My new painting was just posted at my Etsy shop! It’s titled Neon Tulip and is a 12 x 16 acrylic on canvas. Here’s a little pictoral walk though of the process…
This month began on a very somber note as the great actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, passed away on February 2nd. Through all of my acting years in school and beyond, he was always my favorite. An incredibly versatile and grounded actor, who was a force in both the film and theatre world. And although I never knew him personally, I was incredibly saddened by his death. May his creative spirit live on in the roles he played and in the beautiful family he leaves behind.
February has pressed on to be quite a busy month for me artistically and I am finding myself incredibly inspired right now. This inspiration has led to work being created and sold…to new commissions and a whole plethora of ideas! I also mailed off my post card to Florida for this year’s Twitter Art Exhibit. This is my second year participating. Each year this international exhibit’s sales benefits a different charitable cause, this year’s being the Special Needs Classes at The Center for Contemporary Dance in Orlando. It has been great connecting with other artists and raising money for good causes. My postcard sized art this year is “Pollinate”, a geometric inspired piece done in ink and marker.
So January…was a month to remember! Or forget. No just kidding. It WAS marked by lots and LOTS of snow in Chicago, flu ridden children and husband, and many a day stuck indoors. Good thing I love being at home stuck in a snowstorm with candles, food cooking and music playing….
I got some new pens and markers this week so there is some color in this next bunch of sketches. Here is the last of January 2014. What. A. Month.
So the sketching has continued uninterrupted with a trip thrown in the mix! That may explain the lack of color in this next crop. I didn’t have as much alone time to sit and leisurely draw and didn’t want to cut into visiting with extended family.
We visited my husband’s fam in North Reading, Massachusetts…a quaint suburb of Boston. They are of Portuguese descent, which you may see reflected in some of my sketch choices. Hydrangeas, for instance, grow wild all over the Açores, Portugal (where his folks are from). Also the Biscoitos drawing…his Vavó (grandmother) taught me to make these delicious biscuit/cookies years ago and they have now become a baking tradition in our household.
I originally started this sketch-a-day project to be a journal of sorts. I can look back at that day and say, “Oh I went swimming with my kids,” etc. And while I haven’t, necessarily, been as good at putting the exact date on each sketch (something I plan to remedy), I have been good at A. Doing it! and B. Posting it. You can follow along on instagram by following me at marygasparart! So here is January 12th through January 21st, 2014….
On the 3rd of January I came across my old art bin of derwent graphic pencils, cray-pas, micron pens, prismacolor pencils and charcoal. I was so emotional at the sight. YES! They appeared, as if by magic, knowing that I had started this 365 day project…a sketch for each day of 2014.
Here are some of the sketches for this first week and a half of January 2014.
Two resolutions I am making for my Art this year are to do a 365 day project and to keep a daily art journal. My 365 project is to draw a sketch a day. No boundaries here…whatever I want to draw! And if paint, multi media or pastels get involved then so be it and all the better! This project is an exercise in sustaining a daily art habit as well as working on technique and building a portfolio of ideas to draw from-pun intended;)
Day One: The tree outside my window on this winter wonderland of a New Years Day in Chicago.
I have been longing to return to regular journaling for a while now. When I saw this beauty at Anthropologie…I knew I had to have her!
New Year, new beautiful journal to fill! This one will be mostly for art related things but art and life are all kind of rolled up in one for me anyways. Here’s to an inspiring and prolific year of art and expression-whatever that may be for you! What are your resolutions/projects/dreams for 2014?
Back in October I participated in a photo project through instagram, called Foliophoto. The idea was that for every day in October there would be a different word or phrase attributed like “look up”,”coffee” or “selfie”. You would take a picture of what that meant to you and tag it #foliophoto, so that everyone involved be inspired by each other’s different ideas, lives, and aesthetic. It was through this project that I became familiar with Sandra Harris who runs a blog and evening salon series called Raincoast Creative Salon. She started the foliophoto project with another gal, Christie Jones from Bedsidesign. It was just so fun to virtually meet all of these creative types and get to know a little bit about one another’s work!
Sandra then asked me, along with Melanie Biehle who runs Inward Facing Girl, to be one of the inaugural artists for their collaboration…We Are The Contributors. Their idea is brilliant-to create a website for artists and photographers, bloggers and all creative types to connect and collaborate on bi-monthly projects. For the first issue (launched yesterday!) me and 9 other creatives were asked to create a piece of art of our chosen medium (poem, painting, song, even recipe!) based on the inspiration of 3 paintings shown at the 1913 Armory Show in NYC. It is, afterall, the 100th anniversary of the show that created a landscape for modern art. The three pieces were Edvard Munch’s Madonna, Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending A Staircase No. 2 and John Marin’s Woolworth Building No. 31. I chose Munch’s Madonna as my inspiration and here’s why.
Edvard Munch (Norwegian, 1863-1944), Madonna, 1895-1902. Color lithograph on wove, tan, mixed fiber paper, 17 5/16 x 17 ½ in.
I am currently working on a series of paintings that explore the melding of portraiture and abstract geometric shapes. The idea that the energy that surrounds us could be a completely different tangible shape. Munch’s Madonna has a glowing energy around her like a halo of light. I couldn’t help but think of music. I get a lot of my ideas for my paintings while running and listening to music. This series is specifically influenced by electronica music.
I imagine that when the music breaks down into fast electrifying beats, it’s coming apart like an avalanche of rocks off of a mountain or swirling meteors in space. And because Munch’s Madonna is so completely lost in thought I wanted my woman to be lost in sound. The idea for the heart came much later in my process. I didn’t know where I wanted the headphones to lead. And then it just made sense to make it a real heart. Kind of appropriate considering my obsession with adding hearts to my art. Here’s my painting on the Contributor’s site and a little peak into the progression of Heart Sounds…
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She got tattooed at one point…
Adding the shapes…
And then cleaning them up.
Experimenting with color palette and texture…
And whiting it out.
Implementing the heart…
And shocking color
But decided that they looked like pizza…
So back to clean bright white.
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The completed piece…
Heart Sounds, 24 x 30, acrylic and ink on canvas, 2013.
Check out all of the incredible Artists involved…everyone’s got such a unique take on the original inspiration. You can follow on Twitter with the hashtag #aContributor and on the Facebook page. And request to be involved in a project at We Are The Contributors and collaborate with other creatives!
It’s taken me a while to finish this piece. I should just say I took my time…something that is HARD for me to do. Here’s a little sneak peak into the progression of the piece. This is “Changing Tide”, 24 x 36, acrylic and ink on canvas.
