Jen Stark

LAST ONE!!!
Alright so for my last artist I figured I would need to go out with a bang, and who better to do that than Jen Stark and her fantastic explosions (often of color)?

Counter Cosmo

So on her website, she has drawings and animation "pieces" on display, too, but I was like "Shoot! I love her sculptures and it will be her sculptures this blog looks at!" So let's look!

First off, as anyone would guess who knows me or who has read almost any of my blogs, I love color, and THESE HAVE SO MUCH COLOR!

Microscopic Entrance

Who would have thought about taking a ton of colored paper and making sculptures out of it like she did? I like the form of the sculptures and the rhythm and pattern in them. Their 3D quality complements the bold color schemes nicely.

Radial Reverie

 I so wish I could see these in real life and be able to look at them from angles other than what the pictures show. I would really want to touch them, though. It would be like when you have a book and run your thumb across the pages as they flip from back to front,... and back again.

Sunken Sediment

 I could not find it on the site I was looking at for her, but I want to know why? Why this, why this paper, why these colors? How did she come up with this idea?

Speed of Light

Anyways, I actually have enjoyed looking at all these different artists this past summer, and hope you did and will do, too. Signing off. :)
-Maria

http://www.jenstark.com/index.php  <-- check it out!! :)

Andrew Salgado

So my next, and second to last artist is Andrew Salgado. He does a lot of portrait paintings. He uses very loose and bold strokes. I like pieces like theses because it almost looks like the strokes just HAPPENED to come together and create a recognizable form. I realize there is a lot more planning and intentionality in the process than that, but the looseness of the painting can make it look like it happened by chance. 

Fracture

Though in actuality I think Salgado used broad strokes to serve another purpose. In his paintings there seem to be a lot of angst and tension, and the chaotic nature of the loose brushstrokes seems to add to that sensation. The loose, bold brushstrokes, as well as the dripping paint, and even the areas that look unfinished-- they all add to this chaotic feel of his paintings. To be honest for that and for some of the paintings of his that I did not post on this blog, his works make me feel pretty uncomfortable. And I would not be surprised if that was the goal.

The Opposite of Intention

According to his artist's statement on his website, these pieces have to do with identity and self-discovery. He says, "I ask the viewer to consider the technical aspects of my painting, but also the metaphorical role that media assumes in my work, and finally the relationship of my paintings to a greater narrative and mythology, in which each subject is related to ideas of psyche and convalescence." Whew! That is intense! He also says that his "practice explores the correlation between the concept of masculinity and the properties of the medium". That's a lot deeper than I originally thought.

Carnivores II

The more artists I have looked at and the more often I've found their artist's statements, the more I realize just HOW MUCH an artist's statement can add to the understanding of a piece. It's like it has a purpose or something. :)

-Maria

http://www.andrewsalgado.com/headerinfo.htm  <-- check it out!

Emmy Star Brown

47 down, 3 more to go!!

Okay, so again, breaking from the norm, and as one of my final artists I decided to look at Emmy Star Brown. Apparently she takes old windows and redeems them in a way by cleaning them up and drawing fun, pretty designs on them. She uses different sharpies, which goes along with the Sharpie campaign she's doing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq0cMQfgaus&feature=player_embedded)

Black Heart

According to the video, for her dad "one of his passions was finding salvaged things." She says that this was a big influence on her and is seen translated into this art of hers. In the video she also says how she likes the old frames juxtaposed with the newer, fancier, "controlled" drawings on them.

Dancer

I like the look of these a lot. Even though the designs, themselves, can be rather intricate, there is a simplicity about them as a whole. I think in this case the empty space in the glass does a lot for each piece in balancing them out and adding to the grace and elegance of the designs.

Swan

The "Black Heart" and "White Pinwheel" are cool designs and the fact that they are on one panel gives them a simpler look. But at the same time, I like the added interest that the pieces where the design spans across multiple panes give, like in "Swan" and "Dancer."

White Pinwheel

I admire her freedom of expression seen in her window paintings. I usually think too much about who, what, when, where, how,  instead of just letting myself make it as I go.

-Maria

http://www.emmystarbrown.com/?page_id=1561  <-- check out her website! It's really worthwhile!

Eileen Downes

So to mix it up a little, my next artist, Eileen Downes, does "torn-paper paintings." This technique gives the pieces a mosaic feel, and seems very similar to the tissue paper pieces of the artists I have looked at previously on this blog (which I highly recommend looking at if you have not already). 

On her website Downes says that she works with the colors and words that are already on the torn pieces of paper. That is really cool. Not only can she express a message through the actual images that are created, but she notes how she can reinforce the message through the visible words, too.

Plum-Colored Pumps

I like the look of the pieces, not just the fact that they look like mosaics, but that they do not look perfectly "clean." As seen particularly in pieces like "Water Lilies" and the butterfly piece above, the edges of the actual picture are not clean cut. The petals and leaves go off the "edge" and the same with the butterfly's wing.

Water Lilies

I wanted these to be extra large so you (and I) could get a better look at them. I wish I could have seen them in real life. There would have been so much texture that this photo of the piece doesn't do justice to showing. In regards to specifically where she gets the paper that she uses for the collages, on her site she says, "Often I use unusual collage materials such as band-aids, gum and candy wrapers, hierloom family photos and sentimental letters from which to create my layered images."That's cool. :)

-Maria

http://www.eileendownes.com/home.html  <-- check out her sight! I found her info and pictures on it

Sharon Johnstone

So my first (and potentially only) photographer that I will feature on this blog is Sharon Johnstone. She tends to take very close up pictures of various subject matter, resulting in a cropped in, abstract-feeling image.

Oil and Water Abstract

She has done quite a few close-up photographs of water droplets, or water interacting with other things, like oil. As Johnstone expresses on her site, the shapes and colors of the water and oil mixture are certainly interesting. In her "Oil and Water Abstract" the shapes look like glass stones. The line of the edges of the shapes, along with the repetition of the round "stones" or bubbles, and the variance in colors, add interest and elements or artistic design to the photograph.

Her photographs, much like the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, crop in so much on an otherwise familiar subject, like the dandelion puff in the above photograph, that the viewer sees the subject matter in a new light. This also makes the elements of design found in the subject matter more apparent for the viewer to appreciate. That is what I like about this style of cropping in, because all around us in nature, both in large scale and in the small scale, there are elements of design to be found.

Dew Drop

I love "Dew Drop" with the lines of the webs, the focal point of the drop,  and the other colors around and reflected in it.

-Maria

http://sjfinearts.com/  <-- her website where I found the photos and other information

Don Marco

So if you have not noticed already, I get really excited in sort of a "stick to the man" kind of way when I find professional artists who work in crayon. And Don Marco is a professional artist who works in crayon. (Yay!)

Autumn Wolf

He has done wildlife pieces as well as other pieces. I like the texture the crayons give the drawings. They certainly have detail but there is also a smooth, almost fuzzy texture that the crayons give the drawings. The drawings of the animals seem to be ones native to the American wilderness.

Elk

Old Navajo

In addition to wildlife pieces, Marco has also done a couple of pictures of Native Americans. I do not know if he is part Native American, or if he is just honoring them through his drawings. That would be interesting to know.

Red Tailed Hawk

Look at that drawing of a red-tailed hawk! I love hawks, and I love that he was able to create such a realistic drawing of subject matter like a hawk, or a landscape like "Scenic Dock," with such an "elementary" medium.

Scenic Dock

The texture of the crayon can also be used to give the pieces an impressionistic quality. So there is the option of obtaining clean edges, or more blurry edges, depending on the feeling you want the drawing to have, as seen in Marco's drawings.

The A Team

-Maria

http://www.themastercrayonartist.com/shop/custCat.aspx  <-- check out his site

Debbie Friedman

Moving on to the next artist, Debbie Friedman. She uses colored pencils in her drawings, sometimes adding water to add an element of painting to them. I have included pieces of hers from different series in this blog. Two of them are from her Stones series, as she calls it on her blog.

Green Vase

On her blog she notes the colors of the stones and how they interact with the water and glass vase they are resting in. I love this! The detail of the stones, glass, and water are each given due attention to detail.

Peacock Feather

Alright so I had to include "Peacock Feather" in this blog. Would you look at that detail?! Only one other time have I seen feathers that were that detailed. The colorful feather works nicely, contrasting the monochromatic sand dollars and the blue background. Though I still am not sure if I liked that she left some empty space, with the blue showing through. On the one hand it might be a nice variation in the background to not have the sand dollars everywhere, and the blue does seem to echo the blue in the feather. But at the same time it just feels kind of empty and unnecessary, and I wonder if filling it with sand dollars, with the blue showing through the holes in the shells, would look better.

The Red Angle

Winter Throne

In "Winter Throne" the snow and the tree trunk are RIDICULOUSLY life-like, and I like the idea of the bird, but it feels fake. It might be the drawing style, or use of color-- I'm not sure-- but at least parts of it feel flat and fake in comparison to the photorealistic surroundings.

-Maria

http://dlfriedman.com/myblog/page/2/  <-- this is her blog where I found her info and pieces! Check it out!

Jeffrey Smart Baisden

The next artist I want to look at is Jeffrey Smart Baisden. In some of her paintings there is a lot of pattern and repetition. She paints in a realistic quality and uses more color in some and less in others.

The Girlfriend Dance

I like these paintings because the combination of the title and the actual paintings tell a story. For instance "The Girlfriend Dance"does not focus on the people who are dancing, but rather focuses on the all-too-familiar scene of the pile of heels that accumulate as the night progresses and the girls' feet hurt from wearing the stylish heels.  The same thing happens with "Adjourned." The people that were sitting in the chairs are no longer there, well, because the meeting has been adjourned.

Adjourned

So the first painting that I saw of Baisden's was "Silver Lining." I was pulled to it because of the realism, the variation in design, and I love the polished silver of the spoons. They look so fancy, and the golden light reflecting off of them gives them a vintage look.

Silver Linings

White Collar

I like the lighting in "White Collar." It is like an early morning, right before the the man would go to work, and his clothes are hanging, ready on the closet door, with the morning light shining on it.

-Maria

http://jeffreysmartbaisden.com/GALLERY/Gallery.html <-- Here's the site where I found the pictures and info about the artist! Check it out!!

Sally Franklin

So the next artist I want to look at is Sally Franklin. Franklin does works in watercolors and in colored pencils, and I am going to look at both types of pieces.

Antique Keys With Red Tassel (colored pencil)

"Antique Keys With Red Tassel" is one of her colored pencil drawings. According to her website she says they "are keys from an antique secretary desk that was passed down to [her] family" and she "added the red tassel as an accent" (sallyfranklin.com). The keys are important to her, so she memorializes them in her drawing.
As always, I love the detail in the drawing. I like the accent of the red tassel, but I kind of wish that the background was not just white. It certainly makes it so the eye is drawn to the only colors in the drawing, but it just feels so empty and almost unfinished otherwise.

Espresso Please (watercolor)

In "Espresso Please" yes, the cup and saucer are the only things in the painting, but the brown background gives it a more finished feeling than "Antique Keys With Red Tassel," and the fact that the brown is not an even shade all throughout also gives it a little more added interest.

Garlic in a Wire Basket (watercolor)

I like the lines in "Garlic in a Wire Basket." The repeated curves of the garlic, the literal lines of the table cloth, along with the lines from the wrinkles, and the lines created by the basket, draw the eye around the painting and add interest to it. I also like the limited palette in this painting; it is simple but aesthetically pleasing.

-Maria

http://sallyfranklin.com/

Jeffrey Robert

Hehehe, so I am rather excited that I found this artist. Jeffrey Robert is an artist who specializes in the medium of, wait for it.....crayons!! How awesome is that?! I know I have heard at least one time someone saying that crayons are not a legitimate medium, and at the time I was a bit indignant cuz I did NOT agree with that statement. In highschool I was taking an art class and we had some exercise to do in our sketchbooks and we could use any medium we wanted. Usually I would use colored pencils or something more "official" like that, but this time I used crayons, and it turned out really well. I made legitimate, good art with that medium! And Jeffrey Robert uses that same, legitimately good medium for his professional pieces, too!

Covered Parking

According to his website, he makes the drawings with the crayons and then customizes the label on a crayon to be the nameplate of the piece!

Dreamsicle

Look at those details!! I cannot imagine how often he had to sharpen his crayons. I think the smooth texture of the crayon adds to the pieces, too.

Tahiti

Just Add Water

Look at all those details again! I think it is often assumed you cannot achieve good detail or quality with crayons, but these pieces certainly seem to disprove that theory!

-Maria

http://www.thecrayonartist.com/categories/ABOUT-CRAYON-COLLECTIBLES-/Personalized-Beach-Art/

http://www.jeffreyrobert.com/

Ann Kullberg

Alright, so taking a break from batik for a little and moving onto colored pencil drawings, my next artist is Ann Kullberg. Her works are so good and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Broken Rules

So "Broken Rules" I think is my favorite of her drawings. I love the use of space, the colors used, and I adore the photorealistic quality of the details. The lighting in this drawing and the other drawings of hers plays a significant role and adds to the realism.
I made this particular drawing so big because I want you to see how crazy-good it is! I have not really dabbled in colored pencil drawings that much, so my skill level is rather beginner, but I have a friend who does colored pencil drawings, and they are awesome. So I already knew that this level of quality was achievable, but I am still blown away when I see works like this.

Erica's Chair

Kullberg likes to do portraits, and she seems to like to pose them in a way that makes them look contemplative, or like their mind is elsewhere. It does give the drawing a look like it is a candid picture; it makes the person in the picture look more genuine. When someone is looking right at the "camera," it would be easier to imagine that she is making sure to sit up straighter and give a big smile, but if she is not looking at the "camera" or viewer, it looks like she has been caught unaware and is doing what she naturally does. So the guy in "The Listener" was already in the chair by the window, thinking and listening, and the girl in "Erica's Chair" had been reading there the whole time. (I realize that people pose that way, too, but the LOOK of it appears to be more natural.)

Sunwashed

The Listener

I like Kullberg's style, both in the set up and in the quality.

-Maria

http://www.annkullberg.com/gallery_ann.php  <-- to find more drawings of hers, check it out!

Abby Paffrath

So to continue with the batiking trend, the next artist we will look at is Abby Pafrath. I like her use of color in her batiks, as well as the subject matter she focuses on.

Fall Shadows

So I think "Fall Shadows" is one of my favorite pieces of hers. It looks more like a water color painting than a batik. I loved her use of color (as always), and I loved her portrayal of depth. I think some batiks can look pretty flat, without much implied depth , but with the shadows, and the trees shrinking in the background, the viewer can really sense the depth portrayed in this batik.

Lily Lady

In "Lily Lady" Paffrath uses simple, contour lines to depict the lady and the flowers she is holding. The lines, both literal, from where the wax was, and implied, by the vertical and diagonal stems of the flowers and braid on her head, draw the eye around the picture. The different shades of brown and black in the lady's hair give form to her head, and the different colors in the petals and leaves add to the beauty and variance of the batik.

Peacock Feather

Rise

Paffrath's use of line is seen to imply movement in her batiks. We see this in "Rise" and "Wild Rainbow." Her use of color adds interest and depth to the elements in her pieces, as seen in "The South Platte River" and "Fall Shadows". Both of these attributes make her pieces really cool-looking!

The South Platte River

In her artist statement on her website, Paffrath says,

"I create art because it helps me to connect with the world around me. To create art I am forced to slow down and really look, to observe and reflect and then translate what I see in my own unique way."

I like that method and it is definitely seen to pay off in her works.

Wild Rainbow

-Maria

http://abbypaffrath.com/ <-- this is where I found her artist's statement and other info, including her              pieces!