If I Could Fly

Update: This piece went on to be published in Somerset Studios Gallery magazine, Summer 2012. It's on page 112. The words are:

Yesterday a butterfly
Came floating gently through the sky.
He soared up through the atmosphere
Then drifted close enough to hear.

I said, I’d love to fly with you
And sail around the way you do.
It looks like it would be such fun
To fly up toward the summer sun.

But I have not your graceful charm
I haven’t wings, just these two arms.
I’ve been designed to walk around
My human feet must touch the ground.

Then magically he spoke to me
and told me what his wish would be.

He said, What I’d love most to do
Is walk upon God’s Earth with you
To squish it's mud between my toes
Or touch my finger to my nose.

I’d love just once to walk around
With human feet to touch the ground
But I have not two legs that swing
I haven’t arms, just these two wings.


And so we went our separate ways
In wonder and surprise
For we’d both seen God’s precious gifts
Through someones else’s eyes.

"Lines and Grids" Sketchbook Project 2011

Here it is, my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2011. My theme is "Lines and Grids". It will go on tour  this year and then become a permanent part of the Brooklyn Library in New York. For more info on this project and to see other sketchbooks, click on the Sketchbook Project 2011 button on the right.

Strathmore Visual Journal Page

 

Valentines Day is right around the corner so I chose a love theme and recycled some of my old art work. This is the first journal page in my new Strathmore Visual Journal (9x12 mixed media).

Sketchbook Project 2011 Cover

This is the cover of my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2011. I love the brown kraft paper look so I kept it as my background color. I would tell you the theme I chose but it's kinda obvious!

Done! Well, maybe...

Here's the halfway done girl I posted below. I like her enough but will make some small changes in a day or two. I always come back and "touch up" things here and there. Does anybody else do that? I just can't seem to say it's done already!

Halfway Done

I'm about halfway done with this one. Don't know yet who she will be or what she wants to say, in other words- I don't know what to do with her yet! On 12x12 canvas.

Social Butterfly

I did this 12x12 canvas in Sharon Tomlinson's Faces in Technicolor class. She gives wonderful and very helpful critiques, here is part of her critique on this one (used with permission and because childhood memories always pull at my heart strings).

" I like the movement and she is caught in a whirly wind (not sure how to spell) but it is a memory from my childhood when we could look out across the field and see the dust and debris blowing and caught up in a whirl like a mini tornado. We always ran toward it. Well anyway, last week when I was at the hospital with dh there was an area at the front entrance to the hospital that caught the draft and I saw this several times. I wanted to step into it but there were crepe myrtle blooms swirling in it as well as a other dust and debris and I thought I shouldn't. A good painting should evoke something in the viewer even though it may not necessarily be what the artist intended. So, your painting brought back to me a distant memory along with a more recent one where the crepe myrtle blooms were swirling instead of corn husk and cotton plant leaves. .....even her hair is caught in the swirl."

You can visit Sharon's blog here and where her classes are held here.

Done - Final Layer!

I kinda lost track of how many layers. Let's see what all I used: Acrylic paint, water soluble oil pastels, stencils, ocean jasper stones, turquoise stones, charcoal pencil, ink, cheese cloth and fibers. Here you go, Mom!

Here's some close-ups:

Fourth Layer

When in doubt, paint a flower. I think my stems got a little wonky tho. Still needs more layers!

Third Layer

This is the third layer. Don't quite know where I'm going with it yet but I know it needs lots more layers!

Second Layer

This is the second layer in the painting for my mom. I did a gel transfer of one of her favorite Scriptures and I stenciled using an old plastic doily that had belonged to her mom. Not liking the transfer so I might remove it.

First Layer

This painting will go to my mom for her new place. It will be the first time she has ever lived alone so I wanted to make something special just for her. Her favorite color is blue so I started the first layer with that. It is a 36x36 canvas, a nice above the sofa size.

Sunflower Girl

A work in progress. This is painted on my mothers old dresser mirror. The mirror broke so I salvaged the frame. It will eventually include birds, my dog and whatever else I think of. The white part is the outside of the frame, I think I will journal on that and add some cool scroll-y things.

Bonny's Birthday

My little girls birthday is today, she is two years old, officially ending her puppy years. Here she is with one of her birthday presents. She got to snack on apples all day long that I dehydrated for her and she got raw egg mixed in with her regular food. Egg-y is her favorite!

Angel

Almost done with my first angel painting. I added in fibers, gold leaf, and iridescent details in the wings. And a close-up to see more detail...

Albert Bloch - Winter in the Dead Wood

Albert Bloch
American, 1882-1961

Winter in the Dead Wood, 1934-1938
Oil on Canvas

After returning to the United States from Germany in 1922, Albert Bloch became the head professor of drawing and painting at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. He painted Winter in the Dead Wood early in his 25 year tenure there. Rendered with a stark palette, this bleak winter landscape suggests haunting desolation and Bloch's own pessimistic world view. The scene depicted within its thick, encrusted surface evokes not only bitter cold, but also memory and loss. Bloch titled the painting after a poem by the Austrian poet Karl Kraus (1874-1936) written in protest of World War I. Lacking explicit references to war, the painting may, nonetheless, reflect obliquely Bloch's horror at the rise of Hitler as well as the despondent mood of Depression-era America.

The original work can be viewed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Photo by me, text references by the museum.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, David with the Head of Goliath

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called II Guercino
Italian (Bolognese), 1591-1666

David with the Head of Goliath, ca.1618
Fresco

This David and Goliath is an early work by Guercino painted in fresco, a technique in which paint is applied to fresh plaster which, as it dries, bonds with the pigment. A good portion of the tree on the right, however, has been painted on top of the dry plaster, using pigments bound with glue or egg. Fresco painting was normally used for large scale, architectural decorations rather than individual, smaller scale works such as this. It is possible that Guercino did this painting as an exercise in mastering the fresco technique. It depicts the Biblical story of David, who against all odds, killed the Philistine giant Goliath and beheaded  him with the giant's own sword.

The original work can be viewed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Photo by me, text references by the museum.

Bernado Strozzi, Saint Cecilia

 Bernado Strozzi
1581/82 to 1644

Saint Cecilia, 1620-1625

The classical columns allude to Saint Cecilia's aristorcratic Roman family who secretly practiced Christianity. Her martyrdom is symbolized by the palm frond in her right hand. Cecilia is flanked by an organ and a violin, her attributes as the patron saint of music.

This work can be seen at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Photo by me, text references from the museum.

Vincent van Gogh, Olive Orchard

Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853-1890

Olive Orchard, 1889
Oil on canvas

This is a late work by van Gogh created at a time when his style was at its most agitated and expressive. It is one of a series of olive orchards painted while the artist was a patient at the asylum at Saint Remy de Provence, where he had committed himself after a series of mental breakdowns.
Van Gogh refers to the painting in a letter of July 1889 as an orchard of olive trees with gray leaves, "their violet shadows laying on the sunny sand". These shadows admirably convey the scorching heat of the Provencal sun, and the repetitive, rectangular brush strokes establish curving patterns of energy that heighten the emotional effect.

This work can be seen at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Photo by me, text references taken from the museum.

Paul Raphael Meltsner, Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh

Paul Raphael Meltsner
American, 1905-1966

Paul, Marcella and Van Gogh ca. 1937
Oil on canvas

This self-portrait by New Yorker Paul Meltsner features not only likenesses of his stately model, Marcella, and charming wirehaired terrier, Van Gogh, but also a view of one of the artist's industrial scenes, which brought him considerable fame in the 1930's. Holding a hammer instead of a typical brush and palette, Meltsner expresses identification with workers like the one included in the painting behind him. The composition's smooth and volumetric forms, which appear like products of an assembly line, tie Meltsner more subtly to proletarianism, a celebration of workers' culture that attracted many American artists throughout the period. Meltsner's style translated easily and successfully into the widely accessible medium of printmaking, a pursuit that further strengthened his affiliation with 1930s proletarianism.

Original work can be seen at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Photo taken by me, references taken from the museum.

Stuart Davis, Hotel de France

Stuart Davis
American, 1892-1964

Hotel de France, 1928
Oil on canvas

Hotel de France is the first painting Stuart Davis completed during a 14 month stay in Paris beginning in 1928. The bright palette, jaunty composition and picturesque street scene convey the American artist's delight in the city's unique sites, particularly in the area of Montparnasse, where he settled. Vertically oriented, the composition calls attention to the white hotel facade, red pissotiere (public urinal), green advertising kiosk and black lamppost. Signs of the influence of French Cubism are evident in the interplay between two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional space as well as in the inclusion of prominent textured forms. The visual rhythms of Davis' work approximate the syncopation of American jazz, which enjoyed international popularity for its rebellious and youthful spirit.

This work is part of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Resurrection Day

 Resurrected Jesus and Mary Magdalene, early 1900s Bible Card illustration, publisher unknown.

Thomas Hart Benton

 Thomas Hart Benton

American, 1889-1939

Persephone, 1938-1939

Tempera with oil glazes on canvas, mounted on panel

Benton’s Persephone appears as a sunbathing farm girl. Hades is shown as a lustful, aging farmer with a rickety cart for his chariot. His facial features appear similar to Benton’s own, although he used a local model.

Note: It is rumored to be Benton and his wife in this painting.

This painting is displayed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

The Scream

April Fools! I feel kinda bad desecrating the work of Edvard Munch like this, but what the heck.

Vast Tundra

Abstract series #6. Last one in the series but I'll be doing more- mainly as a background.

Abstract series #5. This one if my favorite.

Of the Earth

Abstract Series #4. I see two dogs in this one. No, I haven't been drinking.

Above and Below

Abstract Earth Series #3. These are hard to photograph- they all look a little blurry.

Crimson Tumult

Part of an abstract series of 6. Trying to get earthy qualities through hue and texture. Like what you might see if you slice open a rock.

Interplanetary

One of my abstract pieces. There's something so "freeing" about doing an abstract- no pressure, no structure, you can do anything you want, use any materials you want, and it's all good.