Monday, July 30, 2007

Mission & History - The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Mission & History - The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art: "Founded in part by Eric Carle, the renowned author and illustrator of more than 70 books, including the 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is the first full-scale museum in this country devoted to national and international picture book art, conceived and built with the aim of celebrating the art that we are first exposed to as children. Through the exploration of images that are familiar and beloved, it is the Museum’s goal to foster connections between visual and verbal literacy and to provide visitors of all ages and backgrounds with the opportunity to explore their own creativity and the confidence to appreciate and enjoy art of every kind."

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Chicago must see

Millennium Park :: Art and Architecture :: Cloud Gate on AT&T Plaza: "Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor's first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a 'gate' to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.

Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high. Cloud Gate sits upon the At&T Plaza, which was made possible by a gift from AT&T."

cloud gate - Google Search

cloud gate - Google Image Search

cloud gate flickr - Google Image Search

Al Hansen

artblog: "The back room at Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea had a show of works by Al Hansen. I hadn't heard of him, or so I thought, but I loved the works. The room was full of female totems and female-obsessed works. There were fetish/torsos like this one, made of cigarette filters, that were great objects. There were also collage-maps made of cut up Hershey's chocolate wrappers. The logo was cut up into Her's and She's and Yes's and Hey's and the whole thing was a weirdly wonderful obsessive playland full of Western-made but African-feeling totems. The guard stopped me from taking pictures after I took two, here's the one, and at flickr is a shot of the Hershey's map of Africa.

My flickr pal Timothy B. Buckwalter reminded me that Al Hansen is musician Beck Hansen's grandfather. I remember reading about how Beck and his grandfather had a two-person show of their art a while back. If Beck's art is anything like this it's good. His music is good anyway."

Friday, July 20, 2007

Larry Johns

Seascape Paintings as gift ideas

This is an important issue. It was for me, anyway. I had to know what the other guys were using because, if I knew that, and used the same, my work would be as good as theirs!
It does not require a genius to realise the flaw in this line of thinking. But, I was not thinking. Not too deeply, anyway. What did it for me, in the end, was poverty, pure and simple. I did not have the cash to spend (in some cases) over ten pounds on a single brush, no matter how "purist" I wanted to be. Then, by chance, I saw the set you may have just seen when you hovered your mouse over the link above. Back in those days the set sold at just over £3. Today the same set is only about a pound dearer.
The thing is, I became used to the feel of them; the way the hairs "gave" under the pressure of your hand. It was only later, when I could afford to do so - and did! - buy an expensive brush, that I realised I was locked into those cheap brushes, and nothing else would, and still wont, do. (Should there be a hyphen there in "wont"?)
I do, however, know artists who, for different reasons, locked themselves in the expensive kind of brush. I can only commiserate with them!
It boils down to what you get used to, I suppose. There's more information at the other end of THIS link, even if you don't want a painting holiday

Seascape Paintings as gift ideas: "I don't keep acres of spare equipment and I don't own an easel. I used to have one but it went missing some years ago. So, if you need to use one in the field, you might like to bring your own. The same applies to paint. I use a very limited palette as follows:

Alizarin Crimson
Phthalo Blue (Phthalocyanine)
Yellow Ochre
Titanium White
Cadmium Yellow
Cadmium Orange Hue
Sap Green
Burnt Sienna.."

So there's always some of these to hand. If your palette includes other colours you'll need to bring these with you. I use ')" href="javascript:void(0);">tear-off oiled-paper palettes and there are always plenty of these. Most students have already invested in an artists' workbox of some kind. I suppose I really should have something like that - they seem really useful; especially the ones with built-in easels. There's one out there called the ')" href="javascript:void(0);">"Cornwall Wooden Box" ; This caught my attention for obvious reasons; but it seems too small to be of great practical use in the field. For me, anyway.

CANVAS

This can be expensive stuff! I do not advise practicing upon stretched canvasses. They make ')" href="javascript:void(0);">tear-off pads for this very purpose. Or, at the very least, try the relatively inexpensive canvas boards. Again, whichever method you prefer, you would have to bring these with you. Such can be bought here in Cornwall, however, should you feel like supporting the local economy.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Jette Botschinsky

wasted day? - a photoset on Flickr

DSC01418


Jette Botschinsky - Home Pages: "an artist who lives in Denmark, but who has spent most of my life in Africa."


spacer