Finished

Another day of cold temps in the St.G, but I braved the freezing cold rain and darkness to finish the collage.  I'm pretty happy with the final piece.  I haven't cropped it yet in real life, cause I'm not sure how much space I wanna leave above the figure.  I'm torn on a title as well, before I was going with Shattered, but now I'm leaning toward something more about feeling boxed in, I don't know, maybe inspiration will strike and the perfect title will come to me.

Numb...

Shattered

So, it's 40 degrees here in St. George and what am I doing? I'm out in my studio/garage in christmas pjs, flip flops and a beanie working on a new collage :)  I'm sure if anyone were watching I look like I've lost my mind.  I only lasted about an hour and a half then I couldn't feel my toes any longer.  I also finished two other paintings, i'm feeling very accomplished and numb.

Painting/Sketch

Just trying something new.  I covered an ugly, old painting and then sketched with watersoluable graphite.  Pretty fun, the texture ate my graphite pretty quick, but I was happy with the final piece.

Fun Again

So I finally spent some time in the studio, good news is I have quite a few paintings going at once so maybe I won't get stuck on just one (now I'll get stuck on multiple paintings at once :)) This one has been my favorite one to work on.  It is different from my usual stuff and i'm liking that.  So I've had this canvas 3'x4' just sitting around the studio for MONTHS, I hadn't used it because I gessoed it in the summer and the heat made it dry so fast it had huge cracks in it. I had to find some way to use it and incorporate the cracked gesso, so i added tons of texture to it, I should take a close up so you can see it, but anyway, it has been fun to play in different media and see if I can make it work.  I'm working on a bunch of paintings for a friend, but I have no idea what her tastes are in paintings.  I guess I'll find out soon enough :)

NIght Drive

Merge Left, oils

So this is just  a quick beginning to a new piece.  It's from a road trip I took with a friend to LA.  I love pictures at night, when everything gets distorted.  Don't worry I didn't shoot the reference while I was driving, I love a good reference as much as the next guy, but I draw the line at taking a picture while I am driving :) i'm about an hour in, I wanna lighten up the foreground to add some dimensions, but really I just wanna keep it loose.

Art Overload and Loving It!

I just spent the best day in Los Angeles, my friend Jorge and I came out to look at some campuses for graduate school and today we checked out UCLA.  I was really hoping I would hate it and I could check it off my list of schools I am interested in (which would be awesome because it is so expensive) and early on it looked promising.....but then we took the tour :( campus is so beautiful and their program is exactly what I would love, and they have  graduate studios off campus, so you only have to come to campus if you were teaching.  Still a long shot, but I'll give 'er a go :)

We even had some down time to sketch a little.  Then we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and it was AMAZING!  I had my first experience seeing a Jackson Polluck, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Gorky, Jasper Johns, Lichtenstein....there are so many!  I never thought I would be one to get starstruck over paintings, but it was really fantastic.



Adrift

I'm sure everyone has felt this way, but lately I feel like I sleep, and work.  Nothing more.  I haven't been able to create anything in a couple weeks :(  not for lack of trying.  I just worked in the studio for a couple hours and have nothing to show for it.  It's like all the ideas are still percolating in my head and a rush to put some paint on the canvas only proves frustrating.  Is it possible to be overloaded with nothing?  like the less I do, the harder it is to start something or make something I am happy with?  I feel like i'm not currently measuring up to my potential and that is the worst feeling of all.

Upon Water



Upon Water oil on panel, 24"x48"

Another piece I did to enter into the Springville show.  These were really fun to do, I messed around with my supports :) for the last two I used panelboard and stained it chestnut, then I just painted directly on that.  It was nice cause I wanted a rich feel to the piece and it was cool to see the stain through the paint and then blend the paint out so it is just wood on the edges. 

New work. . .

This is a piece I am working on to enter into the Springville Museum's Spiritual and Religious show.  This is my take on the allegory of the olive tree. 

Sivaya

A portrait I am working on.  This is just done with Bic colored pens on 140lb watercolor paper.  I am surprised with how well the color works.  No more expensive art pens for me...well maybe not for some things :) i am really on an ink kick lately, I don't know what it is, maybe it is because I know that if I screw up it's permantent and that makes it more interesting.  This is taking forever though and I am not the most patient artist (or person for that matter) the dark background may kill me.  The good thing about projects like these are they are very time consuming and tedious and that takes my mind off of everything else for a while.

Lou

On my last trip home my gorgeous niece brought it to my attention that I had not drawn or painted her, ithis is kind of true, I've started a million times, but never finished.  It seemed I could never quite catch her likeness to my pleasing.  So, i set out to find an image that I wanted to draw.  This is a pic I took of her for a photography class and I wanted to see if I could do it justice in ink.  I can't wait to give it to her in a couple weeks.  I love you Lou.

Posters

 

  My weekend project was to do some illustrations for my sister's playroom, it is a project in the making for like 6 months, but better late than never :)  She wanted something child-like so we went for a looser rendering, which I was happy to oblige because it was much quicker.  It was fun to work in marker and NuPastel, i haven't done that for a while.  I can't wait to see them on her wall!

Kyle

I dusted off the old watercolors and had some fun :) I may have stolen the pic off facebbook, but it's alright-the beautiful baby boy is my beautiful cousin's.  PS Jennie, the pic is in the mail...well almost.

Playing Dirty

Playing Dirty

So, there comes a time when you are working on a painting and no matter what you do, it just gets uglier and uglier.  This point used to freak me out, but now I look at it as liberation.  What I mean to say is, now is the time to just play!  Get your hands dirty, see what will happen if you pour graphite powder on top of wet paint.  What will happen if you don't have any molding paste so you use fiber paste instead? (hint: if you're going to use graphite powder on top of matte medium, wipe your hands cause once it's dry you'll be wearing it for a days)

     And don't worry, at this point nobody has to know how bad your painting really is (unless of course your put it on your blog :))  I use the term bad loosely, because I always know that once I think my piece is beyond saving, I'm only about an hour and a few glazes away from being finished.

So, let loose, get in there and play dirty!

Step One

I was able to spend some time in the studio today, I am having a hard time feeling inspired lately, but I figured I would just do it.  I think the heat in St. George is making hard to work, i'm unmotivated to work in 110 degree heat and by the time it's cooled off, I just wanna sleep, but not tonight.  It's amazing how fast time can pass once I make it to the studio and if i could somehow remind myself how happy I feel after, then I may be more motivated.  Anyhow, this is my new piece, not really sure how it will look when it is finished but I think it would be fun to post pics along the way :)

Letting the Paint Flow

 This Too Shall Pass

Guidance

A couple new pieces I put up in the gallery.  I needed to just get into the studio and put some paint on the canvas :) It felt good to just work, I didn't have any references that I felt like painting so I just let the pour guide me.  I knew in my head what I wanted to paint and this time, it was enough.

Landscapes on Oil

 Determined  3'x4'oil on canvas

Connected, 3'x4' oil on canvas

Just a couple landscapes that I did last semester, they are at a friend's house so I am just now photographing them.  I hope to enter them in a landscape show.  The top one was the Juror's Choice Award at UVU's Pop Up Art show at the Woodbury Museum.  I was pretty excited because oil painting is not my stron suit, but I enjoy it just the same.  I am practicing and getting more confident every day :)

Isaac

Just a quick study of my friend's adorable little boy Isaac.  We were hiking up Grove Creek Canyon.  I took some fun shots of them, i'll post more as I sketch them :) So fun!

Bubbles

I've had this collage sitting around for a while, I figured it was time to finish it.  I may still darken the right side under the arm.  That will probably take me another few months though :) it's of my nephew Parker, i've drawn him a million times and I never get bored.  He's 10 now, so yeah, i've had the pic awhile it's one of my favorites.  The pic is taken with my ipod, sorry for the fuzziness :)

Sweet Sivaya

just finished a portrait for my friend.  Her girls are always such inspirations for me.  This was a fun piece, i wish the picture showed the collage work more.  I was super happy with the finished product and I hope she is as well ;)

Figure work (Rated Mature :))

Just some figures I am working on for a show.  I submitted to a show in Ohio and was promptly declined :) but you can't keep me down. . .for long.  The art world is a brutally fantastic thing.

hard to keep up!

so, i figured a blog would be a good way to keep my work posted and share what i do, but that only works if you actually update your post :) so here is what has been going on in my world.  In June I did a show at the Woodbury Art Museum entitled Art of Our Century.  It was the first show I entered out of school and I was super honored to be included among some of my favorite artists.  I was able to show two pieces, Defiant and Pensive, it was awesome because I was able to show some of my figure work, whereas before it was mostly landscape.  I was honored with an honorable mention and the museum picked Defiant as the purchase award.  I was so shocked and excited! And now they will have a picture of my lovely mug forever ;)  Anyhow, the best part of the night was probably that my sweet nephew Parker was my date, it was only fitting seeing that he was the inspiration for Pensive.  The museum even took a picture of him standing in front of it.  I was also proud that my family was there, I get a lot of support from them, even my grandpa from Idaho was there.  I can't forget my wonderful group of friends either, they are my biggest support and drive me to do great work.  Thank you, I love you all.

So, I am applying for a residency in Park City and as part of my application I had to submit a 2 minute video and we all know how computer savvy I am, so I recruited my nephew Riley and he did a fantastic job, he had an hour of film and was able to condense it down to just 2 minutes.  He really is quited amazing! I hope you like it :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXb9oiIDhOA

More work...

Fallen

I figured I would take a minute to upload the rest of my pieces from my thesis show :) I'm so glad to be done with my show, but part of me misses the motivation to work, nothing like having a huge show hanging over you to make you burn the midnight oil.

Funny story behind this pic, 'Fallen', my friend's husband, Phil, was setting up my blog (cause i'm computer illiterate) and needed art for the banner. So, he being industrious took one of my other drawings and cropped it. I loved it so much so that I created a piece that matched it, so technically this is Phil's piece :)

Rhythm

Winter Aspens 2

This one is fun because it is a mesh of my two favorite mediums, acrylic and nupastel. I felt like it would be nice bridge piece in my show.

Fire

I've changed the name on this piece like 3 times, none of them felt right until 'Fire' and funny thing is, it received this title by default. When I was setting up my show the showtitle 'Abstract Aspens' was lost and somehow i had an extra entitled 'Fire' and it fit perfectly. I had to steal this one back from my brother's office...I'm sure he'll be glad to get it back (if he gets it back ;))

Whisper

Another nupastel and acrylic piece. This was my first piece I sold from my thesis show, I was so excited to know that others enjoyed my work as much as I do.

Diversion 2

Listen

This piece is my favorite. I feel like of all my pieces, it says what i wanted it to say and I don't get bored looking at it. It was just published in UVU's literary magazine Touchstones, i was really grateful to be included with some of my favorite fellow student artists.

Calm

Rush

Dani's Flowers

When my sister and her husband bought their new home, I wanted to help decorate their house and it is fun to see my work actually hanging on someone's walls (even if it was for the incredibly low price of a hot meal whenever I needed one :)) I love that my niece Dani loved them, my favorite is when she finds new things hidden within the poured paint.

Isolation

Fallen