Wednesday, February 18, 2009

with all ten fingers still attached


I finally finished cutting and pulled some prints! Just a little silk screening and the hallucinogarden will be complete!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

one day i will make it to germany


I was fortunate enough to see an Anselm Kiefer at the PMA last year. Not the one shown here, but one of a field with dirt and straw worked into the surface. It literally took my breath away. Kiefer's art work has definitely influenced me. It is an artistic goal of mine to reach the same level of simplicity versus complexity that he has. I'm not sure exactly why I am so mesmerised by his images, but it is a feeling that I hope some one else will find in my art work some day.

The color palette, chunkiness, and open space of this particular painting is influencing an in-progress body of work that I've started developing in my head and sketch book this past week. There is something about a blue and gray color palette that is very serene and sometimes depressing but also monumental.


Here are the first mylar drawings I've put together for my senior project series. They will eventually be silk screens over top of some mono-printing and collage. Obviously, my dinky mylar drawing can never compare to a massive, beautiful Kiefer, but I can dream, right?

The bird figure (which there are a couple of, they are overlapping right now) will be printed in a transparent white so that the overlapping areas will be more opaque. The mountain-range-esque background will be mostly neutrals, grays, and blues.

I was sketching and jotting down some ideas for images the other day and I realized a lot of them, almost all of them, involved an action. So, I've decided a goal for this senior project is to suggest movement of a specific action. Hopefully my line drawings and layered transparencies will work out on paper they way I see them in my head. Here. In my head.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

my rorschach heart


Now that things are slowly coming together I can start sharing ideas and progress more frequently. My main focus right now is a hallucinogarden. It is meant to reflect the feeling of being lost and confused in an unknown place (in this case it is a garden) without fear or anxieties. Like remaining calm and content through out a situation of unknown origin. Ignorance is bliss, right? If so, I think bliss is pretty sleepy, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

To create this sleepy, blissful garden, I thought it should be full of hallucinogenic plants and flowers. In my research I discovered that some types of datura hang their trumpet shaped blossoms from the branches of trees! How weird?!


Today I did some monoprinting to establish some base color in the garden. Here are a couple photos.



When I finish the lino cut I'll layer that print over this color, and once the silkscreen studio is finally finished I'll be pulling some figures and hanging datura on top. I'm pretty excited about the way my lino cut is turning out, although it has caused many minor flesh wounds around my left hand and fingers. Maybe I should invest in a protective glove ...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

in the meantime

It has been a little slow starting this semester because of the big Tyler move downtown, which means I don't have any new work to show yet. So, I thought I would share the work that I left with last semester.

All of these are around nine by twelve inches in size. The first was the beginning of a new style of artwork for me; using monoprint to stain the paper and add color to the etching. It is called Across Sectioned Pool Revealed.

The other four became a series that unfolded from the first etching. I used the same paper staining technique, though less intense, and used polymer intaglio plates that develop in water (instead of the so-quickly-rising-in-price copper etching plates).

This semester I plan to use these pieces as a spring board to continue to create layered narratives in mixed print media. I'm looking forward to silk screen, block print, collage, and perhaps a little litho. I just can't wait until the studios are finally up and running 100%!




Blue Jean Soak Sight




Stainage, No Drainage




Head Scratch, Don't Catch, Stranded




Refracted Reflection Inked



click 'em!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

false beginning


You'd think Spring was around the corner the way today's melt is taking over. But this is Pennsylvania ... so obviously its a fib, or an attempt at a joke. I predict a nice three to four inch thick layer of ice by the time next weekend rolls in. At least its pretty today.

This is my attempt to keep my self actively thinking (rather than thinking without follow-up action) and to share my current artwork with friends or strangers. I do not intend for this to be a fib, and I hope, if this does turn out to be a joke, my sense of humor is not as terrible as the weather's.