Watercolors

I've never done much with watercolor, but it's been pretty nice making these paintings over the past two weeks. Size: 9x12, watercolor, various pens, sometimes colored pencil and marker.

They're 'softer' then my usual style. Tried to resist the urge to put a big black outline around everything. Softness...okay! ambiguity... okay!

red chair plus stuffed kitt

couldn't resist outlining everything in this one! which is too bad-- it would've been nicer without.

believe it or not, this still doesn't do justice to how messy my artroom at school is!

living room

living room: halloween costume! (finn and jake)

living room again-- my first watercolor attempt

playing with colors and media

I HAVE A BUTTON MACHINE!!!

disclaimer: boyfriend pictured is much cuter in person.

kitty, kitchen rug. She's so artsy.

meanwhile, in elementary school...

Lately most of my energy has been going into school. I have 450 kids and though it can be troublesome, I get so psyched and inspired by the fantastic things they make that I spend a lot of hours presenting their work carefully. I want them to feel valued, and proud!

"art robot"by Brianna, Kindergarten

My hardest question: how can I do more work in the studio and still do my best at my job? I can't seem to find the balance...

Klimt trees, grade 4

apple picture frame, Kindergarten

Inca masks, grade 5

Mexican Bark Paintings, grade 3

Dramatic hallway shot :)

Australian Aboriginal Dot Turtles, grade 2

Self-portrait 'Mega-Rainbow'- all-school

Open Studios

October 20, 2012: my first Open Studios! 

Only a few dozen visitors, but there was live poetry in the courtyard and an unseasonably beautiful breeze. At one point during the day, as I sat on the studio floor beside a turtlenecked fellow and a girl in a poncho and listened to them talk about literature, I felt like my little pad had become a Paris salon or bohemian cafe.  Culture, man! You dig?

It was nice. I painted a big picture of my cat Kitty on a piece of wood during a lull in visitorship. I put out a few books of old work. There were tootsie rolls and pretzels provided. A touch of class. Note to self: make business cards!

Open Studios Dorcester main page: http://dac-online.org/about-us/open-studios/openstudios2012artistsandvenues 
(list of other artists and venues by the D.A.C.)

Scroll 5: Myth vs the Common Cold

The left side of this scroll is full of lofty ambitions. I wanted it to be an extension of my third graduate paper, which is all about journeys. I read Jack Kerouac and lots of myths through historian Joseph Campbell, and thought it would be interesting to show parallel examples of the "hero's quest" rambling from one side of the paper to the end. I started by copying some sections of an amazing Japanese travelogue from the 1700s that I found at the Boston Public Library. Then I planned to add Kerouac's On the Road, various mythical elements and images, and even moments from one of my favorite cartoons, Adventure Time with Finn and Jake.

Then I wore myself down and ended up with bronchitis, and my days were filled with coughing and not enough sleeping and paperwork and school. I became overwhelmed, slowed down on the "road of trials" and maybe even sucked up into the "belly of the whale" (these are all stages in Campbell's 'Hero's Journey'-- where the hero can get stuck for a long time). For this reason, the right side of the composition is covered with cough drop wrappers and elementary school desks and chairs, creeping over the picture like mold. I wanted to show the idealism slowly giving way to more mundane reality. Although, I sort of like that side better-- maybe reality can be pretty epic and beautiful just the way it is.

Finally, it needed a strong image to pull it together, so I painted a life-sized sprawling Kitty, my cat. She's been a constant through everything so far.  Her gaze could mean many things: maybe "i feel your pain," or perhaps, "dude, stop working on that thing and pet me."

Tapestry

Each night, after work, when I'm too wound up for sleeping and too brain-weary for curriculum planning and too physically worn out for painting and too distractable for TV, I have a hard time knowing what to do with myself. Voila! Weaving! Stringy good.

What do you think... tassel? No tassel?

I've begun a weaving unit at school with my fourth grade art students. For practice and for patience, every night for weeks now I've been working on this big 'tapestry'. The loom is a large piece of chipboard with notches cut by hand and there's no drawn plan or pattern: just mental picture of a rad, red hipster dinosaur-dragon with a tshirt and a happy roar.

The manipulated weft is clumsy, since I've been figuring out how to do it as I go along. I may go back and clean it up at the end. Presently, though, I'm really enjoying it! It feels like a personal avatar or mascot or a giant hand towel or a medieval flag.

Carving a narrative out of a hot mess

Upon my mentor's suggestion, I'm trying to revisit the big, chaotic scrolls I've been making and either add a focal point, or paint over parts I don't like to create a path. I have been listening to a lot of Joseph Campell's the Power of Myth on audiotape, and sure enough what comes to the fore are monsters, journeys and dragons.

 Lots of work left to do... I'll keep adding and subtracting until something effective starts to happen!

This one I'm enjoying very much. It's probably about 5 feet tall at this point? It was a smallish picture of a castle--- I had small square pictures on the floor of my studio and thought they looked like windows. I cut up the castle, extended it, added a giant dragon at the base of it. Trying to use variety in scale and markmaking.

Finally, painted over a big portion of this big scroll/paper from late August, early September. My plan is to morph it into a landscape, and then have the characters I was thinking about earlier in the summer trekking through it. The mountains might be a little too literal, but after a month's hiatus, I missed them! Giving 'em a shot. The image after it is one I developed from a bunch of circles of old work-- added my cat Kitty as a guardian (disguised as a Tibetan Snow Lion-- inspired by the last visit to the MFA). She's protecting and/or farting out the stuff of my life. Classy, no? Needs alot of work-- i don't like the face.

Scroll 4: Upside/downside

Another big scroll. I folded into squares and carried it around with me for about 3 weeks (end of August to Early September, 2012).

As elementary school approached, I was pretty grumpy, overwhelmed, and freaked-- so I labeled that part of the composition 'downside'. Then I started taking the right medication again and it was my birthday and teaching began to feel more natural... That side is called 'upside'. Truthfully, 'upside' kinda blorfs me out...the colors are pretty lousy. I tried to use colors I don't choose very often. Ew. The 'downside' has areas that I'm a little fond of:

This part of the composition is called the "downside". I drew myself sitting on the couch an awful lot. Crossed things out. Black lines, man. Drawings of people at Teacher Orientation in August. Clearly wasn't in the mood to plan an elementary art curriculum.

This is part of the half called "Upside". Pretty awful, no? I Except for the ninja turtle backpack-- that was a birthday present! The rest kinda makes me cringe... during this time I was just moving into my apartment. Maybe my arms were too tired to function...

detail: me and my family dog Bosco: a pair of slugs on the couch!

Scroll 3: Different Ways of Organizing Information

This long roll of drawing paper lives on my studio floor at the moment. In it, I've been playing with different ways of organizing and presenting information, cutting up old segments of sketches and photos and grouping them in different ways.

As a unit, the pieces don't work together: it's pretty much a testament to A.D.D... But my mentor was suggesting that I can cut parts of it up, add paper above or below, and extend or amend it. I'm going to try it! Here are some close-ups of the different parts:

System 1: circles

System 2: 100 window castle

System 3: stacks or piles

Florence, Chopped and Reassembled

dedAn experiment with another big drawing I made in Florence that wasn't succeeding as a whole. Cut up parts, taped em together quilt-style, added some connective elements.

I think this doesn't work as a unit either. Too much going on without a central theme or a stand-out feature. But I like parts of them:

Add caption

Interlude: found art

Photography isn't my usual medium, but after a long sweaty day and a shower, I looked down at the bathroom tiles, and lo! A moment of profound and geeky brilliance. I am now officially smiling!!

TITLE: 'bathroom floor spiderman'

Alternate titles: 'Spiderwearables', 'underthingers webswingers,' or maybe 'Laundrytime Hero Surprise.'

Scroll 2: 7 days in Florence, Italy

Why i am the world's luckiest Sterf:
Just got back Friday night from 7 days in Florence, Italy. My mom & brother invited me along on their big mother-son bonding trip. Villa in Lastra a Signa, car trips round the countryside, a few days in the city. Fig tree and peach tree in the backyard. A-flippin-mazing! Paradiso.

My goals were: speak lots of Italian, let mom and Nate (my bro) stuff me silly with food they made in their cooking classes, and draw constantly. In keeping with my most recent Declaration of Arty Intent*, I limited myself to one very large piece of paper, which I folded into big 9x12-ish squares and took with me everywhere. 

*(see previous post, "SYNTHESIS").

My last goal was to make it to Benozzo Gozzloli's chapel on Via Cavour in Florence and commune with my muse-- done and wow. More on that later!

I unfolded the paper and hung it up when I got home. Here is the whole piece, and then some details. Planning to add more to connect the disparate elements.