Here are two more recent portraits from my class (just concluded). It’s the same model in both (just in case you couldn’t tell). The first was done by mechanical pencil and the second is a pencil sketch with ink wash (unfortunately I took too long on the pencil sketch and only left about 15 minutes for the ink wash). Click on any picture to see a larger version. Or go to my Flickr stream!
I also did my first gouache painting last night! I call it “Why I Do Not Fish”:
Not to be left out, ‘Xander also did his own picture, which he calls “Why You Should Never Ever Ever Ever Go Near A UFO”. The composition is just awesome:
Art is fun!
Okay, are you ready?! I got an actual art job. This is big, really big and……a secret. I’ve been told by my boss/sister that I can’t blog about it until after I complete the job. There’s corporations and a major university involved, a big event and lots of people who run things. What I have to make is large in size times two and has to be done, framed and hanging in it’s agreed upon location by mid September. Yeah, freaking out mentally here, just a little. My family has offered me working spaces in their homes and babysitting when needed for me to tackle this project head on. So I’m trying to finish up at least one project before I dedicate my summer to the mixed-media, fiber monster project – which commences in a day or so when the mail brings the info I need.
Feeling a bit like a deer in headlights but really excited. I keep trying to think of it as a group challenge from my fiber group. I’m going to keep a diary of sorts through the project and keep my camera nearby. Hopefully, after the September event, I’ll be able to post it. That is, if the sis’ says it’s okay. I hope to post through the summer, if only on my mental status.
Okay, so I’ve been in this portrait class for six weeks now, and my portraits are improving. I can see, though, why it takes more than six weeks to learn several new mediums and become a good potrait artist (not to mention I’m trying to develop my own pen and ink portrait technique). Art is hard! But it’s fun, and a lot better in the instant gratification department than recording songs (2 hours anywhere for a piece of art vs. 8 hours or more in front of a computer for a song). Anyway, here are some portraits from my most recent class as well as a painting (my first painting in 20 years!) I did last night for fun, to try out my new watercolor set (click thumbnails for the biggies or click here for the images on Flickr).
My adventures in graphic design have been teaching me a lot about plastic recycling over the last several months. Our latest client is a plastic company that my sister works for. So somewhere in there I scored some In-Mold Label Substrate material (IMLS) from the sis for my own creative mayhem. What is IML you ask? The short answer: it’s made from 100% recycled plastic bottles and it’s used to make labels for industrial type bottles. When your Tide bottle is being set in the mold that makes it’s shape the label is put in place – in the plastic. Really, go look at your detergent bottle (if it’s a Proctor & Gamble product) and try to peel up the label. Ha! You can’t! It is literally part of the bottle, not a sticker on top. So it’s that label material that I got a small stack of. Crazy, I know!
So today, in the sunny outdoors I broke out a couple types of paint, the heat gun and the hot iron. The process was this:
First I just heated the stuff to see what would happen. It was cool. The stuff didn’t change color at all. Just kept shrinking and changing texture. It would form holes if I left the heat to long in one spot. I also heated both sides and it kept changing. (Click on a photo to see it larger)
Then I painted it.
Next I applied three different types of paint to see how they would react. The yellow-orange is glass paint, the red is acrylic and the last one is metallic fabric paint.
Seen here
Then I turned on the heat. 
My favorite, I think was the glass paint although each turned out very cool, usable qualities.
Next I turned on the hot iron, ie the soldering iron. It melted through really quick. So I started drawing a little with it, going light on the pressure so I wouldn’t just melt holes into the stuff. Then I slapped on some glass paint, on both sides, drew on it with a couple different pens then turned the heat gun back on.
It shrank: 
But it was cool.
So I’m not sure how exactly to work this into the fiber/mixed media art but I’m sure the opportunity will present itself. I still need try the sewing machine on the melted stuff.
I just did a (relatively) simple website for GoGreen Step, a local Michigan business which takes single-use plastic drums from the food industry, paints them up, puts a faucet and a filter on them, and sells them as rain barrels. We’ve had ours (55-gal) for a little over a month, and it’s already filled up three times (and the vegetable plants in the garden really seem to prefer rainwater to tap water… who knew?).
Anyway, if you’re in Michigan and in the market for a rain barrel, check them out.
It was time to update the ol’ blog, and here we are: updated to Wordpress 2.7, updated the Flickr plugin, and installed a nice shiny new theme that should showcase Jackie’s art a lot better.
Still to come: theme tweaks, an expanded ‘blogroll, and maybe even that swanky Lightbox image viewer. We’ll see!
Please leave us feedback to let us know how you like it!
UPDATE: Lightbox seems to be working for the most part. For example, here’s the first two portraits I ever did, for the the portrait class I’m taking right now. If you click on either, the full-size image will appear:
In my mind, I imagine a chest where I store all my creative ideas. The surface of the chest has been stained with years of growth and inspiration. Left unchecked, it has taken on a life of its own, so it’s hard to say how each creative bit has come about. Some ideas have been there a long time and may have started oozing creative juice. Others may have been more thought out than some notions. But then some ideas may have just been tied up and saved for another day or even forgotten. So whenever my imagination happens to accrue a creative tidbit, I store it away and let it brew until it’s ready to grow into something new.
I know, I know! I haven’t been blogging. Shame, shame, tisk, tisk. On my list of to-do’s the blog gets bumped down to the bottom when other tasks present themselves. Lately, graphic design has been jumping into the picture. Since it is the only one my artistic skills that is actually making any money I must give it presidence. I am doing artwork in the evenings but I’m usually pretty exhausted so projects are progressing slowly. Other days I am so very sick of being on the computer, my back is hurting from sitting hours on end in one chair that I must escape the house. Since it has been lovely outside I’ve been planting my garden, visiting local greenhouses and trying to figure out how to plant and grow the plants I do purchase.
We’ve lived where we are now for around ten years now and it has taken me that long to finally visit a local, family owned greenhouse. Why did I wait so long?! The place is soooo cool! The two year old loved the place and all it’s inside ponds and fish. I got a few veggie plants and herbs but I also got a bonsai that the owner grows himself. With the downturn of everything lately we have taken up a keen interest in buying only American made products and if possible, Michigan made. So getting all my garden stuff from local businesses (instead of online or a big box store) just makes me happy.
But this weekend seems to taken over with a stupid cold that I managed to get. So I’m rather cranky about it because I have way to much to do and I feel like crapola. So I’m sorry if this entry seems a bit random.
I’ve been out in the backyard clearing one of my flower beds out to make way for vegetable garden. My dad and Victor built me a box for a raised bed yesterday. My mom is still kind of laughing at me. Why? Because God has a sense of humor, that’s why. Through my teenage years we lived out in Howell in a 100 year old farm house and 10 acres. My mom has a monster size green thumb, hence, we had one monster size garden. She was always trying to get me to help out and me with my teenage attitude wanted little to do with it. Why would I? It was hot, the weeds never stopped and ultimately I always had something crawling on me, biting or stinging me. So here I am, years later, planning my own garden and my mother thinks it’s rather funny on some level. Yeah, maybe, I’ll admit it.
Oh, still have things crawling on me when I am out there working. I just wear more clothing, no matter what the weather! Gloves, I love my gloves. Occassionally I will take them off for planting but usually they are on and do not come off until the job is done. My plan is to get most of the heavy work done before summer hits. Who knew it would be 80 degrees in April? So I’ve been out in the mornings before the heat hits. I think the seven year old has potential to pick up my teenage attitude towards gardening. He will help for a little while but then complains that it’s to hot and goes inside. At those moments, I think I hear God is chuckling at me.
So the plot has been cleared but I still need to seal up the box for the raised bed before I put it on the ground. I would be working on that today but 30mph winds make that pretty much impossible. So it will have to wait for another day. Farmers Market opens on Saturday where I plan to scope out the veggie plants and I am a little excited.
Oh don’t worry, still doing the artwork by night. Victor has delved into the world of drawing and we’ve had lots of fun with new pens and tools. Currently waiting on some new pen brushes to arrive. There also a great new store called Hobby Lobby that opened up in our area. We go in there as a family and just have way to much fun in the art supplies. Plus there is a comic book store a few doors down and a game store in the same parking lot. Now that I think about it more, that strip mall is actually kind of dangerous for us!
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