Small is Powerful

Also, I have 2 small drawings up at the WKP Kennedy Gallery in North Bay, Ontario as part of their Small is Powerful show:

Fossil III

Fossil II

Both 3x4 inches, with white matt and a black framed. $150 each.

The show runs until December 23rd! http://www.kennedygallery.org/

3 small ones

Can't get decent pix posting these anyway because it looks like I've been doing squat:



All 5x5 inches (I think).

I have some shows of smaller work coming up so I've been trying to do smaller work! Although these are really small..

I do like small!

There's some nice teal paint in these that's just not showing up.

I hurt my back! Otherwise I was working pretty religiously. I should get back into some drawing maybe.

2 Nudes at Le Galerie Du Nouvel-Ontario

Just wanted to say that I have a few pieces up at Le Galerie Du Nouvel-Ontario, an Artist-Run Centre in Sudbury, Ontario, part of their annual fund-raiser Le Nouveau Louvre. The event runs month-long, opening November 27th - December 18, 2010. More info available on the gn-o website here.


I've sent them 2 pastel figure drawings, all framed, matted, and ready to rock n' roll.. Frame size for these works are 8x1- and all works in the show are going for a flat rate of $150, sold first-come first-serve. They're available through the gallery, or also on their website at www.gn-o.org and reserved by phone at 1-877-348-6615.


Anyway, nice to have them in a show and not sitting at the studio ;) I feel like I should be promoting these even more for sale... I have so many! heh...

Also, I feel like I should clarify that project Wrath was a lost cause, however, I believe I have figured out and alternative to this work for the show I was doing it for which I will post soon...

more wrath

New Project - Wrath

Quick drawings for a new project which I'm just going to refer to as Wrath from here on out.


Yeah. We'll see.

Still Very-much a Work In Progress

Book Project

Might kill me

I know - what the hell, 2 posts within a day of one another?? The nerve!



Anyway. I just wanted to share. I have such limited patience for detailed drawings and this one is pushing my limits.

A few more studies

Yup! Been painting. Studies mostly while waiting on some medium to finish a few larger works.

Sperm Whale Vrs Giant Squid again on Ebay

Remember this guy?


Well I thought I had sold it on ebay but the buyer never came through with payment so...

I'm listing it again!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330486294164

It's all packed in an envelop and ready to go so it shipping should be super quick ;) So. Someone please buy it. lol...

Oceans and Nebulae

I don't really have anything to say - I just wanted to post some pics of some of the projects I'm currently working on.

I'm thinking a lot about water lately, so I've been doing some paintings that are really inspired by waves and ocean.

(The study

The other, long study is currently more than my table can handle

Full size WIP

Also, some pics of the thing that has been taking up all of my floorspace lately:

Some more 'inventive' tools for doing the work

I actually ended up taking it up off the floor tonight and clipping it to my painting wall. Its actually not as heavy as I thought it would be (but definitely, this task would have been easier with a 2nd person! Sometimes I miss my old studio for the luxury of having other people around)

Pleasantly surprised to discover that binder clips did the trick

Alice in Wonderland

Grin
(the cheshire cat)

Alice

For the upcoming Mad Hatter Tea Party at the WKP Kennedy Gallery.

p.s. sorry my scanner is balls.

Anatomy of a Street Painting Part 3

So I lucked out on this one! I came back the following day on this project to find out that it was not tampered with even in the slightest :) That definitely made my morning!

However, I was anticipating on finishing this mid-afternoon (around 3 or 4) and ended up working until evening - mostly because of chatty people! Always schedule for chatting time ;) This day was also substantially warmer than the first day I worked, and that definitely effected my speed. I think there were a few times I said to myself 'you know, I could have been done by now, and then I had to paint an aqueduct...'

Regardless, here's the final painting and people seamed pretty happy with it so that made my day:



I'm making this post on a Tuesday and it is still there! I biked by it today. I hope people are still enjoying it.

Anatomy of a Street Painting Part 2

Alrighty! Part 2. Sorry this didn't happen over the weekend. My weekend was pretty exhausting, and as much as I had good intentions for posting this update on the first day of my painting, it didn't happen.

I started work Saturday morning around 10:00. My roommate usually helps me set up the grid. I'm not actually entirely sure how street painters do it without help ;). I suppose I'm not quite that good yet. But anyway. Paintings start with a square the size of your image. I do mine in duct tape, and then mark every foot with a permanent marker so it actually stays throughout the painting in case I need to put any of it back in later

The grid is made using a simple chalk line from the hardware store. Once that's in, then I can roughly outline the drawing like you can see in the photo below...


From that point in, it's just adding the colour and chatting with the people. I'd definitely say that all the talking is what takes up most of my time!!


Anyway, by the end of the day I had mostly David filled in and a bit of the sky on the oval landscape portion.

The end of the day is usually the point I have least control over. If it rains, you can cover your paintings with tarp and that will probably do a decent job at preventing them from getting trashed. And while you're sitting there working, you can usually make most people aware enough of your presence to not walk through your work. But when you're not there - the preservation of the painting is really up to fate!

I've come back many times to find footprints through the painting, or tire tracks from somebody's bicycle. You can't controll what people will do! Just cross your fingers and hope you don't have too much of a mess to deal with in the morning.

This year I was situated amongst some public art (these metal, colourful trees flourish in downtown London!) so between those and my little pylons, I was able to mark the area off with caution tape before I took off for the night.

Anatomy of a Street Painting Part 1

So I've wanted to share the process of putting together a street painting for a while now - except every painting I've done, I've either not thought about it until after the fact, or get too lazy while posting and decide to skip sharing all the planning steps.

Either way, this is the planning stages for the painting I'll be doing for Festa Italiana this year locally in London, Ontario. The past few years, I've had the honor of creating another 'masterpiece' for their annual Italian festival. This year they requested a painting of Michelangelo's infamous David so in response, I put together this image:


I should note, that as of 11:00 this morning, this painting was substantially simpler. Originally I was going to go with a painting of the statue, with some grape vines at the bottom to add some colour. That was, until my roommate Jess came home from work several hours later. He's always bursting with ideas (and critiques) for everything I do...

He suggested some Italian architecture or some landscape. Through the power of photoshop and google, we collaged an aqueduct with a photo of a classic Italian vineyard and some beautiful hillside. I don't have credit for the photos, so if you see yours here, be proud to be a part of my final painting ;)

Anyway, I feel this may be a tad overly ambitious, but I guess I'm that kind of girl... The weather for this weekend is suppose to be beautiful (try and plan accordingly!) and I can always cut out elements as I need to. It's good to plan for more and do less, than have less and then finish your gig wayyyyy too early (funny, when they pay you for multiple days of painting, they expect multiple days of painting!).

I must point out that all references are used loosely. Often I use photos, but I also sometimes use original drawings or other elements of different paintings and things as well. I find with street painting, because you're creating work under such time constraints, that it is best to have a plan, especially in regards to your composition. It sucks to try and figure things out last minute because with the crowd, the heat, and the noise, you already have enough to deal with. I'll be armed with close-up shots of difficult areas, including the face, hands, feet, as well as a print-out of just the oval portion and several photo references of grape leaves to fill in the areas at his feet.

For the actual painting of the image, I add a grid that will correspond with the drawing once it gets on pavement. Usually I block it into 1 foot squares (such as this one), though occasionally I'll do 6 inch squares over difficult or highly detailed areas. Sometimes, if there's a lot of room in the image to play, I just map out important compositional markers (like thirds, halfs, diagonals, and/or circles) and just draw out from there.


Anyway, I'm admittedly nervous about the work but I usually am (I get grossly underwhelmed with my references when I piece them together - much more comforting and easier to just re-paint some old masters' painting). But I'm sure it'll be fine once I get into the groove of the painting and start seeing it develop.

So if you're out there, come visit me and bring water or a nice cold coffee! Saturday and Sunday at the Covent Garden Market. And cross your fingers for sunny weather, and more-importantly, that I don't get trampled by too many absent-minded pedestrians.

Bam... Update!

I just wanted to share a few things...

If you haven't already done so.. My (almost) daily illustration blog is well underway so check it out here: almostdailyillustrations.blogspot.com

I have a bunch of them up on Ebay which you can check out here:

Chupacabra vrs. Goat
Sperm Whale vrs. Giant Squid
an Ankle-Biter
Cthulhu the Almighty

Also, I just started up a twitter for people who want to follow just about everything I do, and then some! https://twitter.com/axlsart

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about the drawings, and pretty stoked about getting them up onto ebay. Please check them out! All proceeds goes towards materials for some of the latest projects I've posted... which are slow moving, in part, due to lack of materials. lol. That. And the weather is just far too amazing to be inside painting (when one can be outside drawing!)

The Dragon Tamer

My contribution to this year's Expressions in Chalk vent here locally in London, Ontario:

Preview of something new

Sometimes I worry if blogging work in progresses are sorta jinxing the finished peice. I know I seam to start a lot of projects, only to have them go by the way-side and sit unfinished for a very long period of time, sometimes not returning to them for weeks, months, and even years in some cases. I think, however, anyone familiar with the artistic process will (most-likely regretfully) admit that my habits are not particularly unique, since I talk with many people who seam to have similar traits. I do, at least, get back to projects over-time (provided I still see some merit in completing them - sometimes things just don't pan out, and there's a point where you just need to accept that it sucks, recoup your losses, and move onto something new and never look back.

But anyway, here I am, posting a new WIP. Floor space in my workspace is at a bigger premium than usual, since I've actually just gone ahead and stapled this one directly into the floor. It's been a fun process, though, and seams to be going okay so far. Since I've been doing larger works, I've been starting with studies, since it makes more financial sense for me to weed out the bad impulsive compositions in smaller scale before attempting them big.

Anyway, here's the study, and a shot at where I'm at:

12x4 inches, Acrylic on Masonite

You see there's a long ways to go, but at least the basic bones of its design and layout are starting to get there.

One thing I will point out, is my original paintings (I say paintings, because there's a 2nd one with this and I haven't posted the study or started the larger work) were intended to go vertical, but I recognize that its probably unlikely it'd ever be hung as intended (it's 12 feet long or high depending on how you look at it), so I've been approaching the recreation as horizontal. I guess the neat thing arguably about space is that up or down is non-existent and its all subjective, so I guess for now that works in my favour...

New Project Blog!

Okay so I went and made a blog specifically for my little daily drawing project. You can check it out here: (Almost) Daily Illustrations

Also, to make this post not-entirely text, here's yesterday's drawing:

More Teeth

Stylized saber tooth tiger skull...

Damn cephalopods are cool

This was surprisingly satisfying to draw.

More Spaceships

Now by popular demand...


Drawings on actual drawing paper.

Random zombie whale thing.

Still thinking about alien and space-ship type things. Sure I will have somewhere to go with this.