are searching for a female body that tells about her health and fertility – that means a plump body shape and small waist. These indicate small abdominal fat deposits and the high level of the female sex hormone – estrogen. Hence the ancient body of the “fertility goddess”.
Hardy died in Dorchester, Dorset, on January 11, 1928. Eva Dugtale washed his body and prepared it for burial. Hardy's ashes were cremated in Dorchester and buried with impressive ceremonies in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. According to a literary anecdote his heart was to be buried in Stinsford, his birthplace. All went according to plan, until a cat belonging to the poet's sister snatched the heart off the kitchen table, where it was temporarily kept, and irreverently ate it.
This anecdote caught my fancy and stirred gruesome imaginings. To think that one’s body part would end up being snagged by the fangs of a house cat and gulped in small mouthfuls into its belly are horrifying.
Worse yet, are the superstitions that the human heart is the seat of love and devotion, and should be cut out of the body and buried it a tiny tin casket with kittens playing on the top. A most Victorian mind set.
Hardy, as you remember, wrote several novels, but caused such an outcry of protest with Tess of the D’Ubervilles (1891) andJude the Obscure (1895) that he turned to poetry for the rest of his life.
I have painted Hardy and the family kitty for my own amusement and am selling it online at http://MoxyFoxDesigns.etsy.com.
I was concocting my latest piece of art with the Santa Ana winds blowing through my studio windows, I thought of Newman’s song “I Love LA”.
Everyone else seemed to know who Randy Newman was. My very cool, rad, Technorati Entrepreneur son introduced his music to me last summer. My kids know a whole lot more about some things than I do. (It wasn’t always like that during, as Newman would say, their “Baby Days”!)
LYRICS:
Hate New York City
It's cold and it's damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let's leave Chicago to the Eskimos
That town's a little bit too rugged
For you and me, babe
Rollin' down Imperial Highway
With a big nasty redhead at my side
Santa Ana winds blowin' hot from the north
And we was born to ride
Roll down the window, put down the top
Crank up the Beach Boys, baby
Don't let the music stop
We're gonna ride it 'til we just can't ride it no more
From the South Bay to the Valley
From the West Side to the East Side
Everybody's very happy
'Cause the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another perfect day
I love L.A. (We love it)
I love L.A. (We love it)
We love it
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He's down on his knees
Look at these women
There ain't nothin' like em nowhere
Century Boulevard (We love it)
Victory Boulevard (We love it)
Santa Monica Boulevard (We love it)
Sixth Street (We love it, we love it, we love it)
We love L.A.
I love L.A. (We love it)
I Love L.A. (We love it)
I Love L.A. (We love it)
Come visit me and see the rest of my art. Here's the link: http://MoxyFoxDesigns.etsy.com
Remembering that the camera wasn’t invented until 1825, realism in art was supreme. Beginning artists practiced realism with arrangements of fruit -- fruit was handy and inexpensive, and once arranged it didn't wiggle, sneeze, or cause your wife to be suspicious of what was going on in your studio. A major consideration!
Historically speaking, if you could paint realistically you were considered a bona fide artist. In fact, the world renowned Académie des Beaux-Arts, which dominated the French art scene in the middle of the 19th century, would only put its stamp of approval on realistic paintings.
In 1863, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves, and the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized. Everything in painting changed then and the work of artists like Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Degas, Cassatt, and Manet were shown and accepted.
Photography encouraged painters to exploit aspects of the painting medium, like color, which photography then lacked; "the Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph". (Thanks Wikipedia.)
Still life paintings of fruit are still as popular today with artists and art-collectors as they were centuries ago.
You can buy either of these prints at http://MoxyFoxDesigns.com A live link is at the top of the page.
By now almost everyone is experiencing some effect of the financial meltdown. It was a series of events that got us to this place. Alan Greenspan put too much trust in human nature – there just weren’t enough rules in place to keep this from happening. Those techy trading kids kept coming up with schemes to make money, which their elders just didn’t get, and technology enabled financial contracts to be created that no one could understand.
I’m a painter. In college I discovered that history was so easy to learn by just studying the works of artists. Artists can’t escape the times they live in and it shows up in their work.
As our personal retirement stock portfolio has dwindled, the “Tricky Financial Bastards” painting rose to the surface of my consciousness. Grinchy green was the foil for the guys in their black Brooks Brother’s suits. Their faces are blanching with shades of gray and expressions of grim remorse for being caught with their fists in the till.
In addition to the painting, I have created a high end greeting card with a blank liner for you to send your pithiest comments. Ask yourself:
Do I want to fire my stockbroker? Should I correspond with my taxman? Should I send condolences to relatives victimized by Madoff?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then this is the card for you! You can buy it in my etsy shop. You can also buy a gorgeous print of “Tricky Financial Bastards” for only $17.00
Sometimes it’s the lines, sometimes the colors, sometimes the history that brings me to a halt. This image has all three.
I discovered a photo of St. George’s Benedictine Convent in Prague built in 920 AD. I pondered the eons of whispered prayers, the quiet footsteps of women, and the lives long gone.
This piece of digital art has been put together with Photoshop. Filters have been applied to accentuate the appearance of shifting decades, lives spent and ended and the continuance of time. The resolution is deliberately low to enhance these qualities.
There a lot of times when I finish a painting I know I want to keep it. But as a seller on Etsy.com, http://MoxyFoxDesigns.etsy.com selling prints is a wonderful way to share my art at a very reasonable price. However, the print has to be of excellent quality.
Some women like jewelry and fasts cars, but I like spectacular printers. After researching the internet and talking to artists who make prints from their work, I chose the Epson 3800 Pro. It is amazing and “sweet”!!!
The word “giclée” (zee-clay) is a made up word for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing. The word is derived from the French language word “le gicleur” meaning “nozzle”, or more specifically “gicler” meaning “to squirt, spurt, or spray”. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on Iris printers in a process invented in the early 1990s, but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print and is often used in galleries and print shops to denote such prints.” (Source: Widipedia)
Here is my most recent “giclée” (zee-clay) print. ("Gelato" is Italian ice cream -- I knew that!)
I had planned a morning and early afternoon of painting. However, there was a mishap with my new glasses and I had to get an appointment to have the prescription corrected. I called the optometrist’s office only to find that I couldn’t get the new appointment because “protocol” stated I had to wait another four months. Whoa --- I had just put $800 on the counter for my three pair of glasses eight days ago and now even though they didn’t work, I had to wait until April.
This is probably the only time anyone has heard of this. I had been given a prescription that I took for four days. A peculiar side effect occurred. My vision changed and with or without my regular glasses, I was still very nearsighted.
I could have waited because of the protocol, but instead I set my creating aside, put on good clothes and was in the optometrist’s office within thirty minutes. Surprise! All the personnel were hustling their buns to make things right. Apparently the receptionist treated me like a number instead of a person. On the desk, there was a sign that said “Satisfaction Guaranteed within 30 days”. HA!
CONCLUSION: Interruptions deserve action. Get things solved right away and be nice to everyone--even the woman who insists on "protocol".
