Sunday, November 29, 2009

Simple Math--A problem in search of a solution

I got Ander's book from Steve and I have a concern. The three previous artist's before me have each used ONLY ONE SIDE of a sheet or leaf, skipping a page between each artwork.

There are 32 sheets, or leaves left, which is 66 pages. There are NINE artists left, which would be 3 1/2 sheets per person or seven pages.

However, the previous artists have used an average of 5 sheets per person or 10 pages.

If we each continued at that rate, following the pattern established in the book, the seventh artist would not have enough and the 8th and 9th artist would have NONE.

These are the alternatives, as I see it:

  • each of the remaining artist use 3 1/2 sheets only (a max of 7 pages, not ten)
  • OR add a fold -out page or two to your 3.5 sheets (leaves) or 7 pages.
  • Or We could continue as started and Anders could send a new book to the 8th person in his rotation.
  • Hennie suggests in comment below: use the back sides left by others. Anders, what would you prefer?
I need to know how to proceed. I used the page that Steve had prepared for me, but have done no additional work, as I am waiting to know how Anders and the group would like me to proceed.

Here is how I figure the 5 per person: 4 of your own and two 1/2 collaboratives make 5. It works out exactly if you count the pages. 5 pages done on one side = ten pages (5 sheets).

Please let me know how to proceed. Thank you very much. Mary :-D

first draft of an illustration for a kid's book I'm working on (needs work) (I'm putting a print of it in Ander's pocket, as I will not have time to work on it any more before I mail the mole.):

Friday, November 27, 2009

Crone Ceremony: Collaboration with Steve in Ander's Mole



YAY! The Mole arrived today, woo hoo! I'm so happy! As usual, the pieces are so wonderful to see up close and personal! YAY!

My first piece is a collaboration with Steve. The finished piece is on top and his contribution is shown below. Unfortunately, the scanner didn't get the colors quite right, but I guess that's okay, since most of you will see it in the flesh. It's done with markers, some from Andrea. I discovered, as I'm sure many of the rest of you have, that some markers work MUCH better than others!!!

If you click on these, they will get larger.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

2 in Milo's book


I am going to color that Milo page in ... just haven't found the perfect pens yet.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

a collage-a-saur for anders p.


Yes, this is my final entry in Mr. Pearson's book. My wife and I did some major cleaning and rearranging and giving stuff away on Freecycle, so I missed the mail today - ugh. I'm sorry Mary - that Moly will be sent out to you early Monday then - geez, I'm late!

Friday, November 20, 2009

two more in Anders' book




I promise I'll finally get that book out to you tomorrow Mary! 1 1/2 pages to go!

Abu Adham

Hummus (it was awesome!)
Salad with Thina
Coffee After Hummus

Oh, good hummus, how I missed you!

Seasonal Self-Portrait Collaboration

I totally wanted to follow the directions in the front of Mary's book, but I already had the birds going on, so I fit my seasonal-themed piece and my self-portrait into the collab with Mike.

Collab

Another artist could have done something more bad-ass with that dragon, but that's me: no forethought, ONLY AFTERTHOUGHT. That's soy ice cream, by the way, and the turkey's invited to share our vegan thanksgiving. "GOBBLE GOBBLE?"

Happy Thanksgiving Again

I'm thinking of making apple pies--AND PAINTING INSTEAD--so far!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I hope you all have wonderful holidays!

Israel

Totally off topic, but I just got to Israel and I'm having an amazing time, it's so beautiful here and full on summer! I already went to the beach a couple of times, and yesterday, I was in a very cool street art show on the walls of an old abandon cinema.
Thought I'd share some photos:
Israetrip05
Israetrip10
Israetrip12
Israetrip09

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you have a great holiday!

Card made from quickie value sketch.

Mary's Book-for the birds

I have to confess. I'm actually am not that good a draw-er. I never get things the way I want them on paper, I'm always unhappy with the results and I blame the computer. I've been doing artwork on the computer since my dad bought us one of the first Macs in (literally) 1984 and once I found the wonder that is Command-Z to undo all my transgressions, that was it. Over. Pencils? Please.

So I tried to think of a couple of ways to incorporate my digital art into the Moleskines. There's actually a number of ways to do this, but I reject an easy and simple life. No, THE HARD WAY IS THE WAY FOR ME. At the end of my Big Think on this, I came up with the idea to have my designs cut out of vinyl on my friend's plotter, install the vinyl graphics onto heavy gauge acetate sheets, then mount the sheets into the book (with genuine Hollywood gaffer's tape). I decided this was a trick best saved for a watercolor book because the weight of the paper would be best for mounting. And with the watercolor paper, I could do a washy background color really easily.

Since Mary's was the first watercolor book I got, she was the test subject.

01 cuckoo

02 lyrebird

03 kookaburra

04 peacock

Some detail shots-you can click them to view larger versions at Flickr if you like.

05 detail

06 detail

I didn't get a really good photo of the collaboration page I started for Milo because I left the paper under the acetate totally blank for her to work on. White on white - blah. But I did get this nifty photo that communicates the idea:

07 collab

This is the first collaboration page I've started that I've been really happy with except for the fact that some blue watercolor crept in at the edges (not visible in the above photo. My personal test for if it's a good collaboration is, would I be excited to finish it? In this case yes. The graphic has a hole in the middle and plenty of white space around. It floats above the page, so she could ignore my overlay entirely, or she can design around it deliberately. She can play hide and seek, use whatever colors she wants, and the paper is completely free.

One more admission: Two pieces of this series I created completely from scratch. The Kookaburra and the Peacock are birds I'd already drawn, but I put them in new arrangements to fit in with the idea of gig posters.

Lessons learned: Um, I don't know whose idea it was to make all these small and fiddly details for me to spend HOURS weeding out of the vinyl. Oh that's right, me. Some details had to be picked out, some had to be left behind while a large field of vinyl was lifted away, but even with the best cutter, the vinyl tends to stick to itself and declines to separate from fine details. I've done this work before, but never with this level of detail. Heh. Now I know why my buddy insisted on cutting two of each, and then let me sit and do all the weeding. He got the better end of the bargain by far, but rest assured, these were worked over just as lovingly as if I'd drawn them by hand.

Also? Cats are not good helpers on a project like this. I'm sending it on free of paw prints and cat hair because I don't want to be That Lady, but they wanted to help SO MUCH.

All in all, I'm happy with it (less air bubbles would be nice) and I have one more idea of something to do like this. I may do it all again, but with less wavy lines that come to an ultra-fine point. Yeah.

I'll post a photo of my self-portrait collaboration with Mike's dragon a bit later.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ellen's off to Mike



I tried and tried ten or more times to post my new pictures. Kept getting error messages. I'm ready to machine-gun the computer. I sent Ellen's Mole to Mike today. If blogger ever starts working again, I'll post my pictures. Tried 25 times now. :-(

OK, here they are finally. Blogger was down for "Maintenance." What a pain.

First, a two-page spread of "The Grosse Pointe Yacht Club at Night." Acrylics. That's near where I live.

2)"A reason for Hope" Acrylic, water color and metal stars (plastic?). This is an anti-abuse piece.

3)"Onion." Watercolor over gesso. The flowers and buds and stems were made primarily by removing paint.

Click images to view larger.

The F of Clubs


For Ellen's Pocket, done digitally from a painting in her mole. ([sort of] After one of Frida Kahlo's self portraits.) Click to view larger.

Its on its way Ballookey!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

ten splotch monsters for anders



This was the first time I painted directly into a sketchbook Moleskine. I used watercolors from a tube, but used 'em more like acrylics or oils, only adding a little bit of water. In the meantime, you can view this, as well as the previous post enlarged (I fixed that one). Also, thanks to everyone for the very kind comments. I'm loving everyone's work here and definitely looking forward to seeing more!

my first page in Anders' book



This was actually a collaboration with Ellen, who drew a little bat (somewhere in the upper right) and a jack-o-lantern (somewhere in the lower left). Since it was started after Halloween, I did something different with it. I also used this drawing for the Illustration Friday topic, "unbalanced". I'll have this book done and sent out in a couple of days, in the meantime!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Swimming Skeleton Bird

DoubleTree Bathroom Monster


Sitting there - oops! Let me retract that statement and start again.

In Portland, while in the DoubleTree hotel's bathroom, I saw a monster.

Oh the English language and its nuances!

Steve likes monsters!

I quit!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

New books

moleskins

Someone in "moleskin" should totally start paying Andrea a cut...

I just finished my old moleskin (8x5 watercolor) last week, but I found myself getting a lot more excited about the drawings I did in the group books, so I decided to see if size does matter and give a different size a chance, so - one 8x5, probably I'll take that one on my trip to Israel. An A4 for me and an A4 for Ned, he might or might not use it, so maybe I have two of those for me. And the very frightening looking A3, I hope I'll be brave enough to even open that one, by far way bigger then my comfort zone book, but I think it'll be a cool thing to try.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

OctNov

Completing Aya's half page. She had a flower in the turtle so I put the turtle in a flower. Simple alchemy.



Two double page spreads:





And a little half page for Ellen:

Monday, November 2, 2009

Two In Steevo's Moleskine (Portland Oregon)

Trying for a likeness


A quick sketch from life of BB in the back of the Mole from the last round, which still has a few blank pages. I'd like to be able to do likenesses. Click sketch to enlarge. I'd really like to be able to do likenesses!!!