quick post about my quick experiment

okay.  so i decided to start experimenting with the coffee idea.  and i've learned a few things:

1)  coffee stains (duh.  that's what i was counting on)

2)  in order to "paint" with the coffee, i'm going to have to brew several different kinds of brews and test putting different amounts of water in each.  oh!  and i'm thinking i will also experiment with french press and machine.

3)  adding used grounds to cold water does not work.  it's a mess.

4)  adding dry grounds to wet coffee stain makes a mess.

5)  this project, if indeed i decide to do the coffee thing, is going to be messy, and it's going to smell great.

6)  after experimenting with painting with coffee, i decided to start the dry method, where i paint with glue in the areas i want dark, then sift the dry grounds over the piece.  THIS LOOKS SO COOL.

7)  to make some areas with the coffee grounds less dark, i blow hard on the areas i want a "medium" tone, and some of the grounds get blown off so the color is less dramatic.

ok, i have some questions that i would like to muse to the class.

#1  is this idea worth going after?  it's not that hard... but i'm pretty sure it won't be that durable so i might have to take pictures of them and use the giclees as my final pieces.

#2  does anyone know of any great art glue that i can try out?  i was using elmers for this project, it worked GREAT but i might want to go a little more professional if i really decide to do this.

#3  my experiment is on crappy paper, but i'm thinking.... watercolor paper?  yes?

here are some pics from my experiment, it's not finished and i might scrap this one and start over now that i have a better idea of what i'm doing.... and this little guy will probably make it into the project at some point anyways.  he was one of the orphans last summer, three years old, absolutely precious... took a pee on the side of the road once.  funny story, ask me about it sometime;)

gotta love a workstation in the kitchen.... you get SNACKS while you paint!!!!  (haha, just kidding.  no food around art work, no no no.  bad..... unless you're painting with food!)

here's the unfinished project, totally for experimentation and all.  coffee stains are really light, the hair and lines are coffee grounds sifted over the glue, and the cheek shadow is where i blew the coffee grounds off a bit.

feel free to help a girl out with advice and criticism.... and let me know if this idea is just totally stupid.  

the late blog

oops.  a full time job that consists of feeding, clothing, driving around, and coming up with constant activities for three boys age 8, 9, and 10, at 50 hours a week is time consuming.  and when i am not working, trust me.  i am sleeping.

anyways, i'm hoping for a few ideas if any of you have them about how to begin the experimental stages of my project.... as in, how do i make a painting with coffee.  hmm.  tough one.  any ideas or tips would be great.

ok yay!  that's my update, other than that and the fact that i am quite a bit tanner.... i'll be going now.

wait.  i think i forgot something.......

there was something else......

oh.

right, the 50 artists i have to blog about over the summer.  darn it..... ok well here are a few of the ones i've been archiving, interesting blokes who deserve a few words.  but first i have to get my 8 week old golden retriever/lab/collie to stop biting my arm (knock it off shiloh).....

1)  Ariana Boussard-Reifel

i chose this artist for one project of hers that i find fascinating.  it is called Between the Lines, and is simply a paperback book that has every word removed.  the words book is displayed on a black surface with the words that have been removed in a pile next to it.  the contrast is quite compelling, a wordless book next to a pile of words in a scramble both make no sense, which is what ariana is trying to say.  the book she cut up was a white supremacist book on racism.  her point is clearly to say that any racist ideas make no sense at all, just like a book with no words.  the project itself is beautiful... simple, yet elegant like lace.  ariana boussard-reifel is based out of new york, new york, and i hope to see more projects like this one coming from her.

http://www.speakingvolumes.net/arianaboussardreifel.html

2)  Jeremy Lipking

i do not just like this artist because his name is jeremy and one of my kids names is jeremy.  really i don't..... ok maybe i did at first but once i read this article i changed my mind!

"In a remarkably short period of time, Jeremy Lipking has emerged as one of the country's premier realist artists. His talent, which rivals that of the late nineteenth century painterly realists such as John Singer Sargent, Joaquin Sorolla and Anders Zorn, is outstanding for a painter of any age. It is all the more remarkable since he is only thirty years old. Like these great painters of the past, Lipking is a virtuoso artist. His canvases convey the magical aura of convincing imagery emerging out of a field of paint.

Realism has been misunderstood through most of the twentieth century as an art of imitation. In truth, when practiced by a painter like Jeremy Lipking, realist painting is a powerful creative force. Many viewers are drawn to his art thinking that it looks just like a photograph. Actually Lipking's vision is the opposite of what a camera does. A photograph tends to flatten an image, reducing all relationships of color and shade to a stiff mechanical pattern. Lipking's skill lies in his ability to probe in and around his subject. With a highly sensitive eye, he sees nuances of value and hue that the camera and most people can never see. More incredibly, he is able to translate his highly nuanced vision into a painted image. Lipking's true subject is his pictorial fluency. Seeing one of his paintings involves entering into the pictorial world he has created. Like all great realists, he has the ability to generate powerful fictions.

I have had the pleasure to watch Lipking paint on a number of occasions. The experience is both exhilarating and baffling. Lipking begins his paintings in a surprisingly loose, painterly manner-something I never would have expected. He makes initial marks to find the scale and proportions of his subject. Then he applies a broad underpainting of color to capture the desired hue and value. At this stage his paintings look almost abstract, consisting of a pattern of large color shapes.

Lipking's characteristic brushwork or gesture is what I like to call the "open touch." What I mean by this phrase is that Lipking applies paint in broad, loose facets, often leaving areas of bare canvas in between. In subsequent additions the open areas are gradually filled in, creating a breathing lattice-like structure of paint. In a curious way, the method is somewhat like Cezanne's manner. But whereas Cezanne emphasized the discontinuity of his touches, Lipking works with close values, so that the result is a seamless veil of color.

The magic occurs in the finish. As he progresses, he gradually refines each area, adjusting relationships of color and adding deft touches to define select elements. He brings certain forms to a razor sharp level of finish. Other passages are left vague and undefined. In this interplay of sharp and loose, the painting literally opens up and breathes. This is what makes his art seem so lifelike. Instead of resting as static images, his canvases pulse with the subtle energy of a living thing."

Michael Zakian, Ph.D.
Director
Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art
Pepperdine University

this is really the way that i love to paint... or at least, how i would like to paint.  intuitively, understanding where colors and shapes go to create the most compelling image, messing with the details as you go rather than planning them all out at once.  i think his work is really quite beautiful, and  there is a lot to be learned and copied from his style if i decided oil paint will be my medium of choice for this senior sem class.  here are a few examples of jeremy's work (love that name):

http://www.lipking.com/

3)  Destiny Womack

my third choice for today's blog is in here for a few strange reasons.  the first reason is that i think it is important to include people that i do not particularly like.  and i do not particularly like this chick.  her artwork is interesting, that's for sure, but it has quickly become mass produced, a sort of a pop favorite, shall we say.  and honestly... i find it a bit cheesy.  check out a quote from an interview on her website:

Destiny says that Art, Music & Poetry, have always been a deep passion in her life.  Often she has been

quoted to say  "I have always felt like if I could not create, I just could not be ...me. There has never really been a time in my life when I wasn't creating something.  The ability for a human to create what we see in our world in our own way is truly a gift."

sure destiny, that is definitely true.  but (cringe) i feel like you read that on a magnet.  actually... some of here pieces could be on a magnet as well.  they're not bad at all, in fact, they are really cool!  but.... generic?  maybe?  you decide.

http://www.destinywomack.com/

4)  Sebastian Horsley

ok, so you know how i said that destiny womack was a bit boring and generic, and corny and stuff?  i take it back.  all of it.  i'm sorry destiny!  because in an attempt to find an artist a little bit more, shall we say, "original," i discovered sebastian horsley, the artist who crucified himself.  like, literally crucified.  himself.  on a cross.  in the philippines.  oh my gosh.  this guy had serious problems.  horsley was kicked out of art school because of his issues, and wasn't allowed to enter the states either.  aw, poor guy.  definitely original... and definitely crazy.  a lot of his paintings are of crucifixions, he said he would not paint something he did not know about first hand... the motivation for self crucifixion.  aside from painting, horsley also was a writer (about his hugely dysfunctional family life), heavy drinker, drug and prostitute addict, and general trouble-maker.  he died of a heroin and cocaine overdose in 2010, which is believed to be accidental.  poor guy.... strange guy.... but poor guy.  it took a while to find pictures of his crucifixion thing... but i did find a website with a few.  i'm not a fan, but here is the link if you wanna go look:

http://www.artsmarket.co.uk/Crazy-living-artist/Sebastian%20Horsley.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Horsley

5)  Alison Saar

in an attempt to bring us all back down to reality after twilight zone artist number 4, here is a nice, beautiful, interesting, non-crucifying african american sculpture artist named alison saar.  one of the things i love the most about her work is the rough quality of the sculpture.  each piece is bursting with its own unique character, almost like the piece has a voice.  

Alison Saar was born in 1956 to Betye Saar, a well-known African American artist, and to Richard Saar, an art conservationist. Her parents, who inspired her to become a sculptor, also taught her about different art materials and techniques. Saar studied art and art history at Scripps College in California and received her Master's in Fine Arts from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1981. She also studied African, Latin American, and Caribbean art and religion, which gave her art a multicultural approach. In the 1980s, Saar began making sculptures and room installations that focused on the theme of cultures of the African diaspora. Chief among these works is "Love Potion No. 9." Saar today continues to explore spiritual themes in her work and to exhibit in museums, including The Studio Museum in Harlem. 

these words are from alison saar's bio on her website.  in case you were wondering what a "diaspora" is (cause i certainly was):  it is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland"  the african diaspora began around the 16th century with the atlantic slave trade, where millions of africans were taken from their homelands to the western hemisphere.  this is the idea that she hinges her work on, a very serious topic, with a very powerful voice.  here are a few examples of her works:

http://www.lalouver.com/html/saar_bio.html

6)  Conrad Bakker

this artist i find incredibly interesting.  imagine an artist with a continuing project that focuses on roughly painted or sculpted objects and their placement in social areas.  he uses the objects to comment on the areas they may be placed in.  one of my favorites are small painted gift cards that are based off of the des moines airport gift cards.  he also did starbucks gift cards!  (they are so cute) most of his works are based off of places near where he lives in chicago, illinois.  another interesting project of his was a giant carved and painted megaphone.  the artist was photographed with the megaphone in front of the world trade organization headquarters in geneva.  the purpose of the project was to comment on how the swiss city of geneva was the birthplace of church reform, and needs to somehow reform.  hmm.  i like the gift cards better.   if you want to check out some of his other projects, check the link below.

http://www.untitledprojects.com/index3.php

ok.... i am officially exhausted, it's my bedtime, i have a ton of kids to look after tomorrow morning, and i need to be up at seven.  oh!  and my puppy is biting my arm again.  gotta run.......

another video about dots.

not that i particularly like dots.  but for some reason i find this fascinating.

yayoi kusama is a japanese artist and writer. throughout her career she has worked in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, collage, sculpture, performance art, and environmental installations, most of which exhibit her thematic interest in psychedelic colors, repetition and pattern. a precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movements, kusama influenced contemporaries such as andy warhol.  although largely forgotten after departing the new york art scene in the early 1970s, kusama is now acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of japan, and an important voice of the avant-garde.


maybe i should use dots in my own work.... first that really awesome video about john baldessari and his dot people, and now kusama and her psychedelic dots....  hmmm.  i'm sensing a trend.