Biffybeans: New to The Exchange.

Hi everyone - I'm a new kid on the block.

I write, (blogs & books) make art, (mixed media) teach workshops, (mandalas for personal growth) and play music. (Hand percussion & shekere)

I've made quite a few pieces of mandala art over the last 4 years.1500ish? (Yes... Obsessive, yeah...I know.) Have used many different kinds of media & have been known to mix a few together. Maybe I will put a few mandalas in your books...  We'll see. ;o)

Many of you know me from my blog, Spiritual Evolution of the Bean where I share my art, do lots of product reviews, (writing & art supplies) and talk about life, the universe & everything.

I also write the Rhodia Drive blog for Exaclair,
have a new Etsy Shop(original art)
have a channel on YouYube,
a fan page on Facebook,
loads of pictures on Flickr,
send out the occasional Tweet,
and sell my art prints on Imagekind.

Happy to be a part of this project! 

Ash's Book

Collaboration with Michelle:



I'm not really happy with this one. I think it's the long neck bones - I should have found another way to do those. I thought they were good until everything was assembled and glued down and then I hated them but it was too late to change.

Ash's book is going into the mail tomorrow, and in addition to the usual pocket stuffings, I'm including one of my preliminary sketches for the paper collage piece and a test print of the lino block that I did on top of a water-color test for the watercolor piece.

Graveyard

"Completed" collaboration with Mike in Ash's book. I had hoped the lino prints would be more clear, but after the first one was down, there really wasn't any turning back. :)

Ash's in progress

Nothing much to report except that I'm working on Ash's book. I think I'll wrap it up this weekend. I'm a little slow on this one for a really dumb reason. I know there's a big lag coming up before I'll see the last couple of books, and not much seems to be shifting*, so I sort of got a little down and thought, oh why hurry? But then I realized I didn't want to be "that guy" ;) and got to work.



*But I absolutely LOVE LOVE all the work I have been seeing in the books that are out there.

collab/pre-collab

The above drawing is a collaboration with Ellen, who drew the cat. I drew the hungry T-Rex. Why, I don't really know, though my wife had a good title for this page, which I'll let you all figure out yourself (heh heh). The bottom page is my part of the collab with Mary (good luck with this one, haha!). I got a little carried away with the doodles I guess. Anyhow, I figured since Mary was still playing catch-up, I'd wait until tomorrow to shoot this one out into the mailoshphere.

Joan's Magnolia (Last one in Ash's Mole)

The magnolias are in full flower in Detroit, but going by soon. We stopped to enjoy Sam and Joan's magnolias when we visited them yesterday and I was inspired to paint them.

This was done with three "colors," Windsor Red deep (wc), Hooker's Green Dark (wc) and white (gouache). No other paint.

This is the last one, so Ash's mole will be packed up and mailed to Mike as soon as I can possibly do it. Hopefully tomorrow--I apologize for being a little late.

By the way, having had three semesters of dendro and looking at trees very closely, I know that normally, branches get smaller and don't wind into each other--but this tree was sort of knobby and had fat places and weird circular places.

ML Liebler Reads, in Ash's Mole

ML Liebler Reads, in Ash's Mole. ML Liebler is a poet who is big in the Detroit poetry scene and always doing amazing performances. This was at the Scarab Club Art gallery and the attending listeners shown are art pieces.

Watercolor and gouache.

One more to go and I can mail. Unfortunately, we have two commitments tomorrow.

Click image to view larger.

Tom Jones in Ash's Mole

I took Ash's Mole to my water media class with Charlie Myers, thinking to spend the three-hour session working on her mole, and lo and behold, he decided to show us a video--something he normally does (DID!) only during lunch. It was a Tom Jones video and then we were told, after seeing the video once, to paint the picture described in the video. We are supposed to be learning how to make fog and rain falling from clouds and how to block out white areas etc. Mine didn't work too well in the mole--the paper didn't respond the way the arches paper does, so I did a second one on real Arches 140-pound paper, which will be in Ash's pocket. It's smaller, but came out better, I think.

Click the images to view them larger. The second one, if clicked, will be larger than it is in real life.

I am running a little behind, I apologize.

The video we watched was a full-length Tom Jones video of a whole painting, but here's a short one on You-tube that is very similar (but not exactly the same) as the beginning of the one we watched.

four collages in Andrea's Moleskine

Here are some collages made from small prints of various works of mine that didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. Instead of throwing them out, I made more art. I sill need to complete my collaborative pages and hopefully this book will be sent out tomorrow.

Insomnia, in Ash's Mole

I suffer from Insomnia and struggle to communicate to non-insomniacs what a dreadful experience regular insomnia is. Watercolor and gouache plus pen and ink.

Click image to view larger.

#2 in Ash's, for Collaboration with Mike: A Bird in the Hand

A Bird in the Hand, first half of a collaboration with Mike Kline in Ash's Mole. BB and I took a hike at Dodge park and at the far end, farther than we'd ever been before, we found this dead robin in some branches that looked like a skeletal hand so that's what I made it into. This is in the front of the Mole, as there aren't enough pages for everyone otherwise.

I did it in ballpoint pen and gouache. Click image to view larger.

Mourning Doves, first in Ash's, Collaboration with Steve

Okay, here's my first piece in Ash's Mole, it's a collaboration with Steve. He painted the background and I drew and painted the doves. My goal was to change Steve's background as little as possible while bringing forth the doves. I wanted some of the original color and texture to show through and at the same time, have some of the dove color visible. I also wanted my piece to harmonize with his across from mine, and at the same time, be mine (my style).

I used ink and gouache. Gouache watered down. The top image is as it came from the scanner and the bottom image is as it came from the camera. Go figure.

The images will enlarge if you click on them. (And yes, that is our house behind K.)